From pink slip to playful kitsch at Bungalow Marcasso

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Getting laid off blows, but when your severance check covers two years of unemployment with enough scratch left over to open a business (and be your own boss), the pink slip doesn’t sound so terrible. Just ask Mark Sutherland, owner of Bungalow Marcasso.

The 47-year-old Long Beach resident was working as an executive assistant at Sony Pictures when his entire division was canned. Sutherland initially considered moving to Europe until his money ran out, but decided to take less time off and later open a business. The recent celebration of his store’s two-year anniversary proves he made the right choice.

Since opening, Bungalow Marcasso has become a staple in the Broadway Design District, a stretch of land between Molino and Redondo avenues featuring retail outlets that sell home accessories. The area has seen some changes, like the closings of Broadway Market, District K and a nearby kitchen cabinet store—Surya Gallerie, too, is considering a move down the street—but a few new additions to the neighborhood keep Sutherland optimistic.

“Within the next six months to a year,” Sutherland says, “this whole area is going to change. The corner store and Broadway Market were just purchased, and an Italian coffee bar is going where [Vanguard Collectibles] was. We’re hoping more people will want to do more stores. I think it will happen because it’s a destination. If there’s a parking space open, people will stop.”

Sutherland attributes part of his store’s success to the bungalow itself, a 1917 Craftsman that’s home to an array of kitchenware, candles, artwork and backyard items like fountains and plants. Inside, customers have the opportunity to view merchandise in a natural setting. But the owner says he’s not the first to conduct business from this location.

“An elderly guy told me he remembers it was a real estate agency in the 1940s,” Sutherland says. “After that it was an antique store for 35 years and between the antique store and me it was small garden shop where I used to shop for my dad’s Christmas gifts.”

Bungalow Marcasso is filled from top to bottom with merchandise from more than 50 countries. As guests enter the living room, they are greeted by a six-foot vase, Tiffany lamps, Nicaraguan vases, jewelry and Peruvian reverse-painted glass, while the dining area is where shoppers find cigars, ash trays, Penzo pottery, cookbooks, flasks and wine glasses. The bedroom (or den, depending on who you talk to) directly to the right of the front door stocks a variety of traditional and battery-operated candles, and the adjacent sunroom is home to a large peacock painting from Indonesia and stuffed animals.

Elsewhere, artistic shells and works depicting Long Beach and Hawaii line the walls of a hallway that leads to a second bedroom, where wall art, European canes, Asian furniture and lamps are on display. But my favorite section of the home is the kitchen, with its amusing selection of salt and pepper shakers and cookie jar busts of Elvis and the Lone Ranger and Silver. From there, the busy motif spills into the backyard, where customers find bird baths and backyard fountains of various shapes and sizes from Avila’s Garden Art in Fontana. Lastly, the garage is where Sutherland keeps umbrellas and smaller, Zen-inspired waterfalls, perhaps for those without the money or space to afford a massive fixture.

Other retailers might take the “less is more” approach, but Sutherland says his business resembles the way he lives at home. “I’ve always been a collector,” he says. “My homes have always looked like this. If there was an empty spot, it had to be filled with something. This is everything I like. This is me.”

BUNGALOW MARCASSO 2720 E BROADWAY | LONG BEACH 90803 | 562.212.6735 | BUNGALOWMARCASSO.COM

Tags: broadway, bungalow marcasso, Long Beach, shopping