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Hollywood legacies can be hard to live up to, but not for this next-generation cover star, Patrick Schwarzenegger. With his father, Arnold; his mother, Maria Shriver; and the Kennedy clan as extended family, Patrick has had to work that much harder to find his own identity. Mission accomplished, as he has been acting consistently for more than a decade while also launching his own business empire. That his breakout role in season three of The White Lotus has solidified Patrick’s star status is not a surprise to anyone who knows him. His dedication and drive are as impressive as his manners and truly lovely demeanor.
Passion is a through line throughout this issue, from L.A. artist Carl Hopgood’s mixed-media sculptures lit with neon phrases to a couple who lost everything in the Woolsey fire only to rebuild their Malibou Lake dream home better and smarter. We cover pioneering architecture in Palm Springs that melds the area’s dramatic natural landscape with stunning design, and we tour Dr. David Agus’s art-filled research and treatment headquarters, where he is fighting cancer in the most innovative ways as part of his lifelong commitment to eradicate this horrific disease. All the people we’ve profiled are committed to their calling, no matter how long it takes — which in this day and age of fast communication, fast friends, fast fashion, fast everything, is a welcome change.
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Jennifer Smith Founder, Editorial Director and CEO
After studies in psychology, film, and painting, self-taught photographer David Roemer embarked on a career concentrating in fashion. His work has been featured in publications including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Numero, Madame Figaro, and Elle, and he has collaborated with brands like Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Cartier, and Donna Karan. For this issue, he shot our cover and feature on Patrick Schwarzenegger, “Taste of Success” (p. 24).
L.A.-based groomer Jamie Taylor, who worked on our cover and feature “Taste of Success” (p. 24), has collaborated with photographers including Annie Leibovitz, Steven Klein, and Richard Burbridge. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, InStyle, Rolling Stone, W, Vogue, Details, and Interview, and her celebrity clients include Timothée Chalamet, Austin Butler, Nicholas Hoult, Sebastian Stan, and Jamie Dornan.
The lensman for our feature on artist Carl Hopgood (“Neon Dreams,” p. 38), Frank Ockenfels 3, started out photographing actors, musicians, and politicians for publications such as Rolling Stone, Esquire, Interview, Cream, New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Variety, and Spin, to name a few. His past subjects have included Nirvana, Barack Obama, Willie Nelson, George Clooney, Snoop Dogg, and Spike Lee, among others.
Tim Teeman, who penned “Taste of Success” (p. 24), is chief theater critic and a contributing writer at The Daily Beast. Previously, he worked at the Times of London. He still writes for the Times, as well as publications including Town & Country and the Guardian, and he is the author of the Amazon numberone best-selling biography In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master
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Milan-favored fabrics and very deliberate hues define the made-in-Italy ELEVENTY line now opening a new boutique in Costa Mesa. “Everything starts from the color palette,” says cofounder Marco Baldassari. “Within beige, blue, and gray there are thousands of shades, and on top of basic colors we add a touch of red, blue, or green.” The line’s sharp cuts take the mobility of sport-minded clothes into account with relaxed shoulders and trousers that leave some room in the leg, even as everything is precisely fitted. In addition to the soft texture and feel of each piece, there is always a bit of natural stretch, yet each silhouette holds its shape. 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, eleventymilano .com. E.V.
Yosemite is known for its spectacular granite cliffs, giant sequoia groves, and breathtaking waterfalls, so it’s not hard to see why upscale outdoor adventure company UNDER CANVAS chose it as the location for its first California camp offering. Opening mid-May, the 80-acre camp is situated in a prime location just 10 minutes from the west entrance of Yosemite National Park at Big Oak Flat Information Station. Immersing yourself in nature has never been so accessible — or luxurious. Think comfy king-size beds with USB battery packs, en suite bathrooms stocked with organic bath products, and West Elm–furnished lounges with locally sourced café-style dining. The amenities are so thoughtfully curated, you’d be forgiven for forgetting what you came to Yosemite for. undercanvas.com M.H.
Even if you don’t follow @poggytheman on Instagram, chances are you’ve been influenced by Motofumi“Poggy” Kogi. For example, if you’ve ever worn a hoodie under a tweed jacket or paired worn sweaters with a formal suit, you have taken a leaf out of his metaphorical style book. But now you can pick up an actual book: POGGY STYLE: DRESSING FOR WORK AND PLAY (Rizzoli, $60) is a “modern man’s guide to getting dressed” from the Tokyo-based fashion creator, designer, and street-style star. “It might seem odd for
someone like me, who has had the honor of publishing a book on fashion, to say this, but I have never considered myself stylish,” he announces in the foreword. And so sets the refreshingly unpretentious tone. In scrapbook-like pages, Poggy reflects on his 30-year relationship with fashion — vintage T-shirts, showstopping hats, so many suits — through candid photos, conversations, and quirky details like the pair of Levi’s he wore for two and a half years without washing. Avoiding the laundry never looked so good. rizzoliusa .com M.H.
Building on the success of its flagship electric truck and SUV, RIVIAN has unveiled the California Dune Edition, a bespoke model that pays homage to the brand’s home state. “The design team was inspired by the color and warmth of the beautiful, sun-drenched dunes of Southern California,” says Jeff Hammoud, chief design officer. The exterior wears a warm, neutral shade that echoes the shifting sands. Inside, a two-tone interior pairs earthy sandstone with black, crafted with durable, easy-to-clean materials. The California Dune Edition rides on the R1 trimotor powertrain, which delivers 850 hp and 1,103 lb.-ft. of torque, with an estimated range of 329 miles. It can launch from 0 to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and comes equipped with a Soft Sand mode for optimized performance in desert driving. rivian.com. L.B.
Traditionalists who think the word electric has no place coming before surfboard clearly haven’t been on a LIND CANVAS. Years in the making, the game-changing first release from a visionary brand rooted in both California and Sweden is finally ready to make waves. The creation of founders Alex Lind, Anders Dellson, and Mattias Soderhielmand looks and feels like a surfboard, but it doesn’t rely on the ocean — or, for that matter, the weather. Available in two lengths (6'3" and 6'9") and powered by a 20-kW drivetrain resulting in a speed of 37 mph, the Lind Canvas allows you to surf wherever there is water. The board, with a 97 percent efficient jet propulsion system and a water-cooled battery, is shaped from EPS foam and glassed in epoxy resin and weighs just 15 lb. Surf’s up! lind.surf.
Yet another swank New York City Italian spot has arrived in L.A. ALBA in WeHo opens into a grand patio with skinny cypress trees, potted rosemary, and a festive bar under a scalloped awning. Artichoke fanciers will love chef Adam Leonti’s crispy Roman-style version with mustardy bagna cauda. Almost everything on the focused menu is worth ordering, especially the pastas. High marks to the signature pillowy agnolotti filled with sweet caramelized onions and cloaked in black truffle fonduta. To follow, consider branzino with yellow pepper cream, swordfish Livornese, and lovely lamb chops with a piquant gremolata. Dessert? No question but the custardy semolina cake slicked with candied kumquats, best enjoyed with a small glass of Fèlsina vin santo. 8451 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, 424-484-3992; cucinaalba.com. S.I.V.
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Partners in life and business, in 2018 designing duo Alex Mutter-Rottmayer and Austin Carrier founded Hommeboys Interiors, a full-service firm focused on indoor-outdoor living. Now the pair has opened a new showroom, HAUS OF HOMMEBOYS, which showcases their three in-house designed collections: Ocotillo, Lone, and Bishop. Pieces include the notch-detailed Ocotillo coffee table carved from Western Red Cedar, the Bishop poufs and ottomans upholstered in a range of textural materials, and Lone pedestals finished in natural plaster. They are juxtaposed with an array of curated art, lighting, and objects that fit their appreciation for design that is both functional and artful. 141 Church St., Sonoma; hausofhommeboys.com. D.N.
The new BAR SIESTA is just down the street from Heather Sperling’s vegetable-centric Botanica restaurant and draws in an appreciative neighborhood crowd for its tapas-inspired menu. Start with a Manchego and ham-flecked croquette that’s perfectly crisp on the outside and molten within. Then a wedge of egg-andpotato tortilla, patatas bravas with aioli, or toast heaped with tiny conserved clams and fennel in a spicy sofrito. King trumpet mushrooms are cooked in amontillado sherry. Gently spiced morcilla comes with lentils dosed with Asturian cider. There’s more, including olive oil ice cream and classic turrón (almond nougat). Walk-ins can snag tables on the sidewalk or, if very lucky, a spot at the bar. 1710 Silver Lake Blvd., L.A., 322-284-8325; barsiesta.co. S.I.V.
You don’t have to be a fan of classical music to go to an IN A LANDSCAPE: CLASSICAL MUSIC IN THE WILD concert. You may even get more out of it if you’re not. When classical pianist and naturalist HUNTER NOACK first took his trusty 1912 Steinway grand piano on a tour of the great outdoors in 2016, his goal was to introduce people from all walks of life to the genre and unite them. Something is clearly working. Now in his tenth season, Noack has performed more than 300 concerts to 75,000 attendees in locations as uniquely adventurous as ancient forests, mountaintops, and farms. The 2025 season across the
American West boasts some of the most inspiring settings yet, as IN A LANDSCAPE partners with national parks, historical societies, and Native American reservations. Through the month of May there are six California performances, including at the San Francisco Botanical Garden and the Bellosguardo estate in Santa Barbara. Although the location is definitely a selling point, what really makes the show memorable is harder to define or predict. “What surprises me every concert are the moments of serendipity,” Noack says. “When the leaves blow or the birds dance perfectly in time with the music, as if choreographed by a divine hand.” inalandscape.org. M.H.
In 2000, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani rolled out a sumptuous silvery hand-knotted carpet to usher in the 21st century and welcome the expansion of his business into the home space with ARMANI/CASA. The luxurious fashion offshoot is celebrating its 25th anniversary with as much refinement and style as its namesake founder’s clothes exude on the runway. Today 13 outposts around the world present Armani’s vision through the lens of furniture, lighting, rugs, textiles, and tableware. The home collections are imbued with references of the past and a reverence for the present, like the new VIVACE armchair that debuts in April at Salone del Mobile in Milan: Conceived of curved wood framed in a brass-finished bamboo-effect metal, and upholstered in an embroidered silk fabric, the result is one haute seat. 125 N. Robertson Blvd., L.A., 310-358-0901; armani.com D.N.
Casual chic, POLO RALPH LAUREN is a distillation of everything Ralph and his iconic looks, including Colorado Ranch denim jackets. With its stacks of faded jeans, a rainbow of polo shirts, vivid new Polo Play weekend leather bags, and linen jackets, Polo Ralph Lauren is the latest style destination at Jackson Square in San Francisco. Situated in a columned stucco building that dates back to 1851 — the height of the Gold Rush — the store, with its gold-filigree-framed windows and bare brick walls, fits right in. Stop in for oldschool tennis shoes, summer-weight cashmere sweaters, knock-about khaki chinos, a patchwork Madras shirt or two, cut-off faded and frayed denim shorts circled with antique Mexican silver belts, and faded bandannas. 441 Jackson St., S.F., ralphlauren.com. D.D.S.
London-born and L.A.-based interior designer JAKE ARNOLD fuses Brit charm with California ease, creating spaces that exude classicism with warmth, livability, and whimsy. His first collaboration with CRATE & BARREL offered his character-rich designs to a broader audience, and he is back for an encore this spring with an outdoor line. The alfresco offerings capture Arnold’s signature style of Old Hollywood glam meets English elegance: teak-framed sofas with tailored upholstery, shapely iron-framed chaises and tables, and an array of accessories from pillows to antique bronze lighting, delicate shatterproof glassware to wicker-trimmed pitchers. The collective effect is transportive, and that’s the goal. “Escapism is a big part of my work,” Arnold says. “I want this to whisk you away to somewhere warm.” crateandbarrel.com. K.C.
Ingenieur Automatic 42, Ref. 3389
Registering a hardness of around 1300 HV on the Vickers scale, zirconium oxide ceramic is one of the hardest materials on earth. It can be machined only with diamond-tipped tools and is virtually scratchproof. All of which is good news for you, of course, but less so for us. Because machining and manufacturing a watch made entirely of ceramic is unimaginably complex and demanding. The good news, however, is that our engineers have been working with ceramics since 1986. So, you can rest assured that when it comes to the Ingenieur Automatic 42, we leave absolutely nothing to chance. IWC. Engineered.
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Country club essentials to don in town or on the course make up Kim Jones’s DIOR capsule. Shoes, including the house’s B27 and B33 sneakers, set the tone for the collection with tasseled tongues reminiscent of traditional footwear for an 18-hole round. The looks riff on a preppy aesthetic fit for the fairway, tempered by Jones’ embrace of early ’80s sportswear. There’s a velvet tracksuit and windbreakers with reflective stripes and argyle knits, but also V-neck sweaters, pleated pants, and polo shirts. Casual blazers and Harrington jackets in muted shades of beige add an Ivy League nod as well. Bags and small leather goods with Dior Gravity motifs join two-tone backpacks, Saddle, and Hit The Road messengers, and of course there’s a golf bag for woods, irons, wedges, and putters. That it’s devised in black leather is par for the course. dior.com. E.V.
Having collaborated with Bang & Olufsen on speakers and headphones, it was only a matter of time until Anthony Vaccarello and the Danish electronics company reimagined its original turntable. SAINT LAURENT RIVE DROITE is launching a limited series of Beogram 4000 series players that are transformed into 4000c modernized editions for its boutiques in Paris and L.A. Each is housed in a solid ziricote wood case and individually numbered, blending the efficiency and technical mastery of Jacob Jensen’s 1972 design with a modern look. Every unit’s hand-crafted dark wood frame and components match the presentation box complete with aluminum details. What’s spinning on the platter is up to you. 469 Rodeo Dr., Beverly Hills, 310-2714100; ysl.com. E.V.
he birthplace of Thrasher magazine is the setting of a new exhibition on street skating’s underground history, SKATEBOARDING SAN FRANCISCO: CONCRETE, COMMUNITY, CONTINUITY, installed at the city’s main library. The vast swaths of asphalt — from the Embarcadero to the hilly streets of Fillmore — that lured the magazine’s founders, along with scores of pros and amateurs seeking the ultimate rush over the past 50 years, are documented in the new show cocurated by art historian Ted Barrow. Drawn by the area’s topography, a trove of creatives documented the city’s rich skating history over the years. The show includes art from magazines as well as archival images,
videos, and even found objects from favored spots, including the stairs and ledges of Hubba Hideout near Justin Herman Plaza. Additionally, there are urban art and books from the library’s collections, zines from the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, back issues of Thrasher, hand-lettered signs by Mission District local Margaret Kilgallen, and skate decks painted by Oakland artist Felicia Gabaldon. Skating is still not permitted around public buildings, including the library, but the exhibition takes place steps from the newly revitalized UN Skate Plaza, a Civic Center training ground where next-generation tricks are honed before they get tested on the city’s landscape. Through July 6. 100 Larkin St., S.F., 415-557-4400; sfpl.org. E.V.
Although a secret knock is not required to pass through the heavy wooden door of IZZY’S STEAKS AND CHOPS, it exudes a swanky supper club vibe. Samantha DuVall Bechtel commissioned Gachot Studios to refurbish the space in homage to her father, restaurateur Sam DuVall, who founded it in 1987. The classic menu (including oysters Rockefeller, classic wedge salad, potato gratin, creamed spinach, and succulent Creekstone Farms steaks) has been updated by executive chef Daniel Lucero. Upstairs, the mezzanine dining room features a stone-clad fireplace, plush lounge seating, and a gallery of old-school artwork. On the main floor, wavy-glass partitions define refurbished wood-paneled booths and banquettes. Above, diners can admire a soaring mural by Matthew Benedict depicting socialites and raconteurs. 3345 Steiner St., S.F., 415-563-0487; izzyssanfrancisco.com C.B.
As BALENCIAGA ateliers honed the French house’s much-anticipated Basketball Sneaker derived from archetypal NBA footwear, a capsule of sportswear also took shape. The Basketball Series reimagines sport-knit jerseys and shorts, fleece sweatpants and hoodies, and a variety of on-court and tunnel fit-worthy designs. Oversize by design, there are T-shirts in vintage jersey emblazoned in the house’s Loop logo, embroidered with letters spelling out the brand and numbered 01. A Bomber in semi-shiny black leather with zips and snaps gets similar treatment. There’s a tracksuit in techno poplin and a layered longsleeve topped with a mesh tank. The accompanying no-lace kicks with hidden zip closures debut in bold metallic hues, the lightest of which includes a decidedly scuffed patina — the look of choice for those with true hoop dreams. balenciaga.com E.V.
Pastel-hued meringues and thickly frosted cakes on display in deli cases and drugstore windows, a nod to mass consumption and commercial imagery, are WAYNE THIEBAUD’s most instantly recognizable works. His geometric cityscapes are equally striking. But the painter had a practice deeply rooted in art history. Sixty of his works, completed from 1957 to 2020, reinterpreting those by European and American masters (ranging from Rembrandt van Rijn portraits to Giorgio Morandi’s quiet still life depictions), make up a new Legion of Honor exhibition, Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art. The show, part of the museum’s yearlong centennial celebration, explores how others influenced Thiebaud’s six-decade career and served as inspiration for his confections, landscapes, and portraits. Through August 17. 100 34th Ave., S.F., 415-750-3600; famsf.org. E.V.
Loose linens and sand tones are a SHORE THING this season
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Words by DEGEN PENER
Photography by ROGER DAVIES
When the Ellison Medical Institute (EMI) moved in 2021, founding CEO Dr. David B. Agus and Oracle chair and chief technology officer Larry Ellison wanted its new building near Santa Monica to feel nothing like a traditional medical facility. The cutting-edge cancer center — built thanks to a $200 million donation by Ellison — sprawls across three floors, highlighted by soaring ceilings and an art collection that resonates with the institute’s mission. The works include an eight-foot-tall Robert Indiana sculpture of the word hope in block letters and a self-portrait by Pablo Picasso from the 1960s, a period when the painter may have been suffering from prostate cancer.
EMI includes both research laboratories and patient clinics for cancer treatment and preventive medicine — and everything is in one building, which is atypical. “The idea of putting them together in one was powerful,” says Agus, sitting in his office at the institute, looking trim and sharply dressed in a white collared shirt and a black sweater, a uniform he has worn since his former patient Steve Jobs suggested it. Both the research and patient
» The patients walk in and see people working in the lab — it’s hope personified. «
DR. DAVID AGUS
areas, Agus says, were purposefully designed with glass walls. “The patients walk in and see people working in the lab — it’s hope personified. And when the people in the lab see the patients, they double down and work harder,” says the physician, biomedical researcher, and globally recognized health expert, who’s also a CBS News contributor, a New York Times best-selling author (The End of Illness, The Book of Animal Secrets), and a regular speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
EMI also includes a rather unusual library: a collection of 508 volumes printed with the entire genetic code of Homo sapiens It was Agus’s idea to create this genomic book nook, which serves as a conversation starter during tours the institute gives to students. “If I tell kids there are three billion letters in the genetic code, their eyes glaze over. But if I tell them the genetic code is this entire wall of books and it’s double-sided in a small font and the code is packed into every cell of the body, they go, ‘Oh my gosh.’ And they remember it forever,” says Agus, who first met Ellison many years ago, when he treated Ellison’s nephew for prostate cancer.
Right now, Agus and his team at EMI are racing to develop several lifesaving cancer drugs, a process that AI tools are accelerating.
“We have a large drug-development group,” says Agus, who is also a professor of medicine
and engineering at USC. With artificial intelligence, he explains, “Now I can say, ‘Hey, here’s the protein I want to bind onto the cancer cell. Make me something that binds to it. Look at every other protein in the body. I don’t want it to bind to them. Here are all the enzymes in the body. I don’t want it to be degraded. So here are all the constraints. Can you make that?’ It can. And in literally weeks to months, I have a potential drug to test.” Several drugs developed at EMI, he says, have already started to work, including one for prostate cancer that “we’re going to take into the clinic next year” and another to treat breast cancer. He adds, “Because of the partnership we have with Larry [Ellison] and Oracle, we have access to GPUs, which are the commodity you need to be able to do these major queries.”
A firm believer in the power of technology in transforming health outcomes, Agus is also excited about making strides in novel ways to test drugs. “When Steve Jobs had his liver transplant, his liver was thrown away,” Agus
says. But today, diseased livers can be kept viable. “We can keep them alive for days to weeks, and we can test drugs in them and biopsy them every hour,” he says. “So we’re doing that together with the FDA. And soon, hopefully, we’ll be able to do this with kidneys and brains in the same way.” He’s also bullish on medical advances in everything from imaging (“We can look inside the human body like never before”) to health recordkeeping.
“You know, electronic health records historically have been bags of words,” he says.
“Now they’re becoming structured data. And just in the past six months, amazing things have come out of querying medical records. For example, the shingles vaccine may cause a dramatic reduction in Alzheimer’s disease.”
Growing up in Baltimore, Agus was a self-described geek. “When other kids were playing Little League, I was basically in the lab in these science programs,” he says. After doing undergrad work at Princeton and attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, he completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by an oncology fellowship at Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center. Working at the latter in his late 30s, Agus recalls the fateful day when Andy Grove, then the CEO of Intel, walked into his lab. “I was a not well-known cancer researcher, and there’s a knock at my door. I look up, and it’s that year’s Time Man of the Year.” Grove became an early mentor, telling Agus, “ ‘I like the science you do, David, but you’re a horrible public speaker.’ He forced me to become a better public speaker, and it changed my life in many ways.”
Grove, an influential driver of the growth of Silicon Valley, later encouraged Agus to move west in 2000. “He said, ‘You stay on the East Coast, you hit singles. You come to
» Just eat real food. There’s not a major complexity to it. We weren’t meant to have protein powder. «
DR. DAVID AGUS
the West Coast, you swing for the fences. If you strike out in your field, you start again, no big deal. But without swinging for the fences, you’re not going to cure the disease.’ He said at Intel…their obligation is to take risks, and so is yours.”
Agus stresses, however, that no one should risk their health by following fads. “The dirty secret is that optimal health is pretty simple,” he says, detailing his personal regimen. “It’s
not just what you eat; it’s when you eat. So I eat my meals at the same time every day, and I eat no snacks in between. That’s critical. One snack can throw off your metabolism for a day or two.” He also advocates a Mediterranean diet. “Just eat real food. There’s not a major complexity to it,” he says. “We weren’t made to have protein powder. We weren’t made to have smoothies and juices. And supplements that everyone is trying to sell you that are going to make you live longer and better, make you gain muscle mass? They’re not real. And many times, they can cause significant harm.” Agus also rises at 5 a.m. and tries to exercise for an hour every day — Pilates, weights, tennis, or yoga. He tries to go to bed at the same time every night as well.
Agus also has continued to move further west. About a year ago, he and his wife, Amy Povich, an actor and the daughter of TV host Maury Povich, relocated from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica. (His grown children, Sydney and Miles, are a data engineer for a Silicon Valley company and a third-year USC medical student, respectively.) They were evacuated from their home for weeks because of the Palisades fire in January — “We just got water last week,” he says in March — but Agus says he’s more in love with Southern California than ever.
“The city came together in an amazing way. Neighbors now stop [to say hello] on the way home,” he says. “I love California, despite all the mudslides and the fires and the earthquakes. I love Santa Monica. People are happy here. People are outdoors. People are creative here. Our work really is taking advances in the technology world and trying to apply it in disease like cancer and others. And what better place to do it than the state of California?” ellisonmedicalinstitute.org. •
With everyone talking about his latest role in The White Lotus , Patrick Schwarzenegger is getting his just desserts
atrick Schwarzenegger observes his cup of coffee with a smile. “The barista who made this said, ‘You’re so nice, but your character is so mean.’ ” The reference is to The White Lotus, in which he plays Saxon, the arrogant, six-pack-endowed oldest child of the rich and strife-riven Ratliff family. With his debut in season three of the HBO drama, he has gotten used to people shouting one of Saxon’s most famous lines at him: “So what kind of porn do you like?”
Today, in a chichi New York hotel dressed in sweats, his tousled hair hidden under a baseball cap, the quietly spoken, very un-Saxon Schwarzenegger has just landed on the red-eye from Los Angeles for a week of TV appearances, including Good Morning America, The Drew Barrymore Show, and The Kelly Clarkson Show. The handsome 31-yearold actor — who lives in Santa Monica with his fiancée, the model Abby Champion — is on a promotional tour for the show. Playing Saxon could be a ticket to the big time for the son of movie star and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, the journalist, author, and niece of former President John F. Kennedy. Each season of The White Lotus is set at an international outpost of the fictional
luxury hotel chain. The dark comedy — the creation of Mike White, who writes, directs, and executive produces every episode — is a heady stew of outrageous twists, sex, murder, and partying from the entitled elites and scammers staying at the hotels and the long-suffering staff who serve them. The show became appointment viewing during the pandemic, with its debut season set in Hawaii. Season two was in Sicily, followed by season three in Thailand. Among an array of awards, The White Lotus has won 15 Emmys.
In the current season, the Ratliffs are typical White Lotus guests: wealthy, full of secrets, and terrible at communicating — with life-changing tribulations threatening to engulf them. By the sixth episode, Saxon is contemplating the nature of his apparent sexual desire for his younger brother, Lochlan (played by Sam Nivola). His father, Tim (Jason Isaacs), is facing ruin and contemplating suicide. Mother Victoria (Parker Posey and her much-memed Southern accent) is mainlining the anxiety
drug lorazepam, and daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) is on a spiritual journey toward Buddhism.
Growing up in L.A., family life couldn’t have been more different. Schwarzenegger was inspired by watching his father working on movie sets, including The Terminator, Total Recall, and True Lies. “Being around fame has probably been beneficial,” Schwarzenegger says. “I don’t act so I can be famous. Is it cool when someone comes up to you says, ‘I love your work and character’? Yes, it feels great. But I don’t mind if that doesn’t happen. What it does do is open doors for filmmakers, writers, and directors hopefully considering me for future projects.”
His acting career began at age 10 in the film The Benchwarmers. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the USC Marshall School of Business, he won roles in movies (including Midnight Sun in 2018, his first leading role, opposite Bella Thorne) and TV series (including The Staircase). Before The White Lotus he played Luke Riordan/Golden
» It ’s fun to put yourself in uncomfortable positions because then you learn . «
PATRICK SCHWARZENEGGER
Boy, the protagonist with superpowers in Gen V
“I don’t ask my dad for any acting advice. He’s a movie star,” he says of his father. “It’s not that I don’t want to become that one day, but I want to focus on trying to get my feet wet in acting roles, then one day come to do those types of movies. We have two different routes of how to go about it. He’s all about, ‘You should be number one on the call sheet, the biggest name, your name should be on the poster. Go big.’ I’m of the opposite mindset. By going small and continually growing with my roles, I’m trying to build my résumé.”
As Saxon Ratliff, his pivotal scene with Lochlan (and all the confused feelings) left Saxon seemingly shaken and broken, and Schwarzenegger’s performance was one of the season’s most memorable. “Saxon entered the show with all this confidence,” Schwarzenegger says. “Now he finds himself the most lost and confused of everyone.”
The challenging storyline never gave Schwarzenegger pause for thought. “I’m playing a character. When you join The White Lotus, you know Mike is going to push boundaries. That’s why he’s a genius. As an actor, playing the most uncomfortable scenes is the most fun because they are the biggest challenge. I’m not saying that scene was the most fun, but it’s fun to push yourself and put yourself in uncomfortable positions because then you learn.”
It wasn’t difficult filming intimate scenes with Nivola because by then the pair had been filming together for a couple of months,
Schwarzenegger says. “Our whole on-screen family — Sam, me, Jason, Parker, and Sarah Catherine — worked together, hung out together, had meals, built a family dynamic,” he says. “I became super close with all of them and continue to be really close with them today.”
A well-circulated Instagram video shows the moment Schwarzenegger, surrounded by his overjoyed family, learned he got the part. His mom and sisters are huge fans of the show.
“I have no idea how they’ll react,” he says, one week before the spiciest episodes aired. “Of course I’m nervous. I’m nervous about how everyone will react. Anytime you’re putting yourself out there in a vulnerable way, people can be judgmental. But I trust Mike’s vision in pushing the story forward.”
A fitness enthusiast, Schwarzenegger is sanguine about his body being on thirst-streaked display. “If it’s serving the character, I’m all for it,” he says. Although he did, like Saxon, attend a full-moon party, there wasn’t much off-set wildness (“We were probably the tamest cast of the three seasons”).
Schwarzenegger was most moved by the show’s theme of exploring “what you are if everything you thought defined you was taken away. That happens to Saxon and his dad.” Asked if he had learned anything about himself, the actor laughed. “Not to be like Saxon, and what my own core values are: family, faith, fiancée, and friends. The four Fs.”
Schwarzenegger is happiest when discussing those four Fs, emphasizing how much he cherishes spending time with family, how everybody lives near one another, the joy in walking his sister Katherine’s kids home from school (Schwarzenegger has two older sisters — Katherine, who is married to Chris Pratt, and Christina — a younger brother, Christopher, and a younger paternal halfbrother, Joseph Baena).
All roads — and there are many, given his work schedule — lead back to California. Every time he’s away from home, he says, he’s reminded how much he loves the state. “It’s where I grew up, where family is. California has its flaws, like anywhere, but when I get home and it’s January, it’s 70 degrees, sunny,” he says. “We can go for a hike, stroll on the beach, ski, mountain bike.”
He loves the Hollywood Hills. He’s always finding “great coffee shops,” but for burgers he opts for In-N-Out, Father’s Office, and R+D Kitchen; and for ice cream, McConnell’s, Rori’s, and the Bigg Chill. He and Champion sometimes escape L.A. for the golden sands and rolling vineyards of Montecito and Santa Barbara.
Marriage is on his mind. He and Champion got engaged in December 2023 after seven and a half years together, and this month they posed together in a new Skims bridal campaign with Patrick in the buff. They plan to marry this summer, he says. “There’s no rush, but I can’t wait.” Would he like to have kids? “Oh, yes, I’d have children tomorrow if I could. But it’s hard for Abby and her work.” Champion, who hails from Birmingham, Alabama, has modeled all over the world for brands including Prada, Givenchy, Ralph Lauren, Celine, and Chanel. “She’s at the height of her career, and I absolutely support her in whatever she wants to do,” Schwarzenegger says.
Visiting his father on film sets as a child — he particularly recalls watching him playing Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin — introduced Schwarzenegger to that world. “Every part of it was fun: the theme parks, seeing my dad transform himself. My parents would film me
» My core values are family, faith, fiancée, and friends. The four Fs. «
PATRICK SCHWARZENEGGER
pretending to be a news reporter, or in my Spider-Man cape,” he says. “It’s fun to become someone else. Actors get to do that every day.”
Schwarzenegger says his parents remain “massively influential in my life — my dad on the work ethic side, and my mom on finding ways to be a public servant, giving back, and helping others. They were from very opposite backgrounds, but I think the different values they had meshed and worked well — for a while, anyway. That helped me understand the value of seeing things from different perspectives.”
His parents’ separation in 2011 (the divorce was finalized in 2021) was “difficult” for Schwarzenegger. “I don’t think there was any way that it wouldn’t have been. Anytime there is massive change, it’s difficult. It was not easy. But they did a great job of putting their differences aside for family celebrations like Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Schwarzenegger remains close to both, particularly his mom. Typically they see each other four or five days a week. “Besides my fiancée, she is the person I see most,” he says. During the pandemic, they even started a business together, creating a protein bar, Mosh, designed to aid brain health, with a percentage of sales supporting Alzheimer’s research.
Schwarzenegger “hopes and prays” L.A. recovers from the 14 regional fires in January that killed at least 29 people, forced more than 200,000 people to evacuate, and destroyed over 18,000 homes and structures. “It’s been awful,” he says. “All the family
» I’d have children tomorrow if I could, but Abby is at the height of her career. I support her. «
PATRICK SCHWARZENEGGER
was evacuated from our homes, but our properties were all OK. Other people who were affected stayed at our place, and it was great to be able to help them.”
Even before the fires, film and TV production was at an all-time low in California, Schwarzenegger notes. “I hope they fix that with tax benefits and ways to help all those working in the film industry,” he says. One week after the interview, Governor Gavin Newsom awarded tax credits to a record 51 films as part of the state’s film and TV tax incentive program, employing 6,500 cast and crew and paying nearly $347 million in wages.
Does Schwarzenegger have political ambitions? “Yes, for sure down the road. I love it. I feel very fortunate and blessed to be in my position and feel it’s my calling to try and help others.” As governor, mayor, senator, or a member of Congress? “I’ve no idea. Generally, I want to find ways to help and give back.”
Having been born into both Hollywood and political royalty, inevitably charges
of being a “nepo baby” swirl around Schwarzenegger, but there were other advantages beyond access. “I try to work hard and use the values instilled in me to treat everyone with respect,” Schwarzenegger says. “I want to be a better actor and person and continually learn and grow.”
Indeed, Schwarzenegger loves learning from other actors. “On White Lotus I asked Jason, ‘If you have pointers, I’m all ears.’ He gave me notes. On the first day, Walton Goggins [who plays Rick] said, ‘You should never fucking question that you’re the right person for this character. You were chosen for a reason. You know who this character is better than anyone else.’ ” For Schwarzenegger, “playing opposite someone better than you, like Colin Firth, elevates your work. They raise your game.”
After the sun sets on his White Lotus duties, Schwarzenegger has a movie booked (but he cannot reveal more). “I would do Broadway in a minute,” he says, professing his love of the stage, having attended theater school for many years.
He would love to portray Patrick Bateman in Luca Guadagnino’s remake of American Psycho, a role Austin Butler is reportedly poised to play. “The comment I get most about The White Lotus is that Saxon gives off Patrick Bateman vibes. That would be a dream come true. Luca does great young male roles. I love his other films, like Queer, Challengers, and Call Me by Your Name.”
So is Schwarzenegger happy with where Saxon ends up?
“I struggled with this,” he says. “I was looking for a big change for Saxon and played a scene near the end like that. Afterward, Mike asked, ‘Why are you doing that? This show takes place over a week. Saxon doesn’t need to fully change.… In my show, some characters change fully, some not at all, some leave more fucked up than at the beginning. That’s life. Not everyone has an epiphany or a moment of change.’ ”
“I thought that was really beautiful and true,” Schwarzenegger says. “Instead of focusing on what I wanted for Saxon, or what I wanted the audience to see, remaining true to the character meant acknowledging maybe he doesn’t change, or leaving the question open as to whether he does.” •
After losing everything in Malibu ’ s Woolsey fire, a determined couple rebuilt a sleek and sturdy home that could serve as a playbook for recent victims
At the entrance of Gary Scott and Laurie Schireson’s home in the Santa Monica Mountains stands a sculpture that was created out of the iron carcass of Scott’s beloved Schimmel piano. The plate was found under a foot of debris in 2018 after the Woolsey fire incinerated their home of 20 years and everything inside it. The couple worked with an artist friend to create the sculpture, called Icarus Rising Students of Greek mythology will remember the cautionary tale of Icarus, who ignored his father’s warnings and flew too close to the sun, causing his wings to melt. Burned (metaphorically) by greed and arrogance, he plunged into the sea and drowned.
For Scott and Schireson, the statue symbolizes many life lessons, chief among them the power of resilience — that they could rebuild a better home optimized for protection after everything was taken away. “It doesn’t feel sad,” says Scott, a television and film composer, who also lost 12 guitars and six BMI awards in the blaze for his work on projects including Beverly Hills, 90210 and Baz Luhrmann’s film Romeo and Juliet. “It feels like a point of arrival…like we cleared a hurdle by moving beyond tragedy into something wonderful. That’s how I look at it.”
The Woolsey fire burned a total of 1,600 structures, including more than 30 in their Malibou Lake neighborhood. In the aftermath, the couple moved nine times in four years, but they always intended to return to the home where they started their life together. Scott and Schireson met when they were 6 years old, reconnected years later, and blended their families (Scott has three children from a previous marriage, and Schireson has one). They were drawn to Malibou Lake’s remoteness — halfway between the beach and the valley — and its proximity to nature. Locals have been known to hide the turn-off signs so no one can find it.
Established in the early 1900s, the community originally consisted of a few charming cabins on the banks of a dammed lake that is filled with runoff from the mountains. The clubhouse doubled as a speakeasy before Ronald Reagan, who owned a neighboring ranch, was named honorary mayor of Malibou Lake in 1953 — his first political appointment. “It’s truly magical here,” Schireson says. “We would kayak with the kids to the middle of the island in the lake. It’s like Huck Finn.”
For Scott and Schireson, the road back to this enchanting enclave was long and arduous. With essentially a clean slate after the fire, Scott became the default project manager and started assembling a team that included architect Christopher Mercier of (fer) studio in
L.A. and a lawyer to help them file suit against Southern California Edison; they eventually reached a settlement. “If you want to win the prize at the end, if you want to get up every day and go, ‘Wow, it doesn’t get better than this,’ then you have to pay attention. I was hands on,” Scott says. Their insurance company paid out, but their policy has since been dropped. Like so many others in fire-prone areas, they are now on the California FAIR Plan, which has a maximum payout of $3 million. It’s
» It feels like we cleared a hurdle by moving beyond tragedy into something wonderful. That’s how I look at it. «
GARY SCOTT
something they can live with because the plan for the rebuild was never to build back bigger. Instead, they wanted something modest and manageable in size but uncompromising in design and, above all, fireproof.
One benefit of living on the property for so long was that they knew exactly how to orient the new structure to take advantage of the light and views. Perched on the edge of the lot, the northeast-facing new build is essentially a one-bedroom home, although Schireson’s meditation room has a Murphy bed. It is also nearly 1,000 square feet smaller than their previous home, yet it feels larger because of its soaring 14-foot-tall ceilings and steel doors that give way to a generous cement patio, which doubles as their dining room.
The first step was making sure their new home could survive if lightning struck twice.
“The fire department could not defend our community because of weather conditions, so they basically just let it burn. If you move back, you certainly cannot count on the fire department showing up, because they may not,” says Scott, who installed an industrialgrade Rain Bird sprinkler system on the roof, the same kind used to water crops. “The system will use city water to protect the home and create a big vapor cloud around the entire property. Then, after the city water pressure
falls, we can switch a couple of levers and take 10,000 gallons out of the pool.”
To get around the challenging process of permitting a traditional in-ground pool in accordance with Malibu’s strict building codes, Scott discovered Modpools, a Canadian company that refurbishes shipping containers into pools. He argued that this simple, self-contained body of water was no different from a hot tub, and the permitting department acquiesced.
Other efforts to fireproof the home in large part informed the design. Shiny silver panels of Corten steel that adorn the outside oxidized over six months, revealing a burnt hue that feels warm and aged. The rest of the exterior is concrete and tempered glass with solar panels on the roof so they never lose power.
Before completing the construction, which was delayed by the pandemic, they brought in L.A. designer Sophie Goineau — who has designed many homes and commercial projects, including the Petit Ermitage hotel — to help them over the finish line. “It could not be busy,” says Goineau, noting the home’s small, angular rooms. “And I wanted to use wood and rich fabrics, so you have a sensorial feeling of comfort and softness to contrast the hard materials that were used to build the house. I didn’t want to upstage the exterior.”
Schireson, a former buyer at SoCal retailer Planet Blue who lost a vast collection of clothing and accessories, says Goineau was shocked at the small size of her new closet. “The question I’m sure you’re hearing from recent fire victims is ‘Why did I have so much?’ I need so little now. Well, it’s truly become my motto. I can’t handle excess anymore,” Schireson says.
Today the house is filled with music again, and Schireson always has something cooking on the stove. The neighborhood has largely come back and is more close-knit. The couple feel safer knowing that they’ve taken every precaution, but unlike Icarus, they are still cautious. When the Kenneth fire threatened Malibu this past winter, they promptly evacuated. “I packed a bag with the essentials: the same jeans and sweats that I took seven years ago and some wine,” Schireson says. “It was the same PTSD all over again.” They returned home a few days later, grateful yet shaken. Despite it all, Schireson maintains, “There isn’t another place I’d want to live.” •
Arriving in Los Angeles 10 years ago gave Carl Hopgood the artistic freedom to create a new vocabulary for his mixed-media sculptures
Three decades seems like a long career, but in the art world it’s a actually a drop in the paint bucket. L.A. multidisciplinary artist Carl Hopgood, whose sculptures often take the form of a seemingly precarious stack of chairs colorfully lit by affixed neon phrases, is just hitting his stride at age 53. Like his work, the recognition keeps stacking up, even when the odds are against him.
Last summer, a fire destroyed Hopgood’s Glendale studio. The building next door caught fire on a dangerously windy day, and firefighters couldn’t save the 3,000-squarefoot studio where he had been working for five years. “It went up like a tinderbox,” Hopgood says from his Richard Neutra–designed Hollywood Hills home, which now doubles as his studio. He lost six completed works, sketchbooks, photographs, and a computer, as well as all his equipment and supplies.
The past five years have been illuminating for the UK expat in more ways than one. His works reside in the collections of ARTnews “Top 200 Collectors” like Beth Rudin DeWoody and Eugenio López Alonso (the founder of Museo Jumex in Mexico City), as well as in those of aesthete patrons like Jim John and Craig Hartzman, Diane Allen, and actor Morgan Freeman. Earlier this year, one of his sculptures, Golden Sleeping Stag — a life-size, gold-leafed marble plaster cast of his own body (with gilded stag horns protruding from his head) lying on a bed — was included in MirrorMirror, Michael Petry’s survey of reflective works by 150 renowned artists for Thames & Hudson. In addition, the Palm Springs Art Museum announced the acquisition of his 2021 work My Heart Is Open, a four-chair sculpture with the phrase lit in white neon.
One sculpture survived the fire unscathed. “It ended up underneath some corrugated metal that acted like a wave of safety, deflecting the heat and flames,” Hopgood says. The work, aptly titled You Tried to Bury Me But I Was a Seed — a 12-foot vintage fruit-picking ladder with a bright blue neon word atop each rung — has always served as a symbol hope for the artist. Conceived as commentary on the Mexican labor force exploited by California’s citrus industry in the 1950s, it also holds a deeply personal resonance. “It was actually inspired by a couplet from contemporary Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos, who was sidelined by the literati in the 1970s for being gay, and I connected with that text,” says Hopgood, whose childhood, although outwardly idyllic, was marked by the stigma.
A somewhat solitary childhood in St. Lythans — a hamlet outside Cardiff, Wales, where he was born — offered Hopgood plenty of opportunity to develop his artistic talents. “Even as a kid, I was always making art,” he says. “Like little installations inside cardboard mushroom baskets my gran would give me. They were these surreal landscapes made from shells and magazine cutouts that I’d carry around and show everybody.” Eventually Hopgood headed for Goldsmiths, University of London. There, he learned about the industry from Dublin-born artist Michael Craig-Martin, who in the 1980s influenced emerging British artists, most notably Damien Hirst. “It was an incredible time. And while he was my main tutor, we had others, like Lisa Milroy and Julian Opie, who’d invite us to their private gallery viewings,” Hopgood says. “We’d get a taste of what it might be like to be an actual practicing artist.”
After graduating in June 1994, he was picked up by two well-established London galleries. That September, Waddington Custot and Karsten Schubert gave him solo shows that included installations combining Super 8 mm and 16 mm film and sculptures like Sleeping Figure (a marble cast of a man on a metal bedframe with a film projection of the same man projected onto itself).
“The flickering of the light through the celluloid film made the sculpture seem as if it was breathing,” he says. “At my [graduation] show, Charles Saatchi almost knocked over one of these sculptures as he squeezed into the cubicle to see the front of Shower Piece — a sculpture of a naked man standing in a shower — that was designed only to be seen from behind.”
Soon, his work was displayed in exhibitions outside the U.K. “I showed in Australia and Italy — in Rome I exhibited at the Studio d’Arte Contemporanea Pino Casagrande,” he says, noting that Shower Piece resides in the private gallery’s permanent collection. During this period, Hopgood also worked as an editorial set stylist under Simon Costin, the set designer known for his collaborations with Alexander McQueen. “We were always using chairs as props, and I had a really good collection,” he says. “We were shooting people like Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista, and Sharon Stone on them for British or Japanese Vogue or V Magazine, but I never realized how that would inform my practice years later.”
In 2015, Hopgood moved to the U.S. just as one of his London galleries, the Maddox
» I remember hiding under the stacked-up chairs in the school canteen — that was my place of sanctuary. «
CARL HOPGOOD
Gallery, was opening an L.A. outpost. “I always loved David Hockney and watched films about his journey from London to L.A. that really inspired me,” he says. “It meant a whole new market and the freedom to work with different mediums.” After landing in West Hollywood, he began to combine neon with his found objects, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that a proverbial light bulb went on. “I’d walk past all these shuttered restaurants and bars and see chairs stacked on top of each other,” Hopgood says. “I wanted to make something in that difficult moment and, I suppose, use it as my therapy.” Seeing towers of chairs also dredged up memories of being bullied as a young schoolboy that brought deeper context to his work. “I remember hiding underneath the stacked-up chairs in the school canteen — that was my place of sanctuary.” It was a full-circle moment for Hopgood that brought purpose to his art. “I’m making work with a story behind it that a lot of people can relate to.”
He began constructing the mixed-media sculptures for a 2021 show at Maddox. One of the works, My Heart Is Open, was quickly acquired by the Vinik Family Foundation in Tampa, Florida. After the show, Arthur Lewis (then the creative director at United Talent Agency’s fine arts division) visited Hopgood’s studio, leading to his inclusion in a 2022 group show called Fragile World. “I made one of the last pieces for the show, Just Say Gay, really quickly in response to [the Florida Legislature’s] ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill that pushed back against the LGBTQ+ community,” Hopgood says. The timing couldn’t have been better: [Beth Rudin] DeWoody was in attendance, purchased the piece, and displayed it the following year at her West Palm Beach venue, The Bunker Artspace. Another piece from the earlier show, You Changed My Life, was acquired by Bronwyn Newport, who — as a collector and cast member on the fifth season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City — gave the work a star turn by unveiling it on camera.
Currently, Hopgood has a pop-up show at RVD Associates’s design studio on Melrose and a June show at Madsen in Los Altos. He’s also working on two big projects: cocurating a 2026 exhibition based on MirrorMirror at King’s Cross Town Hall in association with MOCA London, and producing Fragile World, a documentary chronicling his activist art that will premiere at the Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Cardiff in 2026. “I’ve also started a new body of work based on some metal chairs that survived my studio fire,” he says. “Things like that have to push you forward, like a phoenix from the flames.” •
A new volume explores the Palm Springs School's free-ranging impact on modernism
Words by ALAN HESS
Nature is an immediate presence, a genius loci in the Coachella Valley with its geological hot springs close to a major earthquake fault, strong winds blowing through the pass between Mount San Jacinto (10,834 feet) and Mount San Gorgonio (11,503 feet), canyon streams lined with native palm trees, the mountains’ brown and gray summer colors turning to carpets of green and yellow in winter, and a gentle wintertime climate occasionally accompanied by gully-washing monsoon rains. Over it all rises the dramatic rock wall of Mount San Jacinto, three blocks from the center of town. The sun disappears behind the western mountain early, while light reflecting off the low eastern hills lingers. The light from long sunsets changes every day and every season. Nature renders Palm Springs extraordinary.
Nature is both a blessing and a challenge. It might be said that technology dominates because it masters nature’s extremes. It could
just as easily be said that nature itself is the dominant presence, and technology in all its avatars is only playing catch-up.
In the beginning, it was scalding primordial water heated deep within the earth’s crust that produced the soothing hot mineral spring that the Cahuilla people enclosed with simple wood huts, later replaced by the elegant concrete arcades and tiled pools of the Spa Bathhouse by William F. Cody, Wexler & Harrison, and Philip Koenig. The spring attracted vacationers and tourists to Palm
The desert imprinted itself in the work of each Palm Springs architect.
Springs, thereby creating an enduring recreational economy. Nature, technology, and the local economy intertwined to form a distinctive philosophy in these notable buildings.
The desert imprinted itself in the work of each Palm Springs School architect. They did not so much bring Modern architecture to the desert as they brought the desert to Modern architecture. The abstract silhouettes of the mountain found their way into the oblique front wall of the Del Marcos Hotel (1947), Cody’s first building in Palm Springs. Rock added rugged texture to the cantilevered concrete wings of E. Stewart Williams’ Palm Springs Art Museum; to the battered walls of Lloyd Wright’s Institute of Mentalphysics topped with broad concrete trellises; to Armet & Davis’ Denny’s restaurant supporting a cantilevered boomerang roof; to the living room of John Lautner’s Elrod House designed around boulders exposed when the architect excavated the ridge line, then capped it with a spectacular concrete compression ring. At the tribe’s Spa Bathhouse, Wexler, Harrison, and Cody used random-sized natural cobble stones from the streams running off the mountain, held together with mortar, to cover walls in the hot springs treatment areas.
Visually, natural desert colors found their way into homes, patios, and walls. The dusty rose, sage green, and palo verde yellow colors that artist Millard Sheets used to paint Webster & Wilson’s Ship of the Desert (1937) and Albert Frey applied to the corrugated fiberglass panels at the Premier apartments (1957) were borrowed from springtime desert blooms.
The desert environment changed its architects over the course of their careers. After celebrating the Aluminaire House’s gray and silver metal in New York, Frey discovered the rainbow of soft natural colors in Palm
Springs. He maintained his fascination with U.S. industrial mass production but would tint the manufactured composite panels at the Cree (1955) and Carey-Pirozzi (1956) houses a desert green. He embedded rose pigments integrally in the concrete blocks he used for houses, gas stations, and churches. He and partner Robson Chambers coated corrugated metal — a favorite material — with sky blue for the ceilings of homes. Frey translated yellows into vinyl fabric lining the pleated walls of Frey I’s bedroom.
The balance between nature, technology, and recreation’s presence varies from architect to architect. At the Kaufmann House, the silver and gray metal structure is almost purely technological — a steel- and-glass tent purposely set against the irregular backdrop of the mountain. On the other end of the scale, the organic shapes of surrounding rock formations almost entirely define the structure of the Doolittle House. Between these ends of the spectrum the dramatic cantilever roof of E. Stewart Williams’s Edris House is carefully balanced by the prominent rock-clad chimney that anchors it in the ground. •
Clockwise from top: A French cyclist pulling a 22-foot Airstream Liner in May 1947; the cover of a 1978 Airstream Argosy Motorhome sales brochure; Airstream’s Wallace “Wally” Byam; Byam’s 1938 business card.
● In 1948, Byam went to Europe with Cornelius Vanderbilt to explore the postwar landscape. Traversing the ravaged continent in an Airstream trailer, Vanderbilt wanted to document the destruction as part of a planned lecture tour. Byam’s goal, however, was to road test the trailer to pinpoint problems and develop necessary improvements. The trip also served as a model for what would later become the Wally Byam Caravan Club International, a nonprofit club promoting Airstream travel. Founded in 1955 — now known as Airstream Club International — the club has more than 19,000 members.
● Byam’s first informal caravan took place in 1951, when he traveled with 63 trailers from Texas to Nicaragua. He anticipated about 35 trailers, but after a newspaper story about the impending trip, Airstream enthusiasts from all over the U.S. circled their wagons.
● Dubbed the first “selfcontained” travel trailer (retail price: $25,000), the 1958 Airstream International enjoyed freedom from external hookups to outside power and water sources. The model’s interior design concept included modern circular ceilingmounted lamps with a stylized “drizzle” pattern, enclosed overhead front-end cabinets, a full bathroom, a pressurized water system, and a propanepowered refrigerator perfect for “atomic-age comfort.”
● Unveiled last summer, the 2025 Airstreams include Basecamp 20 ($54,000), a nearly 24-foot Trade Wind 23FB ($120,900), and the Classic 30RB ($196,200). The overall cost varies based on the existing features and sizes.
The stylized travel trailer has maintained a cult following for over 90 years
Words by DAVID NASH
Known as the golden age of road building in the U.S., the 1920s saw an unprecedented expansion in roadways, the start of an interconnected highway system and a boom in passenger car ownership throughout the nation. It also fueled the nation’s interest in recreational touring and an enthusiasm for travel trailers. In 1929, inspired to design his own mobile trailer, L.A. inventor and entrepreneur Wallace “Wally” Byam developed a teardrop-shaped pop-up tent that could be mounted on top of the chassis of a Model T. After he wrote an article in Popular
Mechanics on how to build his invention for less than $100, the public response was overwhelming. He began selling the plans for $5 — as well as completely finished trailers that he built in his own backyard. In 1931, Byam opened a factory in Culver City, and the Airstream Company was born.
On January 17, 1936, the designer introduced the Clipper, a sausage-shaped trailer with a riveted aluminum body that resembled an airplane more than earlier incarnations. Based on the first aluminum travel trailer called the Road Chief, designed by aircraft engineer William
Bowlus in 1934, the Clipper slept four — thanks to a steel-frame dinette that converted into a bed. It also had a galley-style kitchen, its own water supply, electric lighting, and even an air-conditioning system supported by dry ice. Although it was considered rather pricey at $1,200, Byam couldn’t fill orders fast enough. He went on to develop other models, including the Airstream Liner in 1947. In 1954, he relocated his modest California factory to the town of Santa Fe Springs and built a larger Airstream factory in Jackson Center, Ohio, where the company is based today. X
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