When Evelyn Bauer, 97, downsized from her four-bedroom house in Sherman Oaks to an house in Reseda in 2014, the longtime collector and antiques seller was pressured to relinquish lots of her private belongings.
“It was laborious to half with a lot stuff,” Bauer says. “My home was completely full. But it surely was a pleasure to see different folks undertake my issues on the property sale. I acquired a number of pleasure out of it as a result of everybody fell in love with my issues, simply as I did after I first purchased them.”
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Initially from New York, Bauer, who taught elementary faculty in New York Metropolis and Los Angeles, says she saved a couple of third of her most cherished objects for herself.
“Gathering is my ardour, my dependancy, and I’m so pleased to be troubled with it,” says Bauer, whose two-bedroom, two-bathroom house at an unbiased 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 hold from pale orange painted partitions she selected for her house. “It’s a contented colour,” she says.
Step inside her lounge, and the huge assortment of antiques looks like coming into the previous Encino Vintage Heart, the place she was as soon as the proprietor through the Nineties. Every merchandise has a narrative, a reminiscence and a novel allure 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 a few years within the solar,” she says as she picks up a chunk of glass in her eating room. “Individuals who accumulate patterned glass assume that is an abomination as a result of it’s not in its unique state. That’s ridiculous. I find it irresistible.”

A fan of gallery partitions, Bauer put in a wall of mirrors in her bed room.
Shifting on to the visitor room, Bauer factors to a Fretwork wooden wall panel above the daybed. “I purchased that at a yard sale together with a chair. I believe I paid $65 for the 2 items,” she says. “It hung from the ceiling of my restaurant for years. Then it was my headboard and now it’s right here.”
Her assortment consists of the primary vintage she ever bought, an iridescent orange vase manufactured from stretch glass, in addition to the Thirties-era rocking chair from her mother and father’ home in New York. “It was my father’s favourite 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 house, Bauer indulged her ardour for orange by portray the entire partitions of her house a pale orange to make her ceramics, wall pockets, glass and furnishings pop.
“It’s a contented colour,” she says, noting the orange chaise in her bed room and the Artwork Nouveau ceramics. “I knew after I noticed the house that I used to be going to shut the door to the toilet off of the lounge because it had two doorways. That’s why I painted all the pieces the identical colour — you don’t actually see that there’s a door behind the etageres.”
Even though she doesn’t drive anymore, Bauer’s adventurous spirit has not diminished. She nonetheless enjoys the “thrill of discovery,” which she says is a big a part of her ardour for gathering. After bringing her treasures house, she appears them up on Google and her reference books. Then, the actual enjoyable begins: discovering a house for it in her house.
“To not fear,” she says. “There’s all the time room for yet one more gem.”
A tireless researcher, Bauer tries to maintain a report of her purchases, from the colourful classic Bauer pottery ringware in her kitchen to the Akro Agate glassware in her visitor room. She tags each bit with a be aware that identifies the maker, 12 months, how a lot she paid and what it’s value now in her tiny handwritten cursive. Taped to the underside of an Artwork Deco ceramic vase, for instance, she has written: “Weller, Forest c. 1920. Paid $1 at a yard sale. Took to Antiques Roadshow within the Nineties. Valued at $250-$350.”

To maximise her show house, Bauer put in a pair of etageres in entrance of her rest room door, which has a second entrance.

The opposite aspect of the door gives additional room for her treasures inside the toilet.
As one thing of an antiques knowledgeable 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 by no means been in an vintage retailer earlier than in my life,” she says. “I used to be afraid to go in.” When she returned house, she says her husband advised her, “Return and purchase it when you prefer it.” So she went again to the shop and inquired concerning the vase. “The salesperson advised me it was an exquisite instance of stretch glass,” she says. “I had by no means heard of it. That was the start of my schooling.” The $4 price ticket stays on the underside of the vase right now. “It’s not value some huge cash,” Bauer provides, “however it’s one in every of my favorites.”
In contrast, when requested what she would seize if her house have been on fireplace, she walked over to a bookshelf and picked up a ceramic pitcher. “I might seize this,” she says of the 1880 Wilhelm Schiller & Son piece in mint situation. “I simply find it irresistible.”


1. A ceramic figurine and wood clock are among the many treasures in Bauer’s house.
Just like the household photographs all through her house, there may be, 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 house, she says, has the identical sense of heat familiarity as the house she shared together with her household for practically 50 years.
Lately, 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 advised them ‘they’re yours,’” she says.
“However you’ll be able to’t have them but,” she provides, laughing.
That’s as a result of her issues, akin to her Artwork Nouveau pottery and her black-and-white silhouette artworks, nonetheless deliver her pleasure. She nonetheless remembers buying the John Widdicomb Midcentury Trendy espresso desk new in Washington, D.C. She loves wall pockets of all types, mirrors — even hats.
“I received first prize ultimately 12 months’s Halloween costume celebration,” she says as she reaches for a hat on her coat rack. “I’m going to be Michael Jackson this 12 months, and I’m decided to moonwalk.” (She regarded up Jackson’s dance strikes on her iPad and is at present practising).
Regardless of her affinity for her beloved objects, Bauer is a self-described folks individual. She hosts month-to-month lectures at her retirement house and plans to take her neighbors to the American Most cancers Society Discovery Store in Encino later this month. Latest matters in her Antiques and Collectibles sequence have included lectures on celluloid, classic weddings and Artwork Deco.
“I do a number of analysis first, after which I give a quick historical past,” she says. “A dialogue follows, after which I present them my issues.”

A number of Artwork Nouveau pottery on the etagere in Bauer’s house.
Her neighbor, former L.A. Metropolis Councilwoman Pleasure Picus, says she had little curiosity in antiques till she met Bauer. “I furnished my house in Midcentury Trendy,” she mentioned by e mail. “I then noticed Evelyn’s house stuffed with attention-grabbing issues, and noticed issues in a distinct mild. By means of Evelyn’s excellent packages, one other world has been opened as much as me.”
Throughout her latest lecture on Bakelite, Bauer introduced the candlestick phone from her house and mentioned the historical past of the plastic materials. “I do know lots,” she says, “however there’s all the time extra to be taught.”