STYLE / INTERIORS : IF THE CHANDELIERS COULD TALK

Melissa Wallace Deitz loves antiques. “The more unusual the piece, the better,” she says, pointing out a polished coconut bowl with rock-crystal handles, a fountain with a frog spitting water and a 1920 Baccarat chandelier once owned by Ava Gardner. “It’s the history I love, where something has been, who it’s belonged to.”

This fascination with the past is what prompted Deitz, at 18, to fill her first house with Empire chandeliers and ornate French tables. “When other kids were going to the beach, I was wandering through antique stores,” she says. It was only a matter of time before she opened W Antiques and Eccentricities, a shop near the Pacific Design Center stocked with 18th and 19th century furnishings found on buying trips in Europe. Among her treasures are French cabinets, silver candelabra and hand-carved stools. To complement her antique pieces, Deitz offers classic custom upholstery done up in sumptuous fabrics with vintage trim.

The 1920s Spanish-style home Deitz shares with her husband, Geoffrey, and two bouvier des Flandres, Max and Maud, is decorated in the same spirit. “Eclectic, eccentric and continental” she calls her trademark style, which includes gilded French fauteuils, crystal chandeliers, beaded sconces and piles of Aubusson pillows. Asian accessories and chinoiserie furnishings accent every room--from celadon pots and blue-and-white ginger jars to ancestral portraits and a 1920s red lacquered desk that serves as a bedroom night stand. As for the walls, Deitz seldom departs from her signature cream and white color scheme. “A house should be a neutral backdrop for furnishings and art,” she says, “and the whole home environment, soothing.”