If cool were decided by celebrity clientele alone, Santa Monica’s Moondance Jewelry Gallery could stake a fair claim to being the hippest store in America. Its list of Hollywood clients reads like the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard: Hilary Swank, Halle Berry, Reese Witherspoon, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Debra Messing, Kristin Davis, Danny DeVito, Sally Field, Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Alanis Morisette, Dustin Hoffman and Arnold Schwarzenegger (among others) have all browsed and bought inside its clean bare-wood interiors.

Moondance’s attraction — meticulously edited selection and tony shopping neighborhood aside — is that movie and music-industry stars can expect to be treated more or less like any other regular client, which means like a king, but in a relaxed, friendly way.

“Everyone has a camera-phone now, so there is really no escape for celebrities anymore. I think they want to feel normal,” says store owner, Orly Ohebsion. “We give them attention, but don’t hover. We just try to be helpful.”

Moondance wasn’t always such an A-list destination. It opened in 1989 as a small local store that specialized in the kind of sterling silver jewelry that was popular at the time. Purchased in 1996 by Ohebsion, who was just 22 at the time, the store gradually evolved into a community institution that offers a remarkable variety of fine jewelry lines including names such as H.Stern, Marco Biego, Hermes (watches) and Temple St. Clair as well as a large selection of costume and fashion jewelry like Me & Ro, Chan Luu, Dogeared, and Dana Kellin to accommodate smaller price points and gift purchases. In addition to the store’s “standing repertoire,” Ohebsion takes pride in finding new talents and stocks a number of local designers and up-and-coming artisans including Ariel Gordon, Sharon Kaplan, and Naomi Gray.

“I love doing the buying and curating and looking for value for my clients,” she says. “I want to find that well-made original piece of work that people will fall in love with.”

While such searching once involved a lot of traveling to trade shows and abroad, Ohebsion says more and more designers are now beating a path to her store’s doors. “We look at everyone’s work and choose smaller, new designers on the scene for our incubator groupings. Many times these designers will expand their collections based on the success in our store,” she says, listing Sara Horne, Leah Alexandra, Margaret Solow and CC Skye as some the newer designers she is carrying at the moment.

Ohebsion says she fell in love with Moondance and the local area, while working part-time at the store while in college. “Montana Avenue is a very unique neighborhood, very residential, with lots of small boutiques and cafes. People are always walking; walking their dogs, walking to the beach. The area has a great vibe, a great feel. You forget you’re in LA.”

The store has a similar breezy spirit and Ohebsion says she jumped at the chance to buy it when it came on the market not long after she’d joined her family’s non-jewelry business upon graduating from college. “I think the owner was glad it was going to some someone who ‘got it.’” While her celebrity clientele gives the store a glamorous edge, it is the regular customers who are its lifeblood. “They are like me, someone who is part of the community, a mother rushing around, a woman who buys for herself, who loves to have beautiful things, or who needs a special gift for someone or who is celebrating a milestone in her own life.”

Such repeat customers — who might drop in while on the way to their yoga studio — make up as much as 85 percent of Moondance’s client base, meaning staying fresh is critical.

To do this Ohebsion is constantly rotating her lineup. She uses a lot of memo as well as trade-outs with designers.

In addition to jewelry, she has also expanded to offer accessories such as scarves, candles and handbags. “Sometimes jewelry is too personal to be a gift and a scarf is just the right answer,” she says.

The success of the formula developed by Ohebsion can be seen in the store’s longevity — it is one of the longest lasting stores on Montana Avenue, a notoriously tough retail strip with some of the highest retail rents in Los Angeles and a high turnover rate among tenants.