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Interior designer Stephen Tomar has decorated homes for Johnny Carson and Barbra Streisand and created his own to-the-trade modernist furniture collection, including the mirrored makeup table shown here. So, why open a store? “I see beautiful things, and I want to share what I find,” says Tomar, who co-owns Contents with design partner Stuart Lampert. Among those discoveries Tomar prizes: dining and living room pieces by American designers he knew at the beginning of his career, including Paul McCobb and Harvey Probber. “McCobb’s work is beautiful and light, like a Degas ballerina,” he says. “Probber is solid and architectural. He does with wood what Chanel did for fabric.” Tomar displays these classics with Machine Age accessories, Asian screens and 1960s and ‘70s abstract sculpture. Contents also stocks fanciful vintage Sainte Radegonde ceramics, shown above left, from $1,800, made between the 1920s and 1940s and originally sold in the Paris department store Printemps. 8268 Melrose Ave., L.A., (323) 655-2700.