Priscilla Woolworth’s style: mixed, not matched

Woolworth designs her own merchandise in an art studio off the garden. Woolworth launched the green living e-shop PriscillaWoolworth.com in January 2009. She says she personally tests everything she sells, be it a microfiber dish cloth or a prototype rain collector.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Instead of the fruit bowl, Woolworth deploys this décor: a basket of antique fishing bobbers.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

In the dining room, varied chairs lend charm to the casual, colorful interior.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Furniture and rugs throughout the home often have come from the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. Decorative accessories are often simply found objects picked up while hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains or walking the beach at Point Dume. A preserved beetle inhabits a bookshelf in the library, and stones and shells trump expensive Steuben glass pieces elsewhere. Indeed, the very idea of looking but not touching hardly applies when visiting the Villa in the Valley, as many friends call the house.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Woolworth dried orange peels in her kitchen, then tosses them in the fireplace for their aroma.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

In the kitchen, leftover water goes into an African tea kettle, which is then used as a watering can for plants.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

The library.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

More found objects as decoration in the living room.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Woolworth’s bedroom, with its direct connection to the garden. Renovations on the property started in the garden. “I planted lavender everywhere. It thrives in dry, hot climates and requires little maintenance, “ Woolworth says, then closes her eyes. “It also reminds me so much of Cannes.”  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Jewelry sits atop a distressed dresser in the bedroom.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

After the garden began to thrive, she focused on turning a detached garage-turned-recording studio into a bedroom. She ripped out the soundproofing in the walls, then pulled up the carpeting to discover, much to her amazement, a beautiful tiled floor. Once that makeover was complete, daughter Arielle, 13 at the time, moved in. “It was a way for me to give my teenager the feeling of independence and still have her only 10 steps away from our kitchen,” Woolworth says.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

“I’m a color addict and will often paint flea market pieces in Mexican pink and bright yellow,” Woolworth says. Here, her dog, Leroy, catches some rays by the pool.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Sticks stenciled with a Sharpie identify the plants in the vegetable garden.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Woolworth’s great-grandfather was cousin to Franklin W. Woolworth, founder of the five-and-dime stores. Her grandfather worked with F.W. and moved to England to expand the Woolworth empire in the United Kingdom around 1900, but Priscilla is making her own name as operator of an online shop devoted to green living. “Friends would come over and constantly ask me where I bought items or how I made things out of them,” she says, “and that’s when it hit me: I need to start a store.” By combining those traditions with retail roots and her DIY spirit, Woolworth aims to reinvent the general store for a new generation.

And after a long day in front of the computer in her home office, she likes to escape to where it all began: the garden. “It grounds me and takes me back to a place where I feel calm and content,” she says. She cuts the lavender, dries it for use as kindling, occasionally cooks with it or simply enjoys the scent — the scent of home.

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Read the full story on Priscilla Woolworth’s home .  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)