Considered the dean of Chicago’s antique dealers in his day, Richard M. “Buzz” Norton spent his entire career leading the antiques firm based in the Merchandise Mart that his father had founded in 1933.
That expertise made Norton a valuable local resource on antiques, and he also on several occasions was tapped to provide insights on the PBS show “Antiques Roadshow.”
“Buzz was the kind of person who made a big impact on a lot of things, but did so quietly,” said longtime Chicago auctioneer Leslie Hindman. “If you had a problem, he was there for you; he actually rolled up his sleeves and helped. He was a prince of a human being.”
Norton, 85, died of natural causes Jan. 17 at the Belmont Village retirement community in Glenview, said his daughter, Elsbeth Redfield. He had been a Lake Forest resident since 1967.
Born Richard Marshall Norton in Evanston in 1940, he grew up first in Glencoe and then in Winnetka. Norton was an avid Boy Scout, who attained the Eagle Scout level. After graduating from North Shore Country Day School in 1958, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he got a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1962 and a master of fine arts degree the following year.
Norton also served in the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the University of Pennsylvania, and he later served in the Illinois Air National Guard at the now-closed Glenview Naval Air Station, his family said.
Norton’s first job, in effect, was his only job: He joined Richard Norton Inc., the antique firm founded by his father, the similarly named Richard F. Norton.
“He loved this job,” his daughter said. “He loved people, and he loved helping put Chicago on the stage as being a real competitor in the art market and the antique market. He was proud to help get the Chicago International Antique Show off the ground, and even he loved just working with his clients, helping them find a piece for their home.”
Norton’s father died in 1995.
As a business based in the Merchandise Mart, Richard Norton Inc. dealt only with decorators. However, in the 1960s, Norton founded the Country House, a retail antique dealer in Lake Forest.
“If an antique dealer in New York wanted to know what was going on in Chicago, they called Buzz,” Hindman said. “Everyone liked him and he knew everybody.”
Hindman said Norton “was the kind of person who knew a lot about a lot of things.”
“Most people (in the industry) specialize, and although he specialized in French furniture, he was very knowledgeable about a lot of different collecting categories,” she said. “He knew about French furniture, English furniture, European porcelain and so on. He had a very broad knowledge.”
Joseph Glossberg, a longtime friend from childhood in Glencoe and later a fellow classmate at the University of Pennsylvania, said Norton’s sense of humor set him apart.
“What made him special was his spontaneous humor,” Glossberg said. “He found humor in everything.”
Norton first appeared on TV assessing the value of antiques for the HGTV show “Appraisal Fair,” which premiered in 1998. He later performed the same role on the PBS show “Antiques Roadshow.”
The work was in service of his love of antiques, his daughter said.
“As he used to say: In retail, you’ll never sleep. It’s a seven-day-a-week job,” Redfield said.
A die-hard railroad buff, Norton came downtown from Lake Forest each weekday — from 1971 until his retirement — on Car 553, a coach that Lake Forest’s elite had purchased in 1929 to run on what now is the Metra Union Pacific North line.
Norton was the self-appointed chief mechanical officer of the private railroad car, which members paid an extra annual fee to ride and which was rehabbed in the 1970s and again in the mid-1990s under Norton’s watchful eye. The single-level car offered riders peace and quiet on their way to and from the city.
“Once upon a time, maybe 40 years ago, these were all the old Lake Forest families, which isn’t the case anymore,” Norton told the Tribune in 2009, by which point Car 553 had become the nation’s last privately owned commuter rail car. “These days we’re all ne’er-do-wells like myself.”
Car 553 ceased operations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2016, Norton wound down the operations of both Richard Norton Inc. and the Country House.
Norton enjoyed being part of the Chicago International Antiques Show and the Lake Forest Antiques Show at Lake Forest Academy.
Outside of work, Norton served on the boards of First American Bank, the Lake Forest Country Day School, the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners, the Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest and the Racquet Club of Chicago. Other interests included fly fishing, skiing, reading, antique automobiles and canoe trips with his family.
“He was a very social person who loved learning and connecting with people and bringing people together,” Redfield said.
Norton’s wife of 52 years, Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Norton, died in 2020. In addition to his daughter, Norton is survived by two sons, Richard and Alexander; eight grandchildren; and a sister, Judith Norton Boggess.
Services will be private.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
