KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Amid the towering brick buildings, with the occasional plane overhead, you never know what you’ll find in the West Bottoms.
“We did have, years ago, this amazing chandelier that was nine feet in diameter and it came out of an old Chrysler dealership, so it was covered in all these crystals,” said Nick Allen.
Allen co-owns Bella Patina, a West Bottoms antique shop whose name means ‘beautiful rust’, with his wife. For 13 years they’ve welcomed customers near and far to shop in their three-story, 75-vendor filled warehouse, including a man who works for a film production company on the West Coast.
“We got a phone call from this gentleman who said he wanted to come do some shopping in the store for a movie he was working on,” added Allen.
That man visited in February of 2022, looking for specific pieces for two films he was working on.
The man heard about Bella Patina by word of mouth, as fate would have it.
“Everything had gotten really expensive on the West Coast, apparently. They said they were trying to move out to the Midwest, and they’d pick and buy things and then ship it back. They’d heard about the West Bottoms and the antique district that’s down here, and our name was one that was mentioned to them they should reach out to,” Allen said.
After Allen got done shopping with the man and his two assistants he asked him what films he was working on. After all, Allen had helped small production companies in their area look for pieces for their independent films.
“He said, ‘Well, I have a Christopher Nolan film called “Oppenheimer” and the second one is a Martin Scorsese film called “Killers of the Flower Moon.”‘ I was like, ‘Oh! These are real, like big-time Hollywood movies!’”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” is set in 1920s Oklahoma and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert DeNiro. Despite being nominated for 10 Academy Awards it was shut out.
While Allen can’t remember what specific items sold for that movie, he said the Oppenheimer sale included art, a standing chalkboard that’s featured throughout the film, and four chairs.
The Universal Pictures film won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor.
“It’s neat to go, ‘Oh, there’s a little piece of Bella Patina in these films that will obviously be around for forever,’” Allen said.
Bella Patina is only open on First Weekends, meaning they’re only open the first weekend of each month, so the next time they’ll be open is Friday, April 5 through Sunday, April 7.