Ellen Degeneres: Gets Real about Real Estate & Design

CEO Gwyn Lurie gwyn@montecitojournal.net

Spring | 2023

President & COO Tim Buckley tim@montecitojournal.net

The Riv Founder & Editor Les Firestein les@montecitojournal.net

Art Director Trent Watanabe trent@montecitojournal.net

Magazine Managing Editor Gina Zondorak Terlinden

Design/Layout Assistant

Stevie Acuña

Director of Operations

Jessikah Fechner jmoran@montecitojournal.net

VP Sales & Marketing

Leanne R. Wood leanne@montecitojournal.net

(805) 284-7177

Account Managers

Tanis Nelson: tanis@montecitojournal.net

Susan Brooks: sue@montecitojournal.net

Elizabeth Nadel: elizabeth@montecitojournal.net

Bryce Eller: bryce@montecitojournal.net

Photography

Edward Clynes, Kim Reierson

Contributors

Joe Donnelly, Kelly Mahan Herrick, Rob Hill, Gary Marks, Max-o-matic, Nicholas Schou, Je Wing

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© Paul Warchol Photography

CONTENTS:

.52 – NARCOTECTURE

Two interior designers –partners in business and life –designed 30 residences over 20 years for the head of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel. The designers wound up in jail – which is far better than how things went for the drug lord. No longer behind bars, Alexander Blarek and Frank Pellecchia talk about Gucci sacks of cash, bad hombres, and America’s forever war on drugs.

.80 – TOILE 2 0

The ubiquitous decorative pattern was popularized by the notorious Marie Antoinette. Today, Toile 2.0 designs feature The Notorious B.I.G. and even R.G.B. Sheila Bridges – the designer of Bill Clinton’s post-presidency o ces as well as our current vice president’s residence – talks about her playful and wildly successful Harlem Toile de Jouy.

.92 – ELLEN DEGENERES LEAVES NO STONE UNTURNED

The most successful house flipper of all time reveals the secret sauce of how to make an “Ellen” house. Don’t worry, you still won’t be able to do it. For the most consequential person in residential architecture, design, and real estate, this is her first interview since “the show.”

.124 – MEG OF MONTECITO

Not that Meg. The interior designer and Farmer’s Daughter Hotel model

Meg Joannides is actually a scientist’s daughter – which has served her well on the cutting edge of design and architecture. Fresh o her space-age Hill House triumph, Joannides refreshes a legacy Santa Barbara estate The Riv says is wrapping up to be one of the greatest renovations ever.

.144 – BELLA MCGOLDRICK IS KEEPING IT REAL

The artist’s Hyperrealistic work asks us to see life’s minutiae with new eyes – and is capturing the public and critical imagination. AI, eat your heart out.

.158 – WISH YOU WERE HERE…

We are not alone! Postcards from other rivieri around the globe.

.160 – LIBERATION YACHT BROKERAGE WILL HELP YOU SAIL OFF INTO THE FUNSET

Phillip Pollak is one of the world’s foremost superyacht experts. He can sell you a 144-foot sailing yacht that can go 12 knots even without wind. Pollak is a superyacht captain and avid surfer who once kept a boat from capsizing by staying at the helm for 48 straight hours and “surfing” the yacht out of a bomb cyclone – Pollak knows whereof he speaks.

.172 – HEIRLOOM HEIR APPARENT

From your bruised Matisse to a cherished family photograph, The Conservation Center can resuscitate your most treasured possessions — think SEAL Team Six for your Seurat. Heather Becker throws light on the country’s premier art conservation lab. (They can even fix your frame.)

.186 – GREAT ESTATES

Redefining the word “keepsake,” if your home has a storied past, David Silverman can create a gorgeous and exhaustive bound edition that tells its history. It’s the ultimate housewarming gift.

.194 – GET GROUNDED

Beneficial fungi, root-massaging bacteria, and biodynamic worm castings – oh, my! Well, it’s much better than what Big Ag does to your food. The Sustainability Symposium on April 15 in Santa Paula will help you connect to the ground – and delay your return to it.

Photo by Kim Reierson

Photo by Kim Reierson

CONTENTS:

.198 – CASTLES WITH COCKPITS

If you have 10 figures to spend – or even just nine – Stephen Vella’s Kestrel Aviation Management can build you a really nice airplane. Think a winged boutique hotel or “flying mansion.” (BTW, there’s no decimal point in those figures.)

.206 – DAVID YOUNG PUTS THE HIGH (ALTITUDE

) IN HIGH-END

David Young, a logistics genius and aviation aficionado, can basically get anything done in the sky – ask Rihanna. The Riv steps behind the velvet rope at 30,000 feet and talks with the CEO of YoungJets and ROAM Maui. Airplane food by Charlie Palmer. Seriously.

.216 – THE SHARED DNA OF ARCHITECTURE AND JEWELRY

The best jewelry is nothing short of a great piece of architecture that one wears. The sea of shared material between architecture and jewelry design is deep and wide.

.224 – MASTERPIECE MAKERS

A shortlist of blue-chip architects, interior designers, artisan craftsmen, and more.

.234 – REAL ESTATES

Some prime properties in the Santa Barbara area, as well as luxe homes in Los Angeles and sophisticated mountain manses.

Photo by Kim Reierson

Enjoy

CONTRIBUTORS:

JOE DONNELLY

Joe Donnelly is an award-winning journalist, writer, and editor. He is currently a lecturer of English and journalism at Whittier College and the editor of Red Canary Magazine. His latest book – God of Sperm: Cappy Rothman’s Life in Conception (Rare Bird Books), which is about the son of a notorious ma oso who became a groundbreaking fertility doctor – is out now.

GARY MARKS

Gary Marks is a writer, screenwriter, and director in Los Angeles. His last lm, Daddy’s Home, appeared in the L.A. Shorts International Film Festival and the Newport Beach Film Festival. His previous feature lm, My Boyfriend’s Meds was nominated as Best Picture in the 2020 Imagen Awards. His rst feature, e Music Never Stopped (cowritten with Montecito Journal Media Group CEO Gwyn Lurie) opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. Writing for e Riv is his new favorite passion, as, unlike screenwriting, it takes substantially less than three years to complete a piece.

JEFF WING

A Santa Barbara-based freelance typist and profound sports ignoramus, Je knows Life® as a variously charming and macabre kaleidoscope whose dazzlingly mysterious patterns may be decipherable through extensive overwriting like this. We lift the veil and see there is no such thing as “ordinary.” When not writing, Je is either asleep or running from a scary dog.

ROB HILL

Rob Hill is a 27-year veteran of the magazine industry. In 2015, Hill was recruited to be the executive editor for the launch of another groundbreaking magazine, mg: For the Cannabis Professional. Hill cowrote the book Naked Ambition with Lonn Friend. Since then, Hill has also worked with author Harvey Kubernik on books about Neil Young, e Doors, and Jimi Hendrix.

NICHOLAS SCHOU

Nicholas Schou is the former editor-in-chief of OC Weekly and an investigative reporter whose work has led to the release from prison of wrongfully convicted individuals, as well as the indictment and imprisonment of a Huntington Beach mayor. Schou’s work has appeared in numerous publications including e Atlantic, Newsweek, Salon, e Observer, e Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of several books including Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb, which was made into a 2014 Hollywood lm starring Jeremy Renner, and Orange Sunshine: e Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World.

KIM REIERSON

Kim Reierson is a California native who was raised in Bolivia. After graduating from UC Santa Barbara with a B.A. in ne arts, she worked as a photojournalist for various newspapers, winning several awards. In 2000, she moved to New York City, where she has been represented by the Robin Rice Gallery since 2001. She is best known for her 2007 photography book Eighteen: A Look at the Culture at Moves Us, a visual documentation and an homage to America’s 18-wheeler truck drivers that has been featured on ABC News, CNN, and in National Geographic. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and her clients include Art and Auction, Forbes FYI, Bloomingdale’s, Ralph Lauren, the Smithsonian Institute, and Vogue Mexico, to name a few. As an avid cyclist, when she’s not behind the lens, you’ll nd her climbing Gibraltar Road on any given day.

KELLY MAHAN HERRICK

Kelly is originally from Newbury Park, California, but has called the Santa Barbara area home for 23 years. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, she has been reporting on local news and real estate issues for multiple media outlets since 2006. Kelly is currently a contributing editor for Montecito Journal’s weekly newspaper, writing about new businesses, new residential and commercial developments, school district happenings, and other issues that a ect our neighborhoods. Kelly is a partner with the real estate team Calcagno & Hamilton with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. Kelly and her husband, Jason, a local business owner, live in the Santa Ynez Valley with their young daughter.

Photo by Edward Clynes

Editor’s Letter

Ilove my job. From a design perspective, I get to experience so many of the most interesting homes and people on earth. And never more so than this issue.

When I was a kid in New York, my mom, a decorator, would tell me stories about going to auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s and seeing Dolly Parton bidding on antiques. at story really added dimension to what I thought I knew about Ms. Parton. You form an opinion about someone because their image is everywhere but have to remember mass media is not nuanced. Fortunately, e Riv is.

Let’s start with our cover story. When we set out to do this magazine, we always said e Riv would be “the secret knock,” i.e., the pulling back of the curtain on some of the world’s most interesting domiciles. Which is a great slogan and a great sales tool. But what does it really mean?

It means that private people let you behind closed doors, show you their private stash, and open up about how they live and why. is was never more the case than when I paid a visit to Ellen DeGeneres. Had she never told a joke in her life, I believe Ellen would have been as successful a designer as anyone. She kind of already is. Case in point: She bought a storied home from the legendary and wildly successful Montecito designer John Saladino – and improved it!

What I found in researching the Ellen story is that across the board, people revere her design. ey also appreciate that she is a design locavore and massive booster of the local economy, putting her money where their mouths are. In a word, Ellen represents. One local broker called her “a one-person historic preservation trust. She takes mediocre houses and bu s them out like no one else.” Special thanks to everyone who took the time to talk to me about Ellen (especially Portia and Ellen).

Which is not to say that Ellen is our only epic story. Before Ellen’s, I was working on the story “Meg

of Montecito” about the designer Meg Joannides who, among other things, was working on a renovation of Santa Barbara’s storied Graholm Estate, which later became the Brooks Institute of Photography … before it ipped back to being a residence. When I saw what Meg did with Brooks, I thought it was the nicest renovation I’d ever seen. at is, until I got to Ellen’s, at which point I decided Graholm was the nicest renovation I’d ever seen of an older house, while Ellen’s place most de nitely wins the Best Refresh of a Property Less than 20 Years Old award.

Of course, I love all my kids the same. Just like I love all our stories the same. Narcotecture is, frankly, my favorite design story ever, and it’s a story I’ve been stalking for years. ere are a bunch of people in this issue who’ve designed scores of houses. Ellen has done around 50. Designers Alexander Blarek and Frank Pellecchia did 30 houses for one client, who just so happened to be the head of the Cali drug cartel and, eventually, their own personal cocaine bear. Narcotecture is a cautionary tale of “live by the machete, die by the machete.” Spoiler alert: is cocaine bear winds up just like the one in the movie, and our designers wind up literally holding the bag, which in this case was a Gucci bag stu ed with a million dollars in cash. Yes, they go to jail, and yes, it was fun for me to handle the actual bag.

In other news, as you can tell by my photo, I love designer Sheila Bridges’s Harlem Toile de Jouy wallpaper (see “Toile 2.0”). I always knew Bridges was talented and had done some great gigs. And I know her Harlem Toile is one of the most successful

patterns of any kind in modern times. But I did not know she’d just completed updating the vice president’s residence in the capital. Nor did I know the relationship of toile to the slave trade. Nor did I know that Mike Diamond from the Beastie Boys also created his own updated form of toile. We didn’t just stick to terra firma for this issue. Stephen Vella of Kestrel Aviation builds extremely advanced mansions. e di erence between his mansion and yours is that his can take flight. David Young deals with a di erent kind of aviation – let’s call them ights of fancy. For his well-heeled clientele, Young can make just about anything you can think of happen at 36,000 feet. But don’t take our word for it, there’s a documentary about what Young can do called Rihanna: 7Countries7Days7Shows

While we’re discussing epic work, check out Heather Becker and her Conservation Center. ese art conservators are like paramedics for your Picasso and basically sent in their version of SEAL Team Six to rescue art from our enclave during the omas Fire. Like everything else in this issue, the passionate artisans at e Conservation Center are epic, elegant, and unexpected. You should expect nothing less from a design magazine made in Montecito. Enjoy the “tattoiles”! (With special thanks to Sheila Bridges.)

– Les Firestein Editor and Founder, e Riv.

Sheila Bridges’s Harlem Toile has been a hit from the jump.

ENDURING BEAUTY.

805.453.8700

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Photo by: Fred Licht

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Alexander Blarek and Frank Pellecchia's saga reads like a telenovela.

Illustration by Max-o-matic

Words by Les Firestein with Gary Marks

The Blarek-Pellecchia saga simply fascinates me because of its operatic nature. When asked what the story is about, sometimes I say, “It’s more a question of what it’s not about.” ere are so many twists and themes, that when Gus Garcia-Roberts of e Washington Post did his exhaustive reporting on this story years ago, the nished piece was 60 pages. emes covered in the tale of A. Alexander Blarek II, ASID, and Frank V. Pellecchia and their design work for the head of the Cali cartel include 1980s and ’90s excess, the high cost of artistic freedom, America’s unsuccessful “forever war” on drugs, and a love quadrangle. ere are undercurrents of Pulp Fiction as Blarek and the drug lord’s wife spend more than a little time canoodling. Oh, and there’s house ipping.

Part of what makes the story extraordinary is that Cali’s José Santacruz Londoño (JSL) was no ordinary drug lord. Unlike Medellín’s Pablo Escobar – a classic brute who got his start stealing gravestones, shaving o the names, and reselling them – José Santacruz was an educated man of

re ned tastes. In fact, the Cali dons went by the moniker the “Gentlemen of Cali,” aka “ e Quiet Cartel.” In the beginning, at least, JSL far preferred bribes over bullets. Unlike the thug Escobar, whose aesthetic taste was “narco deco,” JSL’s style was more Mies van der Rohe than cokeinfused maximalism.

As a sophisticated man (with a master’s degree in engineering), Londoño had sophisticated problems. At one point, the drug lord added to his already crowded house the children he’d sired with a mistress. Talk about Eight Is Enough. Londoño then hired a live-in psychiatrist to try to help the new kids adjust. Please note, this is 20 years before Dr. Mel (Lorraine Branco) ever met Tony Soprano. But unless I missed an episode, I don’t think Tony ever lived with his shrink.

Other highlights include a custom-designed half-million dollar set of china, crystal, and atware the designers fabricated for JSL and a protracted courtroom debate as to whether designer Pellecchia’s dream journal was admissible as evidence. (It was.)

The saga of how two designers – partners in business and in life – went to jail for decorating 30 interiors for the head of the Cali drug cartel, has always been my favorite design story...

The World’s Slowest Chase

Let’s start by cutting to the chase – literally our government’s chase – of José “Chepe” Santacruz Londoño, then head of the Cali cartel. “Chase” is a generous term because U.S. law enforcement was “on the trail” of Chepe for 20 years. Twenty years doesn’t really feel like a chase to me; we found Osama bin Laden in less than 10.

It’s unclear why the DEA was having so much di culty nding a drug lord who was not technically in hiding. JSL had a daughter at Harvard. (Actual Harvard.) ose tuition payments were traceable and coming from somewhere…. (I’m pretty sure Harvard doesn’t take cash.) JSL also sent out 500 engraved invitations for another daughter’s quinceañera. Julio Iglesias – who is not a professional bounty hunter – was able to nd Chepe and sing at that quinceañera. Because Chepe’s address was on the invitation. Maybe the DEA was awaiting its own engraved invitation?

e problem with the DEA’s slow pursuit of Santacruz was, ultimately, a competing cartel (aligned with a Colombian paramilitary unit) found Chepe rst and promptly did what cartels do to their competitors – they killed him.

Not your normal drug lord home. But nothing about this story is normal.

Pre-incarceration, Blarek and Pellecchia certainly enjoyed the open road.

So, after 20 years of hot pursuit (sarcasm mine), what our DEA had to show for their e orts was … nada. I don’t know what a year of drug lord pursuit costs, but I do know there were more than 100 agents on the case, and as far back as 1985, military contractors would charge Uncle Sam $400 for a hammer and $640 for a toilet seat. Did the pursuit of Chepe cost a million bucks a year? Two million?

e Colombian assassination of Chepe in 1996 ratcheted up the pressure on American law enforcement to produce something for all the millions spent chasing him. So, the DEA looked at the hand they were dealt and what was left of Chepe’s cartel with their prized capo – now de-capo-tated. Enter the easy-to-demonize designers Alexander Blarek and Frank Pellecchia.

e DEA taxidermists must have looked at Blarek and Pellecchia, salivating, the two designers were natural poster kids of drug money excess and were easy to villainize. ey’d received checks, numerous wire transfers, but, most importantly, $1 million cash delivered in a nice Gucci bag. And, though they paid taxes on every penny, they also lived high on the hog. ey rode Harleys. Bought expensive toys and art. And were gay.

For the DEA, the “pivot to Pellecchia and Blarek” was not ideal but better than nothing. eir strategy was to try the ghost of Chepe posthumously, in absentia, in the form of his “proxies” Blarek and Pellecchia. Armed with lists of extravagant purchases, the DEA rst shopped their case to the designers’ home state. Unfortunately, the court in California said the DEA had no case. e DEA then took its case to the Florida DA, since Blarek and Pellecchia operated their business there.

e Florida DA also rejected the case and told the DEA their case was “frivolous” and maybe even a little embarrassing. Finally, the DEA brought their Hail Mary to the U.S. Eastern District Court in Brooklyn, where much of Chepe’s cocaine had found its way onto the streets. Lo and behold, New York – the epicenter of the ’90s crack cocaine epidemic – said that it would hear the case.

It’s now 25 years since that bizarre trial and the designers’ sentencing. e government tried to get Pellecchia and Blarek to “ ip” on each other, but neither would. Today they’re out of jail, back on their feet, and their love endures. e Riv got to spend some time with Blarek and Pellecchia, who are still excellent designers and very much back to ipping houses. But rst, on this 25th anniversary of this case, we’re “going back to Cali” – to review how these two designers became hunting trophies in the war on drugs and why their story remains more beguiling and poignant than ever.

Cali drug lord José Santacruz and his wife, Amparo. Seems like marital bliss, right?

Actually, Santacruz had half the kids in this photo with his mistress. Then he brought in a full-time shrink to make everything “work.”

The designers fabricated custom flatware and china for their drug lord client – the tune of half a million 1990 dollars.

GOING BACK TO CALI

An Overview of Previous Reporting

By Gary Marks

When Alexander Blarek shouted for his tour guide to stop the car so he could get a closer look at a stunningly breathtaking house o a road in Cali, on a Sunday in 1979, he had no inkling how much of a left turn his life was about to take.

As Blarek approached the house, a guard appeared and asked him what he wanted. Blarek said he admired the house and wanted to know if he could snoop around. e guard said, “It’s highly unlikely the owner would allow that,” but Blarek persisted. “Please check,” he said. As luck would have it – good luck that would later turn to bad – the owner of the home, José Santacruz, was out on the balcony with his wife and the couple invited the harmless-seeming Blarek in for a tour. Apparently, even drug lords can be house-proud.

As Blarek strode inside, he had no idea he was about to meet the interior design client who would allow him the creative freedom every artist dreams of. He couldn’t imagine how rich that successful collaboration would make him. He would never even consider that he was about to lay eyes on the woman he would marry, if he were ever to marry. But the most important thing that he did not or could not know at that moment, was that this impromptu tour would lead directly to Blarek serving a prison term for conspiracy to launder money on behalf of the boss of the Cali drug cartel.

Within moments, Blarek was touring the sprawling uncompleted house, with the owners, Señor y Señora José Santacruz, a stylish, attractive couple in their 30s. ey hit it o instantly. Sprinkling his fawning appreciation of the 14-acre property with sly design suggestions, Blarek slowly reeled in his tour guides. By the time he left, he had a retainer check for $25,000, a half-million dollar design budget, and an agreement for a $135,000 fee for his services. Returning to his home in Miami, Blarek immediately went to work. He had a year to nish the project before the Santacruz’s daughter’s quinceañera. As every builder and designer knows, 95 percent of the time, job deadlines are determined by a party or ceremony.

“The Jewel of Cali,” one of the properties Blarek and Pellecchia completed for José Santacruz.

It was the kind of dream job Blarek had been imagining since he was a child. As a little boy in Milwaukee, Blarek eschewed his father’s wish for him to become a sherman in favor of helping his mother’s friends select fabric swatches for their living rooms. Known for his re ned aesthetic, Blarek became the go-to design tastemaker in his community. Preferring real-world work to homework, he left his undergrad studies in architectural interior design at Marquette University, then transferred to the University of Denver by way of e Art Institute of Chicago. Soon after, he set up his own design studio. By the time he met the Santacruzes, Blarek had amassed an elite Florida client list that included the owner of Ryder Trucks and the founder of the White Castle restaurant chain – a home that would be featured in Architectural Digest

Well into adulthood, it had never occurred to Blarek that he was gay. He was romantically involved with a female designer when he

walked into the high-end lighting gallery where Frank Pellecchia worked to shop for his new clients. Pellecchia got hit on by so many decorators and designers that he decided it would be less hassle to invent a ctional beard, slip on a wedding ring, and even display photos of his ctional family. Until he laid eyes on Alexander Blarek. It’s hard to say exactly why it was love at rst sight, but it is notable that both men sport impressive mustaches that occupy signi cant facial real estate. One look at Blarek, and Pellecchia decided to slip o his wedding band, become available, and after a short whirlwind courtship, Pellecchia moved into Blarek’s house and became the vice president of Blarek Designs, Inc. Pellecchia’s background was not dissimilar to Blarek’s. Raised in a hardscrabble Italian American Brooklyn neighborhood, Pellecchia also had hetero romances before coming out, once becoming entangled with the daughter of a mobster. It would not be his only time.

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Although Pellecchia and Blarek shared much, their skill sets did not overlap, so they made a perfect team. Blarek was the design maestro while Pellecchia was the organizational mastermind. ey rounded out their crew with a narcoleptic o ce manager they had promoted from housekeeper who popped Ritalin to keep herself awake. e only thing “narco” about her was narcolepsy.

Going to work designing the Santacruz’s Los Caños Gordos neighborhood home, Blarek would meet Santacruz’s wife, Amparo, in New York, London, Paris, and Rome, where they frequently purchased top-quality items. On one trip, they commissioned monogrammed bed linens for the new house with a price tag of $50,000. On another trip, they ew to Italy to select just the right sections of book-matched stone from a quarry. As they developed a warm and a ectionate relationship, Blarek began to feel it was Amparo who was his client rather than JSL. Amparo was always eager to show Blarek the pages of Architectural Digest she had collected for inspiration, declaring that shopping with him was “better than sex with her husband.” She looked forward to the trips, revealing they were a welcome break from a life she described as “living in a golden cage.”

This is Villa Vecchia, which was seized from the designers to help pay their debt to society. When Blarek and Pellecchia were in court, a rumor circulated they had stashed $30 million in the house. A Facebook oligarch promptly purchased and gutted the mansion, and even LIFTED the foundation and dug 40 feet but never found anything.

BAD TIMING AND THE COLOMBIAN NARCO SUB

Certainly one of the contributing factors that led to the arrest of the drug lord’s designers was the breakup of Operation Odessa just a few months before Blarek and Pellecchia’s indictment.

In a brazen narco flex, a Ukrainian mobster, on behalf of Colombian drug lords, purchased a used nuclear submarine from the dismantled Soviet Union – to be used exclusively for shipping cocaine.

While it’s nostalgic to recall, there was a time when Ukrainians and Russians once worked together, it’s almost hard to fathom the danger of drug lords in international waters with a nuclear submarine full of cocaine. What could go wrong?

Fortunately, the scheme was broken up but the audacity of the narcos still hung in the air at the time Blarek and Pellecchia were brought in.

Meanwhile, Pellecchia would be left to shore up all business details with Don Chepe. ey, too, developed their own friendship. Sharing an obsession for ice cream, Pellecchia and Santacruz would frequently take trips accompanied by guards to local ice cream parlors in whatever city they happened to be meeting.

e plans for the new house included a gobsmacking multistory 40-foot waterfall that emptied into a reservoir surrounded by a tropical garden where you could dine pondside – the kind of dream design element many designers spend their careers chasing. ey nished their work on the house in time for the quinceañera, and then … radio silence. No word from the Santacruzes, even about whether they were satis ed. ey simply disappeared.

en one day, a year and a half after Blarek Designs had nished that rst project, the Santacruzes suddenly reappeared at Blarek and Pellecchia’s o ce. ey were back, this time, with two of their daughters, a nanny, Amparo’s mother, and an American translator. With no mention of why they had dropped o the radar, Don Chepe enthusiastically explained the next job he had in store for the design team: his main Colombian o ce complex, a huge and elaborate penthouse suite – ostensibly the headquarters for Don Chepe’s vast real estate holdings.

Not only was this next job many times the scale of the rst, but the new job actually provided the designers a rst-hand look and insight into their boss’s business empire. Contrary to convincing the design couple they were working for a criminal drug lord, the businesses looked and seemed legit. On one oor, giant photos of farming scenes adorned the walls of Don Chepe’s agricultural businesses, while below were the Don’s construction and real estate companies. In Colombia, Chepe owned more than 600 various properties.

It’s hard to say exactly when Blarek and Pellecchia suspected that José Santacruz wasn’t just in “real estate and construction.” Maybe it was the bodyguards who always accompanied Don Chepe. en again, even children of a uent families traveled to school with armed guards. If you booked a ight to Colombia today, the likelihood is that you would hire a bodyguard yourself. Colombia is not Montecito.

One morning in 1981, the feds paid a visit to Blarek and Pellecchia. e agents showed Blarek an uncategorized photo array of individuals and asked them to identify anyone they knew or with whom they’d come into contact. One photo was easy for Blarek to identify: José Santacruz Londoño, aka Don Chepe. Agents explained to Blarek they wanted to meet with him regarding his U.S. business activities. Upon asking if he and Pellecchia were in any legal jeopardy or personal danger, Blarek swears to this day that the agents told him no, so long as they stuck to interior decorating. In fact, now that the feds had paid this visit, they wanted the designers to continue working for Santacruz while they built their case.

Even though the designers were taken aback, Blarek still felt there was no real reason to stop working for Don Chepe. He’d previously worked for clients with serious legal entanglements –paying in cash, not knowing all aspects of their funding – it just simply wasn’t his business what the clients did so long

Drug lord Santacruz seems to have cared less about fashion and more about architecture.

Santacruz two months after his arrest and escape. (He’s the one in the box.)

AP Photo/Fernando Llano

AP Photo/Inaldo Perez

as he wasn’t participating. Besides, there were many designers in Miami who worked for legally dubious clients. Were they expected to quit upon learning the true nature of Santacruz’s work? Blarek barely had time to debate the implications when Santacruz himself showed up at his door asking Blarek if he’d been visited by his federal agent friends. When Blarek said he had Santacruz stared at him a moment, then said, “I already talked with them. Don’t worry, they’re just doing their job.” He then expressed his enthusiasm to see the new o ce plans and left. Pellecchia, upon hearing of the visit, wasn’t quite as unfazed. Even though he agreed in principle that it wasn’t their job to know the details of their clients’ private lives, they resolved to tell Amparo on an upcoming New York shopping trip they would no longer take jobs from them. Later that day, Blarek did what the feds had requested and dialed the number on the business card left behind, informing the feds that Santacruz had returned.

It was much harder for Blarek to give up Santacruz as a client than it was for Pellecchia. Blarek not only loved the creative freedom that was part and parcel of José’s deep pockets, he had also grown quite attached to the drug lord’s wife, Amparo. He felt that if he would ever marry a woman, it would be someone just like her. Nevertheless, Blarek con rmed to his partner they would stick to their plan and break the news to Amparo on their upcoming trip that they’d be phasing themselves out.

Don’t Feed the Cocaine Bear

That resolution to phase themselves out was challenged when, instead of Amparo showing up, it was José Santacruz himself. Blarek broke the news as deftly as he could, o ering his new design plans gratis, but his resignation was summarily rejected by the drug lord. Santacruz told Blarek in no uncertain terms: “I terminate people. ey don’t terminate me.” Turns out, the cocaine bear was not done eating. JSL ordered Blarek to nish the o ce, adding, “And I’m looking forward to it.” At a later meeting, Santacruz asked them, with a laugh, if they’d heard the “joke” about the Miami designers who’d wound up dead in a crate of furniture? e humor was lost on the designers as it sank in that quitting wasn’t going to be an option.

Pellecchia and Blarek nished the Santacruz o ce job, and then, as Don Chepe’s cocaine empire expanded, there were many more JSL gigs. Along with more complications. ere was Amparo’s dream house that had a $4 million price tag just for design fees. When Santacruz heard the cost, he blew a gasket and scheduled a meeting with his designers. Expecting to be raked over the coals, Pellecchia and Blarek instead encountered

a contrite and pleading client, who confessed that he had a secret family with a mistress, and he’d just learned that she was pregnant with their fourth child. Not only was Santacruz conceding to $4 million for Amparo’s dream home to keep her happy, but he also needed Blarek and Pellecchia to design additional homes – for his mistress and her (and José’s) kids.

We all know what happens when you feed the cocaine bear – one mistress rapidly turns into many, all needing houses, many with families, and all with design needs. Designing houses for mistresses became a kind of lucrative niche for the team. But keeping track of the designs for so many households was like air-tra c control – it required a detailed alpha-numeric system of who would receive what and which designs were intended for which mistress or in one case, wife. Eventually, there was the inevitable mistake, and Amparo was furious when she received the building materials for a new nursery, complete with baby formula and diapers, which would have been incredibly thoughtful, if only she’d been pregnant.

Amparo broke down in tears, not because she had to share her husband with other women, but because she now had to share her precious designers with many. Meanwhile, the jobs kept coming. Altogether, the designers decorated more than two dozen properties for the Santacruzes.

The infamous Gucci bag with which Santacruz once paid the designers $1 million cash. Santacruz actually only owed $100,000 – that’s what we call a Cali cartel rounding error.

Photo by Kim Reierson

Then, one of Santacruz’s mistresses, Marely, with whom he now had four kids, disappeared. When Amparo agreed to adopt Marely’s four “orphaned” kids, plans were drawn up for a new dream house. is would be Blarek and Amparo’s most ambitious endeavor yet, called Casa Blanca. ose plans included adorning the master suite floors with leather from cows raised on barb-wirefree farms at a cost of more than $40,000. ere was also a design for a secluded private garden and Jacuzzi area that included a private shower beside a frieze of nudes, one of which was a rendering of Blarek himself. It’s like he was part of a Greek urn.

Unfortunately, there was a gurative bump in the road the morning Blarek and Pellecchia stopped at a gas station in Northern California (en route to another home they’d recently purchased for themselves in Lake Tahoe). While walking in to pay for gas, Pellecchia caught a glance of the cover of Time magazine: ere was a photo of their mega client José Santacruz with a caption that described him as the new face in the crosshairs of America’s war on drugs.

Shortly after Time magazine declared Don Chepe one of the new faces of the war on drugs and he received a U.S. indictment, Chepe was arrested in Colombia. Both Blarek and Pellecchia knew Chepe was too smart to have let himself be captured – he had to have orchestrated his own arrest (sometimes drug lords did that because they felt safer in prison and sometimes, they even built prisons for themselves). Sure enough, six months later, Chepe simply got in a car and drove through the open gates of the prison, “escaping.” However, it was a temporary reprieve, because two months after that not-the-least-bit-daring escape, the designers received a phone call advising them that rivals had dumped JSL’s bullet-riddled body onto a Medellín street.

From White Castle to Cocaine White Castles to Instant Sabbatical

Pellecchia and Blarek had mixed feelings. On the one hand, they no longer had to take “o ers they couldn’t refuse.” On the other hand, they had a fondness for Chepe; in many ways, he’d been a dream client. Oddly, the DEA was even more saddened at the news of Chepe’s assassination. Imagine Ahab from Moby Dick, but just as he’s about to harpoon the whale, someone jet skis in and kills Moby with a bazooka.

In the year following Santacruz’s death, Pellecchia and Blarek spent some time regrouping. And were not aware the DEA was doing the very same thing. ey took a bunch of motorcycle road trips. ey also did a lot of AIDS hospice volunteer work. So, the sabbatical year brought about by Santacruz’s death was somewhat restorative and gratifying.

Until early one July morning in 1997, when authorities burst into the San Francisco home they called Villa Vecchia (neighbors included Robin Williams and Sharon Stone) and arrested the pair for conspiracy to launder money. It was a shock to the designers and long shot for the DEA but, at the time, it was all the DEA had.

The Trial: High Design vs. Bad Hombres

The trial that followed soon thereafter had more than a few elements of farce. While prosecutors tried like heck to associate the designers with the brutality of the cartel, on the stand, Blarek and Pellecchia waxed poetic about the precision and passion with which they approached their craft. At one particularly dramatic moment, Blarek haughtily told the prosecutor, “I was not involved in a ‘scheme.’ I was involved in interior design.”

Meanwhile, the witnesses against them were a parade of amoral thugs our last president would have labeled “bad hombres.” There was a henchman named German Salazar, who basically killed one person every day for the Cali cartel, as if murder was his daily vitamin. Of Salazar, a prosecutor said, “We can’t put a witness on the stand who’s worse than the defendants.” But someone else in the DA’s office prevailed. They would ultimately go with the strategy that the cavalcade of bad hombres were the very sorts of thugs with whom our designers routinely cavorted. The DA was going for guilt by association. And it worked.

From Gilding to Guilty

As we know, so many high-pro le cases (and miscarriages of justice) are really tried in the Court of Public Opinion. At the time, the case of the Central Park Five was barely in New York’s rearview mirror. And with the crack epidemic raging – and our cities perceived as out of control – New Yorkers elected an attorney general (Rudy Giuliani) to be their mayor and ushered in Bill Clinton as president, that rare democrat who campaigned he’d be tough on crime.

In NYC in 1998, New Yorkers were as fearful of Colombia as they would be three years later of the Taliban. “At that particular moment, in a besieged New York, if a waiter took a big tip from José Santacruz, prosecutors would ask for the electric chair,” said Blarek recently. “And probably get it,” adds Pellecchia.

Ultimately, Blarek and Pellecchia were convicted of conspiracy to launder money by a loose interpretation of the statutes of money laundering and “racketeering.” Although they each faced many years in prison, the judge showed clemency, not just because the designers were clearly scapegoats, but because of their “sexual orientation as well as their demeanor and build,” he anticipated they would have a more di cult time in prison. e judge also mused that their crimes had been committed less in the name of avarice and more in pursuit of artistic/ creative freedom. Ignoring federal minimum guidelines for RICO crimes (which could be up to 40 years), the judge sentenced “mastermind” Blarek to just over ve and a half years, while Pellecchia received only four. Still, those sentences were greater than some received by the killers and career torturers who testi ed against them. To add injury to insult, the government con scated all of the couple’s properties and other assets, leaving them penniless.

e designers were then sent to serve time in separate prisons, with the continental United States between them. Pellecchia did his time in Lompoc, California, while Blarek was imprisoned in Elgin, Florida, aka “Club Fed,” where he taught himself quite excellently to paint in the artdeco style of Tamara de Lempicka.

rough their incarcerations, smuggled missives between Pellecchia and Blarek kept them both emotionally alive. Blarek would read Pellecchia’s notes near a Club Fed lagoon, consoling himself that this was the same moon under which they’d bask together someday soon. at future eventually came. With good behavior, Pellecchia was released from prison in 2002. Long before incarceration, Pellecchia was diagnosed with HIV and told Blarek he didn’t need to stay with him and that he’d understand. As you know, Blarek chose to stay, just as this time Pellecchia would stay with Blarek as he patiently awaited Blarek’s release two years hence. en in 2004, at the Atlanta airport, the couple nally reunited.

How is the war on drugs going today?

This is Genaro Luna, Mexico’s “top cop” and former drug czar. One month ago, he was convicted as the Sinaloa cartel’s most important asset and for taking more than $6 million in cash bribes.

Rudy Giuliani became attorney general and later mayor of New York City because of the perception he was tough on crime, particularly drugs.

THE PREZ AND THE KING FIGHT THE WAR ON DRUGS

President Richard Nixon declared “war on drugs” — a war we have been fighting, and every president has been losing, for the 50 years hence. A look back at when Nixon gave Elvis a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) badge reveals how that war has always been at war with itself, performative, and doomed to failure.

In June 1971, Elvis literally drove up to the White House, declared he wanted to help Nixon fight the war on drugs, and requested a meeting. Elvis being Elvis and Nixon wanting the cool cred, Elvis got that meeting.

In this meeting (at which Elvis was stoned), the King of Rock revealed what he really wanted in exchange for his help with the war on drugs was a DEA badge and I.D. (actually at this point, the DEA was called the BNDD: the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs). In exchange, Elvis presented the president with a Colt 45 (and live ammo) he had brought into the Oval O ce, to the dismay of White House security.

According to Elvis’s wife, Priscilla, the real reason Elvis wanted drug enforcement credentials was he mistakenly believed that with a narcotics agent I.D., he could travel internationally with whatever firearms and drugs he wanted, unimpeded.

It’s interesting to note that at the time of his death, Elvis the DEA agent had more than 10 drugs interacting in his body, at least a few of which likely contributed to his o cial cause of death – a heart attack. From the final toxicology report, those drugs were ethinamate, methaqualone, codeine, and barbiturates. The first two are sedatives; codeine is a secondary painkiller, and barbiturates are “downers.” There were also four other notable drugs present: the antihistamine chlorpheniramine, meperidine, morphine, and Valium. Meperidine and morphine are painkillers, and Valium is a tranquilizer.

The singer was prescribed nearly 9,000 pills and shots in the seven months before his death by his personal physician, “Dr. Nick.” Su ce it to say, the war on drugs was not o to a great start.

EPILOGUE

With the bene t of hindsight, it’s fascinating to look back on the case, check in on how the guys are doing, and see how the war on drugs is going. eir Hollywood residence is done in a style New York Magazine once ironically dubbed “High Style.” It’s impeccable. ey both look t and great. e other piece of good news is HIV no longer shows as present in Pellecchia’s bloodstream, which he attributes to his physician, Dr. Jon Kaiser, M.D.

One thing that always bothered me about the case against Blarek and Pellecchia is I never understood why the New York Court decided to prosecute a dead drug lord’s designers when no other state’s DAs seemed to care about them. (“We got John Gotti’s tailor! Huzzah!”)

It got me digging around Google to look at what was happening in NYC in the ’80s and ’90s. I was a resident of that city for a lot of that era, so it was easy to reconjure the feelings and memories. In the ’80s and ’90s, drug violence – particularly of Colombian origin – led the news … really up until 9/11. After that, Islamic terrorism drove the news cycle (and international policy) for the next 15-plus years – until Islamo-terrorism disappeared o the radar post January 6, 2021, replaced by domestic terrorism and threats of weaponized white supremacy. Apparently, America (or at least the major news media) has ADD and can’t focus on more than one major threat at a time.

In the ’90s, especially on the East Coast, the narrative was de nitely crack cocaine and its trail of violence from Colombia-Bolivia-Peru through Mexico and nally to the mean streets of places like Jackson Heights, Queens. Where was 50 Cent shot? Queens. e murder of Jam Master Jay from Run-DMC? Queens. Queens was a natural for the Colombian drug trade not just because of its Colombian population, but the fact that Queens contains both of New York’s major airports.

ere was a part of Jackson Heights called Little Colombia near the NYC airports where people like Griselda Blanco (the “Cocaine Godmother”) operated with brazen indi erence and extreme violence. e lady boss drug tra cker was known for murdering her husbands (yes, plural) and literally named her son Michael Corleone Blanco. (It’s actually on his birth certi cate.) With some justi cation, New Yorkers feared they were losing their city to the heavily armed Colombian drug trade. And to an extent, they were right.

A Bridge Too Far

The thing that may have sealed Blarek and Pellecchia’s fates more than anything was the assassination of a journalist in New York – Manuel de Dios Unanue, the editor of El Diario, the city’s Spanish language newspaper. Unanue, who was a one-man megaphone against the South American drug trade, was assassinated by a hitman as he sat at a bar in Little Colombia in 1992. e murder of journalists was common in South America, but up until Unanue had only happened once before in the history of the U.S. ( e Ma a killed a journalist 50 years prior for his anti-Mussolini stance.) In any event, whomever ordered the hit on Unanue had crossed a line.

Further complicating matters, Unanue was a crusading, anti-drug folk hero. His killing was front-page news in every single New York newspaper. But there were also longer, more elegiac articles decrying the killing in e New Yorker and Vanity Fair –long diatribes by noted, normally liberal writers such as Salman Rushdie and Andrew Cockburn. It seemed like everyone in journalism had pitchforks out and was ready to go to war with Colombia and anyone who had anything to do with the drug trade. (Well, except there was no ire for drug users. But that’s another story for another day.)

At Unanue’s memorial, 1,500 mourners piled into Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. e hero journalist’s eulogy was delivered by Cardinal O’Connor. Understandably, there was a public outcry demanding justice for Unanue and his family. Because if Unanue was fair game for drug tra ckers, then it was open season on all reporters and editors. And we Americans cherish our 1st Amendment almost as much as we love our 2nd. e hit on Unanue went unsolved for a long time. Too long a time. But most relevant to Blarek and Pellecchia, it was widely rumored to have been ordered … by José Santacruz. So much for the “Quiet Cartel.” To say that the Unanue murder made a lot of noise would be an understatement. It was a vast miscalculation by Santacruz that ultimately sealed the fate of Pellecchia and Blarek, and likely led to the death of the drug lord himself. Santacruz may have been a cocaine bear, but America is a bigger bear with bigger claws and doesn’t like to be poked.

It’s informative to examine the zeitgeist and context when the designers stood trial. Bill Clinton – the tough-on-crime Democrat –was running for re-election against the legitimate World War II hero Senator Bob Dole. In sequence: Pablo Escobar was killed, President Clinton “decerti ed” Colombia from American nancial and military aid, and José Santacruz was killed.

With Santacruz dead, the DEA lost its biggest target. But with the war on drugs at fever pitch, Blarek and Pellecchia were arrested. Why? So Santacruz could be tried posthumously to rectify his most unsatisfying death – unsatisfying from a sentencing perspective. Instead, Blarek and Pellecchia were sentenced in 1998.

It’s interesting to look back at the case

of Blarek and Pellecchia with the advantage of hindsight and context. Clearly, the DEA didn’t “get” the bad guy, the Colombians did. But in order to convince America Blarek and Pellecchia were still meaningful in the war on drugs, the DEA rst staged this operatic production they co-produced with the DA, Eastern District of New York, and the Department of Justice. But it was only that – a show.

I do not believe – nor does anyone else I spoke to – that had the DEA been able to bring in José Santacruz dead or alive, Blarek and Pellecchia would have been pursued. What they were was a high-water mark in America’s chaotic forever war on drugs and su ered from excruciatingly bad timing and circumstance. e contract murder of crusading journalist Manuel de Dios Unanue eventually being traced back to the designers’ client certainly did not help.

• • •

We reached back to Gus GarciaRoberts, who did de nitive reporting on this story, to provide useful context.

Les Firestein: Looking back on the case 25 years after sentencing, what do you think?

Gus Garcia-Roberts: I thought the conviction of Blarek and Pellecchia set a strange precedent. Like where do you draw the line? If you go after the drug lord’s interior designers, where do you stop? e tile installers?

e other thing is I think Pellecchia and Blarek just had impeccably bad timing. José Santacruz’s killing of Unanue really upped the urgency and militarization of the drug war. And when José was killed, that was not just a bad day for José. It was the beginning of a very bad run for Blarek and Pellecchia.

LF: I’m sure the cartel purchase of the Russian sub didn’t help.

GGR: I think by the time of

Our guys rocked motorcycle leather years before Peter Marino.

Photo by Kim Reierson

Alexander and Frank’s indictments, the city of New York in particular was sick of the drug trade. ere had been the murder of the newspaper editor. To the cops and prosecutors, then, this was a righteous cause, and everything was within bounds, including the interior designers.

All-Time High

Progress in the war on drugs is hard to measure at best. Actually, it’s not that hard to measure. Today, there’s ve times the amount of cocaine in the United States as there was during Pablo Escobar’s time. Just a few weeks ago, Genaro García Luna, who had been Mexico’s highest-ranking law enforcement o cer, was convicted of multiple cocaine conspiracies including cocaine tra cking and accepting many millions in bribes. A few

One thing the government couldn’t seize from Blarek and Pellecchia is their talent. With themselves as clients, the designers are building back their lives and estate – although the budgets are, admittedly, smaller.

Photos by Kim Reierson

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days ago, a new Colombian “narcosub” was discovered carrying nearly $100 million in cocaine and two dead bodies.

Pellecchia and Blarek, who never committed so much as a misdemeanor before or after their prison sentence, are arguably doing much better than the war on drugs. ey never gave up on each other. ey rekindled. And they’re on the nancial road to recovery, thanks to three major clients with sizable projects who literally waited for their emancipation from prison. Because of the design duo’s uncanny ability to maximize unexpected opportunities for beauty and elegance, the designers have ipped four houses since their release. As Elton John would say, “I’m still standing, yeah yeah yeah.” ey have paid their debt to society and certainly learned the temporary nature of material things. In keeping with this, their most recent residence is for sale. It’s the perfect L.A. piedà-terre. As e Riv readers know, houses tell stories, and no house has a better story to tell than this one:

Pellecchia and Blarek, who never committed so much as a misdemeanor before or after their prison sentence, are arguably doing much better than the war on drugs. ey never gave up on each other.

Photo by Kim Reierson

Owners Valerie & Daniel Pampel | Founded in 2017

Toile 2.0

Story by Gary Marks

e ubiquitous pattern was popularized by the notorious Marie Antoinette. ree hundred years later, the 2.0 designs feature e Notorious B.I.G.

The fabrication of toile fabric has a long legacy not unlike the lineage of quilting, an art that also tells stories and gets passed from generation to generation – and passed between cultures.

Where toile comes from in the human cortex may have something to do with our sapien desire to detect a pattern, chronicle that pattern, and archive it – to create a history. In fact, the rst cave paintings created more than 30,000 years ago look very much like toile. In these renderings, we see an inventory of various beasts and livestock, and these designs weren’t even done by humans – they

were done by our Neanderthal forebears. So, toile may actually be in our DNA.

Which explains why since the mid-18th century toile has been everywhere – on bathroom walls, curtains and valances, linens, china, dresses, upholstery, and bedding. It’s been on the runway in Paris, sneakers, and even Lil Nas X. Now it’s available at J. McLaughlin. Toile is so omnipresent and ubiquitous, sometimes it simply fades quietly into the background. But on closer examination, toile has actually been the 300-year battleground of a quiet and oddly attractive culture war.

Flavor Paper’s Brooklyn Toile.

The history of dying fabric – with any kind of pattern, really –began in India and is many centuries old. But with the founding of the East India Company in 1600, that practice spread to Europe thanks to an industrialist who mechanized toile production: Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf.

Oberkampf opened his factory in 1760 on the road between Versailles and Paris, in the town of Jouy-en-Josas (which is why toile is known formally as “Toile de Jouy”).

Oberkampf’s toile factory had the advantage of being next to the Bièvre, a river that feeds into the Seine, where nished toile could be washed and set out on the banks to dry. More importantly, because it was on the only road between Paris and Versailles, word soon reached the Royal Court, and before long, Marie Antoinette was visiting Oberkampf and buying bolts of his fabric the way a Kardashian might go kray kray for LV. So popular was toile that Oberkampf himself was personally decorated by Napoleon with the Légion d’honneur for his contributions to French culture – even though some of his designs spiritually hailed from India.

But this was just the beginning of the cultural … shall we say borrowing? In the United States, where we have always revered Europe except on those rare occasions they re cannons at us, Ben Franklin sent back toile patterns to his wife from England. omas Je erson brought back examples from his stay in France that are still visible on tours of Monticello. One of America’s most famous toiles is called Mount Vernon Toile. It depicts gentry strolling Washington’s plantation, which appears to harvest itself without the bene t of any labor (i.e., slaves) in sight.

Petroglyphs at Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park in Santa Barbara.

Mount Vernon Toile by artist Renée Green.

Lil Nas X rocks toile.

(Photo: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

F. Schumacher & Co. has always been tradition-based as well as forwardthinking with its o erings. Toussaint Toile (left) and Toile de Femmes (right). www.fschumacher.com

2.0ile

Happily, the toile narrative has evolved in recent years. In 1992 (the same year as the Los Angeles riots), artist Renée Green o ered a new narrative in her “Commemorative Toile” displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. While in residency in Clisson, France, in 1991, Green began researching the relationship between the production of toile and France’s participation in the colonial triangle trade routes between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. According to a museum catalog, Green “discreetly exchanges popular images found in a typical 18th-century wallpaper with images that re ect the harsh realities of African slaves of that time. Her alternative versions open new possibilities of historical truth and morality.”

F. Schumacher & Co., one of the most venerated names in textile design – having previously designed toile for the barons of the Gilded Age and First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower and Jacqueline Kennedy – has adapted to the times and launched their own Toile 2.0. While Schumacher still produces traditional toiles, the company now also produces Toussaint Toile, which still looks traditional but also celebrates Toussaint Louverture, a one-time slave and ultimately Haiti’s revolutionary liberator.

Colin Quashie, a notable art disruptor, has won design awards

Flavor Paper’s L.A. Toile features the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase, La

(Above and below): Colin Quashie is one of the artists who added people of color to the narrative of toile.

Brea Tar Pits, and lowriders.

for his “French Toile…Negro Toil,” which is touted on his website as “part of an expanding collection centered around the whitewashed past of rebranded Southern plantations.” e pattern depicts the ve repeating scenes from the “vicious cycle” of slavery: acquisition, sale, discipline, domestication and revolt, and nally, freedom.

Founded in 2003, Flavor Paper is another design house that has been on the cutting edge of toile’s new iteration. Flavor Paper’s Brooklyn Toile was designed by Beastie Boys’s Mike Diamond, and while it may, at rst glance, look like traditional French toile, its portrayal of modern-day Brooklyn streets is anything but. e Notorious B.I.G., Hasidic Jews, a gra ti-laden subway car, the Cyclone roller coaster from Coney Island, pigeons, and re hydrants are all gathered in its pattern of Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Sheila Bridges: Toile’s Past, Present, and Future

Harlem Toile x Converse collaboration.

those scenes in many of them, as beautiful as they are, just do not resonate,” she explains.

us, Bridges created Harlem Toile. It re ects the images and culture of her neighborhood in Harlem, past and present, where she has lived now for more than 30 years. ere are Black girls jumping double Dutch on the sidewalk, a ball gown-clad woman doing another’s hair, people riding horses, a couple in 18th-century dress dancing beneath an historic arch to tunes played from a boombox (in Spike Lee’s Do the Right ing). An image of men playing hoops is taken from an historic photo of Wilt Chamberlain versus Kareem Abdul-Jabbar but transposed to men playing in period garb and shooting into a straw basket hanging from a tree. Harlem Toile is joyous. Call it Black Jouy, if you will.

Bridges originally designed Harlem Toile only for herself and had no intention of selling it. But when the person printing it told her that he had never seen anything quite like it, she thought twice. And when it was published in e New York

“That my design work has created an opportunity for me to express myself from a di erent cultural lens and to have that embraced so enthusiastically is inspiring.”

– Sheila Bridges

The designer Sheila Bridges (above) bedecked in several of her Harlem Toile collaborations.

DESIGNED BY NATURE

SANTA BARBARA, CA

scan to explore

Times in 2007, it became, well, an enormous hit. In fact, the images from Harlem Toile de Jouy have become iconic. Some of them look as though they might even have inspired the costume designers of the period television show Bridgerton

Veronica Chambers, a New York Times reporter, recently wrote an account of her own love of Harlem Toile, in which she is pictured seated in front of the design on her wall as she also wears it on her skirt. She originally bought it as wallpaper to serve as her Zoom background during the pandemic, as she worked remotely from her bedroom. “Every time I looked at the panel, it was a reminder that my ancestors had my back,” she writes.

Harlem Toile is now one of the most successful patterns of any kind in modern history. It is in the permanent collection in the Brooklyn Museum,

Sheila Bridges’s Harlem Toile de Jouy square silk scarf.

the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum (at the Smithsonian), the Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and it was included in an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It appears on Converse sneakers and Sonos speakers and on custom shades you can buy at e Shade Store. “Not bad for a hardworking Black girl from Philadelphia,” Bridges jokes.

e popularity of Harlem Toile has led to numerous collaborations with many famous design houses. None has made her prouder than her recent collaboration with Wedgwood, which launched a Harlem Toile line of china last year. “Josiah Wedgwood was very active in the anti-slavery movement in Britain,” she explains. “He’s somebody who used his talent, his money, and his privilege to do something, to spread the word about slavery.”

She continues, “He had these anti-slavery Wedgwood medallions made to spread the word about slavery, and he gave one to Ben Franklin when he came to Philadelphia. at’s part of the reason I got interested in them as a partner.” e Wedgwood launch was their most successful U.S. launch in history.

e Riv asked Bridges: “With all of your successful collabs, you just nished working on the residence for the highest o ce a female politician has attained in this country. One of the original abolitionists, Josiah Wedgwood, did his famous anti-slavery medallions, and here you are, a few hundred years later, with your own line of Wedgwood that celebrates and includes your heritage. How does that make you feel?”

Bridges’s reply: “It’s really humbling. transcends time and history. ( for me to express myself from a di so enthusiastically is inspiring.”

Josiah Wedgwood was an abolitionist who made these anti-slavery medallions (left) and gave them to people like Ben Franklin.

Hundreds of years later, Sheila Bridges has her own line of Wedgwood.

Ellen DeGeneres Leaves No Stone Unturned

The most consequential person in residential architecture, design, and real estate – and it’s not even her day job

STORY BY LES FIRESTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY BLAKE BRONSTAD COURTESY RISKIN PARTNERS ESTATE GROUP

Someone once asked me the di erence between our two Montecito Journal magazines. I said the glossy is about how a place gets de ned by its people, whereas e Riv reveals people through their places. is has never been more true than my tour and interview with Ellen DeGeneres at her latest – and most spectacular – Montecito residence to date.

There is an Ellen you already know – or think you know – whom I’ve written about in the pages of the Montecito Journal . But Ellen’s relationship with homes

and design is unique. I did not know how unique until I sat with her on her turf and spoke with some of her long-term collaborators – and really got a sense of how passionate she is about home and shelter. As a result of Ellen’s home design obsession, I believe there is no greater impact player in real estate than Ellen. In the realm of home improvement, Ellen is universally praised, revered, and respected. She is certainly the greatest house flipper of all time. And she may, in fact, also have the most successful side hustle of all time.

Flipping Awesome

Vendors yearn to get on Ellen’s radar, and those who already work with her continue to do so for 20 or 30 years. ey do this for three reasons: (1) ey like her. (2) ey like working at the highest level of the home arts and sciences. And (3), they are as passionate about creating the perfect domicile as Ellen is.

Consider the facts. In her roughly 40 years of adulthood, Ellen has personally bought and sold more than 50 homes and estates in Southern California. Remember how you hate moving because it’s a forensic study of all your un nished projects and dashed dreams, not to mention the mounds of stu you’ve swept under the rug? Unlike yourself, Ellen loves moving. And she loves looking under that rug. My theory is she relishes the process of constantly recalibrating her dreams and recurating what she loves versus what she’s ready to let go of. It’s like a constant exfoliation of her psyche, and I’m sure one of the things that keeps her looking – and acting – so young.

But Ellen is no mere house ipper or Property Sister. She restores and perfects – at great expense – important heritage sites such as A.

Quincy Jones’s Brody House in Los Angeles and historical homes here by George Washington Smith, Lutah Maria Riggs, et cetera. I’d compare her to the Tremaines – two brothers and their wives who were famed patrons of high design and commissioned more than 30 great architectural residences over the course of their lives. e di erence is the Tremaines warehoused (or archived, depending on one’s point of view) great architecture, whereas Ellen lets hers go so that others can enjoy them and she can, in turn, move on. Another di erence is the Tremaines were four people while Ellen simply does the work of four.

How does Ellen manage to get so much done while you’re still waiting for a callback from your third plumber? Kyle Irwin, Ellen’s interior design partner on her last few houses here and co-owner of the tony Field+Fort home goods store and café in Summerland, says that rst of all, Ellen is relentless. “She’ll be on set lming something, and between takes I’ll get this barrage of texts like, ‘Did the rug come? Did you lay it out yet? Can you send a photo?’ And I’m like, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be lming something?’ She is just deeply, deeply passionate about the art of habitation.”

HOT SPRINGS RD, SOLD 2022

llen’s passion for renovation is echoed by her long-time Los Angeles real estate agent Kurt Rappaport, cofounder and CEO of Westside Estate Agency, one of the most successful brokerages in L.A. (and, by transitivity, nationally). Over the years, Rappaport has been involved with a score or more of Ellen’s real estate transactions. In Rappaport’s words: “One time, there was this house Ellen was circling. And somehow, some developer scooped it out from under her before she had a chance to make an o er. And Ellen was sick about it. So nally, we approached the developer long before he was done because, literally, Ellen couldn’t take the desecration. And sure enough, she bought the house, took it over, and said to the developer, ‘You can’t do a fricking thing to this house anymore. Put down your tools, I’m paying you to stop today.’ And of course, she took the project over and restored it immaculately.”

Clements Design – the AD100 rm that includes Kathleen and Tommy Clements and Waldo Fernandez – has been a design partner with Ellen on about a dozen homes. Tommy says, “One of the hallmarks of an Ellen home is there’s never a bad space, you want to be in every room. Everything is somehow elegant and relaxed at the same time. And I mean that not just in the macro but all the way down to the micro – Ellen considers every square inch. And yet, nothing feels forced or out of place. ere is abundance and restraint at the same time, and it’s perfect.”

A great description of “what makes an Ellen home” comes from Lydia Kives. She and her husband, Michael (Lydia is an attorney who works in documentary lm; her husband is in venture capital), recently purchased e Porter House, a Montecito hedgerow home signi cantly remodeled by Ellen (and where Ariana Grande got married). Says Kives, “I have a few friends who’ve bought Ellen homes, so you know going in the quality is going to be top-notch. Of course, plenty of builders do high quality. e real secret ingredient of an Ellen home is magic.”

“E llen always starts with the basics and gravitates toward special architecture that has a reciprocal relationship with the land. You can’t point to just one element that makes it an unmistakable Ellen home. There’s an alchemy and emotion to her layering, art, color saturation, antiques, and textiles that results in a whole that is larger than the sum of the parts. And that’s what everybody wants. It’s never hard to sell an Ellen house, and I’ve been honored to represent her in more than 25 transactions since 2019.”

– ROBERT RISKIN, RISKIN PARTNERS ESTATE GROUP

Iasked Kives to de ne “magic.” “It’s the depth and the curation of things, and her eye,” she says. “Somehow, things feel timeless yet also current. ere’s a mixture of high and low and history that just feels – you walk in and feel like the only thing missing is you.

“Ellen may start with an unusual property – as she did here –two Tudor barns from the 1700s someone shipped over from Surrey, England. No one knew what to do with them until Ellen connected them with an orangery. Who thinks of that? A lot of people build generically to cast the widest possible net of buyers. Ellen does the exact opposite. She builds a very speci c place that tells a very speci c story. And it always turns out to be a story you want to be a part of.

“There’s one more thing,” says Kives. “Ellen continues to care about you and the house long after the sale. She will literally come over and help you out with stuff months after

the closing. It doesn’t sound plausible, but it’s true – and speaks to her big heart.”

It reminds me of a story I heard from the actor Billy Baldwin, who told me his kid was home sick one day watching Ellen when Ellen actually showed up at their door with their lost dog. It paints a surprising picture of how DeGeneres actually lives in Montecito. But, as Kives says, it’s true.

Ellen has preserved incredible homes, but also transforms mediocre homes into great ones – and must have the lowest carbon footprint of anyone transacting as much real estate as she does. She buys pre-existing, generally older projects, corrects their aws and lifestyle obsolescence, so often saving these tattered relics from the land ll. In a world where many give lip service to “green” then build edi ce complexes, if you truly want to be green, a good place to start is not building new in the rst place. And that’s the Ellen way.

HOT SPRINGS RD, SOLD 2022

Prelude to Padaro

The day of my visit with Ellen was a particularly good day to be discussing architecture and design with her, because the gorilla campus she backed in Rwanda was just named by AD as one of the greatest Works of Wonder built in the world. (See “ e Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda” on page 105.)

e area where Ellen lives is one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in an already rare ed region. When the driveway nally reveals itself, it looks like a scene from a wine label come to life. ere’s a security guy who’s friendly enough, though I know he has ve ways to kill me and 10 friends who’ll help him. Finally, Ellen appears and her theme music plays. At least it seems like it does. She has a bounce in her step just like on TV and laser focus. Beyond punctual, she is early.

I’ve been to a lot of great estates. e thing that immediately sets this one apart is the site. Don’t get me wrong, the house itself is enchanting now that Ellen’s “been through it,” and the result is stunning. But what sets this place apart is that so many magical elements converge at the same time: mountains, sea, a lake, horses, and the Channel Islands (aka North America’s Galápagos). Oh, and in today’s episode, out by the riding ring, Ellen’s wife is played by Portia de Rossi. Because she is Portia de Rossi.

I’d done some research on Ellen’s new property before our interview and was stunned by how much upgrade Ellen completed in just two months on, frankly, what had been an aggressively unattractive house. It looked like the previous decorator had a vendetta against the client.

Ellen DeGeneres: is place is all about the spot. e house needed a lot of work, but the spot was always amazing. Strangely, this was the very rst place Portia and I ever looked at up here (in 2007).

Les Firestein: So, 15 years later when this house came back on the market, your Montecito real estate agent and close friend, Robert Riskin, knew it ticked all the boxes for you and urged you to see it. Were y’alls over here in like seconds?

ED: Truthfully, I didn’t even want to see the place. It’s the longest I’ve ever deliberated on a property. Because the site was incredible but the house, while good bones, basically didn’t have a single surface I could live with and everything clashed with everything. Even the ceilings.

LF: Sounds like everything, everywhere, all at once. So, what tipped you into escrow?

ED: Surfaces aside, this place is the total package. But I knew going in it was going to require a massive e ort, as well as a massive reimagining. I mean it was every surface.

LF: Sounds like it was the Museum of Bad Finishes. Tommy Clements says one of the unique things about you is you work at breakneck speed.

ED: Personally, I don’t understand people accepting these drawn-out schedules to get things done. Once I make the decision to engage, I’m o to the races. And in a case like this where we’re only dealing with

surface changes, it’s really just a matter of how large a high-quality team of painters and ne nishers you can build and deploy quickly.

LF: People say you build with a sense of urgency. Is that a fair characterization?

ED: I have the resources and experience to get a lot done in onethird of the time most people take. My team has been with me forever, so we have a shorthand. e eld marshal of it all, other than myself, is my contractor, Lance. He’s detail-oriented. And I love that he’s up for anything and totally un appable. He cannot be apped. Go ahead and try to ap him – you can’t.

Lance is Lance Lentz, the founder and owner of LDL General Contractors, who has worked with Ellen for 30 years. I ask Lentz how he’s able to whip through an “Ellen house” so quickly and at such a high level.

Because Ellen houses look like they take more time rather than less. Lentz says: “For speed of construction, there’s a number of strategies we deploy. One is, of course, sheer human power – what other contractors refer to as ‘bodies on site.’ And, yes, I’ve been known to deploy 700 men simultaneously on a single job. I’ve done 450 men a few times. But of course, it’s not just the sheer numbers. Part of moving quickly is about being organized and about having relationships with guys you know who are undaunted, collaborative,

SALT HILL, SOLD 2020

SOLD

and proud – that’s a really important one, people who will go the extra mile. And a second set of guys to replace those guys when your front line gets COVID.” Lentz then explains how it could possibly make sense to have 500 guys working on a home simultaneously. “Obviously at this level, the clients we’re talking about have high net worth. So if I can complete a job in a year that should have taken three, that’s worth a lot to someone with the available resources.”

Speaking of fast jobs, I ask Lentz what it’s like working with Ellen at the speed that Kyle Irwin and Tommy Clements said she likes to go. “I feel fortunate to have worked with all the top clients, and Ellen is the pinnacle. She’s brilliant, with a preternatural ability to ‘see’ what a house needs – X-ray vision. She has knowledge and instinct, an extremely discerning eye, but she’s also hands-on and deals with many of my subs directly. In a nutshell, she makes us all up our game!” I ask if it’s nerve-racking to have such a design maven wandering the site 24/7. Lentz says, “ e truth of the matter is, Ellen and I are equally passionate about building, so I never feel like I’m ‘working.’ I get to do cool projects every day with my own personal battalion and bring incredible ideas into reality. What’s not to like?”

After Ellen gives me a tour, we sit in the nicest living room ever to discuss her home passions and obsessions.

LF: You seem to have a permanent attitude toward impermanence. Which is the opposite of most folks. People always say, “ is is my forever house,” and it almost never is. Because life changes, right? But you go into it like, “ is would be cool for a while.” You never put this weight on it being “forever.”

ED: We thought our last house was our forever house. Because that was a place we could have not just horses, but access to a trail. at’s really important to Portia. I mean the place was a little public but more than made up for by the fact we really liked the surrounding community. We’ve always loved it up here. But in this case, we had particularly great neighbors. Kind of a little pickleball league.

LF: For house stuff, what’s the division of labor between you and Portia?

ED: ere’s no division. She’s as passionate about horses as I am about houses. But we don’t delve into each other’s silos. In fact, I can’t really get her to go into a furniture store with me. Unless there’s a horse in there somewhere.

LF: What brought you to Montecito in the first place?

LINGATE, SOLD 2022

THE ELLEN DEGENERES CAMPUS OF THE DIAN FOSSEY GORILLA FUND IN RWANDA

BY JEFF WING

Primatologist, conservationist, and fierce advocate for the mountain gorilla, the late Dian Fossey has been a north star for Ellen since she was herself a child, insatiably curious about –and immersed in – the natural world. In 2018, Ellen’s wife, Portia de Rossi, stunned Ellen with a gift that would positively transform Fossey’s nearly 60-year-old mission on behalf of the endangered mountain gorilla. Today, the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has been wholly realized as a state-of-the-art nexus of conservation research and education – and the embodiment of the promise for which Fossey ultimately gave her life. Local labor and materials were used throughout design and construction to minimize the campus footprint, develop an immersive reforested landscape, and ensure job training and economic return to the local community (20 percent of whom are women) while creating a modern facility for public use and education.

As with other Ellen projects, great architecture is a priority, and the campus was recently awarded a spot on AD’s coveted WoW (Works of Wonder) list for 2023. The MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) Design Group’s project is a biodiverse “living lab” that showcases the four key mountain gorilla habitats: mixed forest, bamboo, Hagenia forest, and meadow. Ductile-reinforced concrete cores stabilize the structures in the seismically sensitive region, and a constructed wetland manages the site’s

wastewater. The buildings have green, native-planted roofs, a 360-degree immersive theater and virtual-reality experiences, and 10,000 furnishings produced by Rwandan artisans. The facility even features a café that o ers delicious locally made food. This research campus is not a sovereign foreign bubble in the Rwandan outback but a connected outgrowth of the terrain. Located on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the 12-acre Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund will grow Fossey’s mission in perpetuity – yet another gift; this one to the endangered mountain gorilla and those stewards, today and tomorrow, who gather to study and protect it. Ellenfund.org/the-campus

LOCAL TREASURE KYLE IRWIN OF FIELD+FORT DISCUSSES “ELLEN 101”

Kyle Irwin has done the interiors and exteriors of many of Montecito’s most cherished homes. He is also the coowner of the popular Field+Fort home goods store and café. He tells The Riv that soon after opening, Ellen came in, bought a lot of stu , and asked Irwin if he’d come over to her place for a looksee. Four houses later, the design duo of Irwin & Ellen is still going strong. Irwin got a crash course in “Ellen 101” and is sharing with us some of the things people don’t know about her.

“We’re both anti-floor plan people. Because I guarantee you the best architect, the best designer, when they put your design in a floor plan, most of it’s not going to wind up exactly where you plan. It’s just the way the process happens. You’re moving things in and you’re like, ‘Oh, you know what, that window, the way the light comes in, those chairs look purple in that light.’ But they actually look way better somewhere else. Or we put the floor outlet exactly where we thought it should be, but the sofa actually looks better 10 inches back. And now the floor outlet looks like a thumb. One of the things I really appreciate about Ellen is she treats a home like a living, breathing, changeable thing. She’s not afraid to try stuff. Maybe it goes back to her days as a stand-up comedienne, trying out new material, seeing what works and constantly refining. She’s willing to make mistakes and, more importantly, she’s willing to correct mistakes. She never throws in the towel.

“One of the funny things for me spending so much time with Ellen – but also being the proprietor of this store – is people always think because of her presence in our culture that they know Ellen and even know her taste. People come in here all the time and go, ‘Oh, Ellen’s going to come in and gobble this up. I just know it.’ And no one has ever been right. Not a single time. Not even close.

“It’s the same way people come in and say, ‘I want an Ellen house.’ Like, that’s actually become a thing. People who have seen houses I’ve done for her decide they want to do a flip house. I don’t think most people understand the complexity of that statement. Ellen never ‘stages’ a house. She furnishes a house for herself and Portia. Plus, she’s as passionate about furniture as she is about houses. She once joked, ‘I love that table so much, I need to buy a house for it.’ I tell people, ‘If you want an Ellen house, first you’re going to need 5,000 co ee table books, 60 lamps, and 30 legacy chairs that have been collected over the course of a lifetime.’ Because Ellen’s places are not staged. She has incredible taste and fills her places with incredible stu .”

“ELLEN WILL LITERALLY COME OVER AND HELP YOU OUT WITH STUFF MONTHS AFTER THE CLOSING. IT DOESN’T SOUND PLAUSIBLE, BUT IT’S TRUE.”

– LYDIA KIVES

ED. When I was on tour doing stand-up, I very distinctly remember doing a show here at the Arlington eatre and thinking it was a beautiful theater and a beautiful town, and totally a place I could see living in one day.

LF: And what got you so deeply into design in the first place?

ED: I was just telling Portia that when you and I met three decades ago – when you were in Hollywood – I went over to your place, and you guys had truly nextlevel stu . Up until that point, I’d been metaphorically living in the comedy condo, but when I went to your place on Nichols Canyon, that’s when I realized great furniture was truly art. And a beautifully designed place and experience was also art. at’s when I decided I needed to up my game, and that the time to have a really nice place was now.

LF: Well, you’ve certainly surpassed your design “mentor.” Both your L.A. broker Kurt Rappaport and your design partner on this house, Kyle, said the same thing: at one

of the things the world gets wrong about you is, that people think you keep moving because you can’t make up your mind or you’re impetuous. When, in fact, the opposite is true – you’re extremely decisive. ey both say that for you doing a house is like a painting, and when you’re done with your painting, you sell your art just like any other artist.

ED: at’s part of it. But also, I don’t really travel a lot. So, house ipping is my version of travel.

LF: How so?

ED: With house ipping, the scenery changes though I stay in the same general area. Only in a new place and from a new perspective.

LF: I guess it’s like being in the theater. e scenery changes around you, but you get to stay in your same comfy chair. Where did the serial house flipping come from? Was your mom or dad some sort of Bob Vila type?

ED: No, I came from serial house renters. We were always moving. We never owned. I always thought we were looking for

STONES THROW, SOLD 2022

STONES THROW, SOLD 2022

ELLEN’S RESOURCES

Some of the (mostly local) places where Ellen shops to make magic

just the right house and hadn’t found it yet.… I didn’t realize we were poor and were never going to buy a place. I think my folks took us to open house caravans just for the veggie tray.

LF: Do you ever build new?

ED: No, I need the instant grati cation and the adrenaline rush. at year-and-a-half in planning would be lethal to me. I can’t sit still that long, no matter how nice the chair is.

LF: You showed me before how you stripped away literally everything the previous owners did, with the exception of the outlandish but cool faucet and sink in the powder room. What’s up with leaving behind that one vestige?

ED: I don’t know, I always like to leave one trace of the previous people. An homage.

LF: I think that’s one of your optimistic traits. You find and preserve the one good thing. Don’t you also think there’s a certain optimism to always believing your best house is your next house?

ED: So far it always is.

“In Summerland, I love Field+Fort, of course. Kyle is a design genius with amazing taste and just did another big buying trip – and he’s funny. He has really great stu And I love The Well. Shane Brown has great stu , too. I’ve become really good friends with both Shane and Kyle. And of course, I also like Porch and Garde. I like Garde’s throws and the bedding – and they have some pretty clothing now, too. In the Upper Village in Montecito, I like Country House Antiques. The owner, Jennifer Sanan, is a lovely lady. Country House is right next door to William Laman, which is also great. Slightly up the road is the vintage trifecta. Lost Horizon Bookstore has great books and great art, as well as super kind, interesting people. Next to them is Haskell Antiques, and next to him is Carty & Carty Antiques (their stu looks like what you’d inherit from your grandma, if your grandma was Gloria Vanderbilt). Right across the street, I like Upstairs at Pierre Lafond. There’s a great new buyer for Lafond – they’ve really upped their game in the house goods. And I’m looking forward to the new restaurant my friend Graham Duncan is opening downstairs. He asked me to look the space over with him. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite source of all time in terms of shopping for home decor: Galerie Half on Melrose in Los Angeles. It is run by one of our best friends, Cameron Smith, whose curation and presentation are top-notch.”

Galerie Half (photo by Rich Stapleton)

4038 Foothill Road | $12,900,000 | Casey Turpin

4923 Sandyland Road | $8,100,000 | Gregg Leach

Design: Carolyne Ferguson Design

Builder: Robert Ferguson Company

When you’re selected for a project that centers on a 100 year old historic estate it comes with extraordinary responsibility. Afterall, someone is entrusting their vision, their dream with us. Expertise, experience, coordination, and last but not least-- sensitivity, are all critical for a successful outcome. The ability to discretely “hide” the most advanced technology so as not to interfere with the original design aesthetic is essential. We’ve only been around for a third of a century but we know we can help your dream become a reality.

The Graholm Estate Montecito circa

Designer Meg Joannides is ready for anything.

Meg of Montecito

Interior designer and Farmer’s Daughter Hotel model Meg Joannides

STORY BY LES FIRESTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIM REIERSON

Irst encountered interior designer extraordinaire Meg Joannides on the Hill House project, which was our cover story for the rst issue of e Riv. Hill House was such an interesting and challenging interior design project because its design was so unique, it really couldn’t be furnished with store-bought or even traditionally crafted pieces. e task of furnishing Hill House required new materials, new shapes, cutting-edge materials, and solving massive logistical challenges. roughout that interior design process,

I was amazed by Joannides’s un appability and sheer capacity to collaborate on the invention of a whole new design vocabulary, then help bring those futuristic parametric designs from the metaverse into reality.

Robin Donaldson is the architect of record on Hill House, as well as the second architect of record on the refreshing of the Graholm Estate, a seminal piece of American Spanish Revival architecture purchased by Hill House owners envisioning a reassemblage of that original and historically signif-

icant Santa Barbara estate.

“I think Meg can do anything, and the range of what she can do is impressive,” says Donaldson. “One of the things I love about her is she has so many tools in her arsenal. She has a great eye, of course. But she also has a great ear, which is critical for listening to the clients and everyone else on the design team. Both those assets served her incredibly well on this very unique and challenging mission.” And what was that mission, exactly?

is actually a scientist’s daughter – which has served her well on the cutting edge of design and architecture

Mission Control Meets Mission Architecture

Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman, the same entrepreneur-philanthropist-artists who built Hill House, also had the idea to refresh Graholm, one of Santa Barbara’s original ve Hilltop Baron estates. Graholm was an antiquated manse most would have relegated to the land ll but thankfully the Weinman-Heavins didn’t. Early on, they made the decision to refresh Graholm and therein, instantaneously, a design challenge was born: How would these two estates from di erent centuries play together? Was it even possible? Now that both projects are almost complete, I’m happy to report Graholm is the greatest reconceiving of an old estate I’ve ever seen, and the two neighboring properties get along like the Louvre and I.M. Pei.

Before we look at the great job Joannides and her team did on Graholm, however, we must rst look back at the amazing oeuvre that quali ed Joannides for the Graholm gig in the rst place.

Joannides, who hails from the Bay Area, attended UC Santa Barbara then FIDM, where she earned her degree in interior design. Joannides started in corporate design – but not just any old corporate design. Her career in design began at Ralph Lauren in Europe. In her own words: “I was in Munich on vacation during the summer of 1990 and just walked into the RL store in Munich on the Maximilianstraße, which is their Rodeo Drive. I got into a conversation with the manager of the store (she was American) and told her I was an interior designer. She told me the wholesale division was developing stores all over Germany and suggested I meet with the team. I just spontaneously decided to move to Germany in the fall of that year and take the job. I worked for them for two years all over Germany. I eventually left RL for Hugo Boss, where I worked three more years developing stores all over Europe and Asia. And then I spent another ve

years developing spaces for Hugo Boss North America based out of New York City. For anyone in design, I highly recommend living in New York simply to learn the fast pace and just how to get things done. I probably did 45 stores altogether for Hugo Boss.”

To summarize our story thus far: Joannides walked into a Ralph Lauren store in Germany, talked herself into ve years of plum design jobs at RL, then Hugo Boss. Let’s take that in for a moment. RL and Boss are two of the top design institutions not just to develop your design chops but to learn how to work in a buttoned-up manner, with tight budgets, and frequently many masters.

After years and many successes with Hugo Boss around the world, Joannides came home to California. Her rst project in Cali was the Farmer’s Daughter Hotel in Los Angeles (for which she was also the logo model). Farmer’s Daughter was a weird-interesting design gig where hipster kids had inherited a literally by-the-hour Best Western from their folks. Do you know who rents a hotel room by the hour? It’s generally not people stopping in for a quick nap.

Joannides took this Best Western, completely reconceived it with the new owners (twice), opened it up, and totally changed its energy. In the process, Farmer’s Daughter helped bring about a resurgence to the surrounding Fairfax District. is sort of ability with alchemy would serve Joannides well years later at Graholm

In the ensuing years, Joannides did a lot of successful residential projects all over the United States but especially along Southern California’s many rivieri: Malibu, Santa Monica, the Palisades, Santa Barbara. And further rivieri, multiple projects in the Bay Area – not to mention the Persian Gulf riv known as Dubai. I ask Joannides from whence she draws inspiration. “I’m always looking for inspiration from the architecture,” she says. “I want

Joannides was not just the designer of the Farmer’s Daughter Hotel (a former flophouse) in L.A., she was also the model for its memorable logo.

(Photo by Gary Paller)

A Chronology of Motor City, 93108

The Unusual Automotive Pedigree of Montecito’s Storied Graholm Estate

The storied Graholm Estate has a long legacy with the automotive industry, with an almost startling number of coincidences and convergences. ere’s a lot of fascinating Santa Barbara history up on that hill – and just a lot of fascinating history, period.

David Gray, who commissioned the building of Graholm, inherited his money from his father, John Gray, who was Henry Ford’s main nancial backer. John Gray’s initial $10,000 investment in Ford ultimately yielded him a $36.5 million buyout (including dividends) when it occurred in 1919. To put this number in perspective, a schoolteacher in 1919 made about $970 per year. e reason for John Gray’s windfall was Henry Ford had had a number of nancial fallings-out with various partners and investors. For example, he had a falling-out with the Dodge Brothers who went on to form … you guessed it. And he had another notable falling-out with an investor named Clarence Black, who promptly left Ford to start a company called Cadillac.

Before David Gray ever headed west from Detroit, the Cadillac baron Black had left Detroit rst and built a Santa Barbara estate designed by famed architect Winsor Soule called El Cerrito. e foreman on El Cerrito was the architect Roland Sauter, who went on to both locate the Graholm parcel for David Gray and ultimately become that project’s lead architect.

Sauter’s rm notably did some other important architecture around town, such as Santa Barbara High School and the Cabrillo Pavilion on Santa Barbara’s East Beach (currently the home of Reunion Kitchen + Drink). Gray gifted the pavilion to Santa Barbara.

David Gray, like the current owners of Graholm, was immensely philanthropic and deeply involved with supporting the arts in Santa Barbara. at was, up until June of 1925, when he re ned his philanthropy to focus on helping Santa Barbara rebuild after the massive earthquake.

Gray embraced community organizer Pearl Chase’s vision for the redevelopment of Santa Barbara in Spanish style, and to this end, Gray gave $10,000 to help establish an Architectural Board of Review. Gray personally bore the cost of the operation of the community drafting rooms whose architects helped builders, owners, and fellow architects create designs in the Spanish revival style, a romanticized version of Santa Barbara’s past. (Source: Hattie Beresford, the Montecito Journal Magazine, 2012/2013.)

A quarter-century later, in 1952, Graholm would be purchased by the Brooks Family and become the Brooks Institute of Photography. Among the specialties at Brooks were popular courses in automobile photography.

Gray (investor) with Ford (inventor).

Graholm’s automotive pedigree continues with Fisker.

e home went back into private hands in 1999, until it was eventually purchased in 2018 by Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman. Like Gray, Graholm’s current owners are huge patrons of the arts and benefactors of Santa Barbara. In the runup to construction, of course, they wind up having to deal a lot with boards of architectural review – which ironically, and coincidentally, largely came into existence thanks to Graholm’s original owner, David Gray!

One hundred years later. Heavin and Weinman throw a centennial birthday party for the house! ey’re not Steve Jobs! ey engage Meg Joannides for the refresh – whose connection to the automobile industry is her father, Dr. Fritz Kalhammer, a renowned scientist who was integral to the development of the fuel cell (and the plug-in hybrid).

New owners the Weinman-Heavins are not uninvolved in the automobile business themselves. ey are backers of Fisker Automotive, which is all about clean energy. Kind of similar to what’s going on with the house – Graholm is being adapted to how people live today. e Fisker is for how people drive today (and can also power your home). Henrik Fisker, like Heavin and Weinman, is a veteran of the ArtCenter College of Design, though on the Swiss campus rather than the Pasadena campus (where Heavin and Weinman met). Fisker is also a car design veteran of BMW, Aston-Martin, and coincidentally, Ford. Speaking of which, the Ford Lightning F-150 all-electric pickup also claims it could power a home for a few days. So, it seems both Ford and Graholm are ready for 2023 and beyond.

my work to harmonize with the architecture, creating a seamless transition between interior and exterior. Clients inspire me. I study them, how they dress, how they currently live, what their visions are, what they do for a living, and how that informs their lifestyle.

“I also travel a lot and take tons of photos. I am often scrolling back through my phone to my travels for inspiration – could be colors from a hotel lobby. Or the particular way a piece of furniture is detailed. A view. A piece of art. A mood created by the weather or the way a building is lit. e way I feel when I’m admiring my surroundings.”

As she gained notoriety, Joannides eventually landed on the radar of Heavin and Weinman, who auditioned Joannides on smaller projects before bringing her in on the epic Hill House.

Heavin and Weinman had the Hill House build and the Graholm refreshing – two structures from two di erent centuries - going on side-by-side and simultaneously. Talk about a project that needed “mission control.” Hill House was Heavin’s baby, while the redo of the Brooks Institute, aka Graholm, was thought to be more Weinman’s. Of the two simultaneous mega projects, architect Donaldson says cheekily, “Meg has incredible capacity, is not easily daunted, and doesn’t come in with a big ego or a lot of agenda. Luckily, she leaves that to us.”

Joannides says: “Growing up the daughter of a physicist and lawyer de nitely didn’t hurt.” (Her father had a lot to do with the development of the fuel cell and invention of the plug-in hybrid). “Because really there’s no rendering, no matter how good, that can show you everything you need to make informed decisions. So I’m a huge fan of mocking up, and I’m a really big fan of the on-site lab. Especially with clients, in my opinion, there’s no substitute for the sensory, tactile experience of on-site prototyping.”

I ask Joannides how the project at Graholm di ered from the futuristic Hill House project across the meadow. “Only in every conceivable way,” she says.

“But was it less daunting because you had this one [Hill House] behind you?”

“If anything, I think Graholm was more daunting,” she says. “Because we had this heritage that (a) needed to be brought up to snu – no small undertaking. Plus (b), there was a lot of oversight because Graholm is an historic, important, legacy Santa Barbara property, which is something the clients loved about it as well. And we very much wanted to honor that.”

And let’s not forget the additional challenge the refreshed Graholm needed to play nicely with this visitor from the future (the already iconic Hill House) parked right next door. “On top of all that,” says Joannides, “I wanted to honor this great site and this great architect – both great architects, really: Roland Sauter and Robin Donaldson. is property has just been so de ning to Santa Barbara – both then and now.”

As for di erences in executing the two projects? Joannides says, “I guess you could say Hill House was made from whole cloth while with Graholm, we were working with old cloth. e biggest di erence manifested in how people live today versus when Sauter built Graholm. Obviously, a lot has changed over the course of a century.”

Translation: In the 1920s, brick shithouse architecture was in vogue versus the net-zero architecture and “living light upon the land” that’s celebrated today.

“When Graholm was built, heritage design was all about massive timbers, exposed structural members, and windows seemingly built to repel invaders,” says Joannides. “ ink about how over at Hill House, you’re trying to have the least amount of window stile or muntin. While when Graholm was built, the style was to have, basically, the most. ere’s more metal in the windows at Graholm than in most new cars at this point.”

Les Firestein: But you had that experience early on in your career with the Best Western. You knew Graholm could be transformed.

Meg Joannides: at was di erent. With the Best Western/ Farmer’s Daughter, there was nowhere to go but up. Graholm, on the other hand, was one of the original Hilltop Baron estates of Santa Barbara. David Gray was literally this vaunted gure who wrote checks to subsidize the rebuild of Santa Barbara and support the aesthetic vision of Pearl Chase after Santa Barbara’s 1925 earthquake. And the original architect Sauter built all these historic buildings like Santa Barbara High School

“We love the original bones of Graholm, but quite a few were in total decay and disrepair. ere had also been 100 years of remodels and patches – some sensitive, some not – and as we peeled the layers, we also revealed serious infrastructural shortcomings. In the rear-view mirror, this was possibly a teardown, but how lucky were we to save this rare jewel and polish her up again? e grounds and the site are so breathtaking, and she was begging to be brought into the 21st century. Everyone who walks in is struck by the humanity of this architecture, and the house feels instantly comfortable and familiar. We weren’t afraid to mix a little modern with traditional, and Meg and I were inspired to create something that took a few risks and didn’t go purely traditional and restorational. We loved saving the tile that had been hidden under carpet and restoring the original fireplaces, but added modern amenities such as air-conditioning and up-to-date plumbing. It was a joy to work with everyone involved – we only wish it could have gone faster. Anyone who has ever undertaken a remodel of a 100-plus-year-old historic home has a few battle scars and knows it is a labor of love and not for the faint of heart.”

– Lynda Weinman

and the Cabrillo Pavilion on the beach, not to mention the whole signature Santa Barbara look of building with raw-edged, lichen-stained sandstone. Sauter’s shoes were some big shoes to ll.

LF: So what were some of the solutions?

MJ: ose massive trusses supporting the roof – we painted them out. We “uncomplicated” a lot of things. Robin Donaldson provided incredible support, and we were in perfect sync about where to do new and where we keep old. And Unander (the contractor) was great – they’re like an army of surgeons, and I think they care as much about preservation and building integrity as anyone.

LF: e result is incredible. e place truly looks like it was built today or 100 years ago. But the two eras are not at all in conflict –by God, you reconciled them!

MJ: A lot of it was about pulling certain design cues throughout the house for cohesiveness. It’s about creating a single vocabulary and sticking to it. And so much has to do with the team. We found a great lighting design team (Lighting Design Agency, based in Switzerland) that presented xtures and a lighting scheme appropriate to both centuries Graholm straddles. Bernard (Trainor, the landscape architect) has been really helpful getting the two parcels to talk to each other. And his work is so timeless, it kind of transcends any speci c era. Granted, that’s exterior work, but it makes a big di erence in terms of a person’s experience from inside.

LF: But you also had the additional issue that this property was an estate, then for many years an institution (the Brooks Institute of Photography). And then it went back to being an estate. I’m sure that presented its own challenges.

MJ: Sure, there were challenges of it being a college for 50 of its 100 years, but we try to convert the life this building lived –and the scars picked up along the way –into assets. ere is this great Batchelder oor tile throughout a lot of the house that developed a marvelous patina, which couldn’t have happened unless 50,000 students had traipsed through here for 50 of Graholm’s 100 years. And I think that’s part

Architect Robin Donaldson says cheekily, “Meg has incredible capacity, is not easily daunted, and doesn’t come in with a big ego or a lot of agenda. Luckily, she leaves that to us.”

Joannides’s blend of old and new is seamless.

Joannides at Field+Fort. Just because.

“I’m always looking for inspiration from the architecture. I want my work to harmonize with the architecture, creating a seamless transition between interior and exterior. Clients inspire me. I study them, how they dress, how they currently live, what their visions are, what they do for a living and how that informs their lifestyle.”

“I am often scrolling back through my phone to my travels for inspiration

could be colors from a hotel lobby. Or the particular way a piece of furniture is detailed. A view. A piece of art. A mood created by the weather or the way a building is lit. The way I feel when I’m admiring my surroundings.”

of what gives the place its gravitas –it looks like it has endured, and it really gives o the vibe that it was always here and always will be.

LF: What’s your big takeaway from these duel epic projects on Eucalyptus Hill?

MJ: I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with clients who are not just amazing collaborators but true stewards. ey are patrons in the truest sense of the word. ink of what Steve Jobs did tearing down that George Washington Smith mansion in Woodside (see “Did Steve Jobs Hate Montecito’s Most Revered Architect?” in e Riv’s Spring 2022 issue). is is not that. Like the original homeowner here, David Gray, Bruce and Lynda have chosen to deeply support the arts not just nationally but especially lo-

cally. Just on this site alone they’ve made two incredible architectural contributions to Santa Barbara and to the world, and I’m so honored to have gotten to be a part of that.

LF: But you’re opening an office in Austin. Does this mean there could be a Megzit in your future?

MJ: Nothing so dramatic as that. We will always have an o ce in Southern California. But one of my senior designers decided to move to Austin, and I did not want to lose her. I was already aware of the growth in the area and the many great designers and architects working there, so we took the plunge and opened an additional o ce. It’s all very new and exciting, but I am con dent it is the right place for us to be considering the kind of work we see happening there now.

BROOKS HOUSE PORTFOLIO

JESSE BENENATI BENENATI & LENTINI PAINTING INC.

“My dad was a painter. We have six kids in our family – five boys – all painters. Today, one of my older brothers (Perry) is my partner, and I have another partner, our childhood friend Mark Lentini. I have 15 guys who have been with us for 15 years or longer. We do every kind of project, of course, but we’ve fallen into this high-end bracket, which we can do – and do very, very well. I believe there are only two or three other companies in town that can do what we do. We’re working on some of the finest homes in the world. A lot of that success is in the prep. Prep work is key, and we have our top guys doing a lot of the prep, because in my view, you don’t become a great prepper until you’re a really good finish man. I’ve always been interested in finishes and always enjoyed working with decorators. If they can describe to me what they want, we can do it. To have this creative team around me is everything. We worked with [designer] John Saladino for years and did his house, and I learned so much from him.

“In this business, you’ll often hear of the need for ‘more bodies’ on the job. I’ve always been really careful about this. Whenever they ask for more bodies, I just say, ‘I don’t allow bodies, I need craftsmen.’ That insistence on expertise has paid o . Probably 70 percent of our business is repeat clients. The paint job on a Rolls Royce is di erent than on a GM, right? It starts with quality products and an intolerance for flaws – no matter how small. Working with enamels, like the shiny paint of a Rolls? If there’s a hair or a speck of dust in that finish, you’re going to see it from 15 feet away. In a home, you’ll notice if there’s a trace of paint on the ceiling when it shouldn’t be, or a drip in a run that happens to be at eye level. In a mediocre paint job, the more you look, the more you see, and when you see things, those are the mistakes. With a really nice paint job, you should just be able to walk through and not notice anything. You have a beautiful home. I’m not going to put lousy frosting on a really nice cake.”

(805) 448-7936

BERNARD TRAINOR GROUND STUDIO LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

“There’s a shift happening in the world. Our clientele used to be really wealthy people – often older – and most of them saw us as a service. ‘We’re supposed to have a garden because we have money.’ And now people are coming to us with a sort of reverence. We see a shift in taste and awareness, and that’s where we get excited. There’s generally an architect and a client – it’s all about reading those people and what they’re trying to achieve. And then our key phrase comes up all the time: ‘People have lost connection with the land.’

So we’re about connecting people back to the land.

“Architecture for me is just the most amazing art form. And of course, I have a bias toward beautiful gardens, too. I started as a gardener, in the soil, and moved toward landscape architecture, so I have such an appreciation for the grind. It’s really hard work, and I think that’s why I enjoy it so much.

“I started as an apprentice gardener in Australia in the late 1980s. That was a five-year apprenticeship. After that, I won a scholarship to go to England, which I did for five years. England is, you know, the Mecca of gardening. A lot of people think ‘English garden’ and they start thinking cottages and cute little things. But [legendary 18-century British landscape architect] Capability Brown was moving mountains. And now we’re back to that in a way. We’re looking at the genius loci – the genius of a place. This basically goes back to contextual design – look at what’s there and respond to that.

“It’s about being on site and spending the right amount of time to really listen to what the land is saying and just do the work, and just be bold and intentional. Really smart, young clients come to us saying, ‘Look, I’m just gonna be honest. I don’t really understand what you do, but I want it. Let’s go.’”

(805) 618-2293, GROUNDSTUDIO.COM

BRANDON FRIGGIONE LEONARD UNANDER ASSOCIATES, INC.

“Myfather-in-law, Leonard Sr., started the business in 1977. For the past 15 to 20 years, his sons Clint and Leonard and I have been working with him to manage the company and our projects. The most important thing for each job is to really serve the client – to listen well, to understand what they want but also what they need. We think of ourselves as a five-star boutique company. We take a collaborative approach and provide next-level service. We put our arms around the team and rally together to serve the client. We embrace the challenge of custom residential building, the unique nature of it, and the level of detail that comes with the territory.

“Leonard Sr.’s grandfather was a master builder, craftsman, and carpenter from Sweden who came over in the early part of the 20th century with Paul Unander, Leonard’s dad. As I understand it, Leonard’s grandfather worked on some of the famed George Washington Smith projects. Paul became a local builder and developer, and Leonard grew up in that world. In 1977 as a young man, Leonard struck out on his own. And he was always super meticulous. Leonard would go out in the evening and inspect every board of lumber as it was delivered. If a board wasn’t perfect, it would be rejected. Leonard personally stamped a U on every stick of lumber that went into one of his houses.

“It’s a family business. A lot of our employees are like family. We have o ce sta and superintendents who have been with us for 25 years. It’s not just a job. We are excited by the projects. When Leonard got started, he looked around at all the builders. You know, there’s typically dogs on the job site and radios everywhere, people swearing, and trash all over the place. Leonard always thought, Why can’t a builder operate like a law firm? Why can’t we be pros? For us, it’s about the relationship with the community and the level of professionalism we communicate to a client. Most importantly, though, we try to set that stage for people coming to the job site to work. We have high expectations. This is a serious endeavor.”

1328 DE LA VINA ST., SANTA BARBARA, (805) 682-5685, UNANDERCONSTRUCTION.COM

PHILIPPE BOVIGNY LIGHTDESIGNAGENCY LLC

“Wecame in at the beginning of the project and made a site visit before they began to renovate. We saw some interesting opportunities. The framework in the living room allows some concealment of the light source. But of course, the object of the light itself is to reveal, and we’d been told the owner has a lot of beautiful art. So, our goal was to enhance her collection with tasteful and creative lighting and ambience. We also work really closely with the interior designers to understand what they’re trying to do with the house, what the desired aesthetic is – what atmosphere it is they’re trying to create. Then we do whatever is possible to have the lighting and the architectural statement complement each other.

“I don’t think we do a lot of what you would call ‘normal’ jobs. There is always a challenge. It is never the same. When you get a remodel or a renovation, everything – the structure – is already there and in place. You cannot do everything you want. You work with the structure. Sometimes we can hide the light source with a cornice, and in other places we had to put the lights under the beams, to bring more light, to increase the light. So, it’s never normal. It’s always di erent.

“Our o ce is in Switzerland, and we have another o ce in Los Angeles. We

have interesting jobs in Switzerland, but we’re interested in doing something di erent, and the architecture is very di erent in L.A. We like the modern architecture from the middle of the last century. It’s very interesting for us.

“Our o ce has architectural and technical knowledge that allows us to integrate the lighting with the architect and the electrical engineer. A job like this is always challenging. There is no small project. Everything is a challenge, and that makes it interesting every day.”

BILL JANKA MISSION AUDIO VIDEO

“Forme, this job was really cool because I grew up in Santa Barbara – I graduated from Santa Barbara High School. The Brooks Institute of Photography was internationally famous and a heavy influence in this town. There was one class at Brooks where you had to take a picture of the Old Mission Santa Barbara. I remember being a kid and going by the mission, and I would see the class out there with those big box cameras and the black hood over their head. Another class had to take pictures of the Santa Barbara Courthouse – all the photographers lined up in the same way. Many years later when I got married, our wedding photographer was a Brooks grad. Brooks was just interwoven into the city’s culture. To be able to work on the property is very cool.

Now, we have the privilege of working with a client who not only shared the vision, but also happened to have the resources to execute the project properly. The big thing was taking this historic structure and integrating today’s technology while maintaining the structural integrity and aesthetic design. The original construction was commercial grade, so the di culty of cabling and installing Wi-Fi coverage with the original steel and brick construction was very challenging.

“Then the homeowners want A+ Wi-Fi everywhere all the time. Because of how substantial the place is – it’s not a traditional two-by-four and sheetrock construction – the Wi-Fi just can’t make it. Wi-Fi is easier in the Lincoln Tunnel or the New York City subway system. You have steel everywhere, you’re underground. It’s a similar thing to deal with, like the relays and the boosters. We just have miles of conduit. We’ve installed a fiber-optic backbone of cabling throughout the structure and then category-seven network cabling, which is the latest and greatest. So, while the house is 100 years old, we’ve now put in the infrastructure to set it up for the next century.”

Bella McGoldrick Is Keeping It Real

Hyperrealistic portraits of furniture don’t exactly look real; they look slightly better

Story by Jeff Wing

Artist Bella McGoldrick was studying fashion design in Melbourne, Australia, and selling personalized fashion illustrations to help put herself through school. Marrying the perfectly rendered faces of her “commissions” to high- ying fashion illustrations, McGoldrick’s attering one-o s were a hit.

When she moved to New York City to try to assemble a career from her somewhat intense fashion education, her drawing talent haunted her progress like a friendly little cloud. “I moved to New York to work in fashion, and I had a few jobs there…but then it got to be this weird thing. I’d just gotten a work visa and I was like, ‘OK – I don’t really know what to do now. I’m going to see if I can sell drawings again.’” As fallbacks go, this one had wings.

Famous Italian and I ❤ NY Gifts

48 x 26 inches

Colored pencil on paper

Sofa With Arms, 1982 10 x 10 inches, detail Pencil on paper

Eames, 1956

14.5 x 11 inches

Pencil on paper

Today, McGoldrick is an increasingly sought-after artist (one of her pieces hangs in House of Honey, the design destination in the Upper Village of Montecito). McGoldrick works in a genre that’s been called Hyperrealism. In plainspeak, her gorgeous drawings look like sharply focused photographs. To the extent it is a de ned movement or style, Hyperrealism is considered an o shoot of the Photorealism movement in art, which reveres the “ordinary” through rendered scenes of such photographic precision, the previously banal subject is perceived afresh. Hyperrealism shares Photorealism’s uncanny exactitude but revels in the subtle, radiant emotion intrinsic to both the object and the fact of its being rendered.

As she was trained in haute couture, McGoldrick’s new mission is illuminating, and parlaying, everyday inelegance. “I want to be able to work and make a life from it,” she says. “But then…I sometimes nd it kind of di cult having these goals. Because my trajectory has been so not the path that I saw – but so much better.”

“My trajectory has been so not the path that I saw –but so much better.”

Filthy Rich

63 x 45 inches

Pencil on paper

Her suds-swaddled Gucci bar of soap is a wonder, and she has produced a sensory overload of a series depicting iconic 1960s and ’70s-era chairs and sofas in situ.

The Most Beautiful Girls in Ibiza

63 x 45 inches

Pencil on paper

Panton Chrome, 1967 10 x 11 inches, detail Pencil on paper

Chauffeuse, 1971 10 x 14 inches

Pencil on paper

“I’m living out of a suitcase, mostly traveling from one riviera to another because we surf. I can’t buy furniture, I can’t set up a home. So, OK. I’m gonna draw them and enjoy them!”

McGoldrick curates some of her subject matter by looking down. Her eye-poppingly vérité pieces often trade on the trashed, once-beautiful jetsam found strewn along a sidewalk –a shattered Dior bottle, attened beer can, a brutalized Dodgers ticket. Once she’s adopted the object, McGoldrick carefully photographs it – “photographing the object is probably the most important part of the process” – and carefully renders it with colored pencil.

In McGoldrick’s hands, the thing is taken up and valorized in all its disintegrating glory, but not as a Baudelarian, hipster celebration of life’s seamy underside. Quite the contrary. Her work allows the viewer to stare hard into – and truly see with crystal clarity – the unsung stu ung along the blurred peripheries of experience. e e ect is exalting, and the market agrees.

Superoblong, 1989

10 x 16 inches

Pencil on paper

I Shot A Man In Reno | 40 x 32 inches | Colored pencil on paper

McGoldrick’s full range of subject matter is as varied as the oddball, stumbling journey we murmuringly refer to as “Life.” Her suds-swaddled Gucci bar of soap is a wonder, and she has produced a sensory overload of a series depicting iconic 1960s and ’70s-era chairs and sofas in situ. Lavishly overstu ed leather, molded minimalist plastic, curvaceous chrome – her subjects are starkly at rest in a plain negative space, McGoldrick’s masterful and unerring play of light and shadow deepening the viewer’s embrace. While her depictions of curbside detritus end as larger-format works, she went the other way with her furniture series.

“What was interesting is, I almost always do small objects and then blow them up and draw them really large. at’s the format I’ve enjoyed. But I ipped that on its head, and I tried to do large things and make them small, and just really enjoyed it.” Why the process ip? “We were in Barbados two months ago and it was so hot. It’s so humid there, the paper gets wet. I was like, ‘OK, I don’t think I can work on a large piece, so I’m gonna try and go smaller….” Barbados? When last I spoke with McGoldrick, she was in Mexico City. Is she leading the glamorous life of a globe-hopping artiste? Words like “peripatetic” and “gallivanting” are waiting in the wings. McGoldrick waves o the misimpression.

“Look,” she says without rancor, “I’m trying to have a home! I was let into the United States on a visa and then I came back, and suddenly they felt like it shouldn’t have been granted in the rst place. I had set up a home here. I even bought my rst designer chair – an Eames lounge. And then they ripped it out from under us, and we had to sell the house. I think the inspiration for the furniture series came from this real longing for a home. Now I’m living out of a suitcase, mostly traveling from one riviera to another because we surf. I can’t buy furniture, I can’t set up a home. So, OK. I’m gonna draw them and enjoy them!”

Here’s a small sampling of other rivieri at home and abroad. We look forward to exploring each and every one.

“Riviera: A coastal region frequented as a resort area and usually marked by mild climate. Riviera (pronounced [riˈvjɛːra]) is an Italian word which means ‘coastline,’ ultimately derived from through Ligurian rivêa. It came to be applied as a proper name to the coast of ligure, then shortened in English.”

Dubois’s latest: e cient, sleek, and powerful, Encore’s low silhouette, classic-modern accommodations for eight, and range of 4,000 nautical miles makes this yacht a hydronautic home away from home.

LIBERATION YACHT BROKERAGE WILL HELP YOU SAIL OFF INTO THE FUNSET

Waiting out the apocalypse was never this cush

STORY BY ROB HILL

Captain Phillip Pollak just returned from sailing from Fiji and Hawaii on the 144foot sailing yacht Encore. is is one of his preferred job requirements as the CEO/founder of Liberation Yachts. “I’m constantly traveling,” Pollak says. Although his super yacht brokerage company is based in Ventura, California, Pollak, 62, doesn’t spend much time there. As he likes to point out, being a broker of super yachts means he needs to go where the action is – and Southern California unfortunately lacks the infrastructure for large luxury yachts. Although sometimes it can feel like Pollak has no home roots, growing up, he desperately wanted to escape the drab landlocked San Fernando Valley, so a peripatetic nomadic life on the seas suits him just ne.

Pollak bought his rst boat when he was 24. He was working in the semiconductor industry and saved enough money to buy a sailboat. And he’s been a sailor ever since. “By the time I bought my second boat, what was to be a short sailing trip through the South Paci c morphed into a 15-year voyage,” he says. “It was such a liberating experience. I would wake up every day and think, ere’s nowhere else I would rather be than right here. Having such a liberating experience is amazing. I have charts. I have a stocked boat. I can go anywhere I want in the world.”

Pollak’s passport is impressive: Sailing 16 times in and out of New Zealand typically from Fiji, Tonga, or Vanuatu, as well as New Zealand to Tahiti, Fiji to Australia, the Caribbean to San Francisco, the Malacca Strait, the Panama Canal, Southeast Asia, et cetera. Along the way, he has met a smattering of legendary super yacht captains who saw something in him, and he heard more than once “You would make a fantastic super yacht captain.” So, on one of his voyages down to New Zealand, he enrolled in all the yacht master classes and got all the certi cates and licenses to become a captain. Pollak started working for a wealthy New Zealander who had several impressive yachts.

One day, his boss asked him if he’d go look at a yacht in Palma, Mallorca, that he was thinking of buying. e yacht was breathtaking, and Pollak began to engage the brokerage representing the yacht and started the e ort for his boss. He loved the process – the inspecting, the homework, testing, negotiating. Unfortunately, during the process, his boss fell ill and the purchase came to an abrupt halt. However, “Outside of my own smaller boats, this was the rst time I really had any experience with a super yacht broker. I admired this broker a great deal, and to this day he is one of the top brokers in the world,” he says. “After all the e ort on a purchase that did not go through, the broker – serene and unfazed – said to me, ‘You would make a fantastic super yacht broker.’”

Unfortunately, for the gentleman Pollak was working for, his yachting days ended due to the illness. Looking for his next adventure, Pollak took the advice and reached out to this broker, who was kind enough to introduce him to one of the largest super yacht brokerage companies in Europe. e company ew him to London and hired him on the spot. ey had 17 o ces around the world and o ered Pollak any port where he wanted to be based. His answer: Monaco.

After a few months training in Zürich, Switzerland, Pollak settled into an exciting, elegant, sun-splashed life torn right out of the pages of Monocle magazine on the French Riviera city-state where – at the time – two former 007s, a prince, and a Beatle all called home. Pollak quickly became a xture at the Monaco Yacht Show, Europe’s biggest in-water display of large yachts. e annual show, held in the picturesque Port Hercules, was a who’s-who of super yachting luminaries, brokerage companies, builders, rock stars, movie moguls, Russian mineral tycoons, designers, luxury brands, and splendorous automobile companies. Pollak has represented numerous yachts in the Monaco Yacht Show, including one of the largest sailing yachts to date, the magni cent 295-foot Royal Huisman schooner Athena

“There was zero visibility, and the instruments were useless. Basically, I had to steer the ship by feel to which, fortunately, I was attuned thanks to my muscle memory from surfing.”

Massive aft deck spaces o er simplified systems, garage access – and room to roam beneath a canopy of stars.

Then, while on vacation on his considerably smaller sailing yacht in the South Paci c, Pollak had his perfect-storm moment. is was before accurate weather forecasting, he notes: ese days, it’s much safer! He was leaving Vanuatu bound for New Zealand (trip number ve to New Zealand on his boat) and got stuck in an angry storm (a “bomb cyclone in the Coral Sea”) that lasted for days. Pollak had to hand-steer the boat for two solid days without a break. “ e autopilot or the windvane couldn’t handle the conditions,” he says. It was the rst time he had been on a boat where he thought it was all over. As Pollak is an avid surfer, sur ng had been a major part of his tropical excursions. “ e waves were breaking and washing over the boat,” Pollak says. “ e boat was sur ng down the waves, the waves were coming over the back of the boat and lling up the cockpit and pushing the boat down the waves. I couldn’t let the boat get sideways at the bottom of these massive waves; otherwise, I’d be rolled over. It was diabolical! Being ‘hove to’ wasn’t an option, it is just a miracle that we didn’t roll the boat. And the whole time my partner was down below...no doubt cursing the day she met me!”

Pollak began to think maybe being a super yacht broker might be a safer profession than captain. He set his course on a worldwide odyssey visiting all the shipyards, inspecting the most sumptuous super yachts, meeting surveyors, naval architects, and designers, learning all he could about these beguiling boats. Liberation Yachts would be a bespoke yacht brokerage – leaving the captaining and chartering to others. What set Pollak apart from most of the other brokers was that he had a sales and extensive yachting background. To have him tell it, “Many of the great brokers I have met have been captains and have serious o shore experience. ey understand the important aspects when looking at a yacht and can properly price and advise their clients prior to a survey based on experience. However, many brokers have never been to sea – they’ve never crossed oceans as captains, which to me is questionable; that’s what boats are made for! You have to be a subject-matter expert in what you’re selling, because your client might not be. For me, it’s a prerequisite.”

“The yacht also has a dedicated ‘relief area’ for canine guests –a self-flushing area of the side deck finished in synthetic grass, complete with sensors, cameras, and sprinklers.”

Alfresco dining is redefined in this configurable cockpit and serving area with stunningly unhindered views.

Identical protected twin helms stations shelter under a removable hardtop, come rain or shine.

Lustrous satin American walnut spirals tastefully down to Encore’s lush and classic accommodations.

“Our aim is to protect, inform, and maximize the client’s investment in a custom build or the preowned market,” Pollak notes. Much of his job is getting to know what a client envisions as far as their desires, their experience, what they want in a super yacht, then matching them with a boat and with the right companies to work with. “Ultimately, my job is to nd quality people quality yachts,” Pollak says. “And my advantage really is knowing what makes a quality yacht, along with the market knowledge of boats that are on the market – or soon to be. I understand the bene ts of virtually all the quality super yacht builders in the world, as well as smaller yards that produce outstanding quality.”

Over the years, Pollak has gained a trusted clientele of dot-com millionaires, industrialists, showbiz VIPs, and billionaires with whom he’s on a rst-name basis. Pollak has represented the pinnacle brands of yacht building from Alloy Yachts, Royal Huisman, Van Dam Nordia, Heesen Yachts, Riva, et cetera – all created from the drawing boards of the top designers in the world. But he has a special place in his heart for Alloy Yachts in New Zealand, as well as the late super yacht designer Ed Dubois’s boats. (“He was a legend and one of the most proli c sailing super yacht designers,” Pollak says.)

e iconic collaboration of Dubois and Alloy has produced some of the nest sailing yachts in the world. Dubois designed the revolutionary 44-meter sailing yacht Encore that Pollak has just listed. Encore – being one of the last Dubois/Alloy Yachts ever built –was hailed as “the perfect balance of luxury and performance,” featuring luxurious accommodation for up to 10 guests in four spacious cabins. It includes Ralph Lauren fabrics and furnishings and a gorgeous satin American walnut interior. ere is a generous L-shaped owner’s suite, with a study and a full-beam (i.e., full width of the boat) bathroom, as well as two large double-guest cabins and a twin-guest cabin. “To me,” says Pollak, “Encore – with her stunning modern classical interior, her build quality, safety features, maintenance, and ability to be autonomous for up to six months due to her freezer, fuel, storage, and water-making capacity –makes her a standout world voyager in today’s market.

“I’ve been very fortunate to work with the Encore family and their yachts over many years. Encore is the culmination of experience gained from multiple world voyages on the owners’ previous yachts. eir captain of 28 years is a legend in the industry as a true waterman, and after numerous circumnavigations, he had assembled an A-team crew that played hard and worked even harder. eir yachts are always immaculate.”

“My first mate was sick, couldn’t even stand – all he could do was lay at my feet and feed me power bars while I steered the ship by feel. It’s a miracle we didn’t flip.”

The gorgeous lower salon does not trade style for coziness, as approachable Ralph Lauren fabrics and furnishings enfold and embrace.

Master stateroom o ce or penultimate reading nook on the sun-struck high seas? Yes.

When you finally manage to pull yourself away from the moonlit, breeze-scented upper deck, this awaits.

Dubois’s latest upper salon design features window lines and streamlined angles that lend themselves to startling panoramic views when seated,

While his full-time captaining duties may be behind him, Pollak doesn’t just broker super yachts for the ultra-wealthy in a drab o ce, he also lives on his latest sailboat full-time – and when not sur ng is often out on the seas when time allows. When his best friend asked Pollak to move to Ventura in 1989 to start an IT company (that is still going strong today), he began looking for a place to live. He didn’t like the idea of being, well, landlocked. “When I was very young, I met this couple and they invited me on their sailboat,” Pollak says. “I went down below and saw they had a very nice salon, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom and shower. And it struck me that these people explore the world in their home. And right then, I knew I’d live and travel on a boat.” Pollak also likes to be selfsu cient. While he’s not a “prepper,” he likes the idea of being untethered from the increasingly common chaotic world events.

So, if the zombie apocalypse does come to pass, is Pollak hinting he has a strategy for survival?

“When the time comes when everybody is saying the world’s collapsing, I’ll just quietly untie my dock lines … and o I go. It’s kind of like the ultimate escape pod.”

And he’s not the only one who has hatched such a plan. “Trust me, I have a few clients who have the same idea.”

“When the time comes when everybody is saying the world’s collapsing, I’ll just quietly untie my dock lines … and o I go. It’s kind of like the ultimate escape pod.”

Liberation Yacht’s Phillip Pollak aboard Athena in Monaco.

Modernist side-boarding stairs are easily deployed for a midday swim in any of the Seven Seas. Encore’s terraced transom steps descend elegantly to the water’s edge, making for a less strenuous fish landing and a natural gathering spot at dusk.

FINE JEWELRY YOU’LL LIVE IN COAST VILLAGE ROAD

gorjana.com

ART IS TIMELESS.

Heather Becker has devoted her life to art conservation. “Art is a record of our time,” she says. “It links cultures and generations, and there are stories behind all of these objects.”

A WORK OF ART, NOT SO MUCH.

STORY BY JEFF WING

FROM YOUR PICASSO TO AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH, THE CONSERVATION CENTER WILL RESUSCITATE YOUR TREASURED ART AND ANTIQUITIES.

Heather Becker was studying on a scholarship at the International School of Art in Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy. One day, her class took a eld trip to another rustic little village whose name, by contrast, comprises a single, gonglike syllable: Rome. “I remember we entered a chapel, and there was a conservator up on sca olding,” she says. “She was working on a mural.” Becker was so immediately rapt, her traveling companions began gently nudging her. She asked around and joined the conservator on her sca old. “I just became completely mesmerized by what the conservator was doing.”

A dedicated young creative, Becker was already bewitched by humankind’s eternal communion with art – both its ecstatic nature and sense of stewardship. Now watching the conservator’s careful work on the chapel frieze, Becker suddenly saw two previously incongruent halves merge into a revelatory whole. There may as well have been a thunderclap. “It was very much a moment,” she says now, with a distracted air of remembrance. “I said to myself, ‘This is a way for me to not only make my art but do something that has an external, social purpose.’” This is the youthful whimsy on which culturally luminous institutions are built.

Led by Senior Paintings Conservator Amber Schabdach, a team of conservators carefully remove gra ti from Chicago muralist Eduardo Kobra’s homage to photographer Vivian Maier.

The Conservation Center is the largest privately held art conservation lab in the country, and that’s saying something. Becker is the owner and CEO.

Based in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, 30,000 square feet comprise e Conservation Center’s brightly daylit open oor plan, where wildly expert art conservators focus intently on the task at hand. “You walk around here,” Becker says avidly, “and you can see something from the 11th century, or you can see something by a living artist like Kerry James Marshall. Running an organization like this allows you to experi ence and soak up all these di erent cultures and centuries and the stories behind all these objects.”

A former gold warehouse, the inspiringly airy and borderless workspace designed by Studio Gang Architects is all 19th-century baroque brickwork, high-arched windows, and concentrated movement – a mellow and ceaselessly productive hive of art-healing ingenuity. Specialized conservators hunch over their tables like monks in casual wear, quietly at work on their brow-furrowing minutiae, manipulating tiny, arcane tools with the dexterity of vascular sur geons. e incomprehensible variety of work being done here is boggling, the open layout actively encouraging cross-pollination of expertise. e Conservation Center’s reputation derives in no small part from its completist conservation model.

“WITH THE FLAMES CONTAINED, IT WAS A MATTER OF TRIAGING EVERYTHING THAT HAD SUFFERED WILDFIRE AND ASH EXPOSURE,” BECKER SAYS. “THEN WE MOVED THE CLEANED AND TREATED ARTWORK BACK IN AND REINSTALLED IT. OUR TEAMS KNOW THAT EVERY SINGLE RESCUED OBJECT MAINTAINS THE STORYLINE FOR THE FAMILY’S FUTURE GENERATIONS.”

Bozena Szymanski, Senior Conservator of Works on Paper, rehabilitates an antique photograph with hand-painted pastel additions.

Before and after of a damaged painting treated by Associate Paintings Conservator Rebecca Vodehnal, Untitled by Arturo Ricci Firenze, circa 1885.

“WITH THE WILDFIRES RAGING, WE EMBARKED ON A DETERMINED MISSION IN THE MONTECITO AND SANTA BARBARA AREAS.”

“Alot of labs focus on one medium,” Becker says. “ ere could be a lab in New York that has two or three excellent painting conservators with di erent levels of focus, and yet they don’t treat furniture, or sculpture, or textiles. When we were developing the concept of the growth of the organization, we were inspired to bring all these experts together under one roof. It took us about 10 years to build that concept –and that team. We did it very cautiously and slowly.”

e polymath Conservation Center’s deeply speci c skill sets –developed over decades and embodied in its 27 working experts – are lavished on an endless array of precious objects, including frames and gilding, ne and antique furniture, sculpture, paintings, objects, murals, rare books, textiles, works of art on paper, and the occasional beloved family snapshot in the latter stages of curling disintegration. All services are performed according to the sacrosanct ethical guidelines established by the national professional association the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).

“ ere are a lot of ethical considerations in this work,” Becker says. “It’s about respecting the intent of the artist, the original materials of the piece, making sure the conservation work is reversible – using techniques and approaches that can be neatly undone. If the piece needs to be treated 50 years from now, they can take away what the conservator has done, get back down to the original, and proceed from there.” e Center also o ers storage, collection as-

sessment, transportation, custom framing, and installation services.

If “one-stop shop” sounds a little pedestrian, think “art preservation Harrods” and you’re getting the proper sense of a be-all art conservation Xanadu. What’s left?

“We’ve more recently added archival preservation and digitization,” Becker says. “We work with institutions and nonpro ts, universities, and corporations. First and foremost, we preserve –and then we digitize.” at is, when not seamlessly repairing your bruised Matisse, e Conservation Center can digitally trans gure and secure your document archives. From the Renaissance to the Information Age, e Conservation Center will see you now.

All this from a school eld trip to Rome? How exactly did Becker’s youthful revelation lead to e Conservation Center’s all-conquering hegemony in the conservation space? “I came back from my schooling over there and immediately started researching laboratories in Chicago. at’s when I heard about Barry’s facility, the Chicago Conservation Center. I knew nothing about it.” e Chicago Conservation Center had been founded in 1983 as a passion project by Barry Bauman – a fervent and skilled art conservator – and bankrolled by Marshall Field V, a powerful patron of the arts and scion of the Chicago retail dynasty. When Becker wandered in with her ardent new life’s mission, Bauman brought her aboard.

Spanning 30,000 square feet, the Conservation Center’s laboratory was designed by Chicago’s famed Studio Gang Architects.

“Iknew nothing about any of it,” Becker says now with some amusement. “I had no skills other than normal undergrad stu at the Art Institute of Chicago.” Once hired, she of course began haunting the place at all hours, observing and soaking up the depthless knowledge base that is art conservation – and its strategic business case.

“I would pursue the business, marketing, and client development side of it.” Becker’s role – “business by day; painting, philosophy, and poetry by night” as she puts it now – was precisely what she’d envisioned that afternoon on the Roman sca old; a diurnal dedication to both sides of the art equation – advancing the business of art conservation while on the clock, then heading home energized and inspired to produce her own art after hours. A nourishing accord between Becker’s left and right brain.

Soon enough, Becker surprised Bauman with an unsolicited business plan. He arched an eyebrow (we can imagine) and ri ed through the typescript. “ is is a little unusual,” he said to the

precocious recent undergrad. “I’ll give you a year.” In that year, executing Becker’s plan grew the company by 12 percent. Validated, she pitched. “I really would love to own this someday – even though I’m just a young artist without the nancial means to make it happen,” Bauman murmured noncommittally. en one day he called Becker into his o ce. “I think I like your idea,” he said. “Let’s start investigating it.”

In 2003, Becker purchased e Conservation Center with an SBA loan, after which Bauman handed her the reins, later establishing his own practice as a pro bono conservator donating his services to nonpro ts that otherwise would not have been able to a ord him. Bauman – who passed away in 2022 – is said to have provided some $6 million worth of art conservation to more than 300 grateful clients. He was a legendary art conservationist in Chicago.

As for Becker, given the dynamic nature of art conservation, she will always be learning, and not just about the core mission. e Conservation Center’s advisory board is itself a fount of institutional knowledge. “Our amazing advisory board helped me expand my

The lion is not breathing fire, that’s Senior Conservator of Objects and Frames Josh McCauley cleaning a Chinese Buddhistic lion.

SPECIALIZED CONSERVATORS HUNCH OVER THEIR TABLES LIKE MONKS IN CASUAL WEAR, QUIETLY AT WORK ON THEIR BROWFURROWING MINUTIAE, MANIPULATING TINY, ARCANE TOOLS WITH THE DEXTERITY OF VASCULAR SURGEONS.

Before and after of Eva by Henri Matisse (1948), damaged in shipping.

The Conservation Center’s fine art Shipping Team works nationwide doing disaster response, fine art packing, transport, installation, and storage for collections of all scales.

Becker says. “Finance, real estate, work ow, production analysis … these mentor relationships have gifted me so much invaluable knowledge and experience. ey’ve helped us ride through challenging times.”

For all the quiet heroics of the place, e Conservation Center also courts the ne-art cli hanger – its Art Recovery team dispatched like re jumpers at a moment’s notice to rescue helpless art in the wake of, and sometimes in the path of, a natural disaster. “We do art recovery within disaster response all over the country. Whether it’s a small house re, a ood in a community, or a tornado that whips through. We restored a whole museum collection when a building lost its roof in a storm.”

From Louisiana to Iowa to Wild re Capital® California, for 40 years, e Conservation Center has been the rst responder for art when the natural order seems bent on destruction of the irreplaceable. ey have even descended on our little burg.

“With the wild res raging, we embarked on a determined mission in the Montecito and Santa Barbara areas,” Becker says. “We moved quickly with several rotating crews onsite, the teams taking rare items out of harm’s way when possible – and when safe for the crews.” e crews worked hurriedly and with extreme care – a tough combination even in the absence of an approaching wall of re. When they had to, they retreated – only to dive back in and continue the post-cataclysm work. “With the ames contained, it was a matter of triaging everything that had su ered wild re and ash exposure,” Becker says. “ en we moved the cleaned and treated artwork back in and reinstalled it. Our teams know that every single rescued object maintains the storyline for the family’s future generations.”

It’s as if the Louvre retained a team of beret-wearing art rescue commandos. Becker’s e Conservation Center could

be thought of as an oasis of ancient and modern tradecraft devoted to the very stu that de nes us. “Everybody returns to art,” she says. “It uplifts, it inspires, it even records devastation. It’s a record of our time.” Becker knows. e Conservation Center’s unshowy name belies a complex and ever-deepening forensic mission, one whose ends are dictated by the temporal nature of art

– and of people. “We have 80-plus years on average,” Becker says of the lengthy eye-blink that is a human’s time on the planet. “All of these things – these art objects – many of them are going to be around long after we’re gone. ey carry history forward. Our lives and stories leave these marks on the world. I think art does the same thing. Its preservation is critical to the human story.”

THE CONSERVATION CENTER IS THE LARGEST PRIVATELY HELD ART CONSERVATION LAB IN THE COUNTRY.

Portrait of a lady by 17th century Dutch artist Jan de Bray, during cleaning and varnish removal.

GREAT ESTATES

IF YOUR HOME HAS A STORIED HISTORY (OR HERSTORY ), DAVID SILVERMAN WILL CREATE A BESPOKE COFFEE TABLE BOOK ABOUT YOUR HOUSE IN AN EDITION OF ONE. (MAYBE TWO IF YOU’RE NICE.)

Story by Joe Donnelly

If your house has a story – a deep, rich, possibly haunted story and, in some cases, a Hollywood story – you might want to get in touch with David Silverman. He’s the guy who’s going to make those walls talk.

LA House Histories started with Silverman’s sister’s house, a 1920s French Normandy-style mansion in Holmby Hills – the L.A. neighborhood sandwiched between Bel Air and Beverly Hills. Together, those neighborhoods form the so-called Platinum Triangle. Visiting one day about 10 years ago, Silverman noticed a partially concealed plaque at the entrance to the greenhouse that read Mille Fleurs. Curiosity (Silverman’s driving force) took hold.

Soon, he was poring over property records, digging through newspaper archives, scanning micro che, and following the trail of the ousand fleurs, aka owers. By the time Silverman was done, he had a birthday gift for his sister and her husband – the 157-page story of their home, the erstwhile residence of a Francophile gardening enthusiast and later the home of Barrie Chase, who danced with Fred Astaire in Daddy Long Legs and other lms of the era.

Since then, Silverman’s been quietly conducting seances with some of Southern California’s most storied addresses, rendering the architecture, folklore, and ngerprints of past occupants and iterations into bespoke, co ee table books that simultaneously preserve and provide a sense of place. ese high-end one-o s are usually commissioned by new owners who are aware that their homes aren’t just hot properties but part of the region’s cultural history.

“ is isn’t something I thought up,” says Silverman, an a able former entertainment lawyer whose square jaw, investigative tenacity, and local knowledge would otherwise t the bill for a noir detective series. “It grew out of my love for my sister, because my rst book was a gift for her, and I just fell in love with the process.”

e process turned out to be a godsend for Silverman, who was burning out on the bare-knuckled legal side of the movie business. After doing the book for his sister, the proverbial lightbulb turned on. “It combined everything I love – writing, research, and old Los Angeles,” says

David Silverman of LA House Histories at a Beverly Hills home he wrote about.

Silverman, who graduated from NYU law school in 1994 and spent the next 24 years climbing to the rank of VP of Legal A airs for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Now, he says, he gets to spend his time “making people happy and not ghting as a lawyer.”

Silverman’s “co ee table books about your house” are privately commissioned for a rare ed crowd, and his work is in demand. We’re sorry to blow his cover. (Pun intended.) After all, who wouldn’t want to peek deep inside the Italian Riviera redux palazzo banker Milton Getz built near the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1926, the place Marion Davies later bought for herself and William Randolph Hearst? German American investor, philanthropist, and publisher of Noema magazine Nicolas Berggruen did.

Aware that the so-called Beverly Estate was a slice of history as well as his future residence, Berggruen retained Silverman to lay it all out (on the co ee table) for him. e book will come complete with archival photos, a history of previous ownership, original designs and their modications through time, and some intriguing dish on the characters who gave the place its character. By the time he’s done – big projects can take six months to two years –Silverman will have transcribed everything from the foundation to the fables into a cogent narrative. Call it historiography by

way of house. For the house obsessed, Silverman’s house histories are like a CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) report with the addition of glamor and sometimes even intrigue.

Along with Davies’s former digs, Silverman is also working on a book about Falcon Lair, the erstwhile and rumored to be haunted den of Rudy Valentino and, later, tobacco heiress Doris Duke. e current owner is endeavoring to return Falcon Lair to its former glory, sans paranormal activity, and Silverman’s book will provide a sort

of blueprint for the blueprints.

Most recently, Silverman completed a book on the Holmby Hills residence built by Constance Bennett, one of the rst and most interesting icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Bennett – the biggest female box-o ce draw of the 1930s – may be best known for starring alongside Cary Grant in Topper, but the oft-married leading lady is also remembered for audacious displays of agency during a period when the patriarchy was in no danger of collapsing.

The greenhouse plaque at his sister’s former Holmby Hills home began Silverman’s journey into house histories. This sign was originally mounted on the gate to the right.

The imposing entrance gates of Silverman’s sister’s house, as seen in 1927 and 2013.

At her Holmby Hills home on Carolwood Drive, she bought the parcel, hired the architects, oversaw the developers, and contracted the interior design to William “Billy” Haines – her pal and former costar. Haines had only recently given up the studio system to become an interior designer and, more indelibly, one half of the rst openly gay couple in Hollywood. Although he says he’s in no danger of earning what he used to as an entertainment lawyer anytime soon, Silverman has slowly built his passion into a business. Slow was really the only way to go; the books are painstakingly researched and meticulously produced, embodying the craftsmanship of the properties they document. Over the past ve years, Silverman has been able to dive into these investigations full-time. And by now, he’s walked through the foyers and digested the legends of, among others, Tyrone Power, Shirley Temple, Frank Sinatra, and Marlene Dietrich.

Because Marion Davies was a longtime friend of Joe Kennedy, she invited John and Jacqueline Kennedy to stay at her Beverly Hills home for their 1953 honeymoon. The eight-acre estate is seen here in 1936. Joe and Rose Kennedy stayed at the house during the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

INTEGRATING NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL LIGHT INTO THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

It might be tempting to dismiss these commissions as trivial pursuits for the über rich, but the artisanal grace of both the books and their subject matter has the e ect, on this reader anyway, of acting like a tonic against the crassness of temporary contemporary life and real estate. Being mad at these would be like being mad at the English countryside.

“I think the stories are so rich and fascinating that they paint a picture of the house, giving someone a view of what the house was like and who lived there and what happened,” says Silverman. “I would love it if I had a house with that kind of history.”

His work, though SoCal-centered, is expanding with commissions for houses in New York and Houston on tap. Silverman also provides archival research, supporting photos, documents, and narrative overviews for realtors showing properties for which an intriguing history adds extra value to the sometimes stratospheric price tags.

Speaking of intriguing histories. One of Silverman’s recent projects is inextricably linked to Montecito. e fabled Quelindo (“How Beautiful”) estate, originally built on 11 Paci c Palisades acres overlooking the ocean from Palos Verdes to Point Dume, was purchased for Mary Virginia McCormick, the eldest daughter of Cyrus McCormick, of the International Harvester Company and Riven Rock McCormicks.

Hollywood fan magazines from the 1920s and ’30s are one of Silverman’s favorite sources for articles and photographs of the homes of former stars, such as Rudolph Valentino’s Falcon Lair, seen here in 1926, when it was sold at auction. Valentino died one year after buying the Benedict Canyon house.

MAPS TO THE STARS’ HOMES

Silverman’s most recent book chronicled the 1935 Holmby Hills house built by Constance Bennett, seen here at her sunken tennis court. She sold the French-Normandy house in 1944 to Loretta Young for $70,000 – both of their homes are depicted in this page from Silverman’s book. Bennett’s sister, actress Joan Bennett, said “She was like some silvery comet who streaked through life with daring speed.” The home was across the street from the future home of Frank Sinatra and his family, the subject of one of Silverman’s earlier books.

1930s. The Constance Bennett house is at the top, with Loretta Young’s home on Sunset near Hilgard in the lower right.

The Carolwood house appeared on maps to the stars’ homes when it was owned by both Constance Bennett and Loretta Young.

BeforeRiven Rock was best known as the title of a T.C. Boyle novel and as a subdivision in the Montecito foothills, it was a California getaway for Cyrus’s troubled o spring. Mary Virginia, who was diagnosed with what we now call schizophrenia, lived there from around 1897 to 1904, when she was in her late 30s to early 40s. Her brother Stanley supervised the building of the sprawling estate and moved in full-time around 1908. He could be spotted riding around in a limo with a chimpanzee named Julius. And you thought Michael Jackson was the rst to chau eur his chimpanzee. Julius beat “Bubbles” by three-quarters of a century.

As for Mary Virginia, late in her life she returned to Southern California, where she wintered at a 26-acre Pasadena estate and spent her summers overlooking the Paci c at Quelindo ere, she retained a house symphony to play a soundtrack to accompany the ocean breezes and her nal days.

Wouldn’t you want to read all about it?

In addition to his books, Silverman creates custom-made clamshell boxes and portfolios that hold books, photographs, and architectural drawings. These are commissioned by the homeowner, or as a gift from a friend or realtor.

HILL HOUSE MONTECITO

Concept & Ideation: @RobinDonaldsonAIA & Bruce Heavin

Interior Furnishing: MLK STUDIO

Photo by Joe Flecter

Santa Barbara | Culver City

eting Events: SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE IN NEARBY SANTA PAULA WILL GROUND YOU

On Saturday, April 15, from 1 to 4 pm, co-creators Eric Nagelmann and host Xavier Maig-

nan are o ering an afternoon Sustainability Symposium where attendees will get the dirt on sustainable horticulture from a blue-chip roster of sustainability experts. The event will be held in Santa Paula’s historic Sunkist® Lemon-Packing Plant and is cosponsored by Ganna Walska Lotusland and Maignan’s Collector Car Vault.

BY JEFF WING

Nagelmann – globe-hopping landscape architect extraordinaire – takes the mission personally. “Young people in high school and college – all they hear is so much doom and gloom around climate change!” The news cycle providing a constant drumbeat of ominous climate news, Nagelmann had another idea. “I’d been in Baja doing work for the Reiter A liated Companies, parent of Driscoll Berries. I’ve been working down there for years but was privileged this time to have a

tour of their laboratories. They’re doing a lot of experimentation with sustainable organics – growing beneficial fungi, beneficial bacteria, working with worm castings, and all sorts of really wonderful, very proactive research in the organic industry.”

Nagelmann’s imagination blossomed. “So, my idea was to create this Sustainability Symposium. It’s for everyone but specially designed to inspire young people. As the idea began developing, I contacted Rebecca Anderson (executive director at Lotusland) and let her know what I was doing. She took the ball and really got it rolling.”

Stacy Pulice is moderating the symposium and is herself at the confluence of sustainable horticulture, tactile education – and the stirring effect of both on young people. With her husband, Ron, Pulice has funded a sustainable food lab at Santa Barbara High School and turned their Ellwood Canyon Ranch property into an ongoing sustainability experiment. Whether it’s nitrogen-fixing cover crops, carbon sequestration, or root systems that naturally till the biome, she is on the case. Says Pulice, “I think experiential, nature-based learning is just so healing for many kids.”

The Sustainability Symposium features keynote speakers Elisa Read – a landscape designer, horticulture, and fire ecology specialist – as well as Garland Reiter , executive chairman of 155-year-old Reiter A liated Companies.

CASTLES WITH COCKPITS

Flying Mansions Give New Meaning to Flights of Fancy

STORY BY ROB HILL

Stephen Vella, CEO of Kestrel Aviation Management, hasn’t always been in the business of building and selling “ ying mansions.” Vella, however, has been in the aviation asset management business for some time. In 1987, he started the company Aircraft Leasing & Management in the UK. Little did he know it would be the perfect place to hone the skills for such an ambitious future endeavor. e company managed large commercial aircraft owned by banks and investors. e job required the application of technical, commercial, legal, and nancial skill sets in support of the advisory services o ered to clients. According to Vella, this multidisciplinary real-world experience – both granular and macro – laid the foundation for Vella’s future work as CEO and owner of one of the few companies in the world creating (on a turnkey basis) one-of-akind, bespoke ying mansions for governments and ultra-high-net-worth individuals under a strict con dentiality mandate.

“In 1998, I was managing the start-up of a national airline in the Middle East when the government asked me to get involved in the cabin conversion of an Airbus A320 airliner they had bought for o cial use,” Vella says. “ en they wanted someone to turnkey manage all the complex processes – not just the cabin design.” is was the rst of Vella’s large corporate jet build-outs with governments in the Middle East. Since then, Vella has won something like $50 billion in commercial aviation commerce. Gradually, his projects became larger – both in respect to the size of the aircraft and their complexity – eventually morphing into ying mansions reminiscent of opulent homes from the pages of e World of Interiors. In the early stages, Kestrel only out tted the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 size class with a oor space of about 900 square feet. However, this soon progressed to wide-body aircraft such as the Airbus A330, A340, and the Boeing 747 – 4,000 square feet of living space, which included bedrooms, domed ceilings, hardwood ooring and doors, plush leather-wrapped panels, multiple showers, state-of-the-art sound and video systems, gyms, decorative metal nishings, and oor-to-ceiling accent lighting. Initially, these aircraft were produced for heads of state only and could not be shown in the public domain.

Stephen Vella, CEO of Kestrel Aviation Management, in what looks like the lounge of a nice hotel. Only in this case, the hotel flies.

After doing this for a few years, Vella had an idea to build these cockpitted castles for corporations and high-net-worth individuals, too. Each would be customized and made-to-order – limited only by the client’s imagination – and some laws of gravity and physics. e Airbus and Boeing corporate aircraft are purchased with no cabin furnishings; it is then up to the clients to decide what their ying dream mansions will entail. However, according to Vella, most private buyers don’t have a well-de ned idea of what they want – or even what’s technically conceivable aside from a general idea and budget.

Here is where Kestrel’s expertise comes in. A team researches the likely travel patterns of the client, the usual party size, the projected annual utilization of the aircraft, and any critical missions to be performed. e most important item, however, is for Kestrel to interpret and guide the aesthetic expectations of the client based on lifestyle, furnishings, amenities, and color palette – as well as project budget. Kestrel then develops several cabin layouts in 2D and 3D form for client review and approval prior to producing a detailed speci cation, 3D rendering, and fabrication technical drawings with an experienced cabin installer and specialist suppliers. It’s no quick task. From initial meeting to delivery is a three- to four-year process depending on the complexity of the design and the size of the aircraft.

According to Vella, one of the most comprehensive build-outs was a Boeing BBJ 787 modi ed for an American client. Kestrel managed the purchase, modi cation, and sale of the rst-ever VVIP custom Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) 787-8. e 2,400-square-foot, 40-seat aircraft has a nearly 9,800 nautical mile range and the ability to y more than 17 hours nonstop between almost all major cities on earth. “ e BBJ 787 was particularly challenging because it was the rst composite, all-electrical airliner to enter service, and there was no prior data or experience to assist in modifying it to an ultra-large specialized VVIP aircraft,” Vella says. “No completion center had any signi cant experience with this aircraft type. Kestrel assisted Boeing in deriving the speci cation for the basic BBJ 787. To mitigate risk for the buyer, Kestrel also carefully crafted contractual documents and speci cations with Boeing and the completion center.”

Kestrel sourced materials that had never been seen on a large scale on a large corporate aircraft, thus giving it a “luxuriously organic” feel. e initial cabin layout was produced by Kestrel and

was developed

the detailed design

TV lounge with daybed – the perfect place for a couple to snuggle while watching a film. The touch of a button whisperingly divides the space into two separate divans, which also provide comfortable seating for business teleconferencing.

Dining area aft of the TV lounge shown with configurable work surfaces. A co ee table (left) faces the raised and extended dining table. The changing color scheme and décor thematically divide the dining area and adjacent TV lounge.

Dining room table detail showing added chairs at either end.

THE FLAGSHIP SHOWROOM

in collaboration with the Paris-based design studio Pierrejean Vision, a rm renowned for its 45 years of creating works of breathtaking elegance based on nature across the domains of aviation, yachting, and architecture. e cabin design featured innovative materials, texture, color, and mood lighting, giving the space the clutterless and visually relaxing feel of a trendy European boutique hotel – at once functional yet full of splashes of “cool” ambiance. Features included a grand entry with high domed ceilings, hardwood ooring, sculpted doors, marble bathrooms, an oversize shower, handtufted carpet with silk accents, and an array of architectural pieces in unique materials. Induction-charged tablets located throughout the cabin were used to control lighting, video monitors, audio, window shades, and ight attendant requests, thus minimizing legacy switchgear resulting in a modern minimalist environment. “ e innovation integrated in this cabin was substantial,” Vella says. “But careful management ensured no signi cant hiccups emerged during its development and ensured usability on subsequent projects. Judicious choice and management of project partners is important in mitigating risk.”

Such a buildout doesn’t come cheap. Like the purchase of a yacht or luxury home, the total cost of a ying mansion varies depending on the nature and quality of the cabin design – the number and complexity of the speci cation features installed such as the type of seats, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the sophistication of the entertainment system. According to Vella, the average basic cost of a 737-size aircraft is around $110 million. “A good-quality cabin will add another $50 million for a total of $160 million,” Vella notes. “In contrast, the list price of an unmodi ed, latest generation wide-body like a Boeing 7879 or A350-900 will be around $255 million. en the owner will have to invest in a cabin modi cation budget of around $125 million, for a total cost of circa $380 million.”

According to Vella, virtually anything goes that can be dreamed up – to a degree. One client requested eight showers be installed on his Boeing 747. According to Vella, this was impractical given the large volume – and weight –of water that would need to be carried. Why eight passengers on a private jet would need to shower privately and simultaneously is another question for another day. Fortunately, the owner eventually plea bargained down to two showers. Another request was for a gargantuan gym to be added at the rear of the cabin. e smattering

On entering the aircraft, the passenger is given a warm and immediate sense of the deeply welcoming nature of the experience. A paneled hallway leads to a gently lit circular lobby whose opposite wall is the doorway to the master suite. An immediate right-hand turn inside the suite takes one to the dressing room (pictured at right) is to the right, the master bedroom and master bathroom to the left. Turning right in the lobby takes you through a corridor to the TV lounge and dining area.

One Kestrel-designed Boeing 747 has 4,000 square feet of living space, including bedrooms, domed ceilings, hardwood flooring and doors, plush leather-wrapped panels, multiple showers, state-of-the-art sound and video systems, a gym, decorative metal finishings, and floor-to-ceiling accent lighting.

of exercise equipment t for a gym in midtown Manhattan included an army of large state-ofthe art treadmills. ( is presented a signi cant certi cation challenge with the Federal Aviation Administration, as in the event of a crash, any equipment must be able to withstand a 16G deceleration without being propelled into the passenger areas.) “ e type and weight of the exercise equipment and its attachment to the gym oor had to be adjusted accordingly,” Vella says with a chuckle.

Although many high-pro le individuals and governments who everyone would know by name have had Kestrel custom-build them a ying mansion – 410 are currently in service –Vella is mum on identifying who they are. “I wish I could tell you who they are, but Kestrel is bound by strict con dentiality undertakings to its clients.” A pity, as what Kestrel has been allowed to share is an intriguing insight into the domain of the privileged few.

In-flight self-pampering includes a shower experience that will have you drifting away in clouds of heavenly steam – to rival those outside the airplane.

The 2,400-square-foot, 40-seat aircraft has a nearly 9,800 nautical mile range and the ability to fly more than 17 hours nonstop between almost all major cities on earth.

The master bedroom’s acoustically absorptive wall is designed to mitigate extraneous noise. The wall-embedded TV is shown with its concealing fine art cover slid to the open position.

Two sliding pocket doors allow access to the master bathroom. Extensive use of real marble in the master bathroom contributes to the sense of being in a lovely home.

DAVID YOUNG PUTS THE HIGH (ALTITUDE) IN HIGH-END.

JUST ASK RIHANNA

STORY BY JEFF WING

“We o er a private jet experience on a commercial-size jet.” Who says stu like that? David Young does. Young is the cofounder and managing partner of ROAM Maui, one of several high-end transport companies he’s founded in the “aero” space. “ROAM Maui is a fleet of VIPconfigured 737s,” Young explains amiably. “We’re connecting Maui to Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and Seattle, serving in-flight cuisine prepared by celebrity chefs.…” The planes feature premium leather seating that folds down to the drowsily near-horizontal, a Stage™ ondemand entertainment system, and leg room you’ll dislocate your hips trying to fully exploit. Okay. What we have here is a 44-seat, member-only, lavishly appointed, boutique 737 to Maui.

A restless entrepreneur since he was barely old enough to spell the word, Young is today a settled aero-impresario. The jet stream fast lane he once occupied almost beggars description. But let’s give it a try.

HOLLYWOOD CHRYSALIS

“My dad was at Santa Barbara Research Center,” Young says. “He was head of the optics division. He’s been called the Father of Radiometry. NASA gave him a lifetime achievement award for his service to the nation through aerospace.” In the event, David Young ends up following his dad into the stratosphere, though it’s more like a connecting flight than a direct route.

“As a kid, I was drumming in rock bands and playing the local clubs at 15. I was madly into music. After college, I realized I’d be short-changing myself if I didn’t make a run for it, so I moved to Hollywood.” Determined to break into the scene there, the guy apparently hadn’t heard Hollywood is where dreams go to be euthanized. Never mind.

Me and my aero: David Young will hand you the sky on a silver platter.

(Photo by Kim Reierson)

“This is your captain speaking. We have been cleared for takeo and global Hip-Hop domination.”

CASSETTE JAMMING

One day, a friend hands Young a demo tape of a local band to check out, which promptly gets jammed in his car’s cassette player. Remember cassettes? By that time, Young had landed a job at MCA. “I listened to that tape on the drive from Sherman Oaks to Universal Studio City. Every day for months!” Suitably hypnotized, Young finally arranges to meet with the group on the tape. Then life turns cinematic. At a given moment, Young is even writing a business plan on the back of a cocktail napkin. The band would become Dishwalla and Young their manager – developing their sound, their look, and their gig itinerary. They become huge. They are in rare form

and rare company. Young launches two other bands, one snapped up by Madonna’s Maverick Records in one of the biggest bidding wars of the year, one snagged for a Lenny Kravitz tour with MTV videos in high rotation.

Then Napster, file sharing, and the Internet emerge to shatter the model and turn CDs to drink coasters overnight. Young – some years in and having managed three successful major label bands – moves on. This is the analgesic version; the particulars are more painful. “My bands were my peers,” Young says. “Through the ups and downs, it was emotionally really hard to live through all this, but I had to leave the music business. It was a broken business model, and I knew it would be many years before the industry figured out how to put the genie back in the bottle.”

THEORY OF EVO I

ndefatigable – and worthy of all six of those syllables – Young pivots to eco-vehicle innovator. “I started talking to a neighbor about how the Prius was out there, but … you know, what was next?” They figured what was next was green luxury in the form of an earth-friendlier SUV that runs on natural gas. They would call their startup EVO – Environmental Vehicle Outfitters. They buy a Chevy Suburban, get some help tweaking its chip (don’t ask), strip away the gasoline tank and replace it with a CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) tank. They’re o and running, customizing guzzlers with proprietary

tech – and garnering stellar attention.

Paparazzi snap Leo and Cameron jumping out of Young’s EVOs at the Oscars, Arnold and Brad start calling to talk CNG conversions on their trucks, and so on. Things are looking up. “I have a cuttingedge, alternative-fuel car company with a select number of A-List entertainment clients and front page business feature stories in publications like The New York Times,” Young says of that heady period. He and his partner wrangle a meeting with General Motors’ head of alternative fuels and are quickly disabused of their dream. “GM is not committed to alternative fuels,” they’re told. Around that time, a visionary oddball with the pheromonal last name of Musk starts hollering about an all-electric vehicle. Pivot time.

Young and members of Dishwalla chilling between soundcheck and showtime – Red Rocks Amphitheater, Colorado.

FLYING THE DAY

“Ahigh school buddy reached out to me,” Young says. The guy is a licensed Gulfstream pilot, and intros Young to the charter jet magnate he’s flying for. The magnate is looking for wello clients whose crazy meeting schedules demand unreasonably flexible air travel. Can you say “Concert-Hopping Rock Star?” Young’s music biz connections are conversational front and center, and over a dinner in West Hollywood, Young pitches himself as a client-curator par excellence. He’s IN. Again. But this one will stick.

Young brings the band Green Day to his new boss and it is good –though the band is initially reticent. “At this point, Green Day still has a punk rock ethos, and they don’t want to travel without their crew,” Young says. Green Day’s people politely tell Young that the band love their tour buses, and what would they possibly need an airplane for? A couple weeks later, the band’s management hears an early master of Green Day’s breakout American Idiot album. They give Young a ring. “Uh, Dave – you still doing jets? I think we’re going to need your services.” Young warms to the story. “The first time I worked with them was literally to get (Green Day lead singer) Billie Joe Armstrong to an SNL (Saturday Night Live) performance after his kid’s opening day baseball game in Oakland. He wanted to be there for his kid’s game and still make the SNL gig in New York.” Young makes that happen. Also, punk parents rule.

YOUNGJETS AND 777

Young begins dovetailing his rock band past (and rock ’n’ roll spirit) with his charter jet present and the fit is hand-in-glove; early positive reinforcement of his new gig chau euring rock n’ roll’s unbridled cognoscenti to the four corners of the Earth. By 2012, he launches his own company. Not surprisingly it’s called YoungJets; a handy double-entendre. “There were maybe two or three other people in the country who could do what I was doing.” Young’s expertise and intuitions continue to ramp, as do the needs of his clients. “I’m working with a ton of great acts, many of whom need multiple jets.” The logistics would be daunting for a lesser Sky King®. “You’ve got hub tours, which means they want to come back to the Four Seasons in Atlanta, for instance. Every night. You’re not going show-to-show anymore. Your wife and kids are at the hotel. So it’s a gig in Miami, then back to the hotel. New Orleans, back to the hotel.” And guess who’s arranging all this winged hardware? The comparative compactness of the European continent invites even more logistical dyspepsia.

“The drummer may want to stay in Paris every night, no matter where the gig is in the world. The other band members have other ideas. So, you’re talking multiple jets and helicopters, and a crew plane, because the crew is going ahead to set up the next show. On top of that, you may have band members who won’t share a jet. Onstage they’re a band, o stage they’re a disparate family.” That

Punk passengers preflight: Young and Green Day exult aboard a Gulfstream IV.

Not Spirit Airlines: Global Megastar Rihanna tops o coach passenger.

first year in business introduces Young to various iterations of please do the impossible.

“I got the call from Rihanna’s manager. ‘We want to do something spectacular for this seventh album. Let’s go around the world in seven days.’” This tossed-o directive may be the penultimate “easy for you to say” moment. Ignoring the likelihood of global mayhem wholly unrelated to aeronautics, Young and team start trying to figure out what sort of aircraft can even do this thing, given the numbers of people involved and the fuel ranges. “Seven shows in seven countries in seven days,” Young reiterates, still in the throes of post-traumatic awe. “At a certain point I blurted out, ‘What about a Boeing Triple Seven?’”

FOOD FLIGHT: HOW TO ROLL

Young somehow convinces Delta Airlines to pull a Boeing 777 from its rotation. Rihanna’s 777 tour is on. “It was L.A. to Mexico City, then back on the Jet. Toronto then back on the Jet. Stockholm … you get it. Seven sleepless, crazy, stressed-out days. Two hundred and fifty passengers on every leg … but we pulled o something that had never been done.” Yes, there are stories woven through Young’s “audacious charter epoch,” many of them likely as hair-raising as the reader’s imagination can conjure. For the record, here comes one now.

“I’m now fully entrenched in the business of pairing rock stars with private jets,” Young says. “I learn to pick my clients wisely and go deep with many of these hard-working entertainers. “But,” he adds ominously, “there are exceptions to every rule.” Young had helpfully arranged a charter for a small group of Tinseltown scions –pointedly not musicians this time, but the progeny of entertainment moguls needing a quick and luxurious lift to Miami. The first call

he receives from the misbegotten airplane comes from Camarillo dispatch. At cruising altitude, a food fight has broken out in the plane. The unflappable Flight Attendant politely attempts to calm the situation. “This is just how we roll!” Tinseltown hollers through a flung blizzard of award-winning chow. There is also concern that some pharmaceutical improvisation may be afoot in the pressurized tube rocketing along at right around the speed of sound. Young is briefly flummoxed.

“I was being politely asked by dispatch if I had a plan. A plan? I’m Earthbound at home with my infant son and my wife.” He’s thinking fast and trying not to have the color leave his face in the presence of his family – when a second call comes in, this one over the cockpit SAT phone. Now it’s serious. “We have called the Air Marshals,” the captain intones. “Your clients will be arrested when they arrive at the Miami-Opa Locka airport.” Young’s clients – raising absolute cain

The Young family preparing to ROAM.

Young’s concierge jet service to paradise wears its ROAMing heart on its sleeve.

somewhere up near the mesosphere at Mach 1 – are being naughty. Young is a dad, for gosh sakes. He knows where the naughty line is. But these are his clients.

“So … this is not good,” Young placidly observes from the relative safety of hindsight. He o ers a glimpse into his thinking during the crisis. “Yeah, they deserve whatever happens to them, but the tabloids would have a field day. The international press would be all over it by the time the sun came up in Florida.” Daddy has a complicated job. To Young’s quick-thinking question, the captain reports the plane is about 30 minutes outside of Atlanta. “Great,” Young says. “Head to PDK (the private airport in Atlanta), turn o the flight-tracking monitors in the passenger cabin and announce that you’re on approach to Miami. Copy?” Several beats… “Copy” comes the reply.

The plane puts down, lightly kissing the runway and rolling to a stop. The passengers disembark with some di culty, tottering down to the tarmac. The unsteady lead instigator is the last o the jet, grinning broadly. He looks around unsteadily. Minutes pass as the young gentleman’s gauze-packed frontal lobe assembles the data. Finally he turns to the flight attendant and reports his findings. “This isn’t $#*! Miami, b–tch!” “Sorry, sir,” the flight attendant replies through a blossoming grin. “Welcome to DeKalb County, Georgia. That’s just how we roll.”

PERSONAL APOGEE

Eventually, YoungJets sells to a larger charter concern called Victor, a London-based start-up trying to disrupt the business of jet brokering. Young joins their board and at their behest sets up bicoastal o ces for Victor’s North American operations. All the while, Young is tending to his burgeoning client list of headlining music acts touring by private jet.

Having planned and survived the historic Rihanna 777 tour, the “Bacardi Triangle” shuttle of 750 VIPs to a private island, and a host of other mettle-testing episodes from the annals of High-Flying Business – Young has feathers in his cap. Through a cyclonic crucible of his own making, he has more than prevailed. Band manager and executive producer, Eco Vehicle innovator, aspirin-qua ng maestro of the rock stratosphere – Young’s CV is singular.

Has David Young arrived? That’s a yes. But even as ROAM Maui and sister company ROAM Private Air – a charter-and-aircraft-sales outfit – soar into clear skies, Young’s lifelong habit of seeking the entrepreneurial vanguard has him staring at tomorrow. Once you’ve flown Rihanna-town – literally around the world – what captivates?

“The Age of George Jetson is upon us and it’s called Advanced Air Mobility,” Young says. “We’re talking flying cars, as in personalized air transport vehicles that are categorized as ‘ultralight,’ meaning they do not require a pilot’s license.” For real. “They’re available now for purchase from a few companies for around the price of a Porsche Cayenne if you can get your hands on one. There are around 250 di erent companies in the eVTOL space –” (Electric Vehicle Take O and Landing) “– in various stages of development. They’re all vying for this shot at revolutionizing urban transportation.” Young is avid, of course – but his vision of the future is solidly rooted in his hard-won present. “Look, ROAM Maui is my summit,” he says. “I’m solidly focused on the

success of both ROAM companies; ROAM Maui and ROAM Private Air.”

Not much has changed since David Young swaggered into aero. Well, a couple things have changed. The statesmanlike gray in his beard, for one. His long experience in the charter air space has given him perspective and acute industry wisdom. Another supersonic experience, a rocket ride called fatherhood, seems to inform Young’s vision of how technology can best serve us.

“Imagine hiring an eVTOL transport to eliminate the dreaded drive to Bakersfield for your kid’s club soccer tournament.” Mr. Young seems to hear himself ideating, and smiles. “It’s all right around the corner. I’m going to be a part of it. I think about it a lot.”

In 2012, Young and his son Drake aboard a Falcon 2000 with Maroon 5.

Literal jet-setters: Aero-preneur David and his wife, Healey (an Academy Awards consultant), deplaning from a Gulfstream G650.

BY NICHOLAS SCHOU

The Shared DNA of Architecture and Jewelry

The sea of shared material between architecture and jewelry design is deep and wide. One could say that jewelry designers do the same thing in the micro that architects do in the macro. And both professions share similar concerns: issues of symmetry and balance, tastefulness, timelessness, and durability. Both jewelry designer and architect obsess over line, plane, and massing – the famous Viennese architect Josef Homan began life as a jewelry designer. And Christian Dior, who designed his fair share of precious baubles, was always outspoken about how he wished he’d been an architect. Bulgari had an entire show in 2021 celebrating the intersection of their jewelry design with the greatest achievements in architecture.

The jewelry designer is concerned with how their product sits on the person, while the architect is concerned with how the person sits in the space. It is no surprise there have been multiple architects who’ve gone deep into jewelry design: Frank Gehry’s famous collaboration with Tiffany Co., Zaha Hadid with Georg Jensen as well as Swarovski, and our own Ron Radziner (a frequent collaborator with Tom Ford) has had his own line of jewelry. The best jewelry is nothing short of great architecture that one wears.

HOUSE OF BÄUMER

The House of Bäumer is located in the heart of French haute joaillerie at 19 Place Vendôme, where creator Lorenz Bäumer exhibits his master artwork of precious stones, colored diamonds, and other rare materials – including meteorites. These are jewels that come straight out of dreams. The high jewelry of the House of Bäumer Vendôme is not limited to the perfect mastery of traditional skills, but rather reveals Bäumer’s audacious taste in design – an obsession to always push the limits of high jewelry. With hidden mechanisms, inverted settings, and celestial materials, Bäumer puts his engineering skills and boundless creativity at the service of beauty to continually surprise and delight his clients.

Bäumer’s favorite designs are high jewelry rings. “I find it satisfying to adorn my customers’ hands with the most beautiful stones,” he says. The creative genius and the unique world of Bäumer Vendôme can be seen immediately. Among the most spectacular high jewelry creations are the olfactory rings. Bäum-

er dreamed of being able to combine high jewelry and perfumery, and after months of research, he developed a titanium material – olfactory titanium – which allows a scent to be di used over time. The Aquilegia olfactory ring is an elegant and luminous flower set with a sumptuous da odil diamond. The olfactory titanium is located under the stone and allows the gardenia fragrance to be delicately di used. It is truly a technical feat to develop the sense of smell in high jewelry.

Among the creations Bäumer has helped produce is the La Vie en Rose necklace featuring the Grace Diamond, which was designed in honor of Princess Grace of Monaco and has been worn by Monaco’s Princess Charlene. To source its diamonds, Bäumer Vendôme works with the

Australia-based Burgundy Diamond Mines, the world’s leading conflict-free diamond company and purveyor of the finest colored diamonds. Burgundy Diamond Mines is a vertically integrated, end-to-end operation that handles the production, cutting, and polishing, and sale of conflictfree gemstones. Bäumer’s relationship with the company ensures a total chain of custody from mine to consumer. Burgundy Diamond Mine’s master-cutters in Perth have cut the most precious and expensive colored diamonds in the last 50 years, including the Grace Diamond – previously named the Stella – which is the largest vivid, purplish-pink diamond ever cut and polished from the famous Argyle Mine (which produced 90 percent of the world’s pink diamonds and closed in 2020).

Burgundy Diamond Mines contributed all the white and yellow diamonds for Lorenz Bäumer to create a special design, including the Grace Diamond, in tribute to the Monaco Royal family when the Grace Diamond was renamed in honor of Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco in New York 2021. Although Bäumer Vendôme is synonymous with the highest quality of design and the most celebrated, priceless creations, no matter how exquisite the jewelry, each piece’s beauty – as purposefully envisioned by Bäumer himself – always comes down to the magnificence of the original stone.

www.en.baumer-vendome.com

BRYANT & SONS, LTD.

Founded by Bob Bryant in 1965, Bryant & Sons is still at its original location of 812 State St. Michael Bryant has overseen the day-to-day operations of the family business since 1981. Twelve other jewelry professionals, each with 20 to 50 years of professional experience, and three graduate gemologists who trained at the Gemological Institute of America are also on staff.

From Cartier timepieces to custom jewelry creations, it provides local expertise and prides itself in providing the ultimate experience and most refined selection for anyone in search of the perfect piece of jewelry.

812 State St., Santa Barbara, (805) 966-9187, www.bryantandsons.com

DOYLE

Doyle is one of the world’s foremost auctioneers and appraisers of fine art, jewelry, furniture, decorations, Asian works of art, coins, stamps, rare books, and a variety of specialty categories. Established in 1962 and headquartered in New York City, Doyle offers auctions throughout the year that attract a broad base of bidders from around the world. Doyle. com is a valued resource with interactive tools for buyers and sellers alike.

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If you can dream it, we can make it.” With that motto inspiring their craft, the distinguished designers at Bryant & Sons, Ltd. provide a range of jewelry and fine timepieces that have made the store a destination for the discerning buyer for more than 58 years. From celebrities who live locally in Santa Barbara and Montecito to newly engaged couples purchasing their first pieces of jewelry, customers often return to experience the exceptional offerings, impeccable service, expert staff, and pleasant shopping environment.

Last fall, Doyle opened a gallery at 310 N. Camden Drive in Beverly Hills. This expansion reflects the firm’s commitment to providing an even greater level of service and a broader range of capabilities to collectors, families, and fiduciaries throughout California and the West Coast.

Doyle’s Beverly Hills gallery hosts rotating preview exhibitions of jewelry, art, silver, and other property for upcoming auctions in New York and online, as well as for private sale. Their renowned specialists also share expertise at consignment days throughout California and connoisseurship talks on a range of collecting topics. These experienced professionals provide the firm’s full range of personalized auction and appraisal services for property across all categories and, through their New York headquarters, access to the global auction market.

Doyle has long served the Hollywood community as auctioneer of the estates of such film and music legends as Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Rock Hudson, Rex Harrison, Ruth Gordon, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lena Horne.

In addition to New York and Beverly Hills, Doyle oversees an ever-expanding network of o ces and regional representatives

throughout the United States, including Charlotte, North Carolina; New England; Connecticut; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Palm Beach, Florida; Chicago and the Midwest; and Washington, D.C.

www.doyle.com

GORJANA

Jason and Gorjana Reidel founded Gorjana on the floor of their apartment in Laguna Beach. In 2004, during their first year in operation, the couple hit the road with samples of their jewelry in tow and drove 5,000 miles around the United States selling their first collection. Fulfilling their initial orders from home, they also worked the national trade-show circuit.

Three years later, that hard work paid o when Gorjana opened its first studio in Laguna Canyon, which eventually also housed the company’s fulfillment space and growing sales team. In 2017, encouraged by the success of the first store in Laguna, Gorjana expanded its retail footprint with its first store on the East Coast in New York City. Because the pair had always loved to visit Montecito and used to sell the collection to boutiques in the Santa Barbara area, when space became available on Coast Village Road in 2021, they jumped at the opportunity to open a store here.

Among the celebrities who have worn Gorjana are Reese Witherspoon and her daughter, Ava, Jasmine Tookes, Molly Shannon, Jennifer Lopez, and Sydney Sweeney. Gorjana is known for diamond and solid-gold pieces that, while both dainty and easy to wear, o er timeless designs that outlast

trends. In 2018, Gorjana debuted its Parker necklace, which has since inspired an expanded collection featuring various chain-link styles and 14-karat designs.

Since then, it has expanded its catalog of fine jewelry made of a range of materials – classic diamonds, 14-karat gold, sapphires, turquoise, opals, topaz, and other precious gemstones. Last year’s Diamond Melbourne collection featured a timeless diamond tennis bracelet and Diamond Row statement necklace. With more than 14 locations in the United States, Gorjana is committed to meeting its customers where they live, matching them with stylists who are skilled in the art of pairing each piece with each individual, thus allowing for a unique aesthetic relationship that lasts a lifetime.

1273 Coast Village Road., Montecito, (805) 770-2071, www.gorjana.com

LAYKIN DIAMOND COMPANY

Founded in 1932 by Solomon W. Laykin, Irving Laykin, and Allen Walker – the origin of the firm lies a decade earlier when Irving Laykin founded The Laykin Diamond Company at the corner of 5th and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles in the venerable Alexandria Hotel, which at the time was one of the burgeoning city’s finest addresses.

The company’s hotel-oriented expansion in the 1930s saw it take up residence at the historic La Quinta Hotel in La Quinta, California, as well as the Arrowhead Springs Hotel, the Santa

Barbara Biltmore, and the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. Laykin et Cie’s initial success can be credited in part to Hollywood, as the firm’s name was coined by silent-film star Gloria Swanson of Sunset Boulevard fame, whom on a visit to the hideaway desert hotel of La Quinta informed her favorite jeweler Sol Laykin that Laykin Diamond Co. did not have the right “ring” to it. Another milestone occurred in 1939, when Laykin et Cie relocated the flagship salon from Sunset Boulevard to the new I. Magnin Store on Wilshire Boulevard, displacing Cartier and establishing a unique business relationship that would last for more than 50 years. Indeed, Laykin et Cie has a rich design heritage spanning much of the 20th century.

From George Headley to Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, other Laykin et Cie designers included David Webb, Zolotas, Andrew Grima, and David Yurman. Through the years, Laykin et Cie has also appeared in publications such as Town and Country, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Architectural Digest. This century-long tradition of excellence explains why, when Laykin et Cie opened its newest location at the Rosewood Miramar Hotel, “Montecito is well represented in the world of high jewelry design with the advent of Laykin et Cie investing in this community” of the finest and most-storied traditions in American and European jewelry design.

1759 S. Jameson Lane, Montecito, (805) 900-1010, www.laykin.com

PEREGRINE GALLERIES

Peregrine Galleries was founded more than 40 years ago by Marlene Vitanza and her late husband, Jim. Since its earliest days, the couple collected vintage and rare pieces of William Spratling jewelry, many of which are crafted from 14-karat gold or sterling silver. William Spratling was a professor of architecture at Tulane University in the 1920s and lectured on architecture in Mexico City.

In 1925, Spratling went to Taxco – the home of some of Mexico’s most beautiful colonial-era architecture, as well as many of its finest jewelers and designers – to write a book on Spanish architecture. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were in

Taxco at the time and suggested Spratling design for the silver mines in Taxco. He began designing and hired local Mexican artists and artisans to fabricate his pieces, which were influenced by both art deco-era architecture and pre-Columbian artifacts. Peregrine Galleries has also featured work by the innovative Taxco designer Antonio Pineda, who is renowned for his bold and sensual vision.

Together, Marlene and Jim Vitanza assembled a unique blend of paintings, jewelry, and ethnographic arts at their Coast Village Road location, which has been in continuous operation since 1984. There is a palpable passion behind Marlene’s collecting, and she only buys and sells items she loves.

1133 Coast Village Road, Montecito, (805)

SILVERHORN

252-9659

Silverhorn’s award-winning jewelry is the product of a time-proven tradition and design philosophy. Operating since 1976, the Silverhorn team specializes in rare colored gems and travels the world each year, seeking out rare and unique stones. These unfinished treasures are then handcrafted into exquisite pieces of jewelry made of the finest materials, offering brilliant detail and enduring quality.

Silverhorn designers win awards for creativity and craftsmanship year after year. Each hand-selected piece is created with exacting precision in the Silverhorn Coast Village Road Design Studio. Internationally recognized, the Silverhorn collection appeals to discriminating individuals who expect unparalleled quality in fine jewels.

One of Silverhorn’s most distinguished items was a oneof-a-kind Butterfly pendant commissioned for a charity auction several years ago on behalf of Madame Ganna Walska’s world-renowned jewelry collection at Lotusland, an honor that Silverhorn has been asked to repeat this summer.

Each part of this pendant was hand-fabricated by a Silverhorn master craftsman in 18-karat, white and yellow gold. The body of the butterfly is fashioned from a moonstone, highlighting a rubellite tourmaline at the center, with the body enhanced by full-cut and set diamonds. Engraved quartz crystals create the ethereal wings, and the pendant hangs from a delicate multi-chain, accented with diamonds.

What sets Silverhorn apart is the fact that it maintains one of the few European-style workshops in the United States, sta ed by young artisans trained by old-world craftsmen and goldsmiths in time-honored methods. Loyal customers include stars of stage, screen, and television, with pieces regularly gracing the red carpets of the Oscars, Tonys, and Golden Globes, as well as other prominent events worldwide. Silverhorn prides itself in respecting the privacy of its clients, who value this discretion and return time and again.

1235-A Coast Village Road, Montecito, (805) 969-0442, www.silverhorn.com

ZFOLIO

lanser, as well as others. The store also features both Czech and American art glass and photography. Several of ZFolio’s jewelry artists trained as architects before switching to jewelry, finding great freedom of expression there.

One of the highlights of ZFolio’s exclusive jewelry lines is the Sultana necklace and collection, designed by Florentine sculptress and painter Annamaria Cammilli. The unique, nature-inspired design is enriched by eight sophisticated shades of 18-karat gold and the special velvety finish, resulting from years of experimentation and continuous research. The passion of the Italian goldsmiths who skillfully work and finish Cammilli creations every day becomes tangible in every single detail.

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eauty isn’t optional” is an aesthetic philosophy that is embodied within ZFolio’s curation of artful and original contemporary jewelry from around the world. ZFolio was founded in 2006 in Solvang by Michael Mendizza and Zdena Jiroutova, who came to Santa Barbara as an international student of philosophy and business. Two years later, the pair opened a sister gallery on Cannery Row in Monterey. The environment of the gallery is itself a work of art. Walking through the door is like stepping into a wonderland of bright colors and graceful shapes. Clients are enchanted by more than 50 European and American jewelry designers alongside Czech and American glass artists – Annamaria Cammilli, Alex Sepkus, FreyWILLE, Bernd Wolf, Pesavento, Tom Kruskal Designs, Jorge Revilla, Matthew Bezak, Tomas Hlavicka, David Wight, Vlastislav Janáček, and Stephen Sch-

Almost 40 years of specialization have allowed the company to develop the exclusive velvety-gold finish which, combined with the shiny surfaces, enhances the depth of the shapes for an original and recognizable aesthetic impact. It’s a secret recipe handed down over the years, where fire is the key to perfection. The result is a surface with a silky and “crystallized” appearance that does not deteriorate over time.

Finally, there are eight famous Cammilli colors of 18-karat gold, obtained with special alloys or through subsequent rhodium baths, as in the case of Black Lava. The nuances are sophisticated and di erent from one another; unique shades also range from the timeless Yellow Sunrise to Pink Champagne, Orange Apricot, Natural Beige, White Ice, and Chocolate Brown – unexpected shades for the most demanding clients who now have the opportunity to choose the nuance that best complements their skin tones.

MASTERPIECE MAKERS

The elevated aesthetic that defines Santa Barbara and Montecito style doesn’t happen by chance. The area is home to many talented design visionaries, ready to help uplevel your home or business to perfectly reflect the quintessential beauty of this slice of California. The following is a short list of some of the best-of-the-best local vendors, as well as some out-of-town options, who beautifully capture our luxury sense of style, including architects, interior and landscape designers, contractors, builders, and stylists.

BY KELLY MAHAN HERRICK

photo: Nicole Franzen | Design: Corinne Mathern

photo: by Denver Image Photography | Design: Margarita Bravo

photo: Mary Nichols Photographer | Design: Sterling | Huddleson Architecture

WADE WEISSMANN ARCHITECTURE

For more than 25 years, Wade Weissmann Architecture has provided an interactive and hands-on approach to designing homes. Each house designed by the firm embodies hallmarks of timeless design and heirloom quality craftsmanship, and is uniquely inspired by the individuality of each client and location.

Throughout the design and construction process, the team remains dedicated to understanding a home’s functionality as well as how the clients want to live in their space. The cornerstone of the practice is the firm’s bespoke architecture work spanning homes, equestrian estates, cabins, commercial hospitality design, and master planning. The firm is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisc., with additional full-service o ces in Santa Barbara and Pittsburgh.

www.wadeweissmannarchitecture.com

WINICK ARCHITECTS INC

Founded by Barry Winick in 2009, locally based Winick Architects is recognized for talented and inspiring design work and engaging stewardship of numerous residential and commercial projects. With knowledge gleaned from an extensive background in luxury projects for clients such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès, Winick Architects brings a keen sense of refinement and attention to detail.

The firm strives to create both a tactile and atmospheric sensibility that emphasizes the seamless integration of interior decor with the architecture and the surrounding environment. Winick Architects takes pride in collaborating with clients and understanding their unique aspirations, in order to design and achieve their dreams. The firm has received numerous awards, most recently including the 2022 AIA Santa Barbara Design Awards for three residential projects: Coastal Mediterranean, Beachside Modern, and Edge House.

www.winickarchitects.com

photo by David Bader

photo by Erin Feinblatt

photos by Paul Warchol

photo by Caroline Allison

photo by Wi Harmer Photography

CORINNE MATHERN STUDIO

Corinne Mathern Studio is an interior architecture and design firm based in California, creating environments that provide balanced backdrops for living – places full of meaningful objects, art, and heirlooms, where distractions are minimized and life feels more serene. Corinne believes that homes are a reflection of our true selves and by paring properties back to their pure character, we can let that step forth.

Corinne and her team usher in elements of the natural world to create familiar touch points. The firm’s distinct color palette begins in earthy tones, and includes materials, textures, and layers used to create warmth and character. Involvement begins at concept development and ends with final construction and installation.

Corinne established her eponymous studio in 2014 to work with residential, commercial and hospitality clients in Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, Los Angeles, and beyond. In addition to creating bespoke furniture for her projects, Corinne also designs a standalone collection of furniture, lighting, and accessories.

Published in Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Home Beautiful, Interior Design, and others.

@corinnemathernstudio or www.corinnemathern.com

APPLETON PARTNERS

Founded in 1976, Appleton Partners LLP maintains o ces in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara, California. With the support of Partners Ken Mineau, Andrew Scott, and a talented design team, founding Principal Marc Appleton has been consistently ranked to Architectural Digest Top 100 designers from 1991-2016 and as a Top Coastal Architect by Ocean Home Magazine in 2022.

The firm has a rich history of award-winning design work, which has been featured in prominent publications such as Architectural Digest, Town and Country, Sunset, and other periodicals. With over 800 successful projects under its belt, the firm specializes in custom residential, institutional, and commercial design and planning. The firm’s design work has earned recognition, including The Arthur Ross Awards and the Luxe Red Awards in 2022.

Appleton Partners is known for creating harmonious relationships between the builtform and the landscape, striving to achieve an appreciation of place and time in their designs. Whether contemporary or traditional in style, the firm prioritizes a collaborative process with clients, inspired by their desires, needs, program, budget, and site-specific environmental factors.

www.appleton-architects.com

photo by Nicole Franzen

photo by Nicole Franzen

photo by Mary Nichols

photo by Alexander Verito

SARAH WALKER DESIGN STUDIO

Sarah Walker Design Studio (SWDS) was founded in 1997, and is a full-service interior design firm that specializes in large-scale, high-end residential remodels for clients in the Santa Barbara area, as well as Los Angeles, New York, and the Bahamas. The design studio’s projects are wide-ranging in style and vernacular from a Julius Shulman-photographed Mid-Century Modern, a hacienda-style ranch house, a classic Spanish Colonial, to a glass, steel, and concrete architectural contemporary with views of the Santa Barbara coast.

Sarah is a California certified interior designer, raised in Miami, Fla., and Blowing Rock, N.C. She graduated from the prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and moved directly to New York City, where she lived for 13 years. She was involved in numerous ground-up restaurant and nightclub creations in New York as both an owner and general manager, and through this experience garnered a working knowledge of construction and commercial interior design. She bought and renovated houses and apartments in the Hamptons and Manhattan, thus learning her trade from an investor’s perspective and building a reputation as a tastemaker among her peers.

SWDS accepts a limited number of commissions each year to ensure Sarah can be fully involved in the details of the project.

Projects have been featured in such magazines as Elle Décor, Interior Design, Luxe, Ad Espana, C Magazine, New York Cottage and Gardens, L.A. Times Magazine, Angeleno, and Interview, among others.

www.sarahwalkerds.com

STERLING | HUDDLESON ARCHITECTURE

For more than 25 years, Sterling | Huddleson Architecture (S|H Architecture) has been expertly designing exceptional residences around the world. Working in a broad range of architectural styles, the firm’s unique vision prioritizes the inherent qualities of the built environment – space, light, and form – rather than a single, re-worked signature aesthetic. Whether the result is traditional

or modern, each house is designed to inspire, enlivening the everyday experiences of the client.

The firm’s work has been featured in numerous publications including Architectural Digest, LUXE, Cottages & Gardens, WSJ, USA Today, and Robb Report.

www.sterlinghuddleson.com

photo by Sam Frost

photo by Straighline

photo by Manny Espinoza

photo by Trevor Tondro

ANN JAMES INTERIORS

Ann James is an interior designer who lives and works in Santa Barbara, California. She specializes in custom design and o ers solutions to a diverse range of clients. Her designs reflect an eclectic aesthetic that draws on both contemporary and traditional styles while maintaining a consistent emphasis on detail, quality, and livability. With over thirty-five years of experience in the field,

BALDHEAD CABINET COMPANY

Baldhead Cabinets is a family-owned and operated metal manufacturing company based in Bend, Ore. With 37 years of experience in the industry, the company specializes in designing and fabricating custom metal cabinets for clients.

The process begins with the creation of a custom CAD drawing that takes into account the client’s specific needs, desires, and the

Ann has developed a deep understanding of the industry, enabling her to stay informed of the latest resources and vendors. Her portfolio spans a range of environments, including coastal cottages, rural ranches, contemporary homes, and the Spanish Colonial style that Santa Barbara is known for.

Her ultimate goal is to create warm, inviting spaces that reflect each individual client’s needs and tastes.

www.annjamesinteriors.com

characteristics of their space. Once the design is approved, the fabrication process commences, and all steps are completed in-house, from laser cutting to powder coating and assembly.

What sets Baldhead Cabinets apart is a commitment to delivering the highest level of quality and service. To achieve this, the company handles the entire process, including final delivery and installation. This approach has been successful since the company’s founding in 1985, and its employees remain dedicated to it to this day.

www.baldheadcabinets.com

photo courtesy of Ann James

photo by Kim Reirson

photo by Kim Reirson

photo by Steve Tague

photo by Steve Tague

MARGARITA BRAVO

MARGARITA BRAVO is a namesake luxury interior design firm o ering full-service residential and commercial design, renovation, and decor services. Bravo’s interior design studio brings her exquisite taste and years of high-end experience working one-on-one with luxury clients nationwide. Bravo is a mix master of layering colors, styles, patterns, and textures, understanding the power a beautiful and thoughtfully decorated space can have on a person, as well as the importance of its feng shui – no two interiors of hers will ever look the same. With a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Interior Design studies in New York and Barcelona, Margarita brings a technical, creative, yet down-to-earth approach to her interactions with clients. She completed her second Interior Design Program at the European Institute of Design in Barcelona, Spain.

www.margaritabravo.com

MENELLI TILE & STONE

Menelli Tile & Stone’s master craftsmen and fabricators have impressed homeowners, designers, architects, and general contractors for four decades. Known for its meticulous tile and stone installations, kitchens, baths and fireplaces, Menelli has access to sought-after materials like French limestone, custom tile, porcelain, glass, and mosaic tiles, new and antique pottery, and much more.

The family-owned business o ers a personal concierge service who works with homeowners, designers and architects to source materials and deliver samples right to your door.

www.menellitileandstone.com

photo by Denver Image Photography

photo by Tahvory Bunting photographer

photos by Cater Photography

photo by Jake Holschuh Photography

HARRISON DESIGN

Harrison Design is a leading firm in high-end residential architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture, serving clients both domestically and internationally. Known for their exceptional design, unwavering responsiveness to clients, and meticulous project execution, Harrison Design has built a reputation for excellence in the industry.

The firm’s designs are brought to life by a network of skilled artisans and builders who ensure that the quality of the design is reflected in the materials and workmanship. This commitment to quality has earned the firm numerous awards and recognition in leading design publications such as Architectural Digest, Veranda, Luxe, and Traditional Home.

Harrison Design has been serving the Montecito community for 25-plus years, completing more than 85 projects in the area, ranging from new construction and renovations to historic preservation. The firm’s involvement in the community extends beyond design, with members serving on the Lotusland Board of Trustees and providing pro-bono work toward the historic restoration and beautification of local properties. Additionally, the firm has hosted educational talks on Montecito’s history and architecture, served on the Montecito Board of Architecture Review, and dedicated more than 1,000 hours of community service after local disasters and in the aftermath of the Montecito mudslides.

www.harrisondesign.com

SKYELINE CONSTRUCTION, INC.

SkyeLine Construction is an owner/founder-run company with more than 25 years of experience in solving construction issues and budget constraints. Performing a number of tasks in-house, the company is able to control the quality of finishes, budgets, and scheduling. SkyeLine has received awards from the local contractors’ association in both residential and commercial projects.

Owner Skye McGinnes is personally involved in some way with every project. With a background in restaurants and a master’s degree in Business Administration, Skye strives to provide excellent service, while being mindful of budget and scope. A native of Santa Barbara, Skye’s passion for finding solutions fuels his love of the business; he believes it’s all about smart and sustainable, economical choices, as well as making the clients’ dreams come to fruition.

www.skyelineinc.com

photo by Nicholas Altiere

photo by Erin Feinblatt

SCOTT CORRIDAN DESIGN ASSOCIATES

For more than 30 years, Founder and Principal Designer Scott Corridan has been investing time and resources into the magic of storytelling through interior design and event production.

Celebrated over the decades by Town & Country, In Style Magazine, Martha Stewart, Tyra Banks, HGTV and Scripps Networks, Better Homes & Gardens, Elle Decor, Haute Living, Santa Barbara Magazine, Tahoe Quarterly, and

MARMOL RADZINER

Marmol Radziner is a design-build firm led by architects Leo Marmol, FAIA, and Ron Radziner, FAIA. Established in 1989, the practice o ers architecture, construction, interior design, and landscape design services from its o ces in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Marmol Radziner is known for creating inviting spaces that seamlessly blend indoor and outdoor areas, using a warm, textured approach to modernism that is both elegant and timeless. The firm prioritizes sustainability and frequently incorporates the surrounding environment into its projects, creating outdoor spaces that extend daily living into the landscape. In recognition of their work, Marmol and Radziner have been inducted into Interior Design magazine’s Hall of Fame, and the firm has been named to Architectural Digest’s AD100 list on numerous occasions. Additionally, the American Institute of Architects California Council awarded the business with the prestigious 2004 Firm of the Year Award.

www.marmol-radziner.com

other publications, Scott is honored to fulfill projects throughout Santa Barbara from his o ce in Montecito, with clients capitalizing on the firm’s 80-plus years of design and project management expertise shared between its partners and team.

www.scottcorridan.net

photos by vancefox.com

MARY TA

An inimitable presence in the California Art & Design Scene, Mary Ta is a multi-hyphenate business owner and new Mother. Driven to re-examine her life direction following the events of 9/11, Mary walked away from a successful career as an international attorney to reframe and refocus her strengths, throwing herself at a field about which she’d long felt a subsumed passion. She has parlayed her innate capacity for empathy—and her self-taught understanding of the art and craft of interiors—into a client list continually gratified by her uncanny ability to wholly immerse herself in their projects. Mary divides her time between Los Angeles and her ranch in The American Riviera.

MINOTTI

In 2002, Mary Ta boldly approached legendary Italian furniture artisans Minotti S.p.A. with a singular idea. What would you think of a flagship Minotti space in Los Angeles? “Sì, grazie!” In 2004, Mary presented the luxury furniture innovator’s showroom in Los Angeles—the first monobrand destination of its kind in the U.S. It was an immediate success. At 6,000 square feet of classic-modern immersion, Minotti Los Angeles breezily showcases the engineered artisanal elegance that has long typified the 75 yearold furniture-maker’s line. Allied for a quarter-century with Milanese architect-designer Rodolfo Dordoni, Minotti’s aesthetic is steeped in a radiant simplicity that speaks to both boutique exhilaration, and the quiet rapture of Home.

www.minotti-la.com

MASS BEVERLY

n 2014, Mary Ta founded MASS Beverly, a 360-degree design showroom providing sophisticated turnkey solutions for both clients and trade partners. Mary’s dynamic vision and MASS Beverly’s growing reputation led to curation of furnishings for the residences of global cultural tastemakers including Beyoncé and Jay Z, Calvin Klein, and Elon Musk. Inherently inquisitive, Mary travels the world to discover new brands, products, and designers. As a leader in the modern luxury furniture and interiors space, Mary’s influence is recognized in the wider design community. She is a passionate connector in Los Angeles, the city she has called home for three decades.

Iwww.massbeverly.com

photo by Mike Kelley

photo by Ashley Walia

photo by Matthew Millman

REAL ESTATES

HACIENDA RANCH SANTA BARBARA LEGACY

TIMELESS BEAUTY

Oneof the most breathtaking historic properties in Southern California, this Santa Barbara city landmark sits on ±11.37 acres. The property comprises six historic buildings with ocean views, gardens, and walkable access to the adjacent Santa Barbara Mission.

2300 Garden St. Price Upon Request

Joyce Rey / Timothy Di Prizito

310-291-6646 / 310-266-2777

Coldwell Banker Realty partnered with CBRE

DRE# 00465013 / 01433017

Encompassing more than 3,100 acres along the Gaviota Coast, The Hacienda Ranch at El Rancho Tajiguas embodies the spirit of Old California. At the heart of this magnificent ranch is the historic Hacienda Residence, originally designed by George Washington Smith.

13800 U.S. Highway 101 $45,000,000

Riskin Partners Estate Group 805-565-8600

Village Properties

DRE# 01815307 / 01447045 / 01954177 / 01951069

Ocean views, flat grounds, luxe amenities, and incredible design coalesce at this iconic Montecito estate. Built on more than two acres, the setting is strikingly beautiful and well-suited for intimate gatherings yet expands e ortlessly for lavish events.

888 Lilac Drive

$33,500,000

Riskin Partners Estate Group 805-565-8600

Village Properties

DRE# 01815307 / 01447045 / 01954177 / 01951069

REAL ESTATES

GOLDEN QUADRANGLE VILLA DEL MARE

ENNISBROOK ELEGANCE

Far Afield is one of two significant historic estates remaining in the prime Golden Quadrangle, commanding approx. 10.5 acres with more than 25 cultivated and native gardens. O ered for the first time in 20-some years, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

670 Hot Springs Road Price Upon Request

Joyce Rey / Timothy Di Prizito

310-291-6646 / 310-266-2777

Coldwell Banker Realty

DRE# 00465013 / 01433017

Situated on 287 acres near Refugio State Beach, Villa Del Mare fuses the romance of “Old California” with sweeping views, a thoughtful floor plan with every amenity you could wish for, exceptional quality construction, and a private setting.

13600 Calle Real $25,000,000 Riskin Partners Estate Group 805-565-8600

Village Properties

DRE# 01815307 / 01447045 / 01954177 / 01951069

REMODELED ROMERO CYN HOPE RANCH VIEWS

Sprawling single-level five-bedroom, eightbathroom, modern masterpiece behind the gates of the beloved Ennisbrook. Sitting on 2+ acres and features newly constructed pool and spa, tennis court with pavilion, and stunning mountain, ocean and golf-course views from pristine terraces and walkways.

1850 Jelinda Drive $22,750,000

Calcagno & Hamilton Partners 805-565-4000

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

California Properties

DRE# 01499736 / 01129919

POSH PARK LANE

Truly exceptional one-of-a-kind property with panoramic ocean, island, coastline & mountain views from expansive, level homesite. Two parcels in prime Hope Ranch location on private and usable 5.5 acres. Single-level home opening north and south to breathtaking views.

4475 Via Abrigada $22,500,000

Randy Solakian Estates Group 805-886-6000

Coldwell Banker Realty

DRE# 00616212

With breathtaking ocean views from nearly every room, this exceptional and gated, more than 2.4-acre Montecito estate hits the open market for the first time and showcases a world-class remodel utilizing the finest design elements and materials.

999 Romero Canyon $19,950,000

Cristal Clarke 805-886-9378

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

California Properties DRE# 00968247

This posh Park Lane property embodies e ortless Montecito style. The main home includes three bedrooms with an ocean-view primary suite that encompasses the entire upper level. Garage parking for six cars and a two-story pool house, the grounds host view terraces, outdoor fireplaces, an infinity pool, and stunning ocean views.

900 Park Lane

$16,900,000

Marsha Kotlyar Estate Group

805-565-4014

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

DRE# 01426886

REAL ESTATES

TUSCAN TO TIMELESS SOPHISTICATED HOPE RANCH

HOPE RANCH SPANISH COLONIAL

Avibrant and versatile lifestyle is matched only by the timeless design and outstanding ocean and mountain views from this 2.4-acre Montecito estate. Seven-bedroom suites plus a private guest house and pool cabana o er room for everyone. Playful, spirited, and modern, this estate is a classic.

2692 Sycamore Canyon Road

$15,500,000

Nancy Kogevinas

805-450-6233

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

California Properties

DRE# 01209514

Amost desirable location in Hope Ranch, sophisticated estate blends old-world distinction and craftsmanship with a layout and amenities that suit a contemporary lifestyle. Flooded with natural light, the impressive twostory foyer features a striking curved staircase flanked by an elegant formal living room and generously sized great room.

4689 Via Roblada

$14,500,000

Randy Solakian Estates Group

805-886-6000

Coldwell Banker Realty DRE# 00616212

RANCH AT BUENA TERRA SPECTACULAR SANTA YNEZ

Luxurious Spanish Colonial compound remodeled to unsurpassed perfection! Sited on a sunny ridge with awe-inspiring views of the coastal mountains on more than 2.5 acres of breathtaking grounds. Guest house, outdoor living room, outdoor entertainment center, pool, four-stall barn & large basement, as well as citrus orchards, chicken coops, and secret gardens.

695 Via Hierba

$12,000,000 Team Scarborough

805-331-1465

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

California Properties DRE# 01182792

COMING SOON

This newly constructed Santa Ynez estate spans 40+/- acres across two separate legal parcels. Situated in one of wine country’s most coveted corridors and boasting panoramic mountain, vineyard, and pastoral views, this contemporary oasis is a true work of art.

4300/4200 Roblar Ave., Santa Ynez

$10,950,000

Riskin Partners Estate Group

805-565-8600

Village Properties

DRE# 01815307 / 01447045 / 01954177 / 01951069

Gracious, serene, and soulful – discover the Ranch at Buena Terra. This resort-like residence and 22-acre ranch o ers panoramic views of the ocean, islands, and mountains.

1220 Franklin Ranch Road

$10,799,000

Marsha Kotlyar Estate Group

805-565-4014

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

California Properties

DRE# 01426886

New Construction in Montecito’s Golden Quadrangle! Construction of this fourbedroom, four-bathroom modern home and ADU is well underway with expert local builder Clause Construction. With targeted completion this spring, don’t miss this chance to live in modern luxury!

515 Santa Angela Lane

$8,450,000

Daniel Zia, Zia Group

805-364-9009

eXp Realty

DRE# 01710544

REAL ESTATES

ELEGANCE IN WINE COUNTRY MONTECITO OPPORTUNITY

WOODSTOCK RANCH

Newly completed +/-12.5 acre ridgeline estate with 360-degree views of Santa Barbara wine country. An entertainer’s dream with infinity pool and unique 2,000 sq. ft. +/subterranean wine cave. Centrally located, with exquisite quality, and the benefit of sites for a potential guest house, equestrian amenities, and/or sports areas.

2111 Random Oaks Road

$7,900,000

Emily Kellenberger

805-252-2773

Village Properties

DRE# 01397913

LOS OLIVOS LUXURY

Huge mountain views span the horizon at this spectacular 1.8-acre, flat, level building site with approved plans and permits ready to issue for a one-level, +6,000-sq-ft home with lofty ceilings, open spaces, and a contemporary sensibility.

415 Meadowbrook Drive

$6,900,000

Riskin Partners Estate Group

805-565-8600

Village Properties

DRE# 01815307 / 01447045 / 01954177 / 01951069

Rancho Cielo Vista with dramatic views and stunning renovations. Upscale design choices for the main residence, guest house, and two apartments at the stables. Prestigious Woodstock Ranch only minutes from Los Olivos.

3570 Woodstock Road

$6,295,000

Patty Murphy Country Estates

805-680-8571

Sotheby’s International Realty

DRE# 00766586

ELEVATED DESIGN IN SB SAN YSIDRO STYLE

Breathtaking panoramic views and sophisticated charm. Contemporary main residence, second residence, four-stall barn, and car storage combine to create this perfect piece of paradise in Los Olivos. Enjoy the elegant country lifestyle from your hilltop retreat and ride out from your front door with miles of trails!

2995 Calle Bonita

$6,150,000

Carey Kendall

805-689-6262

Village Properties

DRE# 00753349

Stunning

San Ysidro-style farmhouse with 1963 mid-century modern layout. Situated on a quiet cul-de-sac on 1± acre, this property is in a rural setting with a large oak-shaded garden and ocean views from the garden.

723 Via Manana

$5,975,000

Cristal Clarke

805-886-9378

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

California Properties

DRE# 00968247

Stunning ocean and mountain views, combined with incredible design, make this home an unparalleled piece of paradise. Recently reimagined by renowned designer Erinn V., the three-bed, three-bath home features gorgeous interiors, excellent outdoor amenities, and multiple entertaining areas.

2700 Holly Road

$5,750,000

Calcagno & Hamilton Partners

805-565-4000

Berkshire Hathaway

DRE# 01499736 / 01129919

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES BEACHFRONT LAND

This 40 AC Santa Ynez Valley ranch o ers 360-degree panoramic views of the mountains and valley—all bordered by the Santa Rita Hills AVA. A rare parcel with multiple building envelopes to create your dream experience such as a vineyard, ranch, equestrian facility, organic farm, trophy estate, family compound—you decide! Existing home and warehouse.

1990 Tularosa Road

$1,799,000

Haden Homes Group 805-880-6530

Compass DRE# 01988499

CHANNEL DRIVE

Spectacular and secluded half-acre blu lot on a quiet cul-de-sac. Rare beachfront land with 180-degree panoramic ocean and island views. Main building pad and a private, lower terraced area. Build your dream home with your own pathway to the beach!

1837 1/2 El Camino De La Luz

$1,495,000

Gary Goldberg

805-455-8910

Coastal Properties

DRE# 01172139

REAL ESTATES FOR RENT

VILLA CONSTANCE

Updated top floor, two-bedroom, twobath Villa Constance North condo sited near the center of the complex away from State Street. Upgraded kitchen with stainless appliances, newer dual pane windows and sliders, plantation shutters, newer stackable LG washer/dryer, spacious walk-in closets, and nicely appointed bathrooms.

2621 State Street #4

$975,000

Crysta Metzger

805-453-8700

Coldwell Banker Realty DRE# 01340521

SEA RANCH

Oceanfront Modern with recent renovations & new furnishings. Three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and expansive views looking down the coast with easy access to Butterfly Beach and Coast Village Road.

1086 Channel Drive

$50,000 per month

Crysta Metzger

805-453-8700

Coldwell Banker Realty

DRE# 01340521

Historic four-acre property is a private miniresort ready for your next getaway. Enjoy the day at the pool or beach, then feast on a meal with our private chef. One-of-a kind experience!

Sea Ranch, Montecito Inquire for rental rate

Paradise Retreats www.paradiseretreats.com

Available as a monthly furnished rental, this spacious downtown penthouse was designed by renowned architect Je Shelton and features stunning luxury details, breathtaking mountain views, a hot tub, elevator, and more!

819 Garden St. $16,000-$19,500/mo

Samantha Ireland

805-319-4045

Vacation Rentals of Santa Barbara DRE# 01751182

JEFF SHELTON PENTHOUSE

Photo by Kim Reierson

Beach...

REAL ESTATES

HOLLYWOOD REGENCY

MODERN MALIBU COASTAL ESTATE

Renovated Hollywood Regency with explosive head-on DTLA and West Side City lights views. Expansive patios and pergola-covered decks provide the perfect indoor/outdoor California living in the hills and just minutes away from shopping and dining in Los Feliz.

4818 Bonvue Avenue, Los Angeles

Price Upon Request

Joyce Rey / Timothy Di Prizito 310-291-6646 / 310-266-2777

Coldwell Banker Realty

DRE# 00465013 / 01433017

New construction architectural with breathtaking ocean views located on four acres in the lower hills of Malibu. Modern open-floor plan features floor to ceiling sliding glass doors, providing unobstructed views and indoor-outdoor living. Year-round lushness with perfectly curated landscaping.

Hume Road, Malibu

Price Upon Request

Timothy Di Prizito/Jaydn Meier 310-266-2777 / 916-524-8535

Coldwell Banker Realty

DRE# 01433017 / 02126076

This spectacular beach house on Santa Monica’s coveted Gold Coast was stunningly reimagined in 2014 by internationally renowned Molori Design, showcasing exquisite European finishes, voluminous living spaces, and panoramic ocean views. Live your dream in this one-of-a-kind coastal estate.

966 Palisades Beach Road, Santa Monica $21,995,000 or $75,000 per month

Joyce Rey / Veronica Klein 310-291-6646

Coldwell Banker Realty / Compass

DRE# 00465013 / 01218557

Mountains... REAL ESTATES

TETON VILLAGE

W elcome to Jensen Canyon, located in the sought-after Shooting Star community, this beautiful mountain home resides on 1.5 acres at the base of the Tetons and is highlighted by stunning craftsmanship and a rare separate, one-bedroom guest apartment.

7165 Jensen Canyon Road, Teton Village, Wyo. $23,000,000

Graham Faupel Mendenhall & Associates

307-690-0204

AB27056

With an English cottage’s charm, baroque stonework, exquisite perennial flower beds, and easy access to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Grand Teton National Park, and Teton Pass, this four-bedroom Tucker Ranch gem is a one-of-a-kind Jackson Hole property.

3455 Tucker Ranch Road, Wilson, Wyo. $26,000,000

Tom Evans

307-739-8149

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty WY-190200

Equestrian enthusiasts need search no further than this Teton-view availed property appointed with eight paddocks, a riding arena, and barn. Serene landscaping enveloping a main and guest house just minutes from town – this is the heart of Jackson Hole.

2765 W. Dairy Lane, Jackson, Wyo. $17,750,000

Ashley DiPrisco 307-739-8003

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty WY-190200

Andrew Chung Twenty seven years of banking on the Central Coast

—HARRY & GRACE KAZALI, LA PLAYA INN