In a move that amplifies the role of the appraiser, David J. Goldberg, President of the Appraisal Group USA, has broken a 7-year legal stalemate over the historic contents of a famous mansion with Pulitzer Prize winning ties.

More than 300 antiques and works of art from Twin Oaks - famous regionally as the Robert Penn Warren house - are featured in a 3-day auction beginning Friday, September 11 at Crescent City Auction Gallery in New Orleans.

Mr. Goldberg, a noted antiques and arts appraiser with a reputation for surfacing antique and art treasures with fair market values as high as $1.1M, explained. “It is one of the roles of an appraiser to help settle disputes over personal property when parties cannot agree. In this case, I was able to bring to a conclusion to a long and expensive process.” 

Twin Oaks was built in the late 19th century by a German cypress baron. It is surrounded by 25 live oaks that are hundreds of years old. Robert Penn Warren, the only writer to receive a Pulitizer Prize for a novel and poetry, lived there while writing “All the King’s Men."  Mr. Warren, however, never owned Twin Oaks.

The most recent owners filled the house, the barn, two smaller houses and a chapel, with collections of antiques. Mr. Goldberg spent several weeks appraising more than 1,200 items. Their fair market value came in at just under $200,000 - impressive enough to bring swift resolution to a series of lawsuits about the house and its contents.

According to Mr. Goldberg, “The real issue was finding a venue where they could achieve a price that was commensurate with value--- and somewhat related to the price paid." 

He called upon  Adam Lambert, President of Crescent City Auction Gallery of New Orleans, who, at the time was compiling an auction rich in Southern antiques and art that includes items descended in the family of Paul Capedeville, Mayor of New Orleans 1900-1904. The historic pieces found at Twin Oaks fit in nicely.

The Robert Penn Warren House items will account for about a quarter of the anticipated $1.2 million the three-day auction will gross. The sale will be held at Crescent City Auction Gallery  from Friday, September 11th  through Sunday, September 13th.