There’s no sign outside Mid-Century Miranda in downtown Azusa, but it’s easy to spot the recently opened vintage furniture store from the street. A gleaming orange-and-white Brown Jordan patio set is visible through the windows long before you enter. Step inside and you’ll find a turquoise blue midcentury couch on a platform, a curving Dr. Seuss-style tree in a vintage planter and a ’60s-era clear glass ice bucket shaped like a cowboy hat.
By the look of the 1,400-square-foot shop, it’s clear that Tony Miranda, who opened the Azusa store in March with his son Anthony, is drawn to bright and unusual midcentury pieces. What is perhaps less obvious is that the smiling, 58-year-old explaining the Australian provenance of a tropical easy chair is a retired police chief who served in Bell, Irwindale and, most recently, Vernon.
“I was very blessed to be in law enforcement for 30 years,” he said on a recent Friday, relaxing on a pristine Italian sectional from the 1970s situated at the front of the store. “But this is refreshing.”
It’s certainly a change of pace. In his former career as police chief, Miranda was responsible for managing a $13- to $15-million budget, helping poorly run departments get up to speed, overseeing internal investigations and providing public safety in the midst of COVID-19 and increasing civil unrest. The most difficult time in his career was when he was tasked with rehabbing the Bell Police Department, where he had served as captain, after a local government scandal involving the misappropriation of funds rocked the city.
And yet, he said that as a vintage furniture dealer, he’s busier than he’s been in a decade, traversing the city and state to pick up chaise lounges and sofas, dining tables and patio sets, getting them refurbished and delivering them to customers.
“I’ll tell you, it’s more work than I ever did in recent memory because it’s like being the chief — everything starts and ends with me — but I don’t have lieutenants, I don’t have a secretary, I have to manage my own schedule,” he said. “But I’m really enjoying it.”
Miranda’s love affair with vintage furniture began in 2015, six years before he left the force. He and his wife, who also worked in law enforcement, had just bought a condo in Palm Springs and started to decorate in what they thought was midcentury style, most of which came from Target.
But as they spent more time in the desert, they started to covet what he calls “the good stuff,” buying and accumulating more authentic pieces.
“It’s like a virus,” Miranda said. “I was bit. We kept switching things out and switching things out and next thing I know I have a garage full of stuff.”
On a whim, he decided to see if he could sell some of the vintage glassware, dishes, chairs and tables he’d collected. He asked a friend with a pickup to help him haul what they could fit to the Palm Springs Vintage Market, and in one afternoon he made $3,000. That was in 2016 and he’s been selling monthly at the Palm Springs Vintage Market and other places ever since. When he opened the store in Azusa, his midcentury hobby officially became a second career.
“It really goes away from hobby when you are shopping for business insurance and insurance for your truck,” he said. “It got real, real fast.”
Mid-Century Miranda is a family affair. Miranda’s wife, who still works at the district attorney’s office, helps him source items when she can. His sister-in-law, niece, nephew and two daughters pitch in at the markets. And his youngest son, Anthony, 28, who went to FIDM after high school before working for a few years as a cop in Palm Springs, is now working for the business full-time.
Father and son don’t always see eye-to-eye. Tony likes to make decisions organically; Anthony is more strategic. But they say their perspectives compliment each other.
You’ll find a range of items and price points at the new store. On a recent visit, I admired an unsigned piece of ’70s glazed pottery that was selling for $25 and a Hans Wegner Papa Bear chair and foot stool newly reupholstered in leather that was selling for $22,500. The Italian sectional that Tony was sitting on when we spoke had undulating seats in molded plastic, and was marked at around $9,000. The glass ice bucket shaped like a hat was $90.
Patio furniture, especially Brown Jordan’s aluminum pieces with vinyl straps, is a special passion. Although there is only one set on display at the store, Miranda said he has dozens of pieces stacked in his backyard ready to be sandblasted, powder-coated and restrapped so that they look good as new.
“You tell me what you’re looking for and I probably have it,” he said.
Father and son say they are still discovering exactly what will work best in their store. It hasn’t always been easy so far — the overhead of a brick-and-mortar store is new, and they haven’t yet developed the same sized clientele they have in Palm Springs. But the elder Miranda said that with many of his former colleagues working in executive security, he’s glad to have found another path.
“It’s a completely different lens,” he said. “No one is going to die if I drop a vase. ”
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