The whimsical world of “Coocoou”

An eclectic warehouse filled with vintage art and furniture

Off of 111 Tonawanda street is a warehouse, with stairs ending in a doorway hung with translucent orange and white strips of vinyl. Past the threshold is an orange and red striped couch with three pieces of abstract art hanging above it. Across from it is a rounded chair that looks like it's simultaneously from the future and straight out of the 60s. In the middle sits a strangely shaped glass coffee table with a small statue that looks to be from a foreign country of some sort. Jazz fills the air played through vintage speakers. This is the world of Coocoou.

Coocoou (pronounced coo-coo-yoo), is hard to define - owner and operator Michael Merisola says “I don't even know what you'd call it anymore”, but describes it as being a whimsical antique shop mixed with an art gallery.

Located on Tonawanda Street, Coocoou is a large warehouse, with every square inch covered in vintage furniture, sculptures, paintings, and other elements of mid century modern design. Areas are staged in vignettes which create the illusion of being transported somewhere else, back in time, or into a museum.

What would eventually become Coocoou began when Merisola moved into his first apartment around 1980. All he could afford was items and furniture from thrift stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Amvets.

“I was always attracted to this type of thing. And you could find it anywhere. Nobody wanted this stuff back then, 40 years ago,” said Merisola.

He filled his apartment with pieces that caught his eye, and eventually began selling items through yard sales with his wife.

Merisola's perspective towards his collection changed when he went to a gallery in New York City when he was in his early 20s.

“I'm looking around, scratching my head saying, man I have this, I have three of these… So I said to the guy ‘you buy stuff?’,” said Merisola.

Merisola began developing photos of his humble collection, and mailed it to the dealer he had met, who promptly came up to Buffalo and bought “pretty much [Merisola’s] whole apartment.”

In 1987 Merisola and his wife opened their first store in Allentown, selling art deco, mid century modern, and more. Merisola joked that he felt out of place selling “weird stuff” on antique row.

Shortly thereafter, the business moved to Hertel Avenue where it remained for 25 years. Eventually the store began overflowing into a warehouse where Merisola would bring interested buyers.

“Every Saturday they're like, ‘Oh, can we come to your warehouse?’,” said Merisola. “So I finally decided why do I have a store? I just need a warehouse.”

Coocoou’s name was born partly from Merisola’s (who is a jazz musician by trade) love of jazz, specifically a Manhattan Transfer song “Coo Coo U.”

“On top of that, my Italian grandmother used to call us all cuckoo,” Merisola said. “That’s what she said, ‘cuckoo. You cuckoo,’ So I said that’s kind of cool, so I named the shop Coocoou.”

Looking at the unassuming warehouse where it sits on Tonawanda Street, you’d never be able to tell that Coocoou’s pieces have ended up in the homes of celebrities such as Whoopi Goldberg, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Kate Hudson, and more. What’s more, Coocoou has been involved in supplying pieces for set design of movies such as The Shape of Water.

“When movies come to town from different areas and they're doing a period movie, obviously, they ask around,” said Merisola. “And I'm the guy. I got tons and tons of stuff.”

Most recently Coocoou supplied pieces for the Guillermo del Toro movie “Nightmare Alley.”

Merisola says that nowadays, the pieces in Coocoou come to him. He says he has “a lot of eyeballs out there” from Buffalo, Cleveland, Toronto, Rochester, and more within a five hour radius who approach him with items to sell.

Though Merisola says some antique dealers are just in it for the money, he’s in it for the love of what he does. He admires the “remarkable quality” and high end architectural design of what he collects.

He won’t buy anything unless he likes it, and says he would rather pay a lot of money for something that’s great. He feels he’s on a different level than the typical Facebook marketplace and craigslist dealers.

“I think I almost feel the life inside of it. I look at something and think of where it was and who sat at it,” said Merisola. “I just think I feel the history and it, you know, it just brings me back to that whole nostalgic Jazz Age. I just love it.”

Marisola says that people of all walks of life come to Coocoou; Young, old, interior decorators, designers, students, and architects. He says he’s surprised at the amount of young people that come in, but says they “can’t really afford it.”

“It's funny because sometimes I'll get a seventy year old couple and they just want to buy stuff because they got rid of it all in the seventies. You know, like ‘we just want to do our room mid century modern’ but they threw it all in the garbage back in the day.”

It’s clear Merisola’s love affair with his work is about more than just money.

“I’m just a person who was blessed to be able to do this. My whole life. I've never really had a job, never worked for anybody,” said Merisola. “I'm broke. But really, you don't make a lot of money in this business. Not unless you find a million dollar Picasso somewhere. That's never happened.”

Instead of a source of great wealth, Merisola feels it’s a lifestyle.

“It's a passion. I’ve done it since I was in my 20’s, it's fun. You're making money doing something you love? What else are you gonna do? I'm pretty fortunate that I can do this.”

Originally written May 5, 2022