every piece. “Check the back. The underside. The joints. You want solid wood, not particleboard. Antique glass should be thin and irregular. Only one is history,” she says. Her aesthetic celebrates what she calls intentional dissonance. A cast iron cogwheel becomes a table. Old shutters frame a pantry. As she points out, “It doesn’t need to be a museum piece, just something that belongs to your life and makes your home uniquely yours.” That emotional draw is central for Pauline Allen, a Pebble Beach landscape designer with four decades of experience. “An antique piece can transport you,” she says. “Sometimes I see a cup in a shop and remember my grandmother serving tea in one just like it. That’s the kind of beauty you don’t forget.” But Allen is quick to clarify that sentiment alone isn’t enough. “I wouldn’t recommend an antique to a client just for the value. It has to have an emotional, historical or family connection. Just because I find something absolutely gorgeous doesn’t mean my client will. That’s not how design works.” She speaks candidly about her own evolution. “I wasn’t raised with antiques in Melbourne, Australia. There was nothing in my childhood home I would have wanted to inherit. But after I studied design at UCLA, I became much more interested, especially because I started to understand the history behind furniture.” Los Angeles, she admits, didn’t appeal to her at first. “But when I started to look more closely, especially at neighborhoods from the 1930s and ’40s, I began to see beauty I’d completely missed. Education opened my eyes.” That kind of awareness is essential to Allen’s design process. “I always try to learn about my clients’ histories, not just impose my own taste. A piece has to work for the people who live with it.” Allen believes that beauty should never be arbitrary: “Every object must earn its place in your space. Even sentiment must have style.” Both Mendonca and Allen insist on restraint. With the vast array of tchotchkes available, it’s easy to confuse clutter with character. Their homes are about texture and intentionality. “If you walk into an antique shop without purpose,” Mendonca warns, “you may walk out with regret. It’s easy to fall in love with the wrong thing when you’re under pressure.” In the hands of these experts, antiques invite memory, meaning, and a richer relationship with the spaces we inhabit. Luxury isn’t always new. Sometimes, it’s what endures. 16 THE BEST OF MONTEREY BAY ® HAVEN 2025-2026 831-920-2850 Info@classickitchens.us 495 Shasta St. Sand City, CA 93955 ClassicKitchenAndDesign_1-2h_Haven2025_KB.indd 1 7/24/25 11:55 AM
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