Dennis and Debra Scholl, among Miami's top contemporary art collectors, should be more frazzled right now. Their house off the Venetian Causeway is a jumble. The furniture has been pushed out of the way and workers are traipsing through every room wielding hammers. There's art coming, art going, art stacked against every wall.

''I love change,'' an oddly composed Debra says while three guys wearing heavy work gloves scoop up fistfuls of straight pins and shake them out over a big open crate to rebuild a sculpture by New York artist Tara Donovan.

There's something soothing about the sound of all those pins (an alleged two million of them) being poured by hand into a mold for two full days to complete a stunning silver cube. That lulling little noise -- like a perpetually turning rain stick -- may be helping the Scholls cope with the fact that the house is a huge mess and in about 24 hours there will be more than 200 guests, plus the usual crashers, coming for their annual ''rehanging'' party. The event has become one of the hottest tickets in the local art scene and the unofficial kickoff to Art Basel season.

Truth is, the Scholls love this kind of chaos. This is the 10th year that they invite a prominent curator to change all the art in their house, which may be where they sleep, but which belongs more to their collection than to them.

''Over time, it's become more of a museum with a bed in it,'' the usually laid-back Dennis says.

When one curator asked them to get rid of the fireplace in the living room so he could hang a giant piece on that wall, the Scholls didn't blink -- they permanently covered one of the house's best features with an uninterrupted white wall. When another curator eyed the media room, the Scholls easily gave in, removing the fancy electronics and cushy seating so the room could be turned into a gallery.

'The curator said, `There's only two of you. You can sit upstairs to watch TV,' '' says Debra, leading you to the small alcove, adjacent to the master bedroom, where TV watching has been relegated to. There's room for two chairs, a modest TV, not much else.

GETTING THE BUG

The Scholls, attorneys and real estate investors, met in 1978 on their first day of law school at the University of Miami (they were seated alphabetically. Scholl, Schwartz.) They were bitten by the art collecting bug while still in school, both taking part-time jobs at an art gallery in The Falls that ''sold art that matched your sofa,'' as Dennis says, so they could spend their paychecks buying prints. Their first was a Robert Motherwell that cost $200.

They have equal say on all art purchases.

''There are very few artists now that we disagree over,'' Debra says. ``We've been together 30 years. We started getting in sync. But if we don't agree on something, we just don't buy it.''

Over time, as they made more money and their knowledge and passion for contemporary art deepened, the collection grew and went off on various tangents. The Scholls, both 52, won't say how much money the collection might be worth. ''We don't buy art for the investment,'' says Dennis, who with master sommelier Richard Betts of Aspen also makes wines, including Betts & Scholl grenaches and Hermitages that have scored top ratings from Wine Spectator and Food & Wine. ``If art were about making money for us, we'd become art dealers. We're just passionate about collecting it.''

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