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CALIFORNIA STYLE
PAUl RUDD This All-American talent continues to upstage
speed machine
Eric Dane rips up the coast
checklist
GRAND CRU c for men
the world OF Napa’s private pioneer Bill harlan
class act fa l l 2 0 1 3
From cool creatives to old-school icons, take a look inside the hearts, minds and homes of the Golden State’s ADVENTUROUS power players
Guideboats Studio art Secret menus Designer Gear Aged Spirits Surf Sessions
features 96 GAME CHANGER Minus the handlebar mustache, actor Paul Rudd reports on the twists and turns of his storied career...and the strategy behind being a team player.
104 OUT OF AFRICA Inspired by the spirit of Karen Blixen’s Kenyan aesthetic, a Malibu ranch beats to its own drum.
112 FAST AND FURIOUS From quick turns to magnificent secret stretches, actor Eric Dane opens up on the rip-roaring Ferrari rally from Pasadena to Pebble Beach in one of the most luxurious speed machines— and lives to tell us about it.
118 SUPER NATURAL
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The Sea Ranch, an undisturbed colony of architectural marvels on the Sonoma Coast, stands the test of time.
124 THE TASTEMAKER With a luxury hotel, private club and two of the most coveted cult labels, Bill Harlan, Napa’s kingpin of hospitality, details the good life.
FAST AND FURIOUS, Page 112.
departments 22 FOUNDER’S LETTER
heard of. Paul Newman and dress
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Best in class.
watches. Hedi Slimane heads to
In a New York state of mind?
S.F. Denim for all mankind. Plus,
Plus, paddleboarding with
this season we’re mad for plaid.
Laird Hamilton.
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24 C PEOPLE Who’s who behind the scenes of C for Men.
Driving test: What kind of Mercedes
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man are you? One-on-one
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A look at new and exciting
with S.F. designer Yves Béhar.
Home team advantage: Bill Walsh
people, places and products
Order your perfectly constructed,
takes a knee with Joe Montana.
around the state: Ian Barry’s custom
Cali-designed guideboat.
bikes. All eyes on photographer Estevan Oriol. Greg Lauren sniffs
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out success. The best of Nat
A new pit stop along PCH
Geo. Rehabbed Land Rovers.
worth braking for: Big Sur
PAUL RUDD photographed by Cliff Watts
Roadhouse. Juicy news from
in an Etro blazer and shirt, Prada trousers
Pono Burger. Belcampo’s finest
Dior Homme’s artist in residence.
cuts. A Seaworth cold brew.
The coolest shop you’ve never
Edible art on display at SMMOA.
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and J.Press tie. See Shopping Guide for more details, page 129. Styled by Michael FIsher for Starworks Artists. GROOMER Rheanne White for See Management.
NATE CHRISTENSON
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On Our Cover
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Last fall, a funny thing happened to Paul Rudd. He was
performing in a Broadway production of Craig Wright’s Grace, opposite Michael Shannon, and during an otherwise ordinary Wednesday evening show, an audience member lost his lunch from the balcony to the orchestra. “That was a first,” says the 44-year-old actor, still somewhat dumbfounded by the occurrence. Can you blame him? “The hard part was knowing how to handle the situation—not knowing what had happened, hearing the commotion and wondering whether to stop the play or keep focus,” he says. “But that’s why we do theater, right? For the pukers.” He laughs. “At least it makes for fun stories for magazine interviews.” Sometimes it’s difficult navigating the peaks and valleys of an acting career; people just tend to throw up—metaphorically—in your general direction. But the answer, at least according to Rudd, is to go with your gut. “I’ve always been very conscious of making decisions that felt right for me,” he explains. “You never know how anything is going to turn out. The majority of things I did in the first 10 years of my career were because I got the job. But I’d never audition for things I didn’t want to do just for the sake of work.” That outlook has enabled Rudd to enjoy an exceedingly varied and successful CV, one that started, somewhat remarkably, with 1995’s surprise hit Clueless. Amy Heckerling’s reinvention of Emma cast him as the dreamy ex-stepbrother to Alicia Silverstone’s Cher Horowitz and cemented him as a sex symbol for all contemporary Jane Austen lovers and, in particular, their swooning Jewish mothers. Despite finding relatively rapid success after its release, Rudd, born in New Jersey and bred in Kansas City, packed up his Hollywood belongings at 24 and made his way back East to tread the New York boards. “I knew the time was right through a series of crazy things that happened,” he says, as he dives into a vegetable omelette and a side of bacon at a low-key Mexican joint in Tribeca. “You know: car wrecks and all sorts of other cosmic messages. “I think I had hit a point where my own happiness as to where I was living had become just as important as my desire to be in the right place for my career,” Rudd says, finishing a second cup of black coffee. “I thought I could try and make it work out here. And so I did. I knew I’d miss out on some opportunities because I wasn’t in L.A., but it was right for me to live here and do those plays. It meant something to me to make artistically viable choices.” Living in New York with his wife, Julie Yaeger, and their two young kids, 8-year-old Jack and 3-year-old Darby, has enabled
Rudd to do it all and live relatively under the radar. It has always been his goal, he explains, to be a “working actor.” But, let’s face it: There are not that many performers with his longevity. Few who, after 18 years, find themselves not only on the cover of magazines, but fluidly moving from well-received independent features (Prince Avalanche) to big blockbuster comedies like this fall’s Anchorman: The Legend Continues. “I’ve certainly been in small clunkers,” Rudd says, smiling. “But even in the clunkers, my intentions were always good. I saw what could be good in them. And early on, when I was starting out, I knew I wanted to go for a slow burn. I knew it was going to take a big chunk of my life to learn how to do things. There are so many people who come on so strong so fast, and then where do you go from there? I wanted to be a solid utility player for a long time.” A football fan as a kid, Rudd says he always “gravitated toward players who weren’t showboats. They just were solid and great at their job and just showed up and did it.” He also moved a lot in his youth, because his father worked in the airline business. “I was always in new schools,” he recalls, “and my parents were both British. The way I would try to relate to people was always through jokes.” Eventually, he discovered “Saturday Night Live” and “Late Show with David Letterman” and, far predating Funny or Die, made humorous videos around the neighborhood, one of which “involved getting dressed up and going trick-or-treating on October 19th to beat the rush,” he says. And though it may have taken a little while, Hollywood discovered those irresistible comic chops in the 2001 cult hit Wet Hot American Summer. “When I read that script, I just remember thinking, ‘Oh man, there’s so much generic comedy, but this is pretty cutting edge. This speaks to me,’” he says. The movie wasn’t a big hit, but it was something that “comedy writers and comedy nerds were way into.” It also starred a gaggle of talent, from Amy Poehler to Judah Friedlander. And it opened Rudd up to a whole world of players (Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Judd Apatow, Steve Carell and Jason Segel among them) and projects during a period of comedic renaissance in Hollywood. Many of the movies became huge hits, including The 40 Year Old CONTINUED ON PAGE 128
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Over the past decade, he has amassed a team of international specialists: model builders and sample makers, textile crafters and sewing artisans, materials experts, software developers, scientists and talented writers. In addition to Jawbone, Fuseproject has partnered with an impressive roster: Prada, Target, Cassina, Puma, Google, General Electric and Swarovski. Béhar is already in the TED Talks realm and one of Time magazine’s Top 25 Visionaries. Part of the force that drives the designer’s power is to always ask, what if? The recent Nivea brand tweak, which involved reinforcing and repositioning the ubiquitous indigo blue look, is Fuseproject at its most direct, eloquent and efficient. “Nivea had the distinctive round blue tin with the Bauhaus logo...but over the years, the design of its brand extensions had become confusing and incoherent,” explains Béhar. His concept: Place the signature round blue logo on every product, and streamline the bottles—a smooth, tactile experience that makes the line immediately identifiable. Indeed, sales increased. It’s not always about the bottom line, however. Social consciousness is part of his makeup—and product output. “Finally, I see a world where companies have to be very clear about not just what they bring to life from a commercial standpoint, but also what their social goals are.” As part of the Ver Bien para Aprender Mejor (“See Better to Learn Better”) program, students in Mexico have received free Béhardesigned glasses since 2010. In May, 2011, Béhar partnered with Tipping Point, a local philanthropic organization that created a similar initiative in S.F. The list continues: Just this summer, the Briggo coffee kiosk and XO (One Laptop Per Child) joined two possibly revolutionary concepts. “Every time I have the opportunity to inspire people and introduce them to forward-looking ideas, I take it,” he says. Ouya, a video-gaming console, offers an open development experience so any creator can publish a game on TV. Ouya both downloads and streams entertainment content in crisp 1080p HD quality. Sleekly designed, it still has old-school triggers, analog sticks and an accurate integrated touchpad. What’s more, the inexpensive, Béhar-designed August Smart Lock is an electronic lock operated by smartphone app, rendering keys obsolete. Rather poetically named, it’s easy to install, has a simple round design and allows the user to select who has access (for example, a housekeeper or guest). Béhar has enjoyed a long, successful relationship with Michigan-based Herman
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Miller (perhaps you recall the gorgeous lines of the Sayl chair) and just unveiled the Public Office Landscape with the manufacturer. Its modular and ergonomic Social Chair is the building block of the system, turning into a banquette, a sofa and a small-group meeting place, and making larger meetings possible (available later this year). And when he’s not revolutionizing the way we work, he might be spotted with his family (his partner, art advisor Sabrina Buell, and their two children) on a remote beach at Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico, or surfing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge during winter storms. Béhar especially likes balletic moves—the aesthetics and synchronicity of the waves, mind and body. “I like the idea of timing every move in the surf precisely,” says Béhar. “It enhances the work I do for my clients. Surfing, like design, is a kind of dreaming.” fuseproject.com. •
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Virgin, Knocked Up, Role Models, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and, of course, the original Anchorman. “It’s not like I woke up one day and all of a sudden it was different,” says Rudd, finishing his plate of bacon. “But over the course of a few things, people started knowing my name. The Williamsburg crowd tends to veer toward Wet Hot American Summer, and then the Europeans know ‘Friends’ a lot [he played Phoebe’s boyfriend], and a lot of grandparents that live in New York picture me as this nice Jewish boy to date their granddaughter. It’s nice to feel that you’re not spinning in the wind.” Rudd recently reunited with the guys behind Wet Hot American Summer for an upcoming feature called They Came Together. And after filming the Anchorman sequel, he took some time off to be with his family at their house upstate, which has its own traditional Irish pub in the basement—a nod to his late father, Michael, who was obsessed with Ireland. His kids have yet to see any of his work. “I kind of don’t want them to see the stuff I’m in, at least until they’re a little older and can understand it,” he says. As for dream roles, “I don’t have that thing where there’s just the one part I have to do, like Hamlet,” says Rudd, who studied at Oxford after an early stint in television, “to which my agent asked, ‘Why are you doing that?’” he remembers. But does a background in Shakespeare really prepare you for the broad role of oversexed and arrogant field reporter Brian Fontana in an Anchorman sequel? “I don’t know,” says Rudd. “That’s a good question. There are probably more wrong ways
to do Shakespeare than there are wrong ways to do Anchorman, but if you can do Shakespeare, you can do most things. Some of the basic rules will help you in everything.” Despite the slow burn of his career, he has, surprisingly, never inhabited a superhero role. This, despite the ever-growing presence of the Marvel and D.C. universe in Hollywood. “That kind of stuff is not really in my orbit,” he says. “It’s a different kind of format that I’m interested in. There’s nothing I rule out, but it always seemed like I was working on Earth.” Or, as the case may be this fall, back behind a news desk, in very tight ’70s clothes, with an absurdly large handlebar mustache. •
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the founders’ showpiece (on the National Register of Historic Places since 2005), sited to harness eastern and southern sun for warmth against the brute chill. For many units, wind sweeps up and over a dramatic sloped roof as it ascends a knoll. Other features include giant square windows, redwood steps and sliding doors, and, of course, unparalleled vantage points. The 1,700-plus residences at The Sea Ranch are considered the pinnacle of Third Bay Tradition and a haven for architects and award-winning designers, yet to point to one definitive style would be erroneous. Here, creativity runs freely within the constraint of nature and the Sea Ranch covenant. It’s not a hasty pastiche of handmade craftsmanship, angular geometry, and graying, untreated wood; each abode conforms to its specific site. Though the Design Committee is slightly less stringent than it was five decades ago, construction and renovation processes and approvals are exquisitely detailed and laborious. Residences make sense of the landscape, like the Spudich House (2010), a modern cabin camouflaged by redwoods and firs. Some are crafted to preside without bombast— the Rush House (1970) and its eye-catching chimney jumps to mind. Many update the