Wares for Your Place | Since 1978 The first Placewares opened in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1978, specializing (as it does to ... day) in wares for your place. It eventually grew to a chain of seven neighborhood stores around New England before its original owners' retirement in 2004. In 2005, a single Placewares store was opened in the California coastal town of Gualala, just north of fabled architectural community, The Sea Ranch. Now, in its 38th year, Placewares enters its latest chapter under the ownership of design enthusiasts Shev Rush and Kevin Lane, with continued operations in Gualala, an expanded and enhanced online store, a vibrant social media presence, and plans for a second location in Los Angeles opening in 2017. We continue to carry iconic designs from the store's four-decade history, including products from iittala, Marimekko, Heller, Chemex, Alessi, Normann Copenhagen, Bodum, and Chilewich. At the same time, we spend time each year searching at home and abroad for the very best products available in the categories you'll find here on the site. Placewares is also host to a gallery space showing an exciting, unusual and rotating mix of local California artists as well as internationally celebrated artists with works housed in the permanent collections of MOMA, Tate Modern, Art Institute of Chicago, LACMA, MOCA, SFMOMA, and The Menil Collection, among others. read more