The Beaded Lady

A design fairytale come true at I tesori.

By Carol Tisch

If you’ve been haunted by the Murano glass treasures you passed up in Venice, you’ll stop fretting the minute you walk into I tesori. This sophisticated little shop in aptly-named San Marco Plaza (in Lakewood Ranch) offers a smattering of all the best of Italian decorative arts, including Murano glass in everything from contemporary vases to stunning new interpretations of Old World chandeliers.

Managing partner Anthony Vento tells a story about a jewelry designer known as the Lady from Venice. Her necklaces are best sellers in the store, each one of a kind, and hand beaded or woven of beads that look like brilliantly colored gems, but are actually Murano glass. Anthony says the woman, an American, had been an artist and an interior designer before she was seduced by Venice– so smitten on her first visit that she gave up her career, her friends and her home to live the rest of her life along the Grand Canal.

Necklaces by Dale Levy.

Was this fairytale true? Who has the chutzpah to act on impulse with such abandon -- with no certain paycheck, no friends, and just a few acquaintances in a foreign city? Today I learned the answer: I met Dale Levy- the Lady from Venice (by way of Los Angeles and Santa Fe).

Dale Levy points out some beads she designed.

“I went on a trip 20 years ago and ended up staying,” Levy confirmed. My best friends are still the people I met the first three weeks I was in Venice,” she says. I tesori sells so much of her stuff that Levy comes to Lakewood Ranch twice a year to do trunk shows. Though her studio in Venice is just behind St Mark’s square, she was at the other San Marco (the one with the Lakewood Ranch zip code) all day Friday and Saturday, May 16 and 17, holding court with her fans.

Carol Tisch, Anthony Vento and Dale Levy at the i tesori trunk show.

“What inspired you to make jewelry from Murano glass?” I had to know.

“The color and light inspired me,” she said. “ And I was inspired by a show I saw at a gallery in New York. Three quarters of what was selling was sculptural.”

Some of i tesori's selection of beads and baubles.

i-tesori was decked out with myriad one-of-a-kind necklaces from $120 to $400 depending on the complexity of the beads, some designed by Levy and hand-blown to her specifications. “Bead-making is a carriage trade in Venice,” she explained. “I travel all over Murano to source these beads from artists who would never open their studios to consumers,” she said. Foiled, but not daunted, I asked about her favorite restaurants.

“That’s easy – Masaron and Oliva Nera. “Just ask the families who own these restaurants to make what they want for you,” she said. “But the crab pasta at Masaron is to die for.” So are the necklaces.

I tesori, 8215 Nature’s Way, Suite 113, San Marco Plaza, Lakewood Ranch, (941) 907-9296

Posted: 5/18/2008 3:49:31 PM | 0 comments

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