Upstate House

Once Upon a Find: Newburgh-Based Sylvie is Disrupting Antiques

By Nora Taylor  |  Fall 2025   |  Makers

For 37-year-old Chelsea Macdonald, leaving Los Angeles wasn’t a particularly fraught decision. She and her now-husband Garrett were feeling like they had outgrown the city, and when Covid hit, Macdonald, who worked in the entertainment industry, was ready for a change. “We had heard great things about the Hudson Valley, but we had never actually been,” she shares. After contacting a few real estate agents and setting up alerts (who among us didn’t spend at least part of the quarantine looking at houses), she really fell in love with the houses and the area. All it took was one flight out, and Macdonald was in.

After the couple relocated to Dutchess County and rented a charmingly funky home, a former showhouse for a woodworker and artist, Macdonald set about decorating. “For the first time in my life I had a space bigger than a one-bedroom apartment,” Macdonald laughs. In order to fill their home, Macdonald spent her free time researching and visiting antique shops in the area. “I actually did spend my first six months here just going and exploring every single town and every single antique store,” Macdonald says. “And just falling more and more in love with it than I previously was.” Her husband noticed that all these outings were shifting something in Macdonald, and suggested that maybe, just maybe, this was her path. “I think because my love [of antiques] was growing through the discovery of what was around me in this area, it just gave me more and more conviction that this was the path I needed to go down,” she shares. And in 2024, Sylvie was born.

Sylvie is not your typical antiques shop. For starters, it isn’t a brick-and-mortar shop at all. Everything Macdonald sources is only available online, in limited-release drops. (Sylvie—@sylviehome—has 133,000 followers on Instagram.) The drop or “Estate” is open for exactly 24 hours. It has developed something of a cult following online, reaching seasoned collectors and antique-loving newbies alike.

Part of what sets Sylvie apart is Macdonald’s commitment to storytelling. On the site, Sylvie is personified, “Once upon a time, in a world where many homes looked alike, Sylvie spent her days traveling the world collecting antique treasures for her estate. She believed that every home should reflect its owner and include a collection that would see a line around the block at their estate sale.” Each drop is given a theme and setting, and every item has a story, one that celebrates its origins, style, and history. Think collections called “Je Ne Sais Quoi” or  “The Inheritance” with items like an oak monastery chair from the 19th century and a sculptor’s pedestal from the 20th century.

Macdonald really connected to the idea of spinning a yarn on her local shopping trips. “In the Hudson Valley, you’re meeting these people that own these stores that actually know where every single piece in their store came from and they have a story to tell about it,” she says. “And I think that kind of romance is what trained me in a way.”

And Macdonald doesn’t just live and shop upstate, all of the items she finds in sourcing trips in France, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere get sent back to her warehouse in Newburgh. A now-employee actually helped introduce Macdonald to the city, showing her life beyond Broadway. “I got to see how creative it is and how many beautifully old buildings there are,” Macdonald shares. “There’s culture and diversity, and it just felt alive to me.” It also didn’t hurt that the warehouse space Macdonald found was exactly as she had pictured: brick walls, old floors, factory-height ceilings.

How does a warehouse in Newburgh look like a country chateau or an English manse? The magic of set dressing and a talented team. Though they do sometimes shoot their drops on location, a lot of the merchandise is shot in the warehouse after load out. Macdonald personally places each piece of furniture on their “estate,” which is a warehouse stage styled to look like an estate, before a photographer from Catskill Image comes in to shoot. The bulk of the work in the warehouse happens before and after the shoot, however, where these very delicate items are loaded in and shipped out. “We have this amazing local crew from Newburgh that has become like the Sylvie family. Everyone helps unload, and we inventory everything. We’re listening to musical theater as we are doing it, “Macdonald laughs. “It’s like 80-percent female. It’s so cool watching our fulfillment days after a drop because everyone’s just packing and shipping and freighting, and it’s amazing.”

Macdonald has found something of a secret sauce when it comes to hiring for Sylvie, which has a full-time staff of three and around 10 contractors. She attributes it to a common thread she finds in a lot of people she meets in the area, artists and creatives craving a slower life. But she also gives credit to one of her employees. “Honestly, it is my incredible chief of staff, Hannah Vaughan, she has really deep roots in the community. She’s a furniture designer, and so she has this amazing group of people around her, who are all creative. Everyone has got distinct creative talent,” Macdonald says. “Everyone has stuff to talk about during packing and shipping and unloading days.”

Macdonald has big plans for Sylvie, with more drops and a new way of helping folks get their hands on antiques. But for now, she’s taking in life here in the Hudson Valley, marking the seasons and catching her breath before it’s time for her big sourcing trips. When asked about what she likes most about living and running a business upstate, she shares, “It’s the people.”

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