A Former Garage in Hudson

When the onetime East Village antiques dealer John Eaton returned after a year in Paris, he decided to settle in an industrial space upstate.

- By Wendy Goodman

IF JOHN EATON’S 1,000-square-foot loft apartment in a former truck-tire-maintenance garage in Hudson, New York, looks like a design gallery, well, that’s because it sort of is. I first met Eaton in 1998, when he lived in the East Village on Tompkins Square Park and owned a tiny antiques shop, Geomancy, on East 9th Street, that was frequented by the likes of Helen and Brice Marden and Iman. His walk-up railroad apartment was populated with a fascinating and always changing mix of found art and vintage furniture. After he closed his shop, he worked with Bobbi Brown as her creative-design director for 13 years. Then he took a year off to live in Paris. On his return in May 2019, he decided that after 38 years in New York City, he’d rather live upstate, in Hudson, a town known for its antiques and creative community.