Because however beautiful or grand a house may be, we at Brinkman Fine Real Estate believe it has to fit the people who will live there – their needs, their aesthetics, and their hopes maybe better: desires. It has to be that place where they know that they are home.

The son and grandson of antique dealers in Groningen, north of the Netherlands, Anne Paul Brinkman put his unique talent to work early, opening his first antique shop in his hometown at the age of 15. Success brought him some time later to America, where, in 1986, he opened Brinkman, an antique shop on New York’s chic East 57th Street – steps away from such New York “landmarks” as Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef and Arpel, Pace Galleries and Bloomingdales — followed soon after by a second store in the city’s historic Greenwich Village area.

But it was when he returned to the Netherlands in 1991 and began restoring his own residence on Amsterdam’s Keizersgracht, one of the city’s grand canals, that he found his true calling as a designer, creating environments in which furnishings, adornments, art objects, and the course of daily life interact to compose a harmonious and unique whole. Brinkman BV Fine Art and Antiques/Interior and Architectural Design soon gained international acclaim for the homes and chateaux Brinkman restored and designed worldwide, from Amsterdam to Normandy, from London to Geneva and New York. In the words of Patrick van Maris, former managing director of Sotheby’s Europe, “as a result, his reputation as a composer of ‘Gesamtkunst’ projects is widespread in the art world.”

With Brinkman Fine Real Estate, Anne Paul Brinkman is expanding his reach once more, with the aim to combine his connoisseurship and expertise with his desire to help others find a place they can call home.