From the very beginning, Dick Idol Signature Gallery has been a family affair.

The unique art gallery, which features everything from antler art to oil paintings, combines the talents of longtime artist and furniture maker Dick Idol; his interior designer wife, Toni Idol; their son, painter Colt Idol; and a host of other artists. The gallery, located on Central Avenue in downtown Whitefish, seeks to create that sense of family and home through an inviting, living-room-like atmosphere in which to view art.

“All of it tied together. All of these items are really geared toward home decor,” Dick Idol said. “That’s where Toni’s and my strengths lie anyway.”

While Dick Idol has made a name for himself with his rustic furniture design, he is also well-known in the art world. He is an oil painter and sculptor; his bronze monuments can be found from North Carolina State University to the Bass Pro Shops Wonders of Wildlife facility in Springfield, Mo.

His son, Colt, was a Whitefish High School basketball star who planned on playing at Montana State until a knee injury ended his career. After three surgeries, doctors told him he could keep playing — if he wanted a knee replacement by the time he was 30.

“He made a life-changing decision to pursue art full time,” said Toni Idol, Colt’s stepmother.

Colt Idol had drawn for years, but he found a new medium when his father turned him on to oil painting. Now Colt is making a splash on the national scene and has sold more than 100 paintings in a year, Toni Idol said.

But her stepson is just one of the many artists featured at the gallery, and paintings aren’t the only artwork sold there. Dick Idol Gallery also boasts home furnishings, animal mounts, big-game antler sheds and one-of-a-kind antler art and furniture.

“We tried to combine the arts and the paintings and sculpture in rustic environments, things you might find here in Montana,” Toni Idol said.

That variety is what the Idols have pursued for their gallery from the beginning.

“We wanted to have that really classy look that felt more like you were looking at art in the living room of a home rather than just a stark wall with paintings,” Dick Idol said. “We’ve gone the extra mile to create that in-home feeling.”

That extra mile included a lot of labor before the gallery’s opening last June. The family gutted the building, put in an antique floor and chipped concrete plaster off the wall to expose the brick underneath.

“We went all the way that we could to get an end product that really presented art,” Dick Idol said.

His long experience in the art world had put him in contact with many top-notch Western and international artists, which helped the Idols find artists interested in showing their work in Whitefish.

Their gallery work isn’t limited to inside the venue’s walls. The Idols also do commissions and take their work to homes to see what will work best in the space.

“We try to see how it looks and make recommendations,” Toni Idol said. “It’s that whole getting the look at the home augmented with antlers or whatever it might be. We’re very hands on.”

So far, their approach seems to have worked well, she added. The community has embraced the business and the gallery.

“There is not one day when someone doesn’t come in and say, ‘This is one of the most beautiful galleries. I don’t want to leave,’” she said. “We owe it to the community: They’ve received us extremely well.”