On the other hand, Jayne keeps himself honest, as it were, by stubbornly holding on to cherished items that no decorator would recommend to a client, like his bed, the one he's slept in since his childhood in Los Angeles. “I've always found a way to make it work.” Many of his influences are from his childhood, as well. Down the street there was a European couple who filled their house with formidable Dutch antiques lightened up by the white pull-down shades painted by the lady of the house in bold colors,” after Picasso.” Another neighbor, a window dresser at Bullocks Wilshire, lived in a modern redwood house with concrete floors that she polished and tinted a deep reddish pink. Her furniture (at a time when the work of the Eameses, who also lived in the neighborhood, was all the rage) was Victorian and Beidermeier; her carpets were Persian. On the wall were photographic blowups of landscapes (left over from the store windows), and on the tables were Chinese export bowls full of dried-out lemons. When Jayne once helpfully filled the bowl with fresh lemons, he says, his neighbor “made me retrieve the old ones —she liked the color better.” The experience made a major impression on Jayne.

A stuffed crow named Jake presides over one corner of the study, top left. The vase next to Jake belonged to Ellis's great-grandmother and once sat on her front porch. Although Jayne's eclectic approach to decorating is quite contemporary, he has no fear of using blatantly old-fashioned elements like the yellow lampas fabric on the daybed, or the tontine roller shades. Their Greek key borders were stenciled by the artist Lucretia Moroni.

   In his own space there is evidence of the same visual precision, as well as what he calls “the whimsy” of color-splashed shades. “We're using things that are historical and traditional,” Jayne says, “but I really think we're modern. And everything we do has a sense of humor.” Yes, but is humor a quality he can transfer to his client? “Well,” he replies, “You can't give someone a sense of humor, but you can suggest a charming idea. Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.”