Scavenger’s Paradise
Founded:
1954
Core Business:
Collecting unique and high-end salvage and antique items for use in home remodeling, new home construction or film set dressing
Employees in 2007:
3
Employees in 2006:
2
Goal:
To expand by doing more rental business with the entertainment industry
Driving Force:
The desire to buy unusual pieces for home remodels or sales; the entertainment industry’s need for unique props and set items
Not many businesses stock Liberace’s chandeliers, Gloria Swanson’s pink toilet and a pine table that belonged to Marlon Brando.
But Scavenger’s Paradise, a salvage site and antique reliquary in North Hollywood, has all of those items and many others like them.
Gilliam Greyson, a former interior designer and Tennessee native who retains a charming drawl, is the treasure hunter behind the enterprise, which is tucked into an industrial district. The business is something of a quaint treasure itself, housed in a 7,500-square-foot 1920s-era Catholic church building that has had several incarnations, including stints as a clothing manufacturing outlet, ad agency and underground nightclub.
The vast majority of the inventory at Scavenger’s Paradise finds its way to the converted churchyard from sources in and around Los Angeles.
“There’s been a lot of houses on the market and a lot of new home construction, so people are always looking for ways to remodel or make their home theirs,” Greyson said. “There’s been so much money here in L.A. that I can go look at something in a huge old Toluca Lake home right around the corner and find something fabulous that people imported from Europe.”
Interior designers, homeowners, art collectors, anyone looking for the offbeat can pick through Greyson’s selection. And they do, looking for all sorts of reclaimed materials for home or decorating projects, like concrete fountains, pedestals and wrought iron gates, enormous antique windows and old fire doors, chandeliers, an altar, huge decorative friezes, mantels and garden materials.
Finding her treasure
Greyson came to Los Angeles in 1990. She was a designer and frequented the salvage yard. It was in 2003 that she came upon a particular must-have piece that she didn’t expect.
The man who owned the business had retired and left Scavengers Paradise to his son. The son told her that he wanted to do something other than run the antique yard, and that he was planning to shut it down.
“I couldn’t let that happen, so I agreed to buy it,” she said. “I always joke with my friends, I came in to buy a door, and I walked out with a business and some debt.”
She’s at the store three or four days a week, with one of her three dogs, a 9-year-old three-legged boxer named Mike Brown, who functions as both a watchdog and customer service rep. The rest of the time her employees man the shop and she goes out in search of loot. She said that she spends anywhere from $10 to $5,000 on a single item.
She obtains her merchandise in a variety of ways. Many homeowners or contractors looking to tear down or remodel an old estate property will call Greyson to come bid on items. Other times people bring her things, and others she hears about and tracks down. Greyson doesn’t bother with estate sales; the prices are typically so high and most of the goods so picked over that it is nearly impossible for her to turn a profit on the high-end items that turn up.
“People will often have an idea of what they want for a piece, but sometimes they want way more than I could sell it for in the store,” Greyson said.
She has personally collected what she sees as Hollywood household treasures. Among the prizes are Gloria Swanson’s bathroom fixtures, an Irish Pine table that belonged to Marlon Brando, a glazed concrete fountain from the estate of William Randolph Hearst and furniture from the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel. She’s even got some odds and ends from one of Paula Abdul’s former homes.
Greyson insists whenever possible on knowing the history of an item, even if it involves a little homework on her part.
“I love knowing the provenance of the pieces,” she said. “I got an absolutely beautiful pair of chandeliers from Liberace’s house. People always think of him as being over the top, but the stuff from this house was just impeccable, I mean gorgeous.
“Especially in Los Angeles, it seems like there’s no heritage to anything so it’s really important for me to find those things out and pass them on. It doesn’t always make the piece more valuable but it’s cool information for me.”
Tight times ahead?
When she took over the business more than three years ago, Scavenger’s Paradise was doing about $75,000 in revenue. With her penchant for purchases, Greyson quickly quadrupled the inventory and has hiked revenue to about $200,000 a year.
High-end home and garden design has grown in popularity over the last several years, so Greyson got in at a good time. But with mortgage companies in trouble and local home sales taking a dive, Greyson could be seeing less business in the months to come.
“People are not turning over houses as fast as they did two years ago, and the number of people who can actually make a profit doing so has dwindled,” said Angela Bond, a residential agent with Prudential. “For a business that relies on clientele doing home upgrades or remodels for sale that could be quite damaging.”
Greyson said it is particularly frustrating when she has a potential buyer but is unable to deliver because she can’t put her hands on the items. Buyers with particular tastes can be problematic in a broader, simpler way, too.
“If you spend a great deal of money and try to make specific items the centerpiece of a remodeling job, one of the pitfalls can be that you are saying to potential buyer ‘I want you to pay for my taste’,” Bond said. “It can be difficult to have something truly stand out without going in a specific design direction, and that can potentially limit appeal.”
One way Greyson is trying to offset slow sales is through rentals to the movie studios. It’s cheaper for the set dressers to rent antiques or other pieces from Scavenger’s Paradise for a week that to buy or make replicas.
Studio rentals currently account for about 10 percent of her revenues. She’s trying to grow that to more like 30 percent, since it’s steady income.
She’s also started renting the unique space out for private parties: record industry and art events, birthdays, anniversaries, couples who are renewing their wedding vows, even a wake.
Last year Greyson hosted about 10 private parties; the going rate is about $2,500 to rent the space, depending on the event needs.
“It’s a magical place,” Greyson said. “It’s a unique spot to have a party and the setting is just amazing with all of the surroundings.”
