Recycling with panache
Two loft dwellers live in bohemian splendor amid their flea-market treasures. 'Each piece has a story to tell,' one says.
With their restored 1918 loft and their 1946 Chevy pickup, the thrift-shop chairs they sit on and the vintage clothes they wear, fashion designer Elizabeth Kramer and real estate agent Robert Heller celebrate giving old things new life.
Entering the couple's Vignes Street loft in downtown L.A., you feel as if you have wandered into a prop house filled with treasures from a bygone era. The 3,000-square-foot open-plan space, with its low-slung arches and concrete floor, was once a bakery. Now, half a dozen department store mannequins -- with and without heads -- are stationed throughout their bohemian world, which is decorated with vintage chandeliers, Grecian statues and a mélange of flea-market and thrift-store furnishings.
A decade ago, Kramer moved from a San Fernando Valley bungalow into the loft, falling under the spell of the picturesque brick building overgrown with bougainvillea and climbing roses, an advertisement for the late U.S. Baking Co. still faintly visible on the side.
When Heller moved in six years ago, the couple knew they would need more space. They bought the adjacent loft and in 2006 broke through the shared wall, doubling the living space and allowing the home offices they both desired.
The loft is arranged as a series of live/work spaces sans walls. Kramer's sewing area and a small gym flank the front door. Tucked into one corner behind velvet-chenille drapes is the bedroom, which Kramer has filled with scads of pillows. The open-plan kitchen with a vintage General Electric stove and a nearby dining table shaped like a slice of pie serve as the loft's hub. His-and-her offices are separated by their baby grand piano in the new wing.
Nearly all the furnishings hail from flea markets or thrift shops or are alley finds, say the couple, both irrepressible collectors. Out of the Closet stores, Council Thrift Shops, prop houses, architectural salvage yards and antique malls are among their favorite haunts. Heller stops by the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop in downtown L.A. at least twice a week. And then there's Les Puces (the Fleas), Paris' largest flea market and Kramer's favorite.
"We're like two kids in a candy shop when we're there," Kramer says, giggling.
The rooftop garden may yield views of Walt Disney Concert Hall, the San Gabriel Mountains and Boyle Heights, and the 1st Street Bridge may span the Los Angeles River just beyond the building's back alley, but the biggest allure here is clearly all the old stuff inside.
