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CARPINTERIA MAGAZINE

SUMMER 2024

EDITOR: Lea Boyd

PRODUCTION & DESIGN: Kristyn Whittenton

WRITERS

Jim Campos • Peter Dugré

Chuck Graham • Keith Hamm • Riley Hull

Amy Marie Orozco • Evelyn Spence

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Ingrid Bostrom • Matt Dayka Chuck Graham • Emily Merrill

PRODUCTION SUPPORT

Carpinteria Valley Museum of History Rockwell Printing

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ON THE COVER

From left, Gabi Ferreira, Randall Parrish, Sarah Nestor, Gigi Cantiller and Grant Nestor soak up some sunshine at Carpinteria State Beach. Their ‘70s-inspired wardrobe? That’s Hammies, a Carpinteria-based company owned by the Nestors that you can learn all about on pages 68-72.

~ Photo by Ingrid Bostrom

Published by RMG Ventures, LLC

Michael VanStry, President

Gary L. Dobbins, Vice President

4180 Via Real, Suite F, Carpinteria, California 93013

Tel: (805) 684-4428

Email: info@carpinteriamagazine.com

ENJOY

Dear readers,

I’d wager that the publication process for Carpinteria Magazine isn’t something the average reader considers. Each edition has a six-month shelf life, and while one edition is being flipped through and read for half a year, the next edition is germinating, sprouting and leafing out behind the scenes. This magazine you’re picking up in the summer? We planted these seeds in January.

We always start with a loose framework, then we reach out to our trusted writers and photographers with assignments described in a few sentences. They apply their talents, their personal and professional history, and their unique perspectives to the task. These building blocks of the magazine are then passed through the filter of our designer, Kristyn Whittenton, who expertly packages them into the features you see today.

And no matter how much planning we do early on, I’m always a little shocked when I pick up the first color proof and get a glimpse of how those January seeds have grown into a garden of Carpinteria people, businesses and lifestyles. My goal as editor is an overall product that brings us pride—not just our team but also the Carpinteria community. Look at our little town! Can you believe the treasures we have here? Can you believe that we get to call this place home?

Here’s the trick though. None of the features, the photos, the food, the agriculture or the history would be possible without the advertisers. Let’s draw out our garden analogy to the bitter end and compare our advertisers to the soil, sunlight and water that feed this pretty garden. Please buy their goods and services. And please let them know that you’re a Carpinteria Magazine reader who appreciates their investment and support.

Lea Boyd, Editor

Cheers,

Farm to Table • Chef’s Seasonal Specials

Farm to Table • Chef’s Seasonal Specials

Sustainable Meats & Seafood

Sustainable Meats & Seafood

Extensive Wine List • Patio Dining

Extensive Wine List • Patio Dining

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Sustainable Meats & Seafood

Cheese & Bread

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Specialty Grocery

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Wine & More

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Extensive Wine List • Patio Dining

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Pasture-Raised • Sustainable Organic • Local ~ BUTCHER ON DUTY ~

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CONTRIBUTORS

MATT DAYKA

Matt Dayka is a Santa Barbara-based travel and advertising photographer whose work has taken him around the globe. When he’s not behind a lens, he’s often found working underneath a VW Westfalia, hiking up a mountain or sleeping beneath the stars. He has recently started journaling his adventures near and far at www.thesauciest.com. Website: mattdayka.com

EMILY MERRILL

Emily Merrill is a commercial photographer based in Santa Barbara who photographs a wide array of advertising, corporate, and fine art work.

When she’s not shooting, she’s a road tripper, cocktail enthusiast, perfume fanatic, hiker, voracious reader and animal lover. Website: emilymerrill.com

INGRID BOSTROM

Ingrid Bostrom is delighted to capture her community as a freelance photographer contributing to Santa Barbara Independent, Coastal View News, Carpinteria Magazine and beyond. Her camera is a tool to notice and commemorate fleeting moments and evolving places. By perpetually peering in a lens, she strives to also broaden her vantage point of life. Instagram: @ingridbostromphotography

AMY MARIE OROZCO

A writer and editor by trade, Amy Marie Orozco offers editorial, digital, marketing and creative services to a variety of clients including print and online publications, social media influencers, government agencies, entrepreneurs, nonprofits and public relations firms. Amy also volunteers her publicity/media relations expertise to Catalyst for Cats, a Santa Barbara County-based nonprofit, and sits on the board of trustees of the Carpinteria Valley Historical Society. Email: amymarieorozco@gmail.com

RILEY HULL

Riley Hull is a Washingtonbased writer with family roots in Carpinteria going back five generations. She is currently studying at the University of Washington, where she is majoring in English and minoring in textual studies and digital humanities. When not in class, you can usually find her inside of a dance studio. Instagram: @rileymhull

CONTRIBUTORS

KEITH HAMM

Keith Hamm is a writer in the Office of Public Affairs & Communications at (his alma mater) U.C. Santa Barbara, a former news reporter and editor for the Santa Barbara Independent, and the author of “Scarred for Life: Eleven Stories About Skateboarders” (Chronicle Books, 2004).

Instagram: @hamm_nation

PETER DUGRÉ

As co-founder and partner at Two Trumpets Communications, Peter Dugré spends his days stringing sentences, polishing prose and applying his way with words to diverse client goals. Born and raised in Maine, Peter moved west for college and has called the Santa Barbara area home for more than two decades. He now lives with his family in La Conchita. Web: two-trumpets.com/

JIM CAMPOS

Since retiring from Carpinteria ni ed School istrict in , Jim Campos has embarked on a journey to catch up on the rest of life, ful lling adventures in nostalgia, music and nding answers to lingering questions about growing up in Carpinteria. He has joined the board of the Carpinteria Valley Historical Society and played a pivotal role in the creation of the Aliso mural last year.

EVELYN SPENCE

U.C. Santa Barbara graduate Evelyn Spence is a Santa Barbara County-based reporter and managing editor of Coastal View News in Carpinteria. Spence – who has a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a minor in professional writing, journalism emphasis – is in her seventh year reporting and editing in the area. In her spare time, she enjoys playing Stardew Valley and re-reading her favorite novels. Email: evelynrosesc@gmail.com.

CHUCK GRAHAM

Freelance writer and photographer Chuck Graham, has been a city beach lifeguard for 31 years and has led kayak tours at the Channel Islands National Park since 1998. His work has appeared in myriad publications. His award-winning book “Carrizo Plain, Where the Mountains Meet the Grasslands” was released in January 2021. His newest book, “Paddling into a Natural Balance, Stories of Kayaking and Conservation around Channel Islands National Park,” was published in November 2023. Instagram: @chuckgrahamphoto

AN EYE FOR VALUE

BY EVELYN SPENCE • PHOTO BY INGRID BOSTROM

The most valuable thing Carpinteria’s Leslie Westbrook has ever found as an auction liaison? A painting by Masami Teraoka valued at over $100,000, discovered under a client’s bed.

“I really research,” she said matter-of-factly to Carpinteria Magazine during a sunny spring afternoon on the patio at Brass Bird. “I love the research. Being a writer, research is probably my favorite part.”

Westbrook, a 50-year Santa Barbara County resident, cites a lifelong passion for arts and antiques that started when she would accompany her grandmother on auction trips as a child. She has built relationships with major auction houses around the world, helping clients price their items and liaising on their behalf.

Other notable fi nds, she said, include two $80,000 Rolex watches – initially incorrectly valued at $3,000–$6,000 – that broke world records for their special references on their sales, a $50,000 Keith Haring print and a skirt by French fashion designer Paul Poiret that was on display recently at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

Her jobs tend to start in one of two ways: a cold call comes in from a stranger who saw one of her ads, or one of her contacts reaches out about a single item or an estate. She offers consultations to determine if there is a market for those items before digging in and researching what they could be worth; her research skills, finely tuned from her time as a travel writer, come in handy.

Mostly Westbrook, who works on referral commission, deals

with individual pieces, but at times, she tackles entire estates. She told Carpinteria Magazine that last year, she spent an entire year cataloging one estate in Montecito – a collection amassed over 100 years.

“People collect things for different reasons. As a writer, which is what I’ve been my whole life, I feel like objects hold stories and memories. For me, they’re touchstones. I try to be as respectful as possible. I try to determine what the person’s attachment is to something,” she says. “If they’re really attached to something, I say, ‘Don’t sell it.’”

Not all finds are valuable, however. In one case, a major auction house – which Westbrook requested remain nameless –had been called out to an estate before Westbrook to examine a collection of Spanish and Mexican art. The auction house made several incorrect estimates, Westbrook says, including appraising what they thought were two emeralds for $15,000.

Those emeralds were nothing but glass.

“The hardest part of my job is that people sometimes have an inflated view of what something is worth,” Westbrook says. “I have to bring them to reality.”

On the other hand, when a valuable item she’s carefully researched goes up for auction, it’s “off to the races,” she says. “Occasionally things don’t sell… But it’s more rare than common.”

Interested in learning more about Westbrook’s business? Reach out by phone at (805) 565-3726 or online at auctionliaison.com.

CARPINTERIA CROSSWORD

Readers of Carpinteria Magazine run the gamut, from first-time visitors to our little beach town to nonagenarian Carpinteria natives with local knowledge coursing through their veins. For the first-time visitors, this puzzle will not be easy. For the rest, though, this puzzle will have you plumbing your older memories and recent experiences to fill in the blanks with Carpinteria knowledge. Gold stars for those who complete it! Turn the page for an answer key.

DOWN

1. Rincon Point is also known as the ______ of the Coast.

2. Tomol Interpretive Play Area honors the Chumash legend of the ______ bridge.

3. Carpinteria boasts the world’s tallest ______ pine tree.

4. Sure, there’s the 101, but the 150 and 192 are also important local ______.

7. If you grew up in the 1980s and 90s, you might sometimes call Smart & Final ______.

8. There’s a footbridge that connects Eighth Street to Calle ______.

10. September 30, 2013 was a special date because it matched Carpinteria’s ______.

15. Nesting above Lucky Llama Coffeehouse are several great blue ______.

17. Julia Child raved about the burger from T he ______.

18. Carpinteria Valley was the first place in the US to commercially grow ______ beans.

19. Hollywood celebrities like Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher and Ryan ______ own homes in Carpinteria.

20. Locals call the beach at Ash Avenue ______ Beach.

21. Oldtimers might refer to the 700 Linden block as the home of Austins or ______.

22. Depending on what time of year it is, from Carpinteria the sun sets either over Santa Barbara or the ______.

27. Carpinteria had ______ stoplights before the recent 101 widening.

ACROSS

5. The first female City Councilmember in Carpinteria was Margaret ______.

6. Carpinteria’s ______ Trail tops out on the ridge of the Santa Ynez Mountains.

9. Member of the band that produced 1990s hit “Counting Blue Cars” and member of pioneering Carpinteria family: Rodney ______.

11. “______ spirit never dies.”

12. Carpinteria High School has recently produced champion soccer and ______ teams.

13. Before Coastal View News was Carpinteria’s number one news source, the weekly paper was the Carpinteria ______.

14. The ______ on the corner of Eighth Street and Maple Avenue was moved in piece from Santa Barbara to Carpinteria by horse and buggy.

16. Thousands of people annually view the ______ from the lookout on the Carpinteria Bluffs.

23. Carpinteria-born artist John ______ painted multiple iconic downtown Carpinteria murals.

24. Carpinteria ______ numbers used to always start with 684.

25. Carpinteria is known to have the World’s ______ Beach.

26. Santa Barbara newsman John Palminteri, aka ______, calls Carpinteria home.

28. Before cannabis, many Carpinteria greenhouses grew ______.

TORCH MEMORIES BURN BRIGHT 40 YEARS LATER

On the afternoon of July 20, 1984, Maryanne Colson stood in front of Carpinteria Junior High School in a white tank top and running shorts waiting to begin a jog that had drawn hundreds of spectators. Her run would become one of 3,636 1-kilometer links in the chain connecting the Olympic torch from its starting point in New York City to Los Angeles, the site of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

“Both sides of the street were wall to wall with people. I’ve never seen that many people come out for something,” recalls Colson 40 years later.

Receiving the torch from fellow Carpinterian Steve Cummings, Colson made her way from a starting point on Carpinteria Avenue near Palm Avenue to City Hall, where she would pass the torch to the next Carpinteria runner, Esther Van Wingerden (now Brand).

The torch itself was heavy and made running somewhat awkward, Colson remembers. Constructed of aluminum with a brass finish, it was 22.5 inches long and weighed more than 2 pounds. Colson had to outstretch her arms to hold it away from her face, the flame flowing backwards as she ran.

In 1984, individuals and organizations sponsored 1-kilometer segments of the torch run for $3,000. The City of Carpinteria sponsored a segment and selected Colson, an avid runner and an employee of the City, as its torchbearer. In total, the program raised nearly $11 million for the YMCA of the USA, the Boys Club of America, the Girls Club of America, and the Special Olympics.

Festivities surrounded every section of the historic run. The Carpinteria Valley Chamber of Commerce arranged for a band to play patriotic songs at the corner of Carpinteria and Linden avenues, and the Jaycees (Jr. Chamber of Commerce) held a “Carpinteria Olympic Mile” parade to follow the torch. After Colson’s run, she was greeted at City Hall by Mayor John Fukasawa.

For the next 25 years, the torch that Colson carried was displayed in the lobby of City Hall in a glass case built by Nilo Fanucchi. Colson received the torch when she retired from the City in 2009. She counts it among her most treasured possessions.

- Lea Boyd

Maryanne Colson prepares to light her Olympic torch.

A representative of the International Olympic Committee escorts Colson to City Hall.

KARLSSON

Robin Karlsson

Exhibits A , B and C An

executive summary of three Carpinteria museums

WORDS BY PETER DUGRÉ • PHOTOS BY INGRID BOSTROM

From left are Emily Duncan of the Chrisman California Islands Center, Kristina Calkins of the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center and Jayme Yahr of the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History.

The newly christened Chrisman California Islands Center opened this spring at the crossroads of Carpinteria, the intersection of Linden and Carpinteria avenues, and represents an attractive upgrade to Carpinteria’s museum menu.

For this profile, Carpinteria Magazine is calling the Islands Center one of three “museums” in the 93013. It might be a stretch to foist the word museum onto the Islands Center or the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center, but Carpinteria Valley Museum of History has it right there in its name. Each of these three museums provides interactive ways for community members and visitors to learn and explore the world around them through locally focused exhibits.

Here we capture the latest on each through the eyes of the people who know them best, their three executive directors: Kristina Calkins of the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center, Jayme Yahr of the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History and Emily Duncan of the Chrisman California Islands Center. Typically, these leaders prefer directing attention to the fruits of their labors in the form of curating inviting, informative and interesting spaces, but we turn the spotlight on them and pick their brains on how their personal passions intersect with the contents of the museums they run.

KRISTINA CALKINS, LYNDA FAIRLY CARPINTERIA ARTS CENTER

Talk about location. The five-yearold revamped Carpinteria Arts Center space is eye candy for Linden Avenue foot traffic, a monument to the core of Carpinteria’s creative community including colorful revolving exhibits meant to captivate passersby with visual art mainly created by local artists.

“We are the heart of downtown

Under Kristina Calkins’ leadership, the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center has entered its most vibrant era yet.

Carpinteria,” says Kristina Calkins, Executive Director of the Carpinteria Arts Center. “I’ve always been passionate about how the arts connect people and are really a catalyst for bringing people together.”

Being centrally located, the Arts Center naturally takes on a visitors center role. It’s open Thursday through Monday afternoons leading to tourists breezing in to get their bearings on the community — where to eat, shop and settle. Calkins says the volunteer crew in the gallery is always happy to help and the Arts Center’s community hub alter ego speaks to its importance. On any given day, the vibrant courtyard will be active for classes and events. It’s a happening hub.

The Arts Center’s mission is “creating a vibrant community through arts,” and the organization accomplishes its purpose in three parts: the gallery, which invites the artist community in for juried shows, educational programs helping locals cultivate their creative skills, and as a space for events both for the arts community and for other nonprofit organizations or for private rentals.

Calkins, a married mother of two mostly grown girls, first landed in Carpinteria as a student at Westmont College studying Spanish and International Studies, a double major for the culturally curious. After dalliances with Carpinteria in college — stumbling upon the sleepy community almost by accident — she landed a job in the local cut-flower industry in the 1990s, putting her degree to work handling international relations with North and South American customers.

Motherhood reacquainted Calkins with the value of the creative spark in life. When her children reached Carpinteria Middle School, she found the public school lacked an art program. Calkins stepped up her volunteerism to help fill the gap for her own and other children while advocating to return the arts to the middle school. Today, art is back at CMS.

Involvement in the arts led her daughters to participate in the Teen Mural Project at Carpinteria Arts Center, where Calkin’s involvement would grow with time. Volunteerism morphed into her first stint working at the Arts Center. She coordinated programs and events and was integral to the fundraising campaign to build the new center, now a permanent home for local arts.

“Seeing the community get behind the effort to build a new arts center was incredible and showed me how important it was,” Calkins says.

After working for the Arts Center for five years, Calkins stepped away to goback to school to pursue her MBA with a focusin nonprofit management. Before finishing her degree, the Arts Center hired her backto be the new

Executive Director. Calkins had the experience and had grown into the job as a natural fit with a vision to realize the center’s potential.

EMILY DUNCAN, CHRISMAN CALIFORNIA ISLANDS CENTER

Get this, more people have been to the International Space Station than have been to all eight of the California Channel Islands. Emily Duncan, Executive Director of the Chrisman California Islands Center, was the youngest initiated member of the All-Eight Club*, an informal group of those who have set foot on all eight of the islands, a challenging feat considering the U.S. Navy tightly controls San Nicholas. Membership of the All-Eight Club is kept by the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, owner and operator of the new Chrisman California Islands Center.

Duncan was practically born on a boat in the Santa Barbara Channel. In addition to her earned credibility with feet on all eight Channel Islands, her credentials include degrees in Experience Industry Management from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Leadership Studies at University of San Diego.

She’s an self-proclaimed sucker for all things islands: “If you needed me to do anything on the islands as a volunteer, I’d leap. I’d just do it,” she says. Already, she has completed a career stint on Catalina Island, working in the visitor’s center. Relatedly, Duncan applied her visitor-serving skills and ocean-affinity working at the USS Midway, a retired Navy vessel and tourist attraction in San Diego.

Carpinteria is different, Duncan says, and it’s a dreamcome-true to combine her education and life experience into building a vision for a new attraction. The center had been inching toward opening for months, so Duncan used the ample lead time to help establish the center as a new highlight of downtown Carpinteria with artifacts and memorabilia on display that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.

“We had stowaways when we weren’t open yet,” Duncan recalls of being in her office and suddenly alerted to action in the yet-to-open center. “There were a couple of women inside, and they were watching ‘West of the West’ (a documentary on the Channel Islands that screens on-demand at the center). It was a mystery how they’d gotten in, but they had big smiles on their faces. They’d never been to the islands, so I was like ‘Don’t leave. Check this out!’”

The new center has exhibits dedicated to each of the Channel Islands complete with nautical and Native American artifacts. It caters to those who have been to the islands along with those who have only seen their outlines

on the horizon. Those who have been to the islands can reimagine what they hold through contextualizing exhibits dedicated to their natural and human histories. In all, over half a million archival items have been collected over time by the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, which has grown and expanded over the decades to be a catch-all for all of the Channel Islands and California islands, from the Farallons to islands off Baja California. The center is as much a hub for the passionate island community as it is an educational resource.

“We love the opportunity to create a community within Carpinteria that is connected to the islands,” Duncan says. “The islands are close enough, so you can put off visiting them, and at the same time, they’re far enough away so that many people never make it out there. We can serve every experience.”

*The All-Eight Club has 258 members, including 12 who have died, and 280 individuals have been to the International Space Station.

JAYME YAHR,

CARPINTERIA VALLEY MUSEUM OF HISTORY

Does history change? Carpinteria Valley Museum of History Executive Director/Curator Jayme Yahr, faced with the museum’s decades of history from before her time, might pose this nuanced question when looking to modernize the local archives for updated and future

purposes. In its current state, the local museum highlights certain historical events — Carpinterians’ involvement in World War I, for example — while missing opportunities that resonate with modern audiences — the sensitive transition of whom the primary inhabitants of local lands are and all that is implied with that upheaval of ownership.

“It’s a challenge being a keeper of Carpinteria history,” Yahr says. “We want to bring in new stories but be careful to not displace the old stories.”

Yahr has been on board as ED for nearly two years, and her tenure has been characterized by the need to shrink bulky analog archives into the microscopic realm of digital storage. Catalogs of cassette tapes from recorded family oral histories can now be funneled onto hard drives — reams of tape in boxes getting compressed into searchable and accessible computer files. Multiply the task at hand by the need to index photographs, newspaper clipping, books and other artifacts collected over the decades since Carpinteria Valley Historical Society formed in 1959.

She’s up to the tall task of reimagining the local museum. Yahr is a trained museum specialist with a PhD in Art History. In addition to being a Professor of Museum Studies, she has vast hands-on experience gained at numerous museums including San Diego History Center and Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.

Her current phase includes working alongside a dedicated board of directors and volunteer docents

An energized Emily Duncan is putting Carpinteria on the map for its new Chrisman California Islands Center.

to reinvent how locals interact with the museum. Most often, museum users consist of interested locals submitting requests to find info, often on specific Carpinteria properties — we are looking at you, The Palms — and archives of family histories as they relate to Carpinteria, roughly since the mid to late 19th century.

“We always want to honor each family’s or person’s experience within those histories,” Yahr says. She explains that honoring local history is why the current phase is so important. There’s a generational change underway. When Yahr started at the history museum, the organization lacked wifi and the ability to process credit cards.

Carpinteria tourists make up the majority of museum visitors. Yahr wants to maintain that flow of interest while also inviting younger local families and students to experience the museum. In broadening and diversifying our local history — for instance, telling more Mexican and Japanese American stories — Yahr sees space for outreach to local families for teachable experiences.

Free family days are a concept she wants to introduce as a way to provide a local resource to young people. The museum is already equipped with exhibits from frontier people, featuring one-room schoolhouses of old Carpinteria and customary practices like churning your own butter. As a community institution, the museum has the capacity to be more proactive about how it invites the public to explore stories about how Carpinteria life came to be.

“No matter who you are or how long you stay in Carpinteria, you come carrying bits of history,” Yahr says. ♦

Jayme Yahr is up to the task of bringing local history into the 21st Century at the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History.

MARLA DAILY:

THE BEDROCK BENEATH THE CHRISMAN CALIFORNIA ISLANDS CENTER

The Santa Cruz Island Foundation has had lowkey homes since it was founded in 1985 — quietly occupying a storefront in Carpinteria on Wullbrandt Way near the World’s Safest Beach mural for most of the past decade — but over its nearly 40 years, it never had a true public center worthy of its brimming archives. Rich collections of art, artifacts and memorabilia now housed on public display at the Chrisman California Islands Center cannot be found anywhere else. For buffs of maritime history and California’s offshore treasures, “X” now marks the spot at the corner of Carpinteria and Linden avenues.

The new Islands Center is a testament to the stable growth of SCIF, an organization founded by former majority owner and longtime resident of Santa Cruz Island, Carey Stanton, before he died unexpectedly in 1987. At that time, the foundation was in its embryonic state. Upon the death of Stanton, his close personal assistant since 1973, Marla Daily, became President of the foundation and its historical and cultural treasures. Due to Daily’s dedicated stewardship, SCIF’s following and prominence have grown with time, making it a repository of all things California islands. Bequeathed items like flags (aka burgees) representing each island or other found relics often land on the SCIF’s doorstep. As much as anything else, the new center is born of the islander community that has come to surround it and Daily’s careful academic work to catalog everything California island.

“Each island has its own heartbeat,” says Daily, who has made a career out of running the SCIF and gathering like-minded people, including luminaries who have made the foundation possible. Sir Ringo Starr of The Beatles and Joe Walsh of Eagles fame are two musical icons who support SBIF. Then there are Roger and Sarah Chrisman (OG internet entrepreneurs) who felt so strongly about the need for an islands center they funded half of the property purchase.

Daily’s academic heavy-lifting is chronicled at islapedia.com, her online California Islands encyclopedia, and in the dozens of books and articles she has authored. Additionally, Daily distributes a weekly Curiosity Correspondent to more than a thousand island-loving followers.

Island Center exhibits capture the heartbeat of each Channel Island, and the half-million island items collected by the foundation peel back like the layers of an infinite onion for those wishing to dive deeply into the California islands. The Islands Center features archives and information on all 20 California islands spanning from the Bay Area Farallones to lesser-known islands like Guadalupe off the coast of Baja California. ♦

BILL DEWEY PHOTOS

Birding 101

with John Callender

After just stepping out of his car on Ash Avenue, Carpinterian and prolific birder John Callender already has identified five species of birds either by sight or sound at the Carpinteria Marsh Nature Park. His unbridled enthusiasm for all things avian rings as clear as a red tailed hawk call.

“There goes a common yellowthroat,” says Callender, pointing to the west. “I heard a song sparrow, but I haven’t seen it yet.”

As we stand on the eastern fringe of the wetland, Callender readies his e-bird list on his cell phone before we bird the teeming marsh. It’s Callender’s infectious zeal for birding that has inspired other new or veteran birders and grown the annual Carpinteria Christmas Bird Count and the Carpinteria Birdwatchers Group.

In 2018 the founder of the Carpinteria Christmas Bird Count, Rob Denholtz, handed over the organizing of the count to Callender.

“I was looking for ways to encourage more people to take up birdwatching so they could participate in the

WORDS BY CHUCK GRAHAM

PHOTOS BY JOHN CALLENDER

Orchard oriole

John Callender behind the lens.

CHUCK GRAHAM

count,” explains Callender. “Along with local birders Laurel Luby and Tom Beland, I co-founded Carpinteria Birdwatchers in early 2019 and have been helping to run the group since then.”

Callender worked as a teacher, writer and editor before transitioning to software development around the time he and his wife, Linda, moved to Carpinteria in 1994. For the last 12 years he’s worked remotely for an online marketing and education company, Archer Education. This has afforded him the flexibility to pursue his passion for birding on a grander scale. He can aim his binoculars at the mouth of the Carpinteria Creek or scan the pickleweed of the Carpinteria Marsh at sunrise before punching in on his keyboard.

COMMITTED TO THE COMMUNITY

Since relocating to Carpinteria from Manhattan Beach 30 years ago, community involvement has been a priority for Callender. He has served on the boards of the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs, the Carpinteria Valley Association and as a member of the Carpinteria Planning Commission, from which he recently retired.

“Lately, my main focus for community involvement has been birdwatching,” says Callender.

Callender’s love for birds began when he was a youngster. All it took was his grandmother pointing out the

John Callender birding at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh.

Yellow-crowned night heron

CHUCK GRAHAM

Turkey vulture

Townsend’s warbler

Hermit thrush

Allen’s hummingbird

Willet feeding on a small crustacean at Carpinteria State Beach.

JOHN’S ADVICE FOR NEW BIRDERS

“In general, my advice for people who are getting started with birdwatching is to just start doing it! A pair of binoculars and a field guide (or the free Merlin bird identification app on your smartphone) are all you need.

“You can start in your own backyard, or at a local park or beach. Just go out and start paying attention to birds. See if you can figure out what type of birds they are and what they’re doing. You can’t go wrong birdwatching around Carpinteria.”

Brown pelican

John Callender at Carpinteria State Beach. CHUCK GRAHAM

white wing patches of a mockingbird, and he was hooked. However, by his teens, Callender’s interest in birding had waned. Then, in 1978, he met Linda, who showed a lot of interest in birds and was impressed with Callender’s ability to identify birds by sound. That connection rekindled the feathered flame for Callender.

THE SOUTH COAST

Southern Santa Barbara County is blessed with a throng of diversified habitats, a birder’s paradise. Coastal foothills and mountain ranges, sweeping coastal bluffs, year-round creeks, riparian corridors, wetlands and scenic beaches offer heaps of possibilities.

“It’s an amazing place for ecological diversity,” says Callender. “It is toward the northern end of many species’ ranges and the southern end of many other species’ ranges. Carpinteria itself has a great variety of habitats, with the riparian corridor of Carpinteria Creek, the Carpinteria Salt Marsh, the Carpinteria Bluffs, and the beach and ocean all within a few miles of each other.”

There’s a lot to choose from in this Southern California coastal town. However, it could also be as simple as stepping right out the front door, and for Callender, it’s often just that.

“It’s hard to pick,” he continues, regarding where to go birding. “The place I bird most often is along the Santa Monica Creek bike path near my house, and I love getting to know the birds that live there, and seeing the changes throughout the year as migrants move through. I also love visiting the mouth of Carpinteria Creek, in the campground, to check out the gull flock. You never know what you’ll find!”

“FAVORITE BIRD?”

I knew that wasn’t a fair question to ask, especially for an avid birder like Callender who has a California life list of 435 species. In 2022 alone, Callender set out to do a “Big Year” in Santa Barbara County, venturing out to see as many species as possible in a calendar year. He nailed 340 species, coming in a close second to Steve Colwell who saw 346 species.

However, some birds have terrific stories behind them, and one shorebird species has captured the hearts of many Carpinterians. It’s the hardy western snowy plover. They can be seen regularly wintering on the city and state beach, but in 2021, the first snowy plover nest in 60 years was successful on the Carpinteria State Beach.

“It’s been great to see them come back,” says Callender. “And since many of them are banded as part of the recovery program, I and the other docents who helped watch them got to know some of them as individuals. So I guess I do have a favorite bird: snowy plover ‘pa:yb,’ named after the color of her leg bands (pink over aqua on the left leg, and yellow over blue on the right leg). Her story is amazing.”

(See pages 50-51)

MEET FELLOW BIRDERS

Inspired to get involved in birdwatching? Carpinteria Birdwatchers is a great resource for anyone interested in birding. The group meets on a monthly basis, with combination in-person/online meetings at the Carpinteria Community Library and via Zoom. Meetings are typically on the third Thursday evening of each month. Outings at local locations also are scheduled monthly. All the meetings and outings are free and open to everyone. Details are posted at carpbirdwatchers.org/.

After wandering the marsh for a solid hour, Callender has amassed 37 species for the morning, a decent number of species before heading to work.

“I love how accessible it is,” says Callender. “I can walk out my door and be birding in a great spot in a few minutes. Or I can take a short drive and be in a completely different habitat seeing completely different birds. Birding is a great excuse to spend time in nature, and Carpinteria is a great place to do it.” ♦

Painted bunting

A GRITTY GAL NAMED “PA:YB” DEFIES THE ODDS

BASED ON JOHN CALLENDER’S RECORDS

JULY 2019

High tides and heavy surf inundate the sandbar in front of Devereux Lagoon and destroy numerous snowy plover nests, which are built directly in the sand. Coal Oil Point Reserve Director Cristina Sandoval rescues 14 eggs. The next day they are transferred to the Santa Barbara Zoo’s snowy plover rearing facility where all but one of the eggs eventually hatch. When the plovers are fully fledged, they are released at Coal Oil Point. One of them is banded pink over aqua (left), yellow over blue (right), or pa:yb.

SEPTEMBER 2019

While birding along Carpinteria State Beach as part of World Shorebirds Day, John Callender photographs a snowy plover near the mouth of Carpinteria Creek. The bird is pa:yb; she had been released the previous month.

SPRING 2020

A pair of snowy plovers establishes a nest on Carpinteria State Beach east of the mouth of Carpinteria Creek. The nest is discovered by State Park biologist April Randol. Unfortunately the nest is destroyed by an extreme high tide before the eggs hatch. This is the first known nesting attempt at this location since 1960. The female of the pair is pa:yb.

SPRING 2021

While a different plover pair nests successfully at the mouth of Carpinteria Creek, pa:yb returns to Coal Oil Point and successfully hatches a nest.

SPRING 2022

To the delight of her fans, pa:yb returns to the mouth of Carpinteria Creek and establishes a nest with her mate. Three chicks hatch in mid-April, but within the next couple days one is lost to a predator, an American crow. The two remaining chicks are still actively feeding on the beach with their male parent as of May 9.

SPRING 2023

A number of plovers, including pa:yb, attempt to nest near the mouth of Carpinteria Creek. Unfortunately, due to the reconfiguration of the beach caused by the previous winter’s storms, none of those nesting attempts are successful, all are washed away by waves. The plovers move on and hopefully nest successfully somewhere else. ♦

Pa:yb, Sept. 7, 2019

One of pa:yb’s chicks, May 11, 2022

Pa:yb, March 26, 2023

Reishi mushroom

FRUIT OF THE SHROOMS

Mahealani Farms in Carpinteria localizes fresh gourmet mushroom production

WORDS BY PETER DUGRÉ • PHOTOS BY EMILY MERRILL

From left, Terra Stephan and Damien Raquinio are raising exquisite mushrooms in Carpinteria for customers everywhere.

Mushrooms, the culinary kind, have rocketed to popularity as swiftly as the sonic-boom producing Space X blasts that seem to erupt across the South Coast on the daily. BOOM! Once a culinary second stringer in the home kitchen, mushrooms’ mighty nutritional profile has generated a buzz, and the intrigue around their role in forest ecosystems have made them into a movement. Ambitious startup Mahealani Farms in Carpinteria has the local supply covered, growing gourmet mushrooms — 15 varieties including lion’s mane, oyster, shitake — on a small Via Real farm and offering only the freshest specimens at the Thursday Farmers Market on Linden.

Owners Terra Stephan and Damien Raquinio began fruiting and harvesting their small-batch mushrooms in 2022. Mahealani, the name of the couple’s toddler daughter, also represents Raquinio’s Hawaiian upbringing and refers to the day in the lunar calendar when the roundness of the full moon begins to wane.

“I was pregnant at the same time as we were working on our big business idea,” Stephan says. “It was nesting in overdrive, but I like to think the results of our girl and business say something about the effectiveness of birthing babies and businesses simultaneously.”

MUSHROOMS ARRIVE IN THE MAINSTREAM

In addition to choice mushrooms at $20 per pound, Mahealani Farms produces a line of skin care products and medicinal tinctures exclusively from their farm. Mushrooms and the world of fungi have well known pharmacological benefits — from providing energy to glowing skin and promoting healthful effects to every system in the human body. With Mahealani as a local producer, the supplement supply chain is compact and product integrity is unrivaled. Mahealani can begin the extraction process for supplements on the day of harvest.

Raquinio has experience as a local grower of exotic produce. He gained notoriety as a papaya producer operating first in Carpinteria then Goleta in greenhouses that allowed him to mimic the hot and humid microclimate needed to produce tropical fruit trees. Stephan cut her agricultural chops in management at a local cannabis farm before switching crops and careers to gourmet mushrooms.

“I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of years ago with the revelation that nobody was selling mushrooms at the farmers market,” Raquinio says. He has long been

High humidity and lots of natural light are key for mushrooms in the fruiting stage.

Black king mushrooms

Piopinno

Turkey tail

Shiitake Reishi

a fixture at regional farmers markets with his papaya and tropical fruit offerings and was a serious mushroom hobbyist before ramping up to commercial production.

That the zeitgeist embraced mushrooms at around the same time as they launched their business was pure coincidence, the couple says. They had been all in on the nutritional and medicinal benefits of mushrooms since before the movement hit the mainstream. Growing awareness and education about mushrooms comes from timely releases of material like the Netflix documentary “Fantastic Fungi.”

Neither animal nor vegetable, mushrooms are the most mysterious of culinary staples. In Western culture, mushroom varieties outside of buttons and portabellas have never fully caught on as fear of the unknown has been driven by the stigma of poisonous wild mushrooms. Eastern culture has been more likely to elevate mushrooms to a status of both delicacy on the dinner table and healer in the medicine cabinet. Yet, within the last handful of years, mushrooms have broken down the barrier. Fungi are like the new avocado, a symbol of health and nutrition garnering the superfood label.

ERIC MADRID

From left, siblings Mehealani Raquinio and Mesa Bishop lend a hand in the greenhouse.

Reishi

A MODEL FOR GROWTH

Mahealani Farms mushroom production starts in the form of agar and liquid cultures with genetics purchased from commercial U.S. culture banks. These are inoculated onto sterilized substrate blocks to allow the mycelium to colonize and prepare for fruiting.

“Sterility is everything when growing mushrooms,” Raquinio says. “You can get really good as a hobbyist, and then you scale everything, and suddenly it’s different, and you learn the things you never knew you needed to know. Every variety has its own needs, and we’ve been careful to respect those to produce high quality mushrooms.”

Through trial and error, Mahealani’s production has continued to scale up, with enough supply for farmers markets in Santa Barbara, Ojai, Santa Monica and others, where customers can marvel at locally-grown superfoods with an otherworldly appearance.

The mushroom we see and eat is the fruit, which emerges for reproductive purposes and is only a minor part of the organism. Whether the shaggy lion’s mane or gilly oyster mushrooms, these are the reproductive organs of the fungi, used to put out spores and grow offspring. Most of the

body lives underground or feeds off of decomposing wood.

Mahealani Farms fruits their colonized blocks in a humid environment in a hoop house at a nondescript location off of Via Real. Inside, the volume and variety of mushrooms are alluring for how they stack, cluster and stretch in flourishes of muted hues and concentric patterns. Climate control is key, and from the agar plate culture phase through harvest, the growth cycle depends on mushroom variety and averages about two to three months.

Experimentation with both production and business keeps the couple motivated. They are always piloting new varieties like tropical paddy straw mushroom, milky mushroom and almond agaricus. At farmers markets, customers gravitate toward protein-packed mushrooms as alternatives to meat heavy diets for both protein and deep umami flavorings that slide in as a substitute for the salty fats of meat.

In any case, you won’t find Mahealani Farms mushrooms at the grocery store. “No way, the stuff at the grocery store is old, and some of these varieties can’t be transported through the supply chain. Our quality is next level. It’s harvested the same day you buy it,” Raquinio says. ♦

Reishi

WE LOVE A GOOD SHOW! A history of Carpinteria theatrics

WORDS BY S. JIM CAMPOS, PH.D.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CARPINTERIA VALLEY MUSEUM OF HISTORY

On April 27, 2028, the Alcazar Theatre will celebrate its centennial birthday on Carpinteria Avenue. Carpinteria, however, had fallen in love with the movies long before the Alcazar opened its doors.

Since film first wove itself into American life, Carpinterians have enjoyed the silver screen. In 1916, the film “Diamond from the Sky” starring Lottie Pickford was screened at the Knights of Pythias Hall on Linden Avenue at the corner of 9th Street (on Wullbrandt Way). Attempts to kickstart regular movie screenings in Carpinteria took place off and on for the next 10 years. It wasn’t until 1926, however, that a young man named Oliver Prickett arrived on the scene and really made things interesting.

The Carpinteria Herald was immediately enthused by Prickett’s connection with the Pasadena Playhouse and its connection to Hollywood players. Could a movie theater be in Carpinteria’s future? The Herald needn’t wait long for its question to be answered.

The Knights of Pythias Hall had been converted into the Carpinteria Men’s Club by the time Prickett went into action. He was granted a lease to show movies and named it the Carpinteria Theatre. It opened on September 2, 1927. “The Señorita,” starring Bebe Daniels, was his first feature film screening and it drew more than 360 patrons over the weekend. This was quite an achievement for a community of only 700 registered voters. The Herald raved, “Carpinteria can support a real movie theater!”

Bolstered by his success, Prickett schemed about remodeling the Men’s Club for theatrical film purposes such as a slanted floor and new seats. Thoughts of damage sustained in the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake lingered, however, and put a stop to Prickett’s plans. Undeterred, he leased a vacant lot farther down Linden Avenue and set up a large tent to screen films.

The new Carpinteria Theatre in a tent opened on January 2, 1928, screening the most expensive film ever made in the silent movie era, the classic epic “Ben Hur”

The Ritz Theatre pictured in the 1930s.

starring Ramon Novarro. The tent was worthy of a Barnum & Bailey Circus, reported the Herald . It could seat 250 patrons. Locals dubbed the theater “The Garden of Ollie a la Ringling,” a reference to another major circus.

Prickett was on a roll. Money poured in with each movie screening, emboldening him for the next big step. When he learned that Frank E. Dow and Henry J. Mueller were planning to build a business block on the Coast Highway (now Carpinteria Avenue) he pounced at the chance, convincing Dow and Mueller to put a movie and performance theater in the middle of the business block.

The Alcazar was born.

At the Alcazar Theatre’s grand opening on April 27, 1928, Prickett screened “The Fifty-Fifty Girl” and filled the theater with Hollywood celebrity guests and Carpinteria’s finest citizens. Riding the wave of success, Prickett started making money hand over fist. What go could wrong?

But 1929 was a year of change. Silent pictures gave way to sound, and in order to change with the times, Prickett had to upgrade all his theater equipment. More ominous, however, was the bank crash of 1929. The Great Depression had arrived.

hile the epression did not dramatically affect Carpinteria s lemon business, it affected everything else. Prickett would face bankruptcy by 1931. Looking back on his time in Carpinteria in a taped interview in 1982, Prickett remembered his triumphs, like introducing to the stage a

1928 playbill for the new Alcazar Theatre.

Oliver Prickett in front of his tent theater, circa 1927-1928.

young Judy Garland and Baby Rose Marie, the 4-year-old singing sensation of NBC Radio. He would also lament the boxes of Mickey Mouse hats he had to throw in garbage bins when he was evicted. “What would those hats be worth today?” he asked.

The 1930s saw the movie theater on Carpinteria Avenue open and close several times with new proprietors and new brand names like The Ritz. In 1937, the Del Mar Theatre opened and nally stemmed the tide with a run of 20 years. Like Prickett’s movie theaters, it was christened on Linden Avenue before settling in for the long haul on Carpinteria Avenue.

The Del Mar era was arguably the greatest for moviegoing that ever existed in Carpinteria. Going from the Great Depression to witnessing newsreels of the rise of Nazism in Germany, the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan in 1941, and watching Carpinteria’s Japanese families banished to detention camps, the Carpinteria community huddled together around its main social and entertainment center, the Del Mar. There was no television at the time, and the theater became everyone’s home away from home.

Jon Washington and Roxie Grant wrote about the Del Mar and its successor, the Tradewinds, in a 2019 edition of “The Grapevine,” a publication of the Carpinteria Valley Historical Society. “It seems like growing up in the late ‘40s and ‘50s there was school, chores and church. But on Saturday afternoon it was off to the movie theater to cheer for our heroes (human and animal!). The show started with 2-3 cartoons, previews of coming attractions, a newsreel, and then those serials that kept us on the edges of our seats.”

Roadside advertisement for the newest movie at the Alcazar, circa 1928-1929.

The MGM lion visits Carpinteria, circa 1928-1929.

When the Plaza Theater opened in 1971, Carpinteria was treated to a grand event to mark the occasion. Three elephants roamed downtown Carpinteria during the day, bright klieg lights lit up the night and a busload of Hollywood celebrities arrived an hour before showtime. Off the bus came Peter Marshall, host of television’s “Hollywood Squares;” sinister movie personality Vincent Price; and the grown-up Baby Rose Marie, making her return to Carpinteria.

Though the Plaza Theater changed hands over the next several decades, the name stayed constant for 40 years. Movie screenings at the Plaza are etched in the minds of Carpinterians growing up in this era, and its fall into disrepair has become the stuff of legend. Chunks of ceiling plaster had a habit of falling mid-movie, and seats became so worn and broken that sections were caution-taped then replaced with hard-backed church pews.

Eventually, Metropolitan Theaters swooped in to save the day, investing in a spruced-up interior and screening first-run movies. The national corporation didn’t last long in Carpinteria though, and in 2010 stage veteran Asa Olsson and event producer Mike Lazaro teamed up to lease the space and operate the theater as a non-profit that would host plays, movies and live music.

The era that followed included a name change back to the Alcazar Theatre in 2017 and a $200,000 capital campaign to remodel the lobby and marquee of the beloved theater. Now, thanks to a dedicated board of directors, a new executive director an energized volunteer corps, Carpinteria’s theater is entering its second century in the prime of its life.

Young Oliver Prickett pictured around the time he arrived in Carpinteria.

Plaza Theater, circa 1974.

TURNING THE SPOTLIGHT ON DEBBIE NOMURA

WORDS BY RILEY HULL

PHOTO BY EMILY MERRILL

Applause echoes as Cate School students take a bow from the stage of the Alcazar Theatre on an early February evening. A smashing success, the show represents the first chapter of the Alcazar Theatre’s revitalization plan aimed at creating a true cultural hub. The woman behind the curtain? Executive Director Debbie Nomura, the Australian-born businesswoman who never imagined she would leave the Land Down Under for a place like Carpinteria.

Growing up in Sydney, Nomura locked in her love of the performing arts at 9 years old when the Sydney Opera House opened. Although she never sang professionally and her own dance performances were just for fun, watching frequent shows at the Opera House fostered a life-long love of the arts that she is now integrating with her robust business experience to completely transform the Alcazar.

After meeting her now-husband Wade Nomura and moving to Carpinteria, Debbie began working for the Alcazar as a business advisor in early 2023. By September, she’d been hired as the Executive Director.

Debbie has big plans. With the help and support of the Alcazar’s board of directors, she’s creating a strategic plan, maximizing programming, building the business and fundraising like crazy.

Meanwhile, Alcazar Board President Mike Lazaro is leading renovations on the theater itself, upgrading the stages, seating, lighting and sound systems, and even sprucing up the decor by having artist John Wullbrandt and his team paint the new interior.

“Although the Alcazar is very small, our space is incredibly adaptable,” Debbie says.

She plans to use this first-rate venue to put on a diverse set of events, showcasing music, theater,

dance, school performances, movies, speakers and even educational events surrounding topics that directly impact the local community. Above all, Debbie envisions the Alcazar as a space for and by the community: “Carpinteria and surrounding areas have a rich tapestry of artists from every genre.”

And, of course, there are the children. “Students in Carpinteria have been using cafeterias, their gymnasiums or playgrounds for putting on performances – but why not let them use the Alcazar?” Debbie asks. Her vision for the theater includes a monthly program of performances by students from all local schools.

This, like all the revitalization work of the Alcazar, needs funding. However, Debbie has faith. “Whatever the cause is, you can be sure Carpinterians are out in force to have their say and help worthwhile causes,” she says. With the community’s help and Debbie’s hands at the helm, the Alcazar Theatre is on its way to becoming a cultural epicenter of expression and fun for all. ♦

Alcazar Executive Director Debbie Nomura is excited to share the Alcazar Theatre with Carpinteria.

FULL PLATES

Stanleys serve it up hot

WORDS BY KEITH HAMM • PHOTOS BY MATT DAYKA

Afew blocks from the beach along Carpinteria’s main drag, the sidewalk parklet outside Esau’s Cafe bustles with locals and tourists enjoying the warm weekend. Inside, families slide into orange vinyl booths as couples over steaming mugs of dark roast sit side-by-side at the counter. On chalkboards all around, daily specials are on full display, from secret-recipe buttermilk pancakes and fried eggs on Texas toast to homemade bread-bowl clam chowder and south-of-the-border pasillo burgers.

“We stick to what we know people like, and at the same time we try to accommodate the trends,” says Arti Fairchild Stanley, who’s owned and operated the restaurant alongside husband Scott for more than 40 years. “We look at what’s trending but not too trendy.”

Therein lies the ne line that comes with the territory of

running a restaurant at every level, she adds. “Things are always uid. ou have to be prepared at all times because one day your fridge is going to conk out during the weekend breakfast rush and then the price of eggs will go way up.”

Over the decades, Arti and Scott — who Arti describes as the “behind-the-scenes” buyer, negotiator and keen liaison between the business and the bureaucrats — have weathered all the ups and downs, including recent impacts from natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic and spiking inflation. She attributes their staying power to the flexibility of a family-run small business and remaining loyal to tried-and-true menu items, many of which they inherited from the original owner.

Esau’s legend traces the restaurant’s roots to the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco,

From left, Scott Stanley, Arti Fairchild Stanley, Landon Scott Fitzgerald, Taylor Stanley Fitzgerald and Justin Fitzgerald keep the Esau’s griddle hot and the customers satisfied.

Just a few blocks from the beach, Esau’s location on Linden Avenue is perfect for locals and visitors alike.

where a visiting restaurateur was so impressed with a cook in the food pavilion that he recruited him to Santa Barbara. That young cook was Tom Esau, who, the legend continues, worked at several eateries before opening his own place in 1961 on lower State Street. Esau’s Cafe was born.

Fast forward nearly 20 years. Sunburnt and broke, Arti and Scott returned from a yearlong surf safari in Central America. Scott landed a job at Chuck’s of Hawaii steakhouse on upper State Street as Arti waited tables at Harry’s Plaza Cafe down the street. Turns out, not only did

Justin Fitzgerald, front, and Jose “Chuy” Zambrano fill plates and keep the tickets moving.

they love surfing together, they shared a common affection for the restaurant business. In 1978, they bought Esau’s Cafe from Tom.

After a few expansions, contractions and musical chairs of the commercial rental market — some may remember Esau’s first foray into Carpinteria in the early 1980s, when Scott and Arti briefly had a second cafe in Shepard Place Shops — they locked into their spot on Linden in 2003.

All along, Esau’s original buttermilk pancake recipe remained intact and in-use on the daily, along with a handful of his most-cherished standards, including grits, chicken-fried steak, and biscuits and gravy. Most menu changes, Arti explains, have followed expanding tastes, especially for all things organic and the elimination of old school ingredients that are now commonly avoided by health-conscious consumers, such as MSG.

As pancake after pancake sizzled away on the griddle, Arti and Scott raised their three kids in the restaurant. Drake, Taylor and Bo all have put in their time bussing tables, pouring coffee and delivering hot plates. These days, you’re more likely to find Arti hanging out with her toddler grandson than running the front of the house. She’s left that to her daughter Taylor and son-in-law Justin, who are, as Arti puts it, “easing themselves into the business and easing Scott and me out.”

Arti’s still very much in the mix, though, focused on doing what she loves most, namely coming in after hours to prep the soups and bake the cornbread, cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip banana bread, among other favorites— and everything from scratch.

That works out just fine, Taylor says. “I still have so much to learn from my parents. And mom’s blueberry muffins are to die for.”

Esau's is located at 507 Linden Ave. and can be reached at (805) 684-1070. ♦

Esau’s walls are covered in photos of the Stanleys’ surfing adventures. Scott and Arti’s daughter Bo and son Drake have made names for themselves in the big wave riding world.

Mirtha Juarez has a smile and a couple fully loaded plates for her customers.

Taylor Stanley Fitzgerald shares a laugh with a regular.

Cutting the Cords

Hammies brings sunshiny ‘70s styles to Carpinteria

WORDS

BY

AMY MARIE OROZCO

PHOTOS BY INGRID

BOSTROM

The ’70s called. They want their fashion back. The ’50s, ’60s, and ’80s tried calling too, but call waiting was so new. No need for the decades to worry though, their fashion is safe, alive and thriving at Hammies, a retro apparel brand headquartered in a sunny and airy space shared with Ryan Lovelace Surfboards on the ocean end of Maple Avenue.

A production of the husband-and-wife team Sarah and Grant Nestor, Hammies pays tribute to everyday wear, as opposed to dressing up for partying at Studio 54. It’s a wholesome look, in a the-Brady-Bunch-go-shopping-atSears way, versus a “Boogie Nights” one. Bright colors, high hems and vintage flair sport monikers like Terry

Romper, Varsity Cardigan, Knit Crop Top, Kid’s Terry Tee and Cabana Trunk. Collections include Shorts, Bell Bottoms, Swim, Cabana and Smocks, Beach Knits, Tops, Terry Cloth, Corduroy and Kids. It’s your grandparents’ wardrobe minus the scratch and itch of polyester.

Rewind to 2012 when the couple met in Venice, California. She, a Pennsylvania transplant schoolteacher. He, a Santa Barbara High School grad voted Most Likely to Become a Millionaire and University of Southern California alumnus.

Grant recalls about 10 or so years ago, every time he donned a pair of vintage OP shorts, a style he still enjoys wearing, people asked where he got them. (Answer: thrift

Grant and Sarah Nestor don’t just own the company, they wear the clothes.

From left, Grant Nestor, Gigi Cantiller, Randall Parrish and Gabi Ferreira take their Hammies for a spin on the boardwalk.

Gwen and Hazel Postma rock their Hammies at First Beach.

Sarah Nestor merchandises at the shop, located at 500 Maple Ave.

shops and eBay.) He thought, “If someone doesn’t bring the shorts to market, I’ll do it.” Then one day, someone offhandedly told him, That s something would invest in.

The Nestors approached the apparel enterprise as a side pro ect. iving in os ngeles at the time and availing themselves of the arment istrict, it took the couple six months of development to bring pairs of shorts in five colors to the ecommerce market.

That rst run sold out. ostly to friends, Sarah and rant say in unison with big smiles. ut they were on their way.

e re not fashion people, says Sarah, who eventually left her teaching career to devote herself full time to ammies.

e re amateurs, further clarifies former software developer rant. e designed the company s logo, and Sarah coined the name, giving a nod to ammonds each where rant spent a lot of his childhood.

mateur maybe, but savvy enough to have more shorts manufactured in Orange County and fulfill orders from their home with no outside help. Then ramping up changing production facilities for better quality and to scale the business, retaining a fulfillment house, using

Gigi Cantiller and Gabi Ferreira model Hammies retro swim wear.

fit models and getting the Hammies name out. Not to mention selling online with all of Grant’s tech expertise making the e-commerce function.

The business grew and their personal relationship strengthened; the pair wedded in June 2019. They decided their honeymoon would be a test to see if the remote selling strategy could work. The plan was nine months of travel to include Australia, Indonesia and other ports along the Pacific Rim. The newlyweds left for their honeymoon in November.

In the most literal sense, the honeymoon was over when COVID hit, forcing them to return home.

“COVID was good for the business,” says Grant, because of the surge in e-commerce. Roller skating became popular and so did the nostalgic ’70s skate wear. “The business exploded in 2020.”

The trajectory continued in 2021 into 2022, the year they retained an ad agency, resulting in the business again scaling up. However, the sewing machines came to a stop after the fledgling company was sued by a mega-corporate American apparel monolith. It was a big setback, and the company is recovering.

Today, Sarah and Grant still consider themselves amateurs and decidedly not fashion people. “We’re not trying to chase trends. We’re making things from a time or a decade we like,” explains Sarah. “Our business model is not the fast fashion business model. We’re very amateur, but we really care.”

“It’s based on ‘What do I want to wear,’” Grant describes. “The process is to check Pinterest for vintage looks and eBay for the physical piece.” From there, the now staff of eight brings the garments to life, then to market and ultimately onto consumers’ bodies.

Last year, the Nestors bought a house in Carpinteria and now live there with their two daughters, Sophie Hammond and Mary Miramar. The business is running pro tably, says rant, and there are no investors to worry about. Today, the ful llment house is in Dallas, and the clothing is manufactured overseas.

Next on the business plan is to have their sunny and airy showroom become a creative space, a funky spot for Carpinteria. Open it up to the community. “We want people to come here, to host events and other merchants,” says Sarah.

The public is encouraged to follow @hammiesshorts and visit the showroom, 500 Maple Avenue, Suite 5, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday through Sunday. Appointment only during the week. Make appointment at Hammies.com.

From left, Sophie Hammond Nestor and Amelia Burquez lounge at the beach in their Hammies.

PERFECT CHILDHOOD

The world looks very different atop a tree branch, a unique perspective that Carpinteria kids still get to experience. Screens, video games and social media have indelibly altered childhood, but lots of Carpinteria kids know that thrilling combination of awe, accomplishment and the tiniest bit of fear that comes from going out on a limb. 

FINAL FRAME

PHOTO BY INGRID BOSTROM