Bettie Woody opened her antiques shop on North Glassell Street in Old Towne Orange in 1989, not long after retiring from a three decade career in Disneyland’s marketing department, and the store she started with her son Bret, who went by Woody, grew into one of Southern California’s best known sources for Heywood-Wakefield and Danish mid-century modern furniture. Located at 169 North Glassell Street, in the heart of Orange’s historic antique district near the traffic circle, Woody’s Antiques built a following among collectors, interior designers, and even movie and television production teams searching for authentic period pieces rather than reproductions, a reputation reflected in decades of praise from mid-century furniture enthusiasts and design writers who singled the shop out among Orange County’s many antique dealers.
Both Bettie and her son Bret passed away, with Bret’s death reported by the Orange County Register in April 2024 at age sixty five, marking the end of an era for a shop that had operated under direct family ownership for thirty five years. Rather than closing for good, the business has continued under longtime furniture refinisher Luis, who has worked on pieces for Woody’s Antiques for twenty seven years and has pledged to carry the shop forward in Bettie and Woody’s honor, a transition the shop’s own social media accounts have documented for followers who grew attached to the family behind the storefront over the decades.
What set Woody’s Antiques apart from general antique malls was its specific, disciplined focus on mid-century design rather than a broad mix of eras and styles. Collectors searching specifically for Heywood-Wakefield’s blonde birch furniture or clean lined Danish modern pieces have long pointed to Woody’s as a dependable source, distinct from the more eclectic Victorian and farmhouse leaning shops that make up much of Old Towne Orange’s antique row along Glassell Street. That specialization, paired with Luis’s decades of hands on refinishing experience, means pieces leaving the shop often carry restoration work done by someone who trained directly under the original owners. Reviewers who shopped the store before the ownership transition consistently rated the experience highly, citing both the quality of the furniture and Bettie’s own encyclopedic knowledge of the pieces passing through her hands.
Old Towne Orange itself has long functioned as one of the county’s most concentrated antique shopping districts, with dozens of dealers clustered within a few walkable blocks around the historic traffic circle, and Woody’s Antiques was among the names collectors mentioned first when the conversation turned to mid-century specifically rather than antiques in general. That reputation was built gradually over decades, through word of mouth among interior designers and repeat customers rather than heavy advertising, the kind of standing that tends to outlast any single owner when a shop is carried forward with genuine care rather than sold off or shuttered.
For collectors of mid-century and Danish modern furniture, Woody’s Antiques remains a name associated with authenticity and expertise built over thirty five years in Old Towne Orange, now carried forward by the craftsman who helped build that reputation from the workshop rather than the sales floor. Woody’s Antiques is a mid-century modern and Heywood-Wakefield furniture specialist in Old Towne Orange, founded in 1989 by Bettie and Bret Woody and continued today by longtime refinisher Luis in their honor.
