Legacy List

We’re heading to Richmond, Virginia where Anne Manley is in the middle of downsizing and moving to Jacksonville, Florida to be closer to her parents. The problem is she has just 24 hours before the movers arrive to pack it all up. Matt and his team need to find her most cherished items before they get lost in the shuffle of the big move. For Anne it’s more than just stuff. It’s a lifetime of proud memories. She wants to learn more about the events and people that have surrounded her and made her who she is today. The Legacy List team has their marching orders. Having traveled extensively and lived around the world, Anne’s belongings not only tell her life story, but that of her father, a Vietnam POW who shared a prison cell with John McCain…. her late husband, a career Air Force officer... and her three grown children. With the clock ticking, Matt and his team face their tightest deadline yet. They have only one day to find the items that Anne holds dear to her heart and tell the exciting story of her life. Along the way, they’ll learn about Anne’s family history of military service that dates back over a century as well as her personal story of survival, hardship, and adventure. For Anne, her family members are her heroes and she credits them with getting her through the tough times. She’s ready to write the next chapter in her life but not without the memories that got her here. Now it’s up to the Legacy List team to make it happen. With only a couple of hours to spare before the new owners arrive, Matt sits down with Anne for an emotional, uplifting look back at her life so far...and reveals a few surprises he found along the way.

Lenis Northmore of Newark, Delaware has a home packed with rare and exotic collectibles. But finding them in a 6,000 square foot house is like finding needles in a haystack. As a retired art historian and a world traveler, her house is packed with the artwork, artifacts and mementos she has collected throughout her life. Lenis definitely has an eye for nice things but it turns out her items hold a lot more than just monetary value. They’re all wrapped in stories of adventure and family history. A chinese jade scepter head, a 120-year-old American flag and a hand-carved canoe prow from New Guinea are just a few of the things hiding in her mid-19th century home. But now it’s time to pack up the house and make some tough choices about what stays and what goes. As Lenis prepares to downsize to a much smaller house in Williamsburg, Virginia to be closer to her daughter and grandkids, the Legacy List team is here to help her through it all. Once they find these hidden gems, they’ll dig deeper into the history behind each object, to find their origin, their worth, and most importantly, their connection to Lenis’ family. But Lenis isn’t the only one searching for mementos. Her daughter Angelica stops by to meet Matt and add an item to the list… the antique dolls she remembers playing with as a kid. She’d like to have her own mementos of the place she grew up. When Matt’s team is done, Lenis and Angelica get a tour of a very different house, now completely empty of a lifetime of belongings. When Matt sits down with them to share what he’s found, it becomes a revealing and emotional conversation for Lenis and her daughter. They’ll have to leave most of it behind but not without their memories intact... and a fresh start ahead.

Matt and his team travel to nearby Mechanicsville, Virginia to help an elderly couple downsize into a smaller home. Their clients are Johnny and Lillian Lambert who are well known in the area. Johnny’s family has run a successful catering company in Richmond for years and Lillian is the first African American woman to graduate Harvard Business School. They need Matt’s help to make sure some of their most prized possessions don’t get lost in the move. For Johnny that means cherished items that remind him of his family. Lillian on the other hand wants to find some documents that have a deep emotional meaning to her. One is a promissory note showing she paid off her student loan to Harvard and the other is the deed to her family farm her dad bought in the 1920’s. A time when very few African Americans owned land. Matt knows how valuable these items are to the family and begins to panic when he can’t find them all at the house. That’s when the Lamberts inform him of a second location where some of them may be. It seems that Johnny’s mother’s house in the country has long been used by the family to store personal belongings. The house and adjacent barn turn out to be a treasure trove of vintage furniture, antique silver, catering items and more. For Matt and his team, it’s like stepping back in time. Inspired to learn more about his client’s family history Matt meets with a genealogist and even travels to a local courthouse to dig through the archives. He not only wants to find the Legacy List items but offer up information that Johnny and Lillian may not have known. It’s a powerful moment when Matt reunites Johnny and Lillian with their prized possessions and offers gives them insight on their past that shows them just how far they’ve really come.

Julie Day and her daughter Cindy have a huge task in front of them… downsize and pack up their New Jersey home, trying not to trample on their rich family history in the process. That’s where the Legacy List team comes in. Matt and the team will sort through centuries of family treasures and antiques to find that handful of items worthy of passing on to the next generation. They’ll uncover Asian triptychs brought home from exotic trips abroad, handwritten letters from nearly four centuries ago, and 100-year-old home movies showing the smiling faces of past residents of Llewellyn Park. Not your typical suburb, Llewellyn Park was created in the 1850s as a getaway for some of the prominent families of Manhattan. If you lived there, you’d have neighbors like the Colgate and Merck families and Thomas Edison right down the street. It was a place to rub elbows with some of the titans of the time. The Day family was right in the middle of it. Making their mark as publishers of the popular 19th century magazine, Scientific American, and a family tree reaching back to the 17th century, Julie’s ancestors didn’t just witness history, they are part of it. But now they have to make some choices.… what stays and what’s history. Matt will call on experts to do a deeper dive on the furniture, artwork, books and historic documents to tell the whole story of their family. In the end, Julie and Cindy will have to say goodbye to the house.. but they’ll leave with an amazing story to tell.

When Steve Seidel Senior of Norristown, Pennsylvania passed away recently he left his two adult children a 300-year-old farmhouse full of beer memorabilia and countless other pop culture items. The task of cleaning out the house and barn before selling the property was overwhelming and the kids turned to Matt and his team for help. Not only did Matt need to do an inventory of all the items in the house but he had to find a handful of cherished memorabilia that the children, Becky and Steve Jr. wanted to keep to remind them of their dad. Matt’s strategy was to divide and conquer. He searched the barn with Avi while Jaimie and Mike go through a house jammed from floor ceiling with beer collectables. There were cans, trays, bottles, posters and more. In fact, there were so many items that Matt decided to bring in some beer experts to go through everything and put a price tag on the collection. The experts found some rare items that will bring top dollar. That makes Matt happy because he knows Becky and Steve Jr. want to use some of the money they get from selling the house and everything in it to provide for their two younger half-brothers. Besides beer memorabilia, Matt and his team finds lots of other interesting things. A collection of political campaign pins, an old barber chair, a classic Corvette and something none of them had ever seen before. A bazooka. Seems that Steve Sr. was a wild man who collected lots of really cool stuff. With the house cleared out and the moving vans packed, Matt shows Becky and Steve the Legacy List items he’s found. It’s an emotional moment. The house may be sold but the kids now have a few cherished items that will remind them of their dad.

Retired schoolteacher Shirley Macon of Aberdeen, New Jersey is downsizing and moving to Atlanta, Georgia to be closer to her daughters. She’s lived in her current house for over fifty years and the transition is going to be an emotional one. Her home is filled with pictures, plaques, artwork and memorabilia that celebrate not only her family but African American culture which is very important to her. She can’t take everything with her and that’s a cause of great anxiety. Among Shirley’s most cherished items are a collection of African instruments, an old perfume bottle of her deceased sister and the cherished family bible. Matt and his team turn the garage upside down and search the attic looking for these missing Legacy List items. Matt even snakes his way through the crawl space and comes across something Shirley hasn’t seen in years. Matt goes to a local library to find out more about Shirley and her family who moved to New Jersey from Selma, Alabama. Her relatives marched with Dr. King and were deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement. Shirley has several mementos from that era she wants to take with her. Things get emotional when Shirley and her daughter Wanda see the house empty for the first time. “My life has disappeared,” she says fighting back the tears but Matt convinces her downsizing is the right thing to do. Shirley is in for another surprise when Matt reveals information about her family history she’s never heard before. With everything packed away Matt sits down with Shirley and Wanda and goes over the Legacy List. He’s found everything including Wanda’s Cabbage Patch Kids which she hasn’t seen in thirty years. Finally, Matt takes Shirley out to the back patio where friends and family have gathered to say good-bye.