Times Staff Writer David Keeps is your guide to what's new:
Though it may sound like an urban garden emporium,
Outside Downtown was conceived as a showroom for midcentury furniture that "is a little less precious, for homes at the beach or in the country," co-owner David Serrano says. Paved in limestone and scented with Santa Maria Novella potpourri, the space distinguishes itself from the flagship Downtown store with a mix of European antiques and vintage American pieces. The faux bamboo coffee table shown here ($3,800) and John Hutton's mid-1970s Thebes club chair (sold as a pair for $15,000) mix with the fresh, pale patinas of bleached wood and gesso coatings. California artisan designs are well represented here by the 1940s bronze torchiers ($22,000 for the pair) and a contemporary hammered iron table with petrified wood top ($3,600) by craftsman John Baldasere. 735 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 854-1880;
www.downtown20.net.
