OPPOSITE: One of Gaughan’s many display cases packed with 18th- and 19th-century magic apparatuses. Inset shows 19th-century French boxwood ball-and-vase tricks. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE: The Harry Houdini automaton in a re-creation of his 1922 office; dowels of every size; Psycho, an 1875 automaton formerly owned by Harry Kellar and Houdini; one of 12 clocks built by Gaughan entirely from Brazilian rosewood.

Make: 35