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"View Slideshow\n\nDonna livingston's design offices are located in the West Hollywood-Beverly Hills borderlands, around the corner from the power lunch mecca The Ivy and in the heart of L.A.'s prime art and antiques district, a plush enclave of galleries and showrooms that Livingston knows intimately.\n\n\"It's always been possible to find beautiful things in Los Angeles,\" she remarks, \"but now dealers and customers have become more sophisticated. You see this in the quality of the objects and artifacts, and especially in the way they are presented. Out here, dealers enjoy the luxury of having space and light to work with, something you don't encounter too often in Paris or New York. It means that every last item can be given room to breathe. That's what makes the galleries here so pleasant to visit.\"\n\nAs an example, Livingston points to the serenely elegant spaces that make up the Charles Jacobsen gallery, which is located in the Pacific Design Center, Cesar Pelli's bright blue and green crystal palaces on Melrose Avenue, a focal point for the Southern California design community.\n\n\"This gallery,\" the designer says, \"represents contemporary Pacific Rim taste at its best.\" Large-scale upholstered pieces by Jacobsen combine seamlessly with 18th- and 19th-century Asian and Indian furnishings in the minimalist environment. \"It's full of gorgeous artifacts,\" she continues, \"and the way light and background color are used to bring out the richness in objects is very striking. When I walk into the gallery, I get a sense of well-being.\"\n\nNearby on Melrose is Robert Kuo's showroom, another notable example of the Southern California interpretation of Pacific Rim style. \"Here again there's a dramatic use of space that takes full advantage of very high ceilings and arresting architectural detail,\" Livingston says of the contemporary two-story shop. \"Robert Kuo is a charming, elegant man, with perfect Old World manners. He has marvelous taste that accommodates both the sleek and the whimsical.\" Witty repouss\u00E9copper snails, made in China in Kuo's workshops, and stylish contemporary Beijing glassware are displayed along with top-quality Chinese antiques. \"Objects are presented in a way that emphasizes their sculptural quality,\" she adds.\n\nA little farther east on Melrose is J. F. Chen Antiques, more of a traditional store, although still very spacious by East Coast or European standards. \"This is a place I go when I'm looking for the exotic,\" explains Livingston. Joel Chen\u2014\"a true collector,\" she says\u2014fills every inch of his shop with pieces ranging from hand-painted 18th-century Chinese wallpaper to 1950s Italian glass. \"There's so much to see, and the objects are so varied in period and place of origin\u2014Italy, France, India, Tibet\u2014that you have to stay alert or you're likely to miss something wonderful. I find that exhilarating.\"\n\nClose to J. F. Chen, where Melrose Avenue branches into Melrose Place, is Jeffrey Klawans's Connoisseur Antiques\u2014its storefront the work of Emmy Award-winning production designer Robert Keene. \"Connoisseur stands for everything European and ornate\u2014especially chandeliers and candelabra,\" says Livingston. \"Jeffrey has always had a special eye for fine Baccarat crystal and the like, but then he also has a great eye for French and Italian furniture and a real feel for the styles of the 18th and 19th centuries.\"\n\nA short stroll from Livingston's office is the antique carpet emporium of Y B Bolour, on Robertson Boulevard, where the designer heads \"for Aubusson carpets, rare Flemish tapestries, top-quality Orientals and wonderful cushions pieced together from remnants of antique fabrics,\" she says. \"But what makes shopping there memorable is Yousef Bolour himself, because he makes his inventory come to life in the most amazing way. He seems to know everything about the symbolism and allegory woven into, for example, a Baroque tapestry from Brussels, and he'll sit you down and enthrall you with the story. It's better than a movie.\n\n\"Maybe it's Hollywood,\" adds Donna Livingston, \"but there's something theatrical and magical about all of these galleries, and many others in the neighborhood. They function as dramatic settings for glamorous objects, and that's what makes this area so special.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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