In Athens, an Apartment's Street Style IF it's Sunday morning in Athens, Peter Poulos will most likely be on his way to the flea market. In five years of living in Greece, he has rarely missed it. Costas Picadas Peter Poulos has filled the dining room in his Athens apartment with vintage finds: a French wine-tasting table; a 1920s chandelier; Matteo Thun Slide chairs; and a blue-painted side table from the street. More Photos  His 1,500-square-foot apartment here has been the beneficiary of those trips, which have yielded a lively, eclectic mix that includes prison art as well as Rosenthal dinnerware. "With the exception of the khaki-covered sofa, gray Habitat side table and the very real, very heavy Arco floor lamp by Flos, most of the furniture in the living room has been literally picked off the street," Mr. Poulos said. In addition to flea markets, he has scavenged dumpsters, sidewalk sales, thrift and antique shops, and church bazaars all over the world. His apartment is in one of the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhoods in the world - in Plaka, which is in central Athens, near the base of the Acropolis. Mr. Poulos rents it for 1,100 euros (or about $1,450) a month. For the past two years, he has heard the sounds of protest through his open windows (he is four blocks from Syntagma Square), but he maintains a sense of optimism. "Athens has its own unique energy," he said. There's something really life-affirming about a traffic jam at 5 a.m. It's not that Mr. Poulos, 46, isn't concerned about the country's financial woes, or that he is disconnected from politics. The early part of his career was devoted to political fund-raising, working for Bob Kerrey and Paul Simon during their Senate runs. Then he moved into nonprofits, raising money for amfAR, the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union. His latest venture is Navarino Icons, a new line of traditional Greek food from Costa Navarino Resort, sold at Dean & DeLuca. He is a consultant for the resort and a partner in the food line. Mr. Poulos, a third-generation Greek-American, moved to Athens from San Francisco in 2007. But he maintains a storage unit in San Francisco - in addition to another in Athens and a space he borrows in a friend's basement in the Hamptons, in New York. This reporter recently got a look at the latter space, where he has stashed away an impressive collection of items: a sea of chairs, including Bertoia and early metal-framed Baker pieces; stacks of paintings and pottery; a number of quirky wooden tables; and an old potter's wheel. But some of the best finds are in his apartment. It's a space most New Yorkers would envy, complete with a foyer, dining room, living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and three balconies, from which he can see an 11th-century Byzantine church and numerous neo-Classical buildings. Eleni Karapa, a local architect, renovated the place before he moved in. "She preserved all the old elements of the apartment - plaster decoration, tiles, pocket doors - while updating it for the 21st century," he said. That created an ideal backdrop for pieces like an old French wine-tasting table he found at a flea market in San Francisco, which became the focal point of the dining room. And the wooden chairs handmade by one man on the island of Rhodes, which sit in the kitchen. And the classic taverna chair he found on the street, which occupies one of the balconies. "In Greece, you're supposed to pay attention to your dreams, because there's energy around that seeps into your consciousness - even inanimate objects have meaning," Mr. Poulos said. When I see a chair on the street, I believe it belongs in a home. He added, "These objects choose me as much as I choose them."