High-end popularity dramatically changes the landscape on Melrose Place

The tree-lined block that juts out of La Cienega Boulevard just above Melrose Avenue is a bit of a retail oddity for Los Angeles: a quiet, quaint address in the middle of the bustling city.

And as such, Melrose Place -- not the fictional location of the television show with the same name but rather the cement-and-ivy street with nary an apartment building in sight -- has always been a destination for a certain kind of shopper, the kind of person who might employ a decorator, a stylist or both.

But what they are seeking has changed dramatically in recent years. Melrose Place, like so many parts of the city, is in the throes of an upscale shift that has some feeling left out.

Once a residential street, then a destination for high-end antiques and home-furnishing stores, Melrose Place has become, in recent years, a high-end fashion lover's mecca.

The transformation began, by most accounts, a little more than three years ago, when Marc Jacobs and Marni moved on to the block in quick order. They were followed by other upscale retailers, including Carolina Herrera, Sergio Rossi, Mulbery and Lambertson Truex.

But as the fashionistas swept in, many of the antique stores that had called the place home began moving elsewhere, some bemoaning the rapidly rising rents and others the loss of the quiet, chummy camaraderie they once enjoyed.

"I used to know everybody on the street, and people were friendly," said Rose Tarlow, who opened her first antique store on the block in 1976. "Now, I don't even go out the front door. It's very different." Tarlow has decided to move off the block and rent out the two buildings that she owns.

"It used to be beautiful," said Ahmad Ahmadi, the owner of Ariana Rugs, with a sigh. "It was all antique mom-and-pop stores, high-end interiors from floor coverings to furniture to fabrics. It was really a destination for a lot of international decorators."

Ahmadi said he was leaving the area after a decade on the street because his landlord had increased his rent from $4 a square foot per month to $25. "They are forcing me out," Ahmadi said. "The amount of money they are asking -- how can I afford it?"

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Melrose Place came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, said historian Marc Wanamaker, when the demand for retail space for high-end antique stores along La Cienega overflowed to the street. Because it was a little more isolated, Melrose Place became a cheaper place to buy into, said Wanamaker, and quickly, the area shifted to become a district all its own.