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From Flame to Flicker: Inside a Working Neon Shop

You walk into a neon shop expecting nostalgia. You leave thinking about chemistry, electricity, municipal zoning codes, and 1940s craftsmanship. That’s what happened when I toured Morry’s Neon, a family business opened in 1985 by Morry and his son Glen, a business built on a neon legacy that began in 1946 when Morry first started bending glass. Established the same year America decided diners, drive-ins, and optimism were perfectly reasonable things to mass-produce, Morry’s has

Route 66 at 100: Why the Centennial Is Igniting a New Era of Retro Road Trips

As the Route 66 Centennial approaches, something interesting is happening. This isn’t just an anniversary tour or a nostalgia lap. It’s a full-scale reawakening of interest in the American road trip—one rooted in history, preservation, and the lived experience of the road itself. The centennial is acting like a spotlight, illuminating not just the highway, but the stories, architecture, roadside culture, and communities that grew up along it. And people are paying attention. Travelers want

Los Angeles Potteries: A Whimsical Walk Through Mid-Century Ceramic Dreams

From our retro coffee table to yours comes a great book – an awesome gift or something to pour over in our own home! Suppose you’ve ever spotted a cookie jar shaped like a hamburger or a canister set with tropical fruit motifs and thought, “I remember that design!” or “I have to have that design!”. In that case, you’ll want to get your hands on Los Angeles Potteries: A Collector’s Journey through Artistry, Craft,

El Cortez Hotel: Where Vintage Vegas Still Lives

Opened in 1941, the El Cortez Hotel & Casino is one of Las Vegas’s oldest operating casinos — and one of its most authentic. In a city obsessed with reinvention, the El Cortez is a rare survivor, maintaining its vintage spirit while still feeling alive and relevant. Preservation That Matters In 2013, the El Cortez earned its place on the National Register of Historic Places, and it’s easy to see why. The building’s Spanish Colonial

Decorating the kid’s rooms with Mid-Century Style!

Mid-century is a design style that may seem boring to your kids because it’s all about simplicity and minimalism. However, there are many interactive furniture additions that can help you stick with the mid-century motif while keeping your children’s rooms fun. When designing children’s rooms, you must take safety and durability into consideration. What might work for your master bedroom might not work for your kids’ space. Instead of using glass, stick to plastic and

The airline chair and a tribute to Modern Design

Lisa Hix at Collectors Weekly was nice enough to point out this awesome article (I hope some of you will attend the show and send back a full report!): Kem Weber: The Mid-Century Modern Designer Who Paved the Way for IKEA By Ben Marks and Lisa Hix When most people think of Mid-Century Modern, they conjure images of kidney-shaped coffee tables, boomerang-patterned lampshades, and wall clocks that explode in starbursts and other radiating designs. But

Dome Theaters in San Jose in danger!

In danger of demolition are the Winchester Theaters, a group of dome-shaped movie theaters which opened nearly 50 years ago showing It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to herald both the space age and new cinema. The buildings—originally called the Century Theaters—were the first theaters of their kind. Designed by San Francisco architect Vincent Raney and opened between 1964 and 1966 to accommodate a new widescreen technology called Cinerama that was developed to help theaters

Googie and neon sign preservation and museums

One of our favorite mid-century things are Googie signs. There are plenty of photos out there, but one thing is certain and it’s that they’re a dying breed and ripe for preservation efforts. In case you’re not familiar with the term, “Googie” architecture, approximately from 1950-1970, is a futuristic or ultramodern derivative of art moderne and International Style architecture, originating in California in the late 1940s. While using the materials and design vocabulary of other