Russell Whitmore, owner of new jewelry store/antique shop Erie Basin has mastered the gorgeous decorative arrangement. He shows us how to create the same effect at home. By Elise Loehnen

Just four months after opening his store’s doors—located in slightly far-flung Red Hook—Russell Whitmore is already having trouble keeping his jewelry shop (which doubles as a gallery for antique home goods) stocked.

Whitmore scours East Coast estate sales and flea markets for gorgeous jewelry like rose-gold baby rings inset with flecks of turquoise and 19th-century mourning bands made from plaited hair. He then mixes these items with new, old-feeling goods—oxidized-steel pendants cast after wings, forged titanium earrings—from designers like Paul DeBlassie IV and Philip Crangi. And while the mix, which includes Nymphenburg porcelain figurines and nearly translucent mother-of-pearl serving ware, seems precious, you can pick up most of the offerings for less than $250.

In his nearby one-bedroom apartment, which Whitmore shares with his girlfriend, he takes the same vignette-creating, color-coordinating approach. “A chain hanging on a wall often has as much aesthetic appeal as a framed painting,” he explains. “I like to surround myself with purely decorative items.” In his home, a bunny-shaped sculpture (at right, which Whitmore made by hammering bark onto a piece of wood with flat silver nails) sits on a similarly hued chair, draped with two gold belts. A grouping of bronze candlesticks of rests nearby. “I pay a lot of attention to the interplay of objects,” he explains, “what the pairing of different materials, or pieces of a different period or origin, evokes.”

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