​ MOST OF THE TIME, if you move to a new city far away from the one you grew up in, you end up making another kind of family: the family of beloved friends. I’ve now done this twice, both in New Yorkand in Los Angeles. This family, not theone you were born into, is the one you choose—and it chooses you. When I first started spending time in Los Angeles, Dominick Dunne said, “Alex, you’ll only need ONE friend out there. Through that one, you’ll meet EVERYBODY.” Early on—like,

​ Since 1984, uber-decorators like Peter Marino, Brian McCarthy, and Ellie Cullman have flocked to New York’s Chinese Porcelain Company for ne plus ultra 18th Century Fine French Furniture, period export ceramics, and important Asian lacquer pieces—essential elements to create Grand English Country House Style or Le Style Rothschild—the only look for the moneyed potentates of the ’80s and ’90s. But tastes shift with the times: while venerable dealers like Segoura in Paris, an