She found that where?
After 15 years as a TV development executive, Sasha Emerson decided to change channels. Within weeks of tossing her call sheet and headset, she opened a modern-meets-vintage furniture store, landed her first project decorating a Spanish villa in Los Feliz and began the process of redecorating her life.
Six years later, the 44-year-old mother of three has built a business applying the same transformative magic to every aspect of interior design, injecting drab rooms with her colorful brand of flea-market funk and turning secondhand duds into statement-making pieces. That Seussian-swirled vase she found for 99 cents at a flea market? It’s now a groovy light fixture at Knit Cafe, the always packed yarn boutique she designed. That on-its-last legs 1950s school table? She scraped off the Bazooka barnacles, stained it chocolate brown and found it a loving new home in Sunset Plaza.
“It’s not that I’m opposed to buying new things or that I’m some kind of recycling nut,” says Emerson, dressed in a vintage Hungarian peasant blouse and a choker she fashioned from an extra scrap of ribbon. “I just love old things.”
In her quest to make all that is old new again, Emerson, who started her rescue missions at age 9 by tagging along with her father to garage sales in New York City, has carved her own quirky niche in the play-it-safe quarry of upscale L.A. interiors. She’s not in the market of designing typical Hollywood dream homes, cream-on-cream temples where sunken bathtubs and stadium-seat screening rooms are standard issue. Instead, she designs homes for dreamers, warm, whimsical spaces where ceramic bananas dangle from turn-of-the-century valet racks and vintage toy cars are parked comfortably in hallways.
“I’m not going to get the richy-rich clients,” she admits. “I get the wacky, fun types.” They include “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who appreciate the fact that Emerson doesn’t bow to overly refined, typically tasteful decorating mantras. Her rules: Modernism doesn’t have to be minimal. Color -- lots of it -- is key. Five-star design shouldn’t cost a fortune.
While trawling the flea markets for fillers like Depression-era stemware and ‘50s fruit-print tablecloths isn’t exactly novel, Emerson’s approach is. She treats the Rose Bowl more like IKEA, a place to find armchairs and dining room tables just as easily as a set of milk glass mixing bowls. The pitfall, of course, is winding up with a living room that looks like a garage sale moved indoors, something Emerson avoids by sticking with elegant lines and good bones, then sprucing up the pieces with unexpected fabrics and expert refinishing. Many of her favorite finds are period, but “it’s not about pedigree,” Emerson explains. “I just care about what looks good.”
Of course, it would be more lucrative if she did more of her shopping for clients at high-end showrooms where the standard 30% mark-up an interior designer adds to five-digit price tags makes for an easy profit. “I’ve tried to move away from it,” she says eyeing a $5 wooden maraca as if it were Elvis’s baby rattle. “But bargain hunting is in my blood.”
As it turns out, penny-pinching has its perks. “Budget Living,” a popular lifestyle magazine for price-conscious style-setters, named her a contributing editor two years ago. And even though she’s no longer a partner in the furniture store Orange in Los Angeles, her design business has doubled every year since she started.
Her own home, a 1962 modern tucked into the hills of Rustic Canyon, is a testament to what one can accomplish with a little budget and a lot of vision. Although her husband, screenwriter Larry Levin, bought the 3,500-square-foot post-and-beam before they met, it turned out to be the perfect project-in-waiting for Emerson: a dreary, nearly empty shell in need of a serious spruce-up.
The couple turned to architect Mark Mack to execute a top-to-bottom renovation. Then, he and Emerson masterminded a punchy palette and doused the whole thing in a riot of color, starting with the green-and-blue-striped garage door.
Eight years and a few magazine spreads later, the bachelor pad turned family home is another makeover success story for Emerson. And although the couple certainly didn’t skimp on the architecture, nothing in the place cost more than $1,500. They eat off a $600 old school table and sit on $30 Thonet molded plywood chairs that were once used in a hospital waiting room. The 1950s maple card catalog that now stores art supplies was a $100 steal she salvaged from the Rose Bowl, and the large braided rug made out of 1930s suits was a $700 find at Wertz Brothers, a favorite used-furniture haunt in West L.A. Even the luxe-looking chaise in the living room is a $60 flea market piece reupholstered in orange mohair.
Room after room is filled with the fruits of Emerson’s flea market expeditions. Her 20-year collection of Harlequin dinnerware, a sister pattern to Fiestaware, seems tailor-made for the kitchen, a sunlit space splashed in spicy paprika and pumpkin hues. Down the hall, the queens of this castle, stepdaughter Eden, 11, and daughters Sophie, 10, and Isabel, 5 1/2, hold court in their playroom , a vinyl-floored fun zone with apple-ply bookshelves built to showcase their own salvaged treasures -- glass animal figurines, framed vintage postcards and bowls of seashells.
Upstairs, in the girls’ bedrooms, old bargains complement new ones. Emerson snagged a pair of $50 twin beds at the Long Beach market; one is covered in a Marimekko bedspread from Target; the other is topped in red and pink gingham from IKEA. But even though these are budget pieces (accessories include framed puzzles and a $15 trio of 1940s wash buckets), nothing looks cheap. Rather, the modern pad is Emerson’s best calling card, a stylish place where her funky vision finds 3-D expression and where seen-better-days furniture gets a hip new lease in her makeshift garage-hospital.
Not that she’s completely abandoned what she learned in her previous life, as executive vice president of development at New Line television. But now that power cocktails have given way to Capri Sun juice pouches, and time once spent haggling over contracts is spent haggling over Murano glass lanterns, Emerson finds most of her best networking is done Sundays -- before noon.
At least three weekends a month she makes the predawn pilgrimage to Long Beach, the Rose Bowl or the Santa Monica Airport. For each swap meet, she’s mapped a systematic scouring route which can take anywhere from three to six hours, depending on how much time she spends chatting with vendors.
And although Creative Artists Agency is no longer on her speed dial, on Sundays, armed with a collapsible shopping cart and enough energy to rival Richard Simmons, she still has all the right connections. A woman specializing in vintage buttons saves her a Bakelite daisy brooch and the “Sari lady” keeps a package of peel-and-stick bindis on hand for her daughters. The vendors who’ve met her usually remember her. And those who haven’t recognize her anyway, partly because of a guest stint on the A&E; decorating show “House Beautiful” but mostly just because she’s there so often. “They know me as the lady with the wad of cash,” she jokes.
Emerson eyes a pair of 1970s patio tables for the “South Park” offices, $30 for the pair. “But for you, Sasha,” the vendor says, “I’ll make it $20.” Emerson snaps them up with plans to strip them down to their original aluminum finish. Later in the day, when everyone else starts petering out, Emerson is still going full speed. “I could go for 14 hours straight. It’s pathetic,” she says, laughing. “I need to get a life.”
As for that Hollywood Rolodex? She’s not ready to toss it just yet. In fact, many of the honchos in it have become her clients. Nick Grad, vice president of creative affairs at FX, and Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president for drama development at the WB, knew Emerson in her hose-and-heels days. So when they snapped up a trendy modern ranch house in the Hollywood Hills two years ago, they knew exactly whom to call.
The young couple wasn’t necessarily looking to design on a budget; they were looking for a challenge. “We needed someone to help us be brave,” says Bernstein, who admits her 3,000-square-foot 1958 house probably would have fallen into the nice-but-boring trap without Emerson’s eye for the fabulous.
After all, it was Emerson who convinced them to re-cover the dining room chairs with a jumbo brown-and-white houndstooth pattern, something Bernstein admits she would have been too chicken to do on her own, to say nothing of the Pucci-esque paisley print bench.
To finesse a cool midcentury interior that didn’t follow predictable leads, Emerson advised the couple to steer clear of iconic postwar pieces -- Eames rockers and George Nelson Marshmallow sofas -- and instead look for sculptural no-name furnishings at more palatable prices.
The first step? A crash course in Flea Marketing 101. On a field trip to Long Beach, Bernstein and Grad spotted a $300 pair of rust-encrusted garden gates. “They intrigued me,” recalls Bernstein, “but I didn’t know what the next move would be.” Emerson did. She polished them, powder-coated them green and made them the centerpiece of the couples’ loft-like living room. Then there was the royal blue geometric rug that wasn’t for sale. “It was just collecting dust covering a vendor’s table,” says Bernstein. Emerson bargained it off for $150, cleaned it up and laid it in the couple’s foyer.
But even clients willing to shell out thousands for a Robsjohn-Gibbings table turn to Emerson for guidance. “I wanted something stylish but also playful,” says Anne Blanchard, a senior vice president at William Morris Agency. “Sasha knows how to push the design envelope -- and the client -- into new realms.” The contemporary Cheviot Hills home Blanchard shares with her husband Sandy Becker, who owns a construction company, and their two sons is proof that the used can coexist brilliantly with the upscale.
Recently, more and more clients looking to punch up the studied seriousness of top-dollar designers are calling on Emerson for what she refers to as “personality injections.” After DD Allen -- the prominent New York decorator who dressed Gwyneth Paltrow’s Greenwich Village townhouse -- finished Blythe Danner’s Santa Monica spread, the actress tapped Emerson to give it a funk factor. So did “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator and star Larry David and his wife, Laurie. Although Greg Jordan designed their Martha’s Vineyard summer home, Emerson filled in the blanks, shipping 15 boxes of hooked rugs, Fiestaware and one-of-a-kind knickknacks across the country.
So what’s the next act for a perky designer with a flair for extreme budget makeovers? At this rate, it might not be so different from the first. It wouldn’t be surprising if life brought Emerson full circle, right back to the small screen where she started.
“I’ve auditioned a few times for television,” she admits, “but there’s not much out there for a flat-chested 44-year-old.” For now, though, she’s content to design in the privacy of her clients’ homes. After all, as any development exec will tell you, the second act is where all the action is.
*
(Begin Text of Infobox)
A designer’s hot go-to list
*
Here are a few of Emerson’s budget-saving picks and tricks.
*
Fabric: For great fabrics at dirt-cheap prices, Emerson heads downtown. Fabrics & Fabrics (403 E. 9th St., L.A., [213] 488-0909) offers Italian silks and linens, embroidered tulle and fuzzy mohair that can be turned into funky chair or pillow covers. Tex Carmel (432 E. 9th St., L.A., [213] 629-5255) is Emerson’s favorite for high-quality, low-priced basics including striped canvas and casual cottons. Home Fabrics Warehouse (910 S. Wall St., L.A. [213] 689-9600) is her upholstery and window-treatment supermarket, and she is particularly fond of their velvet selection. For leathers, she goes to Sav-Mor Leather & Supply Co. (1626 Wall St., L.A., [213] 749-3468), which stocks the essentials -- black leather and brown suede -- as well as overruns from the Prada supplier and unique perforated and embossed hides. And for fabric backing, Emerson recommends Decorators Laminating Service (136 N. La Brea Ave., L.A. [323] 933-5877).
*
Upholstery: Ramon Silba (3526 West Pico Blvd., L.A., [323] 731-0736) is Emerson’s go-to guy for upholstery, an impeccable craftsman who can be trusted with even the most complicated repeats. He not only fixes up sagging sofas, but can build new ones in less than two weeks.
*
Refinishing: Midcentury pieces in a need of a new sheen are delivered directly to Antonio Guzman -- an expert at lacquering, veneering and repairing -- at Decorative (2610 Martin Luther King Blvd., L.A., [323] 292-5140). European antiques go to Niall Bourke of Kipper (11242 Playa Ct., Culver City, [310] 313-4000), who can make Biedermeier buffets and 17th century armoires look as good as old. He is one of only five people in town who has perfected the art of the French Polish (an alcohol-based shellac popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.
*
Lighting: A vintage vase is easily transformed into a new light fixture at Fantasy Lighting (7126 Melrose Ave., L.A., [323] 933-7244) They’ve rewired objects from globes to toy Ferris wheels, but they’ll also create groovy custom pieces and one-of-a-kind lampshades. Best of all? Owner Mark Trabulus, a lighting artist, is happy to share design pointers.
*
Seamstress: Joyce Friend of Baby Rose (by appointment, [310] 474-0444) turns vintage fabric scraps into whimsical pillows and bolsters. She’s also a pro at dust ruffles, duvet covers and baby bedding.
*
Framing: Emerson converts items from puzzles and postcards to record jackets and kites into unexpected wall art with the help of Nick Gurney at Universal Art Gallery (2001 Lincoln Blvd., Venice [310] 302-8909). For a special touch, she wraps the frame in custom Japanese paper from Hiromi Paper International (2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, [310] 998-0098) at Bergamot Station.