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New shop offers `Shabby Chic' Photo by Bob Pennell The showroom at 24 Pont, a Jacksonville home furnishings store, is reflected in a 1910 Barbola Victorian mirror. 24 Pont opens its second store in Jacksonville By BILL VARBLE JACKSONVILLE -- Cathy Anglin and Patricia Bray couldn't believe it when they saw the movie, "You've Got Mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. There in Ryan's character's apartment was their look: Shabby Chic with Palais Royal. The two Jacksonville women just opened 24 Pont, a home furnishings store, in the building on Jacksonville's East California Street occupied for many years by Country Quilts. It's the partners' second shop, across the street from another 24 Pont, their first shop, a bed and bath store they opened Sept. 1. The film's designers mixed Shabby Chic, which is sold in one 24 Pont, with Palais Royal, a line of French bedding that's sold in the other 24 Pont. Entering the furniture store, you face an elegant 90-inch sofa with champagne chenille slipcovers. A little fountain gurgles. Pictures line the walls. Stuffed into a cozy 600 square feet is enough furniture to fill three rooms: plump sofas, seductive easy chairs, accent pieces like crafty little Victorian mirrors with gessoed frames ($275) or ornate little hand-painted French lamps ($395 rewired for American current). Shabby Chic was developed by Santa Monica, Calif., designer Rachel Ashwell, starting a decade ago, and it's a look that's caught on in tony circles. Call it elegant but relaxed country furniture. Call it pricey. The champagne couch is $3,712, which is kind of the middle of the range. The chairs and sofas come with slipcovers, which give them a cozy feel and also offer versatility. "You can pull that off and throw it in the washer and put it back on," Bray says. "You can have a whim and switch your furniture." 24 Pont is just the 21st store in the United States authorized to sell Shabby Chic, a trademark of Rachel Ashwell Design. "Everything's faded," says Anglin. "Like Grandma's house. But you can dress it up and give it an elegant look." Anglin and Bray are already hearing from shoppers who like Shabby Chic and probably won't soon be visiting the nearest other stores, which are in Santa Monica, Calif., and Chicago, Ill. A woman from Eugene bought a $2000 chair the other day, and a woman from Jackson Hole, Wyo., ordered a chair and a couch. Bray and Anglin don't sell their floor stock, so everything is custom ordered and drop-shipped anyway. They'll have a Web site soon. Look for 24pont.com in a month or so. The two friends started talking about going into business together about four years ago. "We knew we wanted to do something," Anglin says. Their look is less funky than Ashwell's, a little dressier. Neither is a seamstress. Anglin, 35, sold real estate and has a background in commercial design. Bray, 50, originally from Newport Beach, is a weaver with a strong textiles background. She and her husband made cabinets for the Sony and Infinity firms for years, but as she says, "My love is textiles." "We just threw our skills together," Anglin says. "There were three things we were going to have come hell or high water. Shabby Chic, Lady Primrose (a line of fragrance and body lotions) and Palais Royal. The "Pont" comes from the street in London's Nightsbridge borough where Bray went to a finishing school in the 1960s. The partners don't think it's particularly brave to go with upper-end furnishings in Southern Oregon. They see the furniture store as a natural outgrowth of the fabric store. "It was a necessity," Anglin says. "People would come in the store across the street and ask where they could get furniture to go with the look." "It's just a little extension," Bray says. Anyway, they like it. "Just because we live in a small town doesn't mean we don't have taste," Anglin says. The partners say they have one hard-and-fast rule: Nothing comes in the door unless they love it. Today's Business Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA