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"If many of the antiques at Newel&amp;#039;s Manhattan shop look familiar, it&amp;#039;s because you&amp;#039;ve probably seen them before, on the big screen. Newel is one of the world&amp;#039;s largest high-end prop-rental houses, and furniture and decorative objects from its collection have starred in such movies as Julie &amp;amp;amp; Julia, The Departed, and You&amp;#039;ve Got Mail, as well as television shows like Boardwalk Empire and Gossip Girl. Now, with a new, 5,000-square-foot showroom on East 53rd Street, designed by James Aman and John Meeks and featuring soaring, 13-foot-high ceilings and Venetian-plaster walls, it&amp;#039;s easier than ever to spot and buy those pieces\u2014or at least admire them.  After opening in 1939, Newel gradually began selling to the public, but kept its primary focus on renting out its furnishings. It was a place where in-the-know designers like Mario Buatta, Alexa Hampton, and Bunny Williams would go to see priceless pieces, such as a breathtaking Regency mahogany table with a carved apron and satinwood sunburst center, a cherry sideboard with ivory inlay by Dominique, or a polished-aluminum helical staircase by Roger Tallon from the 1960s.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Setting the Scene.&amp;quot;   &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been a client there as long as I&amp;#039;ve known about antiques stores,&amp;quot; says Hampton, the daughter of famed decorator Mark Hampton. &amp;quot;My father always loved going. There&amp;#039;s a great old tradition of big antiques emporiums that has really gone by the wayside. Newel is the last one standing in New York City, and it&amp;#039;s a treasure.&amp;quot; Now, following a merger with Guy Regal, a New York dealer who previously ran his own Upper East Side shop specializing in continental neoclassical decorative arts and midcentury art, Newel is opening its doors wider. &amp;quot;We want to take what I do, which is retail sales and high-end dealing, and their rental side and make those operations work together,&amp;quot; says Regal, pointing out that Newel has some 10,000 different pieces in stock. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ve got an inventory that&amp;#039;s been in the making for 70 years.&amp;quot; Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Setting the Scene.&amp;quot;   Shopping at Newel used to involve roaming the company&amp;#039;s dusty six-floor warehouse, where valuable antiques, many with six-figure prices, are stacked to the rafters. The new ground-floor showroom, however, offers curated collections showcasing a cross section of Newel&amp;#039;s eclectic wares. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re like a little encyclopedia or mini museum,&amp;quot; explains Lewis J. Baer, the third-generation owner of the Newel family business. That&amp;#039;s one of the reasons that Bergdorf Goodman, a longtime Newel client, is honoring the company this season with a display in the department store&amp;#039;s windows to celebrate the new showroom. &amp;quot;You can find anything there,&amp;quot; says designer Brian J. McCarthy. &amp;quot;Any piece you can dream up, from the late 17th century all the way through the 20th century, they will dig it out for you. Ask and you shall receive.&amp;quot;  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Setting the Scene.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/shopping/best-stores/news/a4078/setting-the-scene-a-71318/>