Kitsch and class: This pair wears it well

AT Patti and Stanley Silver’s house in Beverly Hills, a Picasso portrait hangs in the entryway next to a goofy statue of a corpulent butler. In the backyard, a museum-quality bronze by Lynn Chadwick stands just steps away from a batting cage and a trampoline. The downstairs bathroom has a soft sculpture of a man caught with his pants down, and the office is lined with hundreds of baseballs and shoe-shaped snuffboxes, and a charming Henry Moore lithograph.

Art? Kitsch? The Silvers don’t bother with that distinction.

For them, decorating isn’t about being correct or the latest retro style. These quirky grandparents aren’t students of Kelly Wearstler’s Hollywood Regency or Jonathan Adler’s midcentury modern. Instead, their home is a tribute to the power of personal taste, and a scrapbook of a life fully lived. They are not afraid to surround themselves with things just because they make them smile, or to place flea market finds next to museum pieces worth 100 times as much.

The approach may seem odd, but it has taken them far in business, making their 36-year-old boutique, Fred Segal Feet, a national force because of its consistently surprising selection, from $60 flip-flops to $7,500 Jacob the Jeweler sneakers. The Silvers were early to the Ugg boot craze, and the first retailers in L.A. to stock Miu Miu.

Footwear News, the industry bible, calls the Silvers’ tiny, 605-square-foot Melrose Avenue shoe store the second most powerful in the country after Jeffrey New York in terms of market influence, which means mainstream retailers and knockoff artists watch what they sell. More than ever, fashion is not about what you wear, but the accessories you dress around. People are looking for shoes and bags that are conversation pieces.

And the Silvers know conversation pieces.

“Going back to 1869, I’ve got balls from every Hall of Famer,” says Stanley, 71, in his favorite silver Nike sneakers and splatter-painted Roberto Cavalli pants, which themselves look worthy of framing. “We also collect menus from our favorite restaurants abroad,” he says, eagerly leading a guest upstairs and taking a menu off the wall to show how it is autographed by the chef and framed in double-sided glass.

THEIR four-bedroom, neocolonial house was built in 1942 by Paul R. Williams, although the Silvers hadn’t heard of him when they moved in 32 years ago, not long after relocating from their native Chicago.

“I fell in love with the house. I didn’t know who built it and I didn’t care,” says Patti, 63, in a crystal-studded tunic top and Armani pants, her hair blown out big. She’s the daughter of the late Chicago businessman, art collector and philanthropist Leo S. Guthman, a plastics manufacturer who developed the coating for the inside of beer cans, among other things.

“My father had art on his ceiling,” she says.

The Silvers don’t have art on the ceiling yet, but they do have it hung frame-to-frame on the stairwell, crowded on coffee tables, even in the bathrooms. They introduce pieces in the front entry and living room like old friends, without a hint of pretension. “There are two Robert Grahams, a Laddie Dill, a museum piece by Tom Holland,” Stanley says, pointing to an abstract wall relief above the fireplace. “There’s a nice little George Rickey mobile and a Bernard Meadows.”

“We have a lot, but it’s only because we keep finding things,” says Patti, who serves on the acquisition committee for Modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Then there are the collectible giraffes -- a glass statuette on a shelf here, a wood figurine in the corner there. “Patti loves giraffes,” Stanley says.

The two met through mutual friends after Stanley’s mother saw a newspaper photo of Patti at a Jewish cotillion dance. They married and moved to L.A. in 1966 for the weather, initially operating leased shoe departments in several different stores, before scaling back to just the Fred Segal location. They recently launched an online site at www.silverfeetboutique.com.

“I love fun,” Patti says. “I will buy fun shoes that nobody understands but me. A Sonia Rykiel shoe I bought for summer has a little face on it. And it’s sold OK, but to me it’s wonderful.”

Her husband agrees. “If somebody comes into the store, they might think a shoe comes from Jupiter or Mars. But we like conversation pieces, that’s what we’re known for.”

The living room has a player piano with another life-size soft sculpture at the keys, keeping good company with a Picasso pitcher sitting on top.

“We don’t go by color or relationship,” Patti says of their style. “We go by what looks good where we put it.”

Right now, they’re trying to figure out where to put the 20-some scrolls and drawings they bought on a recent trip to Asia, where they visited 10 cities in 19 days. The Silvers travel often on buying trips to New York and Europe in search of the most eye-catching shoes from such designers as Giuseppe Zanotti, Valentino, Vicini, Gianfranco Ferre, Gina, Missoni and Yves Saint Laurent.

UPSTAIRS past the menu collection is the master bedroom, with a 74-inch TV and a balcony overlooking the backyard. There’s a walk-in closet, which houses Patti’s shoes -- it is, believe it or not, a modest collection of all flats these days -- and Stanley’s shrine to his family. Taped to the walls are photographs of his parents, Patti in a bikini on vacation, even the jeweler Salvatore that he got to know over the years, buying gifts for his wife in Capri. “You can see the old days,” he says. “That’s Patti’s dad and my dad, my sister, Patti’s sister.”

Visible from the bedroom window is the Silvers’ most treasured Chadwick sculpture, titled “Sitting Couple,” and their newest piece, “Teddy Boy and Girl.” “We originally saw it in Berkeley Square in London. It’s one of six,” Stanley says. “We’re having a base made so the children don’t knock into it.”

Not that they worry too much about their seven grandchildren and their art collection. “This house is lived in,” Patti says. “The children can run free as long as they listen to us that art is to look at, not to touch or play with.”

It must be hard to tell sometimes what’s a toy and what’s not. Take the circular fountain with rotating tiers of colored plexiglass, commissioned by the artist Vasa. “We try to add whimsical things,” Stanley says, turning it on with a switch.

The Olympic-size pool has octopus and fish designs on the bottom, and the pool house has a kitchen and a “Sopranos” pinball machine. There’s sports art on the walls by the couple’s artist son.

“This is my haven,” he says, continuing on to the batting cage, where he practices every day after working out on the weight machines upstairs. “I’m a frustrated hitter. I signed in high school but was an outfielder and couldn’t hit a curve ball.” There is also a treehouse, a mini-basketball court and an in-ground trampoline surrounded by a safety net.

The tour continues in the breakfast room, where the Silvers had shelves built for their collection of teapots. “I don’t like to hide things,” Patti says. “If I buy something, I want it displayed because it’s for our pleasure.”

There are teapots shaped like Alice in Wonderland, Mother Goose and, her favorite, an oil can. “They’re not like art for us, but they are for most people who collect them,” she says. “They know who’s good and who’s not. But that’s not why we buy them. We buy them because we love them.”

In the office, two walls aren’t walls at all but custom glass cases for Stanley’s collection of 1,200 baseballs. All were gifts, from players, friends or his father. “My best friend growing up was my dad,” he says. “We had a box at the White Sox, Cubs, Bears, Cardinals and the Black Hawks. From the age of 5, he took me everywhere. In this room, I’m surrounded by his love and affection.”

Above and around his desk are dozens of 17th century shoe-shaped snuffboxes, which Patti has accumulated over the years, mostly from antiques shops in Paris.

And on the coffee table, between two original Barcelona chairs, is a card game in miniature, picked up for less than $100 at a St. Tropez flea market. “Stanley has always been a card player and so is his father,” Patti says.

There is even art on the dining room seat cushions, which Patti did in needlepoint after works by French Impressionist Camille Pissarro. “Each chair is a different painting,” she says.

The table is a Sheraton that she found at an antiques store in Chicago. Above the sideboard is an abstract work by Roland Petersen that Patti purchased for $500, and recently had appraised for $70,000. “I don’t like to talk money,” Stanley says, “but I’m really proud of her for that.”

The Silvers have often entertained here, with their parties spilling into the living room and the pool area. For their 40th anniversary, they hired a Village People cover band. And for Stanley’s 70th birthday, Patti had his favorite piano player flown in from Las Vegas. “That was one party I never wanted to end,” Stanley says. “We videotaped it and I relive it quite often.”

Then, in an instant, he thinks of something else to share. He darts out of the room, reappearing seconds later with a life-size cardboard cutout of himself in a high school baseball uniform, a birthday gift from his wife.

“Oh, Stanley,” she coos.