97-year-old’s L.A. condo is full of antiques, recollections

When Evelyn Bauer, 97, downsized from her four-bedroom dwelling in Sherman Oaks to an condo in Reseda in 2014, the longtime collector and antiques seller was pressured to relinquish a lot of her private belongings.

“It was hard to part with so much stuff,” Bauer says. “My house was absolutely full. But it was a joy to see other people adopt my things at the estate sale. I got a lot of pleasure out of it because everyone fell in love with my things, just as I did when I first bought them.”

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Originally from New York, Bauer, who taught elementary faculty in New York City and Los Angeles, says she saved a couple of third of her most cherished objects for herself.

“Collecting is my passion, my addiction, and I’m so happy to be afflicted with it,” says Bauer, whose two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo at an impartial residing facility for seniors is full of furnishings and ornamental arts from her 65 years as a collector.

Bauer’s antiques make a press release within the residing and eating room the place they dangle from pale orange painted partitions she selected for her condo. “It’s a happy color,” she says.

Step inside her lounge, and the huge assortment of antiques looks like getting into the previous Encino Antique Center, the place she was as soon as the proprietor through the Nineteen Nineties. Each merchandise has a narrative, a reminiscence and a singular attraction that she cherishes.

As a former instructor, Bauer finds pleasure in educating others about antiques and sharing these tales. “Purple glass has magnesium in it, and it turns purple after many years in the sun,” she says as she picks up a chunk of glass in her eating room. “People who collect patterned glass think this is an abomination because it’s not in its original state. That’s ridiculous. I love it.”

A fan of gallery partitions, Bauer put in a wall of mirrors in her bed room.

Moving on to the visitor room, Bauer factors to a Fretwork wooden wall panel above the daybed. “I bought that at a yard sale along with a chair. I think I paid $65 for the two pieces,” she says. “It hung from the ceiling of my restaurant for years. Then it was my headboard and now it’s here.”

Her assortment consists of the primary vintage she ever bought, an iridescent orange vase made from stretch glass, in addition to the Nineteen Thirties-era rocking chair from her mother and father’ home in New York. “It was my father’s favorite chair,” she says.

Just a few of her favourite issues: A candlestick phone, hats and ceramic geese.

After residing in a 2,600-square-foot dwelling, Bauer indulged her ardour for orange by portray all the partitions of her condo a pale orange to make her ceramics, wall pockets, glass and furnishings pop.

“It’s a happy color,” she says, noting the orange chaise in her bed room and the Art Nouveau ceramics. “I knew when I saw the apartment that I was going to close the door to the bathroom off of the living room since it had two doors. That’s why I painted everything the same color — you don’t really see that there is a door behind the etageres.”

Despite the truth that she doesn’t drive anymore, Bauer’s adventurous spirit has not diminished. She nonetheless enjoys the “thrill of discovery,” which she says is a major a part of her ardour for gathering. After bringing her treasures dwelling, she appears to be like them up on Google and her reference books. Then, the true enjoyable begins: discovering a house for it in her condo.

“Not to worry,” she says. “There’s always room for one more gem.”

A tireless researcher, Bauer tries to maintain a file of her purchases, from the colourful classic Bauer pottery ringware in her kitchen to the Akro Agate glassware in her visitor room. She tags every bit with a observe that identifies the maker, 12 months, how a lot she paid and what it’s price now in her tiny handwritten cursive. Taped to the underside of an Art Deco ceramic vase, for instance, she has written: “Weller, Forest c. 1920. Paid $1 at a yard sale. Took to Antiques Roadshow in the 1990s. Valued at $250-$350.”

To maximize her show area, Bauer put in a pair of etageres in entrance of her lavatory door, which has a second entrance.

The different facet of the door presents additional room for her treasures inside the lavatory.

As one thing of an antiques skilled now, she recollects how intimidated she was when she noticed the orange stretch glass vase in a retailer window in Silver Spring, Md.

“I had never been in an antique store before in my life,” she says. “I was afraid to go in.” When she returned dwelling, she says her husband advised her, “Go back and buy it if you like it.” So she went again to the shop and inquired in regards to the vase. “The salesman told me it was a wonderful example of stretch glass,” she says. “I had never heard of it. That was the beginning of my education.” The $4 price ticket stays on the underside of the vase in the present day. “It’s not worth a lot of money,” Bauer provides, “but it’s one of my favorites.”

By distinction, when requested what she would seize if her condo had been on fireplace, she walked over to a bookshelf and picked up a ceramic pitcher. “I would grab this,” she says of the 1880 Wilhelm Schiller & Son piece in mint situation. “I just love it.”

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1. A ceramic figurine and picket clock are among the many treasures in Bauer’s condo.

Like the household images all through her condo, there’s, in reality, a lot for her to like. And though she has suffered losses — her first husband died of pancreatic most cancers at age 42 and her second husband, Harry, died in 2013 — her condo, she says, has the identical sense of heat familiarity as the house she shared along with her household for almost 50 years.

Recently, when two of her granddaughters expressed curiosity in some plates and mirrors in her eating room, Bauer didn’t hesitate to place their names on them. “I told them ‘they’re yours,’” she says.

“But you can’t have them yet,” she provides, laughing.

That’s as a result of her issues, equivalent to her Art Nouveau pottery and her black-and-white silhouette artworks, nonetheless deliver her pleasure. She nonetheless remembers buying the John Widdicomb Midcentury Modern espresso desk new in Washington, D.C. She loves wall pockets of every kind, mirrors — even hats.

“I won first prize at last year’s Halloween costume party,” she says as she reaches for a hat on her coat rack. “I’m going to be Michael Jackson this year, and I’m determined to moonwalk.” (She appeared up Jackson’s dance strikes on her iPad and is at the moment working towards).

Despite her affinity for her beloved objects, Bauer is a self-described individuals particular person. She hosts month-to-month lectures at her retirement dwelling and plans to take her neighbors to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop in Encino later this month. Recent matters in her Antiques and Collectibles sequence have included lectures on celluloid, classic weddings and Art Deco.

“I do a lot of research first, and then I give a brief history,” she says. “A discussion follows, and then I show them my things.”

A choice of Art Nouveau pottery on the etagere in Bauer’s condo.

Her neighbor, former L.A. City Councilwoman Joy Picus, says she had little curiosity in antiques till she met Bauer. “I furnished my home in Midcentury Modern,” she stated by e mail. “I then saw Evelyn’s apartment full of interesting things, and saw things in a different light. Through Evelyn’s outstanding programs, another world has been opened up to me.”

During her latest lecture on Bakelite, Bauer introduced the candlestick phone from her condo and mentioned the historical past of the plastic materials. “I know a lot,” she says, “but there’s always more to learn.”