Everything Chamblin sells at her store, Belle Maison, ranging in era from pre-Napoleonic times through the Second World War, comes directly from France, and all of it selected by her in either a village, dealer’s warehouse, or Parisian market. 

“The key to my business is to get as close to the initial seller as I can,” said Chamblin, who is part of the Greentree Close at 525 West Short Street. “Sometimes the piece that (dealers) are selling might have been to two or three or four different hands and each time it goes up in price.”

Her hunting tactics have evolved since 2000 when she took her first trip to France with the purpose of hunting for goods to sell in the warehouse sales she organized before opening her store.  

“Initially I went to venues that were known to more people,” she said. “Now what I’ve added to that’s individual sources and warehouses. I don’t go knock on people’s doors around villages, I can’t get that close to the source.”

Though her store is filled wall-to-wall with French country buffets, tables of all sizes, mirrors, chests, armoires, and dressers, Chamblin is soon expecting a new shipment of goods to arrive via a shipping container she filled during her most recent trip to France at the end of February. 

Her latest trip was scheduled for nine days of buying, with three days in Paris and the rest spent traveling the country mainly by train. “Generally I’m moving around, I’m not in the same location each night,” she said. Chamblin takes the redeye to Paris, arrives around 9 a.m., and said she’s typically buying by 11 a.m. the same day.  

Though she is away from the store during her trips, she’s certainly not away from work. “I don’t go for leisure anymore...I maybe take one little shopping day for myself,” she said.  

While at home in the states, Chamblin said she tries to keep an eye on what other antique purveyors are offering. “I do try to get out of the shop and go look at other shops in Atlanta, Louisville, Cincinnati and see what they’re offering, (and) what their prices are,” she said. “My goal is to sell better merchandise at a better price.” In order to do that, she must out-hustle her competitors. Part of that strategy is the direct importation of goods.
 

Chamblin developed her searching strategies at an early age. Growing up in Nebraska and Hot Springs, Ark., Chamblin’s family did not collect antiques, but in her late teens she found herself scouring shops in Hot Springs. 

“At that point all I could afford were linens, and I still have them,” she said. “I couldn’t afford furniture; I could afford some tea towels at $12.50 a piece back then.” 

Chamblin said she loved antique shopping so much that when she went into labor with her daughter in 1983, her mother had to convince her to leave a Hot Springs store. 

“I was in labor with my daughter in an antique shop going ‘oh no let’s keep looking,’ and my mother was saying ‘no let’s leave, you need to leave."

It was after a 1999 conversation with the proprietors of New Orleans’ Soniat House while at the Prix de l’ Arc de Triomphe that Chamblin and her husband, Tony, decided it was time for Debbie to go ahead and start the business.

After two years of having semi-annual warehouse sales, Chamblin opened the doors on her full-time sales floor, marking the first time she had worked professionally since she left the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association in 1989.

Chamblin’s labor and love for finding the best France has to offer hasn’t gone unnoticed by customers. “She has a special niche in the type of furniture she buys and the things she buys,” longtime customer Sid Kleeman said. 

To fill his timber-framed house in Scott County, Kleeman, a horse farmer, has become a regular at Chamblin’s store. Even though he says he’s got his fill of antiques in his home and is trying to cut back on expenditures, it hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly visiting Belle Maison.

“Even if you’re not buying, it is fun to go look,” he said after a visit to the store in early February. When asked how many pieces he’s bought from Chamblin he said, “Eww, that’s a scary question. Probably 10 or 12 pieces. I bought a house and needed to furnish it so I kind of went wild doing that.”

Despite the February shopping visit and admission that he probably owns enough of the French country look, Kleeman said he is eager to see the pieces selected by Chamblin during her latest trip. 

“There’s no comparison buying new furniture compared to old quality pieces,” he said. “Debbie’s pieces that haven’t been toyed with are going to hold their value and possibly go up in value as well, so it is a much better investment.”

Besides searching for things Chamblin thinks her customers will like, she visits France on a mission to find around 100 pieces she knows they will, because they’ve been specially requested. She hits the French antique scene armed with cards—available at her store—often specifying dimensions, price range, certain looks for items, as well as the occasional photo from a magazine. Of the 100 or so items she sets out to find on a given trip, she said she’s normally able to find about 40 percent of her requests. If the customer isn’t as thrilled with the piece once it arrives stateside, no problem, she puts it for sale on the floor. The shipping containers with her sought-out treasures usually arrive at the store six weeks after she returns. 

The store remains open when Chamblin is on her excursions. When not traveling the French countryside, Chamblin is accompanied at the shop by her daughter’s year-and-a-half-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Riley, who lounges on his favorite cushion. 

Beyond seeking out specific items, Chamblin practices another very rare policy. She makes house calls. 

“I’ll go out to customer’s homes periodically and kind of get a feel of what their house looks like, their design desires. I don’t charge for that service, it’s a pleasure,” she said. 

Why this attention to service? In part because Chamblin treats every shopping trip as if it was for herself and her own home. “Before I had my business I wished somebody had a shop like I (do),” she said.

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