O-Sense
Recent press of South Dixie Antique Row in West Palm Beach Florida
The Palm Beach Post
Depp, Diaz, Springsteen at play on Antique Row
by Jose Lambiet | The Palm Beach Post | April 11, 2009
Forget Worth Avenue!
There’s a new celebrity-watching spot, and it’s – gasp! – across the bridge from Palm Beach.
Antique Row, along the less manicured South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, is fast becoming a must-stop for this country’s who’s who. Nary a week goes by without an A-lister strolling into the antique and furniture shops.
Just Tuesday, Cameron Diaz popped into a dozen stores on The Row with top Los Angeles decorator Kelly Wearstler in tow.
The two browsed in Jeffrey Marie Antiques for an hour. The star of now-on-cable What Happens in Vegas fell in love with and 18th century mirror but didn’t buy. She also played with an employee’s scruffy pooch, a la There’s Something About Mary.
Diaz and Wearstler later stopped by Heath and Co., where they took pictures of classic light fixtures.
“I didn’t even know who she was,” a blasé Jeffrey Raphael said at Jeffrey Marie. “She spent all day on Antique Row. My neighbor told me ‘Do you realize who was just in here?’ Cameron was super nice. But it’s not like we never see celebrities.”
He ain’t kidding.
Last month, it was Johnny Depp who, having bought antiques for his personal use on the Row last year, sent the set designer for the movie he’s both filming in Puerto Rico, The Rum Diary.
And in a corner of the Malekan Rugs & Antiques the other day, rocker Bruce Spingsteen shooting the breeze with owner Joseph Malekan while Springsteen’s wife, Patti Scialfa, shopped for jewelry.
“There are indeed more famous people coming,” said the owner, Joseph Malekan. “Celebrities aren’t blind. They open magazines like everybody else and they read about Antique Row. I shop all over the country for the store, and I can tell you there’s no other street like this one anywhere else, outside of New York.”
In season, it seems, paparazzi could make a decent living on the Row.
Get a load of the clientele over the past year or so: Fatal Attraction bunny killer Glenn Close; insider trading ex-con Martha Stewart; Little Miss Sunshine dreamer Greg Kinnear; Welsh singer Dame Shirley Bassey, who rumored to be looking to buy a home here; Canadian screecher Celine Dion, who needs to furnish her new Jupiter Island homestead; international playboy George Hamilton, who just moved to a condo on Flagler; Donald Trump; Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Palmer; and even Bathhouse Betty, Bette Midler.
Several shopkeepers credited the South Dixie Antique Row Association for the increased buzz.... And every once in a while, a shop owner is star-struck. “I had Shirley Bassey (the singer of several James Bond soundtracks) here the other day,” says Alan Salomon at Heath & Co. “She bought something for $85, so I framed the credit card receipt and put it on the wall. She’s the one who impressed me the most.”