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California Dreamin'

Jill Goldberg knew exactly what she was aiming for when she opened Hudson, her new home furnishings shop in the South End. She wanted to offer products no one else in the city was selling. She wanted the furniture to reflect a mix of New England and California, both places she has lived. And she wanted it to feel like "you'd just walked into somebody's living room, and wanted to steal all their ideas."

Three days after the shop opened, the formula seems to be working. On an otherwise sleepy Wednesday afternoon, foot traffic is heavy and two of those feet belong to noted designer Dennis Duffy, who was earnestly surveying her goods.

"This was my dream," says Goldberg, a second-generation furniture retailer who grew up in Wellesley. (Her mother, Barbara Goldberg, is co-owner of the Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams store in Boston.) "I wanted to do a store of my own."

Goldberg, 31, didn't start out in the furniture world. She was an actress in Los Angeles until reality struck and she decided she needed a more solid career. "Sad as this is going to seem, I was watching Oprah one day, and she asked the question, 'What do you really want to do?' " Goldberg says. "I realized I wanted to go back to school for interior design. And that's when I dropped acting."

She studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising ("all the `Project Runway' people went there last season") and in 2002 moved back to Boston, where she started to think about opening a shop reflecting her geographical influences -- a "New England mentality and also LA sensibility."

The shop also reflects the fact that she takes her inspiration from everywhere, and not just Oprah. The store's name "Hudson," for example, was "very random," Goldberg says. "I was watching TV and they were doing a story on Hudson, Mass."

It also reflects her very eclectic tastes. Furniture lines range from Rachel Ashwell's "Shabby Chic" slipcovered pieces to Italian linen slipcovered sofas by Verellen , based in High Point, N.C. They range from high-end wood accent pieces by Brad Huntzinger and Kate McIntyre of Oly , based in California, to Jonathan Adler's modernist shapes. Hudson is also the exclusive retailer in Boston for Jonathan Adler wallpaper.

Accessories include lighting, rugs, antique soda bottles she'd picked up that morning at the Brimfield Antiques Show, pillows she designed made out of old feedbags, design and fashion books, soaps, candles, baby blankets, and quilts by Connecticut quiltmaker Denyse Schmidt. Another accessory in the shop (but not for sale) is the requisite dog, an increasingly common occurrence in furniture shops . This one is a chocolate lab named Love, and is ``the weekday dog," says Goldberg. ``Weekends we're open to all well-behaved dogs." -- LINDA MATCHAN

Hudson, 312 Shawmut Ave., Boston. 617-292-0900, www.hudsonboston.com.
Media Contact: Saverio Mancina at mancina1966@yahoo.com.

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