While in transition into her gallery's new spot on La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles-based art dealer Shirley Morales is utilizing the spacious walls of her Hollywood Hills home as a temporary exhibition space. It's a fitting throwback as the Mediterranean Revival 1920s house, designed by Elmer Grey – the legendary architect behind the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Wattles Mansion – is where Morales's career as an art cultivator began. Before she opened Ltd Los Angeles gallery, Morales was running an artist-in-residency program for almost a decade in the property's guest apartment (it was once occupied by the chauffeur of a previous owner).
Italian 18th-century gold appliqué with tassels pillow, price on request at The High Boy ( www.thehighboy.com).
Matisse chair, $2,399 at Crate & Barrel ( www.crateandbarrel.com).
The upstairs living room of the four-bedroom house makes a beautiful salon-style setting for contemporary art, a high contrast to ubiquitous white gallery walls. The home's age is one of the things the gallery director most cherishes. "It has original floors, with the original staircase, and the original stained-glass windows," says Morales. The space, situated next to a room that was once a chapel, was meant to be a more formal one. "The couple for whom the house was originally built was childless, and every day the priest would have a mass for them in that little chapel," she says. "My husband uses it as an office."
While the rest of the house is decorated in what the art aficionado describes as "big-sofa California comfortable," the living room is filled with valuable antiques and pieces passed down from her parents. "The two chairs were given to me by my dad, and the chess tables that my mom gave me are hand-carved, and are from Turkey," says Morales. The reupholstered antique sofa was also inherited from her mother: "It never fit any house we had, but because this house is old and Spanish, it really fits in there."
London Collection decanter by Jo Sampson for Waterford, $440 at William Ashley ( www.williamashley.com).
1920s Spanish Revival server sideboard with crest, $2,200 at Revival Antiques ( www.1stdibs.com).
Shiraz carpet by Valerio Sommella for Moooi, $3,353 at The Modern Shop ( www.themodernshop.ca).
The Spanish mahogany buffet set was one of Morales's lucky estate sale finds, chosen for being from the same period as the house. Currently on display above it: a painting by Max Maslansky and a photograph by Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen. Right below, on the buffet, is a cherished Eric Wesley sculpture of a blown-up Wells Fargo stagecoach from Morales's own collection. "He used to go to Wells Fargo and get all upset that the ATM wouldn't give him money," she says. "That stagecoach is a symbol for Wells Fargo."
Living around valuable art is something the family of four has become accustomed to. But other than the artwork, Morales insists that nothing is off limits. "We have kids; we have their friends; we have artists coming over," she says. "There is nothing precious really, except everybody knows not to touch the artwork. And the dogs never touch it either." It's a healthy attitude to have as she opens her private home to art lovers, while waiting for the construction to be complete on the La Brea space. In a less intimate setting, Ltd Los Angeles is taking part in Art Toronto, running from Oct. 28 to 31. As a gallerist, she approaches art collecting the same way she approaches shopping for antiques. "I very rarely go shopping with a specific thing in mind. I acquire things as I see them and that's also the way I acquire art," Morales says. "I like things to speak for themselves, that have gravitas under them."