There is something emblematic about a man who goes upstairs in his own home by means of a gilded elevator—especially when that man is Joel Chen, the Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-raised antiques mogul with the Midas touch. “The go-to guy for celebrities, set designers, interior decorators and ladies who lunch for antiques,” says Matthew Donaldson, director of today’s film. “He’s ostensibly a family man running his own business, but living in this quite extremely treated suburban LA home.” The self-taught maverick collector famously founded his eponymous store, JF Chen, over 35 years ago in retaliation to not being allowed to enter a ‘trade only’ antiques shop. It proved to be a fateful rebuff, with Chen quickly attaining a reputation as a purveyor of Asian rarities. Since then, his areas of expertise have diversified and expanded into an encyclopedic knowledge of old-world décor, 20th-century modernism and contemporary furniture. Today, JF Chen operates out of three sprawling warehouses packed to the rafters with a wildly eclectic collection of furniture and objets d’art from all over the world. Gaining rare access to Chen’s home, Donaldson discovered it to be the perfect antidote to the transience of the shop floor: an impeccably tidy, calm space with a carefully curated mix-match of pieces that hold personal significance for this titan of interiors—but all of which he would part with for the right price. “It was more about an overall aesthetic and mood rather than individual pieces,” explains Donaldson. “He has great knowledge and amazing confidence but no attachment or sentimentality where his pieces are concerned.”