LOS ANGELES — If this city has a secret garden of shopping, Melrose Place is it: ivy-covered bungalows, hidden courtyards with bubbling fountains, brick-covered, tree-lined sidewalks and pots overflowing with crimson geraniums.
This verdant, sleepy-looking two-block stretch nestled between bustling Melrose Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard has become one of the hottest high-end retail destinations in Los Angeles, as some designers eschew the flash of Rodeo Drive and the celebrity-magnet draw of Robertson Avenue in favor of the quaint bungalows and Hollywood Regency-style architecture that imbue this street with charm.
And charm sells.
The area, which, until two years ago, had been populated primarily by antiques shops and furniture stores, is now home to fashion and beauty names with serious followings: Marni, the Sally Hershberger at John Frieda salon, Tracy Feith, Italian beauty line Santa Maria Novella and the latest, most high-profile arrival, Marc Jacobs.
“I was waiting for the right location,” said Jacobs’ business partner and company president, Robert Duffy. “I loved Melrose Place. To me it’s one of the most charming streets in Los Angeles.”
While the buzz about Melrose had been building, there is no question that Jacobs’ lush, ivy-covered 3,500-square-foot flagship at Melrose Avenue and Melrose Place and the Marc by Marc Jacobs jewel box herald a new era for the neighborhood. Inevitably, that will mean higher rents and land costs and upheaval.
“I’m happy for the owners of the buildings. I’m sorry for the people who get squeezed,” Duffy said. “It’s going to change it. I feel bad about it. But we’ve never been a Rodeo Drive kind of place.”
The lure of Melrose also is bringing Diane von Furstenberg. The designer has announced plans to move into a 1,700-square-foot store that is to open mid-fall. It will be von Furstenberg’s first freestanding store in California, her third in the U.S., and will be the first one to feature the Diane von Furstenberg by H. Stern fine jewelry line.
These developments are putting a high gloss on the street’s cachet, said retail real estate broker Chuck Dembo, who has handled leases on Melrose Place as well as on Rodeo Drive and on Robertson Boulevard.
Related Articles
You May Also Like
“It’s always been prestigious due to the fact that it was isolated, protected from surroundings and had its own quiet ambience,” he said. “It was always very much a destination with the high-end, exclusive furniture people who started the tradition of ‘we don’t want everyone to know we’re here.’”
Dembo said he sees the rush as “a bit of a wave….People will still be focused on Robertson and Beverly Hills.”
Rents average a relatively modest $7 a square foot, he said. Robertson Avenue, featuring specialty boutiques such as Kitson and Lisa Kline, has reached $10 a square foot and Rodeo Drive, with retailers such as Prada and Chanel, commands $25 a square foot.
Exclusivity and the charm factor are key, said Sheila Speer, who for 20 years has owned The Alley, a 1,000-square-foot boutique in an enclave behind Melrose Place known as Melrose Alley. Speer said that she was the only clothing retailer among the antiques and furniture shops, and she’s thrilled about her new neighbors.
Jacobs “is the first New York hotshot who’s coming here and thinking about the city in the right way,” Speer said. “L.A. is not what people pretend to think it is. I think he has the right idea to be [at Melrose Place].”
Speer, who carries local lines such as James Reva, John Agee, Papillon and Mitzi Baker as well as Natalie Chaize and Neil Bieff, said she has seen a spike in sales since some of the big names moved in. Last year was her best year ever, with a 25 percent increase in sales over 2003. She did not provide figures.
“I think the Sally Hershberger at John Frieda salon was the catalyst, because more of the city heard the famous names — and that got people thinking,” she said of the salon that opened in 2001. “Before that, there were people who wouldn’t go east of La Cienega or even Robertson.”
In L.A., there is nothing like the lure of a celebrity hairstylist moving into the neighborhood to jump-start things — particularly when the stylist charges $600 a head, happens to be responsible for giving Meg Ryan her signature look and is named Sally Hershberger.
“I’m so not about [areas like] Beverly Hills and uptown [Manhattan],” said Hershberger, who lives a bicoastal lifestyle, with salons in L.A. and the Meatpacking District in lower Manhattan. “It doesn’t inspire me in the same way.”
Hershberger loved the space so much that she kept key elements such as the reflecting pool outside and the terrazzo floors. Maintaining the architectural integrity is a sentiment that unites many of the area’s owners. And for these Melrose Place devotees, intangible elements such as inspiration and charm can be as important as projecting average sales per square foot.
“I chalk it up to zeitgeist,” said Susan Winget, Tracy Feith’s partner. “Everyone is very single-minded. The way we found it was a totally kooky and an emotional decision, because was it was only Sally [Hershberger] and Henry Beguelin on the street. But it was so enchanting, we couldn’t resist.”
Feith’s breezy 1,100-square-foot women’s store is in an airy, light-filled Hollywood Regency building that showcases his bright, sinuous designs. But Winget cautioned that the seeming sleepiness of the street belies the serious business that takes place on it.
“Sales can still be huge,” she said. “One or two fabulous customers in L.A. can keep the [salespeople] smiling for days.”
The week before the March 17 opening of the Marc Jacobs shop, the 2,500-square-foot Marc by Marc Jacobs store had a soft opening and did $35,000 in sales on one Saturday, Duffy said.
Even Marni’s low-key move onto the street last year drew fashionistas almost immediately. “We moved in quietly; nobody even knew we were here and we were immediately making plans,” said Luca Voarino, Marni’s vice president and director of marketing and sales. “We don’t want to choose places that are so in the spotlight.”
Marni designer Consuelo Castiglione made her first trip to L.A. last week to see the store, whose location Castiglione approved after her husband and Voarino found the space.
“It’s perfect,” she said at the belated launch party. “It’s very Marni.”