Inner Gardens finally sprouts a Westside location
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Stephen Block, president of Inner Gardens, has for years been on the lookout for a Westside storefront where he could sell his well-styled collection of decorative items for indoor and outdoor spaces. When he found it on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, he moved fast.
For the past few weeks the Inner Gardens staff has been moving in, stocking the light-filled, 2,000-square-foot emporium (formerly home to Baby Style) with an eclectic array of antique, vintage and midcentury modern garden furniture, containers, ornamentation and plants. The doors opened Jan. 4.
“Our client base is in Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Malibu and Brentwood,” Block says. “I kept hearing that in the near future, people on the Westside are not going to cross (Interstate) 405 as frequently. And that’s what made me think I should get closer to Inner Gardens’ clients.”
Inner Gardens’ Melrose store, located close to the Pacific Design Center, is a destination for designers, who may or may not shop with clients in tow. The flagship showroom on Jefferson Boulevard in Culver City – part nursery and part design warehouse – is located even farther away from his customer base, Block admits. “I started to realize that a lot of our clients don’t know who we are.”
The decision to open on Montana happened quickly. Block and landlord James Rosenfield agreed on the lease terms right after Thanksgiving and by Dec. 4, the night of the Montana Avenue Holiday Walk, Inner Gardens had filled the store windows with a vignette announcing its arrival.
Opening a third Inner Gardens store in this tough retail climate raises an unavoidable question: Will Inner Gardens change its product mix to reflect the current economy?
Yes and no. Block knows the prices on one-of-a-kind European urns give some people heart palpitations. “We’re perceived as expensive, but I don’t mind,’ he says. ‘We make distinctions that others don’t. Our selection is very well edited.’ In the store already: a 1920s iron plant-holder shaped as a multi-trunk tree, which Block snagged at an East Coast antiques show (price tag: $15,500) and a 91- by 72-inch candelabra, seen behind block in the photo above, that may come from a castle (price tag: $11,250).
But the store also will carry smaller, less costly items. Block plans to stock design books, American pottery, original work by local artists, and one-of-a-kind handmade jewelry by artist Julie Cohen of Rosemary Road. “My goal is to take care of the local residents who roll the baby strollers and walk the dog down Montana,” Block says. “I want them to have something better – or at least different – to find and buy here.’
To illustrate this point, Block shows off a grouping of 1930s vases created for the floral trade in saturated greens, oranges and yellows. “They were made by Garden City Pottery, a San Jose potter, and this stuff was considered the poor man’s Bauer,” he says. The 8-inch “daffodil and tulip” vases are priced at $95 each. Also on the shelf are 7-inch vintage FTD stock floral vases ($225 each) and a 20th century stone pigeon, about 12 inches in size, for $325. A 1950s bowl in matte green, planted with a spotted kalanchoe is $165.
Regardless of an item’s size, price or pedigree, Block insists that each has a compelling narrative.
“Simplicity and patina are my driving requirements,” he says. “I want to look at a stone urn and see where it’s been bleached by the sun on one side and covered in moss on the other side.”
Inner Gardens, 1324 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 576-3400. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday.
Photos, from top: A 1930s tree-shaped iron planter behind a faux bois table in the new Inner Gardens store in Santa Monica; Stephen Block in front of an 8-foot candelabra for sale in the new store; Vintage florists’ pottery. Photo credit: Debra Prinzing