HAVE AN UNFORGETTABLE OJAI SUMMER

4230 Thacher Road

If you’re looking for a vacation home with peace, serenity, and privacy for your loved ones, these two East End properties will make your summer more magical than ever. Because they are adjacent to each other, you can combine them into a phenomenal vacation compound suitable for up to 12 guests or take the one that suits you best. Choose from a 3BR/3BA estate with pool and carriage house apartment or a 2BR/2BA home with a cozy stone fireplace, chef’s kitchen, and lots of vintage charm. The two-bedroom home is offered long-term as well. There are minimum stay requirements. Contact Sharon for more details and to see the properties. You’ll make this getaway season one you’ll never forget.

4222 Thacher Road

SHARON MAHARRY BROKER ASSOCIATE

805-766-7889 ojaisharon@gmail.com ojaidream.com

DRE#01438966

STORY BY JERRY CAMARILLO DUNN, JR

PHOTOS BY GRAHAM DUNN

When I was a teenager in Los Angeles, L.A. was the coolest place on the planet. Everything seemed to start there. The Beach Boys made California surfing so popular that even kids in Phoenix were driving around with surfboards on top of their cars.

In contrast, the nearby burg where my grandmother lived was an urban sleeping pill. A starchy town for the elderly, it was lampooned in the 1964 hit song, “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena.”

I used to drive there to see my high school girlfriend on the winding Arroyo Seco Parkway, which was California’s first freeway. Its concrete chute spilled out into a realm of handsome houses and seriously manicured lawns, a genteel haven for well-mannered men and women. In a humorous tune of the day, a smooth singer crooned “Paaaas-a-dena/Where people wear nice clothes . . .” Now it’s almost 60 years later. L.A. has become a maelstrom of crazy drivers, shrieking sirens, and bad attitude, and I’ve come to appreciate Pasadena. Spreading trees shade its wide streets. Whole neighborhoods are like outdoor museums, permanent collections of houses designed by the great Southern California architects. Not long ago, I happened upon an entire street lined with Arts and Crafts bungalows by the legendary Greene and Greene.

Pasadena owes its comfortable but polished personality to location, location, location. Tucked against the San Gabriel Mountains and perched above an oak-studded arroyo, it became the winter resort of well-heeled families from the East Coast, including brand-name visitors such as William Wrigley, Jr. of chewing gum fame. Thanks to the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in the

1880s and the building of grand hotels, easterners could escape to Pasadena’s gentle climate, enjoying year-round sunshine and breathing fresh air scented with orange blossoms.

Many visitors decided to stay, hiring noted architects to build elegant homes. Among those on “Millionaire’s Row” along Orange Grove Avenue, the massive Renaissance-style Wrigley Mansion is now the headquarters of the Rose Parade, Pasadena’s famous export to the world. Cultured citizens also built world-class gardens and art collections.

If a bit clubby, the new settlers were highly refined, and their homes distinguished themselves from the show-off houses in Los Angeles. (It’s been said that the Westside has square footage, but Pasadena has architecture.)

Going for the gold, I arrived one morning at the Gamble House, considered the most complete original example of the work of architects Charles and Henry Greene. They designed it in 1908 as the “ultimate bungalow” for David Gamble — as in Procter & Gamble. (His father invented Ivory Soap.)

A “Behind the Velvet Ropes Tour” sounded veddy Pasadena posh, so I signed up for the two-and-a-half-hour exploration. Our docent guide donned white gloves to open doors and draw- ers that folks on the standard public tour never get to see. (Take that, commoners!)

The Gamble House was a rustic residence of hand-split shingles and broad eaves. Described as a “symphony in wood,” the interior glowed with rich mahogany, oak, and Burmese teak. All this wood made the house so dark, though, that our group was issued flashlights so we could make out the details: interlocking wood joinery on the staircase, art glass in a dining room door, ebony pegs covering all the nails and screws.

I couldn’t help wondering, if David and Mary Gamble moved to Pasadena for the sunshine, why was their house sooooo dark? Our guide enlightened us: In the early 20th century, electricity was brand new; Americans were accustomed to soft candlelight, so even a 16-watt light bulb seemed bright. (For authenticity, the house still burns 16-watt bulbs.) The public was also wary about the effect this newfangled electricity might have on the human body, so they wanted it deflected away from them. This explains why the Gamble House’s chandeliers direct light up toward the ceilings, not down into the rooms.

Attitudes were indeed different back in the day, as we discovered upon opening the front hall closet. Inside it a secret door led to the servants’ area. Domestic staff would dash through to greet guests at the front door and then literally fade into the woodwork. The Gambles themselves never wanted to see or hear the help — and they never set foot in the kitchen, even to grab a sandwich.

Family members lived in the house until the 1960s, when they considered selling it — at least until a potential buyer observed how dark it was inside and his wife was overhead to say: “Don’t worry, dear, we’ll just paint it white.” Realizing that they had to preserve Greene and Greene’s jewel-box legacy, the fami- ly handed the house over to the city and the USC School of Architecture, which have handled it with care. (Workers restoring the outside rafter tails actually scraped out dry rot with dental tools.)

As I stepped outside, the warm breeze and broad lawns around the house summoned up the atmosphere that drew people to Pasadena in the first place.

After leaving the Gamble House, I strolled along nearby Arroyo Terrace and Grand Avenue — and discovered an astonishing 10 more Greene and Greene houses, including Charles Greene’s own residence. It was an Arts and Crafts retrospective in the open air.

GAMBLE HOUSE, LEFT

No velvet rope required.

Pasadena has a wealth of houses, from the Hillcrest Avenue mansions designed by superstar architects such as Wallace Neff to the Bungalow Heaven district with its eight hundred craftsman cottages from the early 1900s. So, I wondered,

Where Do Locals

buy stuff to furnish these nice houses?

There’s always the venerable Pasadena Antique Center on Fair Oaks Avenue, packing 33,000 square feet with items from 130 dealers. But early one Sunday morning I headed for shopping’s center ring, the monthly Rose Bowl Flea Market, which attracts 2,000 vendors and 20,000 buyers.

This granddaddy of all swap meets fills the famous stadium’s sprawling parking lot. In the antiques area I walked into a whirling kaleidoscope, a swirling spectacle of stuff thrown off by American culture: a 1940s Boy Scout handbook, old rusty license plates, a TV script from The Simpsons, every conceivable model of Zippo lighter, a metal mailbox turned on end and planted with ferns, a 1960s Jimi Hendrix poster, a painted carousel horse, and the front radiator and headlights of a 1939 truck, perfect for that wall in your man cave.

All around me people enjoyed the age-old game of bargaining. A man picked up a 1970s pink dial telephone and examined it. “I really hate this!!” he exclaimed. “How much?”

Actress-model types and their boyfriends bought vintage clothes and cool furnishings; one vendor offered upcycled lamps made from old-fashioned steam gauges and other antique gizmos he’d fitted with Thomas Edison-type filament bulbs. I also saw an abstract painting in appalling shades of brown and yellow going out the gate under a shopper’s arm. Oh well, one man’s trash . . .

A Higher Level Of Art

greeted me next, but not at Pasadena’s acclaimed museums, such as the Norton Simon and the Pacific Asia. Instead I drove from the Rose Bowl up through a hillside neighborhood to one of the world’s top schools for creative pursuits, the Art Center College of Design.

In the 1960s the school was small and located in L.A. near my house. I used to pop into the lobby gallery to see the students’ work: scale models of futuristic cars by tomorrow’s Detroit designers, wild re-imaginings of parking meters and drinking fountains from industrial design students, a stunning pencil rendering of Bob Dylan with ruffled feathers for hair. (I also discovered that the school’s life-drawing classes had nude female models, offering another type of education to a 13-year-old boy.)

At the Pasadena campus I parked near the renowned “bridge building,” designed in 1974 by modernist architect Craig Ellwood. A long black box of a structure, it spans a wooded arroyo in one dramatic leap.

Lucky for me, the school still maintains a gallery of student art. From a clever product designer came a dog carrier that unzipped to become a padded dog bed. A graphic design student’s print advertisement showed nothing but an empty closet, labeled “$925.” The tag line at the bottom: “Clean Up. eBay.”

The student projects were already professional caliber: a wheelchair that operates on ice and snow; a Star Wars prop helmet realistically scarred as if from battle; a human-powered washer-dryer shaped like a stool and operated with your foot. The work snap-crackle-and-popped with innovation and creativity.

Things are going to look a lot better when these kids get out into the world.

At My Next Stop

I encountered an alien world, apparently having landed on a planet populated by odd-looking creatures.

With green tentacles waving, the Stenocereus resembled the giant squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Nearby rose skinny life forms covered in white hair and sporting pink noses. These fanciful beings were from an alien world, all right — the deserts of our own planet. I was standing among the cactuses and succulents at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, part of a triple-threat cultural institution that includes a world-class library and art collections, just across the Pasadena line in San Marino.

As Californians have learned by necessity, the plants in this desertscape survive on minimal water. They store moisture in their leaves and stems, protecting their liquid assets with sharp spines. Barrel cactuses were mounded like green cannonballs. Agaves sent colossal flower spikes 30 feet high. Hummingbirds flitted (carefully) among the cactus needles to sip from flowers. Rabbits hopped along the garden paths. Here, the desert seemed a peaceable kingdom.

Only a few steps away from the gardens, fine British and American art was displayed in a 1910 Beaux Arts mansion built for Southern California railroad and real estate tycoon Henry Huntington. His library, one of the world’s great research institutions, holds 400,000 rare books, including a Gutenberg Bible, as well as letters written by Abraham Lincoln and Thoreau’s original drafts of “Walden.”

As I left the Huntington, it occurred to me that in this one place, the spirit of Pasadena comes full circle: a graceful residence, cultural refinement, and a garden blooming in the California sun.

Frank Lloyd Wright In Pasadena

Walking around Pasadena’s Prospect Park neighborhood one afternoon, I peered through an iron gate. Past a lily pond stood what looked like a house in a science fiction movie — and in fact, it once doubled as one for an episode of Star Trek. It was La Miniatura, the first Frank Lloyd Wright “textile block” house in Southern California, built in 1923.

Wright cast the blocks of concrete, which he called “the cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world. Why not see what could be done with that gutter-rat?” In the mood to experiment, he turned his back on European tradition to produce an architecture that was distinctly of the Americas. (In its wooded ravine, La Miniatura calls to mind a Maya temple in the jungle.) Lucky for Wright, his client, rare-book dealer Alice Millard, wanted something daring.

I was allowed to explore the house only because it was on the market. (It has since been sold.) The 2,400-square-foot building had three levels: a kitchen and dining room below, a living room and guest room on the second level, and the master bedroom on the third. A separate studio, designed by Wright’s son Lloyd in 1926, was reached by a bridge.

In the main house I climbed the stairs to a balcony overlooking the living room. The ceiling was so low that I had to crouch. As one Wright chronicler

PASADENA PRIMER

Visitor information: www.visitpasadena.com, (626) 795-9311

GAMBLE HOUSE: 4 Westmoreland Place, https://gamblehouse.org, (626) 793-3334

GREENE & GREENE HOUSES:

On Arroyo Terrace: 368 (Charles Sumner Greene), 370, 400, 408, 424, and 440. On N. Grand Avenue: 90, 210, 235, and 240 observed: “He designed everything to human scale. That would be 5 foot 7, like him.”

But the view over the living room made any flaws fade away. Crosses of glass embedded in the upper blocks let shafts of sunlight pass through. A row of tall glass doors opened onto a balcony that overlooks the pond. No wonder La Miniatura has been called a masterpiece of siting and design.

Sure, okay, like so many of Wright’s creations the house leaked. One evening Alice Millard’s guests had to slosh through six inches of water in the dining room. It also had a serious shortage of closets. Yet La Miniatura seems to float above care, in a world and time apart. Said an always self-satisfied Wright: “I would rather have built this little house than St. Peter’s in Rome.”

ROSE BOWL FLEA MARKET: Second Sunday of each month, www.rgcshows.com/rose-bowl

ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN: 1700 Lida St., www.artcenter.edu, (626) 396-2200

BOTANICAL GARDENS: 1151 Oxford Rd. in San Marino, www.huntington.org, (626) 405-2100

LA MINIATURA: 645 Prospect Crescent; nearby Rosemont Avenue offers a better view of the house, studio, and pond

OJAI VALLEY 2477 Fordyce Road

Looking for a peaceful retreat in the heart of Ojai's East End? Look no further than this charming Craftsman estate, surrounded by fragrant citrus orchards and offering unparalleled privacy and space. As soon as you step inside, you'll be greeted by an open layout featuring a spacious dining area that flows seamlessly into the gourmet kitchen, complete with a generous pantry. The living room is a cozy oasis, featuring a fireplace and soaring cathedral ceilings, with breathtaking mountain views visible through the grand picture window. The primary bedroom offers a true sanctuary with unobstructed views of the garden, pool, and mountains, while the other bedrooms and television room/study provide ample space for relaxation and privacy. The upstairs office/studio is a perfect creative space, providing complete seclusion from the rest of the house. Outside, the beautifully landscaped backyard and gardens offer a welcoming area for dining and entertaining, with plenty of room to relax and take in the stunning surroundings. Plus, with a separate dwelling offering more office/studio space downstairs and a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom granny flat above with its own entranceway, this property truly has it all. Don't miss your chance to own a piece of Ojai paradise, just a short distance from town!

Story And Photos

BY CHUCK GRAHAM

It was raining monkeys. Colobus monkeys, that is, flinging themselves through the air, 50to-70 feet, from tree to tree, leaves drifting downward on top of us. Between the cascading river and the colobus thrashing through the treetops, the rainforest of Uganda’s Rwenzori Mountains was nearly deafening.

This was just one of the many unexpected moments experienced while trekking in the Rwenzoris. It was a journey full of unknowns through knee-deep muddy bogs from 10,000-to-14,000 feet, across open moorlands and up steep glaciers to its highest summit of Mount Stanley, Margherita Peak, at 16,763 feet the highest point in Uganda.

I had good luck convincing friends Craig Fernandez, 52, and Danny Trudeau, 65, to accompany me in February 2019 on my 15th trip to Africa, the Rwenzoris having played on my mind since February 1990, when the film “Mountains of the Moon” was released, starring Patrick Bergin and Ian Glen as British explorers Sir Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke.

The film follows the men on an epic quest to discover the source of the Nile in 1857-58. It was a brutal journey full of hardships and with the men eventually becoming bitter rivals.

The Rwenzori Mountains were mentioned on multiple occasions in the writings of Burton and Speke as they searched for the Nile’s source. After several more difficult expeditions into Africa’s central interior, Speke was credited with the discovery of Lake Victoria, the true source of the Nile, although a small portion of the Rwenzoris also feeds the Nile.

Later, in 1906, an Italian, Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi, led a team on the first successful ascent of Margherita Peak, naming it after Queen Margherita of Italy. Today the mountain range is known as a World Heritage Site.

Peaks And Valleys

The Rwenzori Trekking Services website didn’t lie. It sternly warned potential trekkers and climbers that the terrain is steep, difficult with lots of muddy bogs and that there was a certain fitness level required to complete one of their many treks.

After summiting Mount Kilimanjaro twice (1996, 2009) and Mount Kenya once (1997), it became clear to me early on that to reach the tallest peak in the Rwenzoris required more effort. In fact, the Rwenzoris possess six of Africa’s ten highest summits, with Margherita Peak the third highest in all of Africa.

For me, the mud was the biggest surprise. On Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya it was located closer to the bottom, in the dense tropical rainforests at their base. That wasn’t the case in the Rwenzori’s. The only region we didn’t encounter huge swaths of mud was at Margherita Camp (14,700 feet), the last camp before going for the summit.

From the moment we left the Trekkers Hostel in Kilembe (4,785 feet) with our guides Samuel and Rogers, we began our ascent through the incredible vegetation zones for which the Rwenzoris are known. The walk leading into the rainforest was brimming with smiling, laughing and playful Ugandan kids, my digital camera being all the rage when I played back all those beautiful, curious smiles.

There’s a lot of wildlife in the Rwenzoris, but spotting any of the forest antelopes, reptiles, birdlife and raucous primates was another matter. The rainforest was dense, and wet and the steady rush of creeks and waterfalls helped conceal the sounds of the forest.

Transition Zones

Beyond the rainforest, thick stalks of bamboo sure came in handy as we ascended the narrow spines of so many rolling ridges. They provided sturdy hand-holds when the ground became steep and slippery. It felt like we were trekking the back of some type of sea serpent, its up and down spine never ceasing until we reached our first overnight at Kalalama Camp (10,276 feet).

What was most impressive during this time were all the mountain guides and porters lugging huge packs, bags of food and other essential items to all the camps hidden throughout the vegetation zones and up to the higher elevations. Not one of the porters was without a smile on the ever-changing terrain, and they always offered a hello even when the terrain was at its most challenging.

We were in a transition zone at the Kalalama Camp. The bamboo was on the wane and the tall canopy of the heather forest was hovering above our first significant plateau. Wisps of usnea beard lichens clung to the heather trees offering much-needed shade on a precipice where cozy cabins awaited several tuckered-out trekkers.

But fatigue was soon forgotten with our first sunset and the next morning’s sunrise, a fireball of orange rising above Uganda’s sweeping eastern savannah. The dawn of a new day in the Rwenzoris was thoroughly enjoyable holding a cup of hot tea and a brimming bowl of porridge with honey and chunky peanut butter, fuel for the trek to the next camp.

Of Boardwalks And Ladders

The long stretches of muddy bogs were something to behold, especially above 12,000 feet. The guides and porters, doubling as trail crews, had constructed long sections of boardwalks above some of the worst of the bogs and also built ladders up and down the most challenging ascents and down-climbs. We were trekking above treeline, leaving the wisps of the heather forest in our wake, and forging ahead through the impressive moorlands of the Rwenzoris.

Trekking across the moorlands was stunning. The throng of otherworldly vegetation that cloaked those daunting peaks sometimes made us forget about the mud entirely. Every now and then we would stop and simply look around the 360-degree mountain views were utterly breathtaking. Giant lobelias, forests of giant groundsel trees, endless mounds of tussock grasses, Saint John’s wort and other vegetation dominated the mountain landscape.

Above 13,000 feet we began to experience the alpine lakes hidden in the Rwenzoris. The first one we came to was Bugata

Lake. It seemed every lake was an excellent place to spot some of the impressive birdlife in the range. More than 1,000 species of birds have been documented in Uganda, representing over half of the species found on the entire continent. One of those is the brilliant scarlet-tufted malachite sunbird, endemic to the high-altitude zones of East and Central Africa. Its curved beak, forked, elongated tail and shimmering feathers make it stand out against the vegetation, especially around the nectar-rich giant lobelias.

Well above Bugata Lake we took several moments to soak in the epic views from Bamwanjara Pass at 14, 685 feet. We had the first real look across a deep valley toward Margherita and the high peaks of Mount Stanley, Mount Baker, and Mount Speke with swirling plumes of wispy clouds ascending skyward. Then it was a slow, muddy, 2,000-foot descent eventually leading around a couple of tranquil lakes, then down a series of well-placed ladders. From there, it was a 500-foot ascent to Hunwick’s Camp at 13,114 feet.

Into The Mist

three lakes. The giant groundsel forests are tall and clustered leading to Margherita Camp. It was our shortest day of trekking, and we were grateful to rest for the ascent to the summit.

The high camp was busy with climbers finishing their summit push, resting, eating, and packing up for destinations unknown. All the eating cabins have wood-burning stoves and Margherita Camp is no different. We found it the place to be, to huddle up and stay warm, sort gear, and tell stories, the guides and porters chiming in with their own tales of the Rwenzoris.

We were up at 1 a.m. It was clouded over but unusually warm outside. Headlamps burning bright, Craig, Danny, and I placed one foot in front of the other. I’ve always theorized that it’s better to ascend in the dark because you can’t see how far you need to go, and the darkness doesn’t reveal how difficult the terrain might become. I relayed my theory to my companions, and they bought into it with a subtle nod or a reluctant thumbs up as we traversed our first glacier, our breaths wafting above our headlamps.

We kept on our crampons while scrambling through a rocky section toward Margherita Glacier. Samuel warned that this glacier was steep, a 70 percent grade and that it would take nearly two hours to traverse. Samuel, Danny and I were tied together and in a good rhythm. Rogers and Craig were tied in together just behind us. One other small group was ahead of us from Switzerland.

All the other climbing teams were behind us when visibility deteriorated to less than 25 feet. Because a series of crevasses crisscross the glacier, Samuel and two of the other lead guides set ice screws into the glacier and fixed lines for everyone to follow. Steadily we traversed, giving each crevasse a wide berth, visibility virtually nonexistent.

Once we reached the overhanging portion of the glacier visibility slightly improved. From there it was a snow-covered, rocky scramble to the summit. If it had been a clear morning, we would have been able to look across the valley towards Bamwanjara Pass from where we stood two days prior. Instead, we settled for milling around the summit post at 16,763 feet.

An Animalistic Descent

Sometimes it’s tougher coming down than going up,

That was clearly the case in the Rwenzoris. Many of those descents were in slippery mud. We’d also been lucky up to that point in not having to endure any rain. However, when we left Hunswick’s Camp we were in a lot of mud, steady rain, and some snow. Plus, we were on a different route and two days away from the trekking hostel. From Hunswick’s it was almost a 2,000-foot ascent to the top of Oliver’s Pass (15,000 feet), through narrow gorges to each plateau where giant groundsels soaked in all the moisture. They acted as natural water catchments, and I sipped occasionally from those smooth, thick leaves.

While we made the arduous descent from Oliver’s Pass, we did enjoy some nice diversions. The first, the best, albeit brief — the sight of a red duiker, a small, stocky, but shy mountain antelope. Once back in the rainforest, the head porter, Paul, and I veered off briefly on an alternate route for more bird sightings. That produced a cinnamon-chested bee-eater and another sunbird, this one of the red-chested variety.

Further along, Paul spotted in dense vegetation a pair of blue monkeys tight roping with utter aplomb on a narrow branch. They were across the river from us, but when they spotted us, they made a point of creating a lot of noise either by their own vocalizing or thrashing through the rainforest.

Danny, Craig, and I had made a special request of the guides and porters. We wanted to see a chameleon, which initially felt like spotting a dime at the bottom of the ocean, but they came through in a pinch, showing us not one, but two different species of chameleons in the rainforest all within a few feet of each other. A young, three-horned chameleon scaled Rogers’ sleeve. The other species was a giant chameleon. Away from vegetation it flashed at least six different colors. Once back in the trees it blended in only like a chameleon can, vanishing in the rainforest of the Rwenzoris, a mountain range brimming with natural wonders from its highest peaks to its smallest inhabitants.

Rwenzori Trekking Services: www.rwenzoritrekking.com.

Rwenzori Mountaineering Service: www.rwenzorimountaineeringservice.com