This home expert lights up people’s lives

Just as an accessory can complement an outfit, lighting fixtures can be the finishing touches to a home.

This is the illuminating philosophy of Sherwin Kim, who owns the lighting showroom Linden Rose & Co. in Corona del Mar.

“Lighting is the jewelry of the home,” the Newport Beach resident said recently, surrounding by his boutique’s glistening chandeliers, silver sconces and vintage brass pendants.

He should know. Not only does he run a successful shop, but in his earlier career as a designer, Kim created designs for Pottery Barn, Z Gallerie, Tommy Hilfiger and many other top brands.

Kim’s retail outlet has brightened the corner of East Coast Highway and Orchid Avenue for almost five years with its 400-plus lighting fixtures in traditional, casual, European and industrial styles.

The shop attracts local retail customers as well as interior designers and architects, said Kim, who runs the store with his wife of 33 years, Donna, and interior designer Annie Tran. It carries designers Ralph Lauren, Thomas O’Brien, Barbara Barry and Alexa Hampton, and is the biggest store in California offering Visual Comfort & Co., a premier resource for signature designer lighting.

Linden Rose & Co. recently welcomed the addition of designer Kelly Wearstler’s lighting collection, which was launched in June. The Wearstler display ranges from art deco and mid-century French to pop and California cool.

Wearstler, who has designed properties for the Viceroy Hotels and Resorts chain and for star clients including Gwen Stefani and Cameron Diaz, collaborated with Visual Comfort & Co. to feature a line of ceiling fixtures, sconces and floor and table lamps.

The Los Angeles-based designer, who is known for pushing boundaries and coming up with world-class interiors, made a private appearance this month at the Corona del Mar lighting shop to sign copies of her fourth hardcover, “Rhapsody.”

Kim said he was shocked when he got a call from executives at Visual Comfort & Co. asking him to host Wearstler and a book signing at his shop.

“I thought it was a joke,” he said with a laugh. Wearstler signed 120 books and engaged for several minutes with each visitor, he said.

Kim started his design career by creating ceramic lighting fixtures with two friends out of a buddy’s Costa Mesa garage off Wilson Avenue in the 1970s. The three began selling the products at craft fairs and swap meets.

A chance meeting with a buyer from J.C. Penney at a fair scored the friends a start in 17 of the chain’s department stores. Eventually their goods were being sold at 180 J.C. Penney locations.

Kim and his two business partners, still operating out of the friend’s garage, added a shade machine — to be able to manufacture all the parts of a lighting fixture — and a packaging center.

“Trucking companies couldn’t believe they were pulling up to a residence,” he said. “It looked like a legitimate business. All day, we’d be wiring, eating and watching television.”

The wholesale business eventually moved to a leased building in Costa Mesa and then a 56,000-square-feet office in Santa Ana, where Kim and his partners soon filled a void in the ceramic lighting category.

They began creating designs for Pottery Barn, Bed Bath & Beyond, Neiman Marcus’ Horchow and defunct stores like Bullock’s and Buffum’s.

Business slowed in the early ‘90s when companies were moving out of state as California’s environmental regulations grew stronger, Kim said.

He resigned from the manufacturing company in 1994 and started another business, designing and developing products overseas.

For 16 years, Kim traveled extensively, making eight trips to China a year and 40 trips domestically to design merchandise for Wal-Mart, Crate and Barrel, Tommy Hilfiger and Z Gallerie, among others.

The extensive travel overseas proved too much, but a trip to Paris with his wife sparked an idea for a retail lighting shop.

Instead of visiting the Palace of Versailles, Kim photographed the City of Light’s boutique storefronts. He had it in mind that he wanted to create a high-quality and sophisticated store that catered to classic designs.

He did. And he still makes custom pieces.

“Lighting changed from being functional to being decorative,” Kim said. “And we want people to have pieces that are timeless and that last forever.”