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The curving staircase embraces intriguing art: a 1953 Picasso ceramic, Bearded Man's Wife, and a mixed-media work by Paul Fryer, which includes an early-20th-century gramophone and a continuous-loop video of the artist. The dining room is an artful remix of styles and eras: traditional crystal chandelier from David Sutherland, Damien Hirst's Ferrocene (household gloss on canvas, 2008) and Georgian-style pedestal table of Honduran mahogany from Arthur Brett (London). But the true stars of the room are the suave chairs from Dean Martin's Palm Springs home — and don't you wish they could talk. Stubbs' treasured Kroehler turquoise sectional holds its own against more famous company: a pair of Knoll Brno chairs and a Richard Meier coffee table. The Gibson guitars were partial payment for a Basquiat drawing. Rug from West Elm. In the living room, twin Dunbar armchairs from the Dallas mayor's office, circa 1980, face off beneath an Emily Allchurch hand-tinted image based on a Whistler work; illuminated from above and behind, it varies so much that "it's like three works in one," Stubbs says. Fronting the bookcase is a photo of Jasper Johns by Dennis Hopper. Tumbling Rings side tables from Mecox Gardens. It certainly isn't the most impressive piece in her artcentric Greenway Parks home: a fading magazine ad for an L-shaped Kroehler sofa, a sweep of nubby turquoise with button tufting and sleek tapered legs. "I bid $22 for it on eBay," says Kristy Stubbs. "I thought I was bidding on the sofa." She did find the sofa, with its original upholstery, and added a vintage Gibson guitar propped against the back cushions like a throw pillow. It's one of six instruments she acquired from a collector in partial payment for a Basquiat drawing. "My sons play, so I knew I could do something with them," she explains. Here's what makes this home and its owner unique: Both have an engaging, unfussy approach to high-profile art and highly collectible furniture. From the François Malbreil painting just inside the front door — found at a Paris art market — to the stairway's scrolling iron vines and the dining chairs from NOVEMBER | PAGE 53 | 2012 Dean Martin's Palm Springs hideaway, Stubbs has created witty and sophisticated spaces that reflect her lofty position in the international art market and, more subtly, her roots in Athens, Texas. With her eponymous 18-year-old gallery in West Highland Park and its pop-up sibling at Highland Park Village, Stubbs is a local and international go-to source for postwar and contemporary art for headliners from Damien Hirst to José-María