Alan Kozlowski & Pete Muller

JOURNAL

ontecito FA L L | W I N T E R | 2 0 2 0/2 1

CHAD BEUOY

805.886.7188 chad.beuoy@compass.com DRE 02025022

CHRIS GREGOIRE

805.452.9032 chris.gregoire@compass.com DRE 01973461

4450 Via Alegre

HOPE RANCH $5,495,000 4 BD 4.5 BA Âą6,015 SF

TIM DAHL

805.886.2211 tim.dahl@compass.com DRE 00894534

Compass is a real estate broker licensed by the State of California and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. License Number 01991628. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only and is compiled from sources deemed reliable but has not been verified. Changes in price, condition, sale or withdrawal may be made without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate.

SUMMERLAND $3,950,000 4 BD 3 BA Âą2,706 SF

compass.com

320 Asegra Road

Dine under a canopy of sky on the ocean-facing terrace. Settle in and savor the authentic taste of coastal California.

BELMOND EL ENCANTO | 800 ALVARADO PLACE, SANTA BARBARA, CA 93103 805 770 3530 | BELMOND.COM/ELENCANTO

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Fully-stocked client work counters

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26 Sizes

Wardrobe

David Wexler, Founder

o i d u t S n g i s e D

1235 COAST VILLAGE ROAD I 805.969.0442 FOUR SEASONS RESORT THE BILTMORE SANTA BARBARA I 805.969.3167 I MONTECITO, CA 93108 W W W . S I LV E R H O R N . C O M

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A NN J AMES N T E R I O R

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E S I G N

805-969-4554 WWW .A NN J AMES I NTERIORS . COM

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812 Stat e St ree t • Sa n ta Ba rba r a • 805.966.9187 1482 E a s t Va lle y Roa d • Mon t ecito • 805.565.4411 Brya n tAndSons.com

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MK REAL ESTATE GROUP Marsha Kotlyar | Patrice Serrani | Allie Baxter 805.565.4014 | Home@MKGroupMontecito.com | Lic. # 01426886

Š 2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHHS and the BHHS symbol are registered service marks of Columbia Insurance Company, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

JONATHAN BARRERA, FINANCIAL WELLNESS ADVISOR,

F

inancial Wellness Advisor Jonathan Barrera advises several major medical associations in California, including the Central Coast Medical Association, which includes San Luis Obispo, Lompoc, Goleta and Santa Barbara. He and his team provide a two pronged approach to wealth management. “We do a financial analysis called an EKG where we look at everything coming in and everything going out: Income, taxes, mortgage, and other expenses, and we create a living balance sheet,” says Barrera of the personalized site, available at livingbalancesheet.com. “It’s visual mechanism you can lock into and see all your assets, liability, and cash flow.”

While the app helps clients track their assets and expenses, Barrera personally advises clients on how to save in costs that drag down a portfolio and invest their profits tax efficiently. “Most private practice, whether they are starting a practice or an equity partner, take their profits and spend it, but he helps them create tax solutions that keep

the money in their pockets.” “Our clients typically reduced their taxes by 50% to 70%,” he says.

“That’s a big deal, particularly in California.”

Whereas many financial plans focus their efforts purely on the growth of money, Barrera says they typically fail to correctly execute new tax laws and asset management solutions in line with the various life goals a typical investor experiences during a lifetime. Proper planning can reduce risk, costs and increase cash flow so you have enough for emergencies, living and retirement. “Further, When considering purchasing a new asset, we know what you need to prepare, starting with debt and organization so that you can make concise and articulated decisions. It’s not about what you make with your money, but what you get to keep.”

JONATHAN M. BARRERA | FINANCIAL ADVISOR WESTPAC WEALTH PARTNERS 15760 Ventura Blvd. | Suite 2000 | Encino, CA | 91436 2261 Palma Dr. | Suite 1 | Ventura, CA | 93003 O 805.765.4094 | F 866.901.9502 | E j_barrera@thewp2.com | W www.jonathanMbarrera.com | C 512.423.3250 *Registered Representative and Financial Advisor of Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS). OSJ: 4275 Executive Square, #800, La Jolla, CA 92037. 619.684.6400. Securities products offered through PAS, Member of FINRA, SIPC. Financial representative of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian), New York, NY. PAS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian. WestPac Wealth Partners, LLC is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian. Insurance products offered through WestPac Wealth Partners and insurance services, LLC, a DBA of WestPac Wealth Partners, LLC. | CA Insurance License #0H73984.

LEAVE ORDINARY ORLD WEHIND B 4305MARINADRIVE.COM

Santa Barbara, California

Suzanne Perkins is honored to be ranked

#47

in volume amongst individuals in this year's REAL TRENDS THE THOUSAND

PERKINS GROUP

PERKINSGROUPRE.COM The Perkins Group Real Estate | +1 805.265.0786 | team@perkinsgroupre.com | DRE: 01106512

Š2020 Compass is a licensed real estate broker and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdraw without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. Exact dimensions can be obtained by retaining the services of an architect or engineer. This is not intended to solicit property already listed.

1

#

Agent

in Santa Barbara MLS*

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T h e Fi n e s t M o n t e c i t o & S a n t a B a r b a r a H o m e s P re s e n t e d by

8 0 5.8 8 6 .9378 C ri stal@ Mon tecito-Es tate.com w w w.Mon tecito-Es tate.com D R E # 0 0 96 8247

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1. LILAC DRIVE, MONTECITO EUROPEAN-INSPIRED CONTEMPORARY ESTATE

$16,995,000

2. ASEGRA ROAD, SUMMERLAND HUMMINGBIRD ROCK RANCH

$9,988,000

3

4

3. MIRAMAR BEACH, MONTECITO IMPECCABLY RENOVATED MIRAMAR BEACH HOUSE

$7,950,000

4. EAST VALLEY ROAD, MONTECITO SOMERSET ESTATE

$7,495,000 ©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data

7 5

6

8

Artist rendered white exterior.

10 9

5. BOUNDARY DR, MONTECITO FRENCH COUNTRY SHOWCASE IN BIRNAM $5,950,000

6. MISSION RIDGE RD, SB RIVIERA SPANISH COLONIAL REVIVAL BEAUTY $4,950,000

11

7. HIDDEN VALLEY LN, MONTECITO

8. LADERA LANE, MONTECITO

OCEAN VIEW MEDITERRANEAN ESTATE $4,750,000

DISTINCTIVE CONTEMPORARY HIDEAWAY $4,395,000

9. HOT SPRINGS RD, MONTECITO

10. STATE ST 7TH FLOOR, SANTA BARBARA

ROMANTIC MEDITERRANEAN FARMHOUSE $4,250,000

ICONIC GRANADA THEATRE PENTHOUSE $3,900,000

11. WINDING CREEK LN, MONTECITO

MORE LUXURY REAL ESTATE: visit www.Montecito-Estate.com

CALIFORNIA MISSION STYLE HOME $3,185,000

including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be veriямБed by broker or MLS. CalDRE 00968247 *Individual Agent in SB MLS for 2019.

“THE PENTHOUSE AT EL ANDALUZ” | $4,250,000

Santa Barbara, California

3 Beds | 3.5 Baths | 2 Offices | 3,438 +/-SF Interior | 2,000 +/-SF Private Exterior | 2-Car Garage In the heart of downtown in one the world’s most desirable coastal communities, the Penthouse at El Andaluz offers a truly one-of-a-kind luxury living opportunity in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. Only a handful of large penthouses have ever been built in this city, and none more elegant and iconic as this one — the premier residence in the crown jewel of Santa Barbara’s recent urban architecture. Visit www.SantaBarbaraPenthouse.com to see the Virtual Showing.

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SantaBarbara Penthouse.com

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Š2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

JUST SOLD!

Ladera Lane, Montecito. $7,900,000

I represented the very happy buyer of this beautiful Mediterranean ocean-view estate located on over 4 gated acres in lovely Montecito. Included pool/spa, bocci ball court, 6-car garage, and guest house.

5 bedrooms/10-baths plus office, art studio and exercise room within 7,500 sf of living area

Also now available for rent at $55,000 for the month of September 2020. Escape to beautiful Montecito and enjoy the best beaches and weather Southern California has to offer.

Co-represented the buyer with Cristal Clarke, also w/Berkshire Hathaway Home Services CA Properties. DRE#00968247 Given my extensive background in the valuation of real estate, it would also be my pleasure to provide you with a free market analysis whether you’re buying/selling or simply planning ahead. Feel free to call or email me whether you are buying, selling, investing or just want to get a feel for how a particular market is performing. I look forward to helping you achieve your real estate dreams and goals!

J.J. Gobbell REALTOR® - Sales Associate 805-403-5785 m |805-969-5026 o JJGobbell@bhhscal.com www.EstatesOfSantaBarbara.com Lic#: 02063124 | NRDS ID: 199507298 © 2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHHS and the BHHS symbol are registered service marks of Columbia Insurance Company, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

if you love...

ARC HITECTURE & DESIGN

COOKING

Virtually Enhanced

296 LAS ENTRADAS DRIVE - $28,500,000

2697 SYCAMORE CANYON ROAD - $10,900,000

WORKING FROM HOME

POOLSIDE HAPPY HOURS

1379 OAK CREEK CANYON RD - $10,850,000

3007 VISTA LINDA LANE - $9,300,000

COASTAL GETAWAYS

PRIVACY

40 HAMMOND DRIVE - $5,195,000

1664 EAST VALLEY ROAD - $9,995,000

... then

montecito is the place for you !

Nancy Kogevinas | 805.450.6233 | MontecitoProperties.com | DRE: 01209514 ©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC.

JOURNAL

ontecito Volume 13 Issue 1

FALL | WINTER | 2020/21

Editor & CEO Gwyn Lurie gwyn@montecitojournal.net President & COO Tim Buckley tim@montecitojournal.net Art Director Trent Watanabe Guest Deputy Editor Joe Donnelly Copy Editor Lily Buckley Harbin Photography: Dewey Nicks Edward Clynes Administration: Christine Merrick Diane Davidson Account Managers: Tanis Nelson: tanis@montecitojournal.net Susan Brooks: sue@montecitojournal.net Casey Champion: casey@montecitojournal.net Contributors: David Baum, Hattie Beresford, Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Steven Libowitz, Ted Mills, Gabe Saglie, Nicholas Schou, Megan Waldrep, Leslie A. Westbrook

Montecito JOURNAL

(glossy edition) is published by Montecito Journal Media Group, LLC. Corporate Offices located at 1206 Coast Village Circle, Suite H Montecito, CA 93108 For distribution, advertising, or other inquiries: (805) 565-1860

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8 2 1 S a n d Po i n t Ro a d Carpinteria, CA

This meticulously designed Nantucket shingle-style home is located in one of the most desirable destinations in California. Recognized as a top luxury home in the US, this expansive home also includes 130 ft of ocean frontage. Prime location within a gated community near polo fields & Santa Barbara.

O ff e r e d a t $ 2 4 , 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 | 8 2 1 S a n d Po i n t Ro a d .c o m Pa u l a Ro ss Jones 310.8 8 0.9 75 0 prmal i b u @ao l .c o m Pacific Palisades Brokerage | 15308 Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 | 310.454.0080 © Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. All rights reserved. Sotheby’s International Realty® is a registered trademark. This material is based upon information which we consider reliable but because it has been supplied by third parties, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. This offering is subject to errors, omissions, changes including price or withdrawal without notice. If your property is listed with a real estate broker, please disregard. It is not our intention to solicit the offerings of other real estate brokers. We are happy to work with them and cooperate fully. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Equal Housing Opportunity. Paula Ross Jones DRE: 1157578.

Contents A Luminous Life

36.

Musician, adventure traveler, spiritual seeker, photographer, and multimedia artist. Alan Kozlowski has spent more than half a century as a magnet for luminaries like Ravi Shankar, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, George Harrison, and Jeff Bridges. Steven Libowitz leads us on a spiritual journey through the life and career of a consummate collaborator.

70.

Behind the Brand

Wendy Foster has defined Montecito fashion since the 1970s. Her style is “soft and strong, practical, with a foot in handmade.” Megan Waldrep introduces us to the woman behind the brand, her upbringing in the village, running a restaurant for the Rothschilds, and attending Hebrew School.

88.

96.

Take a Hike

Sure, Montecito has its sandy beaches, stunning mountain views, and laid-back charm. But there’s nothing like enjoying Montecito on foot. Nicholas Schou takes us on the scenic route with a guide to the area’s extensive network of hiking and walking trails.

Politics to Provence

So what does a high-stakes political consultant do after a bruising career of promoting candidates and pushing ballot measures? Well, he moves to Montecito and imports French wines of course. Meet Frank Caterinicchio and his new lifestyle.

100.

118.

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Moguls and Mansions

Santa Barbara is as synonymous with Spanish Colonial Revival as it is with its beaches and vineyards. Our resident historian Hattie Beresford traces the lineage of an architectural movement that transformed Santa Barbara from a stodgy Victorian matron into a romantic Spanish señorita.

Balancing Act

Pete Muller is a pioneering hedge fund creator by day and a successful singer-songwriter by night. Fresh off the release of his fourth album, Dissolve, he takes some time to reminisce on his unconventional journey to equilibrium.

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P A R T

K

N

I

P

R S

R I S

E

S

U

E T

JASMINE TENNIS

A

T E

DINA LANDI

G R

O

SARAH HANACEK

ROBERT RISKIN

a reputation built on RESULTS

“

WE HAVE WORKED WITH RISKIN PARTNERS three times over the years. Every time it has been a joy. They are all intelligent, delightful, genuine people — never once have we thought they had their own interests above ours. And their market expertise is astounding. We can’t recommend them highly enough!

”

R I S K I N P A R T N E R S E S TAT E G R O U P Village Properties Realtors team@ RiskinPartners.com license #01954177 805.565.8600

Contents

5649 Casita Pass Road, Carpinteria, CA Tu e s - Fr i : 1 0 a m - 5 p m Saturday: 10am-3pm

138.

5649 Casita Pass Road, Carpinteria, CA Tu e s - Fr i : 1 0 a m - 5 p m Saturday: 10am-3pm

148.

156.

176.

186.

The Secret’s Out

Since she moved to Montecito four years ago, artist Susan Read Cronin has kept a low profile. That changed in January when she opened her home to an invitation-only crowd of art enthusiasts and collectors.

The Silly Season

What is the world’s ugliest dog? How many pairs attend the world’s largest confab of clones? What is the record for longest cow chip throw? Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Jr. recaps a summer of screwball festivals.

Endless Summerland

Summerland was once a sleepy seaside commune founded by spiritualists who communicated with the “other side,” writes Leslie A. Westbrook. Today it’s a thriving design destination for celebrities and collectors alike, with enough treasures to furnish a sultan’s palace.

Dynamic Trio

The art world may have been slow in recognizing the contributions of women.

But not in Carpinteria, where accomplished female artists rule the local artist scene.

Meet Lety Garcia, Baret Boisson, and Tani Conrad, three intrepid artists who are breathing new life into Carpinteria as a burgeoning arts destination.

In Full Bloom

In the rugged hills at Fort Hunter Liggett lies one of America’s most historic hotels – Hearst Hacienda. David Baum explores the star-studded history, picturesque back roads, and unique architecture of the country cousin of Hearst Castle.

COVER PHOTOS: Alan Kozlowski, Santa Barbara, California 2020 Pete Muller, Santa Barbara, California 2020 (by Dewey Nicks • deweynicks.com)

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Contributors David Baum – David writes about

innovative businesses and emerging technologies for national magazines such as InformationWeek and Profit, as well as for major metropolitan newspapers such as The San Francisco Chronicle and The Los Angeles Times. He also covers travel, wine, and culture in collaboration with his wife and photographer, Susie Baum. Their feature articles have appeared in The Montecito Journal, Santa Barbara Magazine and Food & Home.

Steven Libowitz – Steven has

reported on the arts and entertainment for more than 30 years.

He has published his work in daily and weekly newspapers in New Jersey and California, as well as in Santa Barbara Magazine and a nationally syndicated news service.

When not at his computer or out on the town, you’ll often find him playing volleyball at East Beach, just a short jog from Montecito’s famous Butterfly Beach.

Nicholas Schou – Nick is an award-

winning investigative journalist as well as former editor of OC Weekly in Orange County, California.

The author of several books, including Orange Sunshine and Kill the Messenger, the latter of which was made into a Hollywood film, his writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and other fine publications. In his free time, he lives with his wife, son, and an overly-gregarious poodle in a cabin located in the wilds of Montecito’s hedgerows.

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Hattie Beresford – Hattie is a native

Jerry Camarillo Dunn – Jerry worked with

Ted Mills – Ted is a long-time writer

Gabe Saglie – Gabe has been covering the

Megan Waldrep – Megan is a freelance

Leslie A. Westbrook – Profiling three

of the Netherlands and retired teacher of English and American history for the Santa Barbara School District. Besides writing a local history column for Montecito Journal for more than a decade, she has written two Noticias and co-edited My Santa Barbara Scrap Book, the memoir of local artist Elizabeth Eaton Burton, for the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Her most recent book, The Way It Was ~ Santa Barbara Comes of Age, is a collection of a few of her nearly 300 articles written for the Journal. When she is not immersed in some dusty tome, she can be found on the tennis courts, hiking paths, or on the nation’s rail trails peddling with her husband, former Dos Pueblos volleyball coach Mike Beresford.

on the arts, a writerdirector of film, artist, and currently host of funkzonepodcast.com, where he interviews artists and creative folks in, around, and visiting Santa Barbara.

He fancies himself as a bit of a bon vivant and a mixologist, loves to emcee events, and would love to be on your trivia team.

writer who recently traded life on a 34’ sailboat in Mexico for a vintage 20’ airstream in Carpinteria.

She also writes a relationship column under the pen name Elizabeth Rose and is working on her first book. What does this all mean? Find out at www.meganwaldrep.com.

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the National Geographic Society for 35 years. His stories have won three Lowell Thomas Awards (the “Oscars” of the field) from the Society of American Travel Writers and an SATW gold medal for his column in the Montecito Journal.

Santa Barbara wine scene for more than 15 years through columns, TV and radio. He’s a senior editor with Travelzoo and is a leading expert on travel deals, tips and trends. Gabe and wife Renee have 3 children and one Golden Retriever named Milo.

women artists for this issue was a vicarious joy, as I began my adult life journey wanting to be an artist. I worked as a studio assistant for several major L.A. artists, briefly owned two antique and fine art galleries in Montecito and Summerland, morphed into a travel and design writer and currently help clients sell at auction (www. auctionliaison.com) which fuels my interest in researching fine art, among other things.

ICONIC MASTERWORK BY BARTON MYERS $8,200,000 | 949ToroCanyon.com

CONTEMPORARY VILLA, SWEEPING OCEAN VIEWS

ARCHITECTURAL GEM, UNIQUE GARDEN SETTING

CAROLINE SANTANDREA

VIVIENNE LEEBOSH

$2,450,000 | 685ToroCanyon.com

805.452.0212 | csantandrea@cox.net

$2,250,000 | 1232DianaRd.com

805.689.5613 | vleebosh@cox.net

1165 Coast Village Road Suite, A | Montecito, CA 93108 | sothebysrealty.com © Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. All rights reserved. Sotheby’s International Realty® is a registered trademark. This material is based upon information which we consider reliable but because it has been supplied by third parties, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. This offering is subject to errors, omissions, changes including price or withdrawal without notice. If your property is listed with a real estate broker, please disregard. It is not our intention to solicit the offerings of other real estate brokers. We are happy to work with them and cooperate fully. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby's International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby's International Realty, Inc. Equal Housing Opportunity. Featured Agents: Caroline Santandrea DRE: 01349311, Vivenne Leebosh DRE: 01229350

© Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. All rights reserved. Sotheby’s International Realty® is a registered trademark. This material is based upon information which we consider reliable but because it has been supplied by third parties, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. This offering is subject to errors, omissions, changes including price or withdrawal without notice. If your property is listed with a real estate broker, please disregard.

It is not our intention to solicit the offerings of other real estate brokers. We are happy to work with them and cooperate fully. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Equal Housing Opportunity. Featured Agent: Dusty Baker DRE: 1908615

DUSTY BAKER DustyBakerRealEstate.com 805.570.0102

Beachfront Contemporary $9,975,000 | 1811FernaldPoint.com

Editor's Letter

Crème de la Coast

W

hy do people who can live anywhere so often choose to live here?

Though it’s celebrated the world over for its perfect climate, heartstopping vistas, semi-rural ambience, and for being what Charlie Chaplin called the “cream of the coast,” Montecito’s real special sauce is the people who live here.

MJ's Magazine has long featured a cover story that exemplifies Montecito’s magnetic lure for many of the world’s most fascinating, accomplished, and creative people. For this edition, the first under the newly formed Montecito Journal Media Group, we have chosen two exemplars.

At first blush, Pete Muller and Alan Kozlowski have little in common. Pete’s base camp is as a math and hedge fund whiz, while Alan’s jumping off point was as a child of the ‘60s, culturally intoxicated by the spiritual pursuits of that time.

But as the Montecito Journal Arts Editor Steven Libowitz reveals in these two riveting profiles, God is in the details and these two decidedly different men have some real similarities,

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beginning with a refusal to be confined or labeled. Both have zigged and zagged in their life journeys, found notable success in business, but deeper meaning and fulfillment in their devotion to music and spirituality. Most of all, they share an unrelenting commitment to the “road less traveled,” a road which led them to our village.

One of the greatest joys of working on this issue was getting to know Pete and Alan better. Though I have known Alan Kozlowski for years and count his friendship amongst my blessings, only more recently have I begun to know Pete. In both cases, this experience has given me an intimate peek into life stories that reveal strong passions, artistic journeys, and profound lessons learned along the way by two very differently inspired men.

Now it’s your turn to peek inside the self-forged, long, and winding roads of two exceptional humans of Montecito.

Gwyn Lurie

WINTER

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the mudflow.

We are here to help restore the beauty of your landscape.

The Art of Outdoor Living gracedesignassociates.com | (805) 687-3569

GARY GOLDBERG

INTERESTED IN SELLING? * HIGH DEMAND * LOW INVENTORY FEATURED: 5 Bedrooms | 7 Bathrooms | $6,350,000 | SOLD | 6 DAYS ON MARKET ACTIVE

Riven Rock Treasure

3 Bedrooms | 3.5 Bathrooms Offered at $3,250,000

Gary Goldberg GRI/CRS REALTOR/BROKER #1 Selling Individual Realtor in the SBMLS for 2017 Over $750,000,000 sold since 2000

805-455-8910 gary@coastalrealty.com www.garygoldberg.net

DRE 01172139

ACTIVE

Magnificient Views

4 Bedrooms | 3 Bathrooms Offered at $2,875,000

Knowledge and integrity are everthing.

Let me help you make your real estate dreams a reality.

LAURA DRAMMER Top Half of 1% of Berkshire Hathaway Agents Worldwide

805.448.7500 Laura@LauraDrammer.com DRE: 01209580 www.LauraDrammer.com

Explo r e the Prop erty at ww w . 2900 OldCalzada.co m Built in 2019, this single level Spanish Style Home was custom designed and built to maximize views and outdoor living. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, plus office & attached 1 bedroom, 1 bath guest apartment with private entrance & a detached Second Residence of approx. 1,200 sq.ft. Located on 4.47 +/- acres in the Idyllic Santa Ynez Valley.

Staying at Home here feels like resort living! Š 2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise systemof BHH Affiliates LLC. BHHS and the BHHS symbol are registered service marks of Columbia Insurance Company,a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property.

Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

PARADISE ON CHANNEL DRIVE

PHYLLIS NOBLE

805-451-2126 Phyllis@NobleandNoble.com DRE: 01448730

R

are expansive Pacific Ocean, Channel Island, water and Santa Barbara Harbor views backdropped with the sound of the waves crashing from this luxury contemporary 5 bedroom and 8 bath home with elegant architecture set on a magical 1.13 acres. Egyptian coral stone and inlaid teak seamlessly combining interiors with the exterior punctuated with vast banks of floor to ceilings disappearing doors. Perched over Butterfly Beach on one of the most prestigious streets in Montecito.

List Price - $32,000,000

Privacy | All Amenities | Butterfly Beach | Montecito © 2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHHS and the BHHS symbol are registered service marks of Columbia Insurance Company, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

Alan Kozlowski in his home, Santa Barbara, California 2020 (photo by Dewey Nicks)

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An Experience in Search of a Moment With a little help from his friends, Alan Kozlowski looks back on a luminous life

C

by Steven Libowitz

limb the stairs to Alan Kozlowski’s spacious downtown loft and you’ll arrive at a living room that doubles as an acoustic music den. Here an entire wall is taken up by two rows of rare guitars, including pre-war Martins, and one-of-a-kind Gibsons that the lifelong musician has acquired over the decades. There’s also a sitar that Kozlowski played when he studied under the iconic Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a baby grand piano and a 120-year-old pump organ – instruments that for years have come alive almost nightly when musician friends drop by.

Pictures of Shankar adorn nearly every wall. Highlights include a shot of a building silhouetted against a burnt-orange sunset background that you can also find on the cover of Shankar’s 2001 compilation, Vision of Peace: The Art of Ravi Shankar, and another of the sitarist with daughters Anoushka and Norah Jones. Displayed prominently in every room and hallway are photographs taken in Tibet, Thailand, and Bhutan, stunning vistas and deeply soulful portraits that represent myriad trips to the Far East, a region that has drawn Kozlowski ever since he first went to India in 1983.

Kozlowski’s loft also features a 1,300-square-foot studio complete with a recording space, home theater, and a production area with a large-scale printer, racks of computer gear and equipment Kozlowski uses to create images for his exhibitions. This area accommodates a rehearsal space where dozens of electric guitars and other instruments stand ready for use. Legions of musicians have rehearsed or jammed here.

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Alan Kozlowski

This room also boasts several rare instruments that were gifts from Jackson Browne, whom Kozlowski counts among his best friends, including the Yamaha electric piano Browne played on stage for more than a decade.

A dig through bins full of framed photos reveals hundreds of intimate photographs of Kozlowski’s famous friends – Browne, Jeff Bridges, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Glen Phillips, and Johnny Irion, to name a few. They are all among the many musicians who have traded licks and songs here.

Back in the residential area, a meditation space claims one side of the bedroom at the end of a hallway where Kozlowski practices his daily ritual beneath a shrine decorated with myriad sacred objects collected during his travels. The space features one of the photos on display that Kozlowski didn’t take. It’s of the Dalai Lama holding Kozlowski’s face in his hands to “zap him” with energy and inspiration for a speech he was about to give at Ravi Shankar’s memorial service.

The artifacts represent nearly all the arcs of Alan Kozlowski’s life – musician, adventure traveler, spiritual seeker, photographer, multimedia artist – but the evidence

of his many accomplishments are less important to him than the threads that have stitched together his world for more than half a century. Chief among them are following an innate curiosity and indulging a fiery passion for creative excellence and expressiveness while also pursuing a spiritual path toward enlightenment. The true measure of his life isn’t in all the fascinating objects on display in the loft, but, rather, how he’s been a magnet for other creative types, including the many luminaries who have wanted to collaborate with Kozlowski, or simply be in his presence.

That simple-but-elusive quality has come from a lifelong practice of being in the moment, honing a presence that draws in and expands the worlds of those whose paths he crosses. It is evident in his photography, with his keen eye for capturing compelling landscapes and portraits of both the humble and famous and in his ear-to-the-ground ability to intuit emerging trends in entertainment technology. Meanwhile, Kozlowski himself remains an almost Zelig-like figure, mostly preferring to settle into the background letting others receive the public acclaim.

“On the Path” Eastern Tibet, Kham Provence 1999 (photo by Alan Kozlowsk)

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Alan Kozlowski

“He’s really talented, but Alan has never had an ego that would get in the way of the connections he’s formed and the way he’s built his world,” says Rand Rosenberg, a former investment banker who formed a fast and deep friendship with Kozlowski after they met during a business deal almost 25 years ago. “He’s much more interested in enriching other people’s lives. He found his fulfillment in just bringing people together.”

“My life has really been blessed and when I look at the big picture, I feel just incredibly grateful for that,” he says, settling into an easy chair in the living room a few feet away from a couple dozen of his rare guitars. “I have had so many opportunities for amazing experiences, which have fueled my desire to try to give back to the community, to try to help and inspire others on their paths. I’ve always tried to show up in a way that brings benefit and inspiration to everyone and that leaves a situation with more than was there when I arrived.”

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The Awakening

ozlowski was born in Oakland in the late 1940s, but came of age across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco in the mid-‘60s.

It was a turbulent time for teenagers and young adults, but also an exciting and explosive era in popular music. A series of concerts in the city in 1965 were pivotal for the then-15-year-old, including a show in which Bob Dylan reprised his watershed “going electric” moment from the Newport Folk Festival.

As riveting as that was, for Kozlowski, a performance by the Indian classical music master Shankar proved more influential.

“Even then I could feel Ravi’s commitment, his virtuosity and his spirituality,” Kozlowski recalls, more than 50 years later. “It was life changing.”

Kozlowski was mesmerized then, but had little idea what a significant role Shankar would play in his life in the coming decades. In the meantime, there was Haight-Ashbury to experience. Soaking in the epicenter of the psychedelic music world, Kozlowski caught countless concerts at the legendary Fillmore Auditorium by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Cream, to name just a few. Taking up both the guitar and sitar himself, he spent hours every day practicing the instruments while living in a $20 a month shared house that he recalls lacked electricity or even running water.

As with most of his Summer of Love cohorts, Kozlowski tried psychedelic drugs, meditation, and yoga, and also found himself drawn to the spiritual pursuits of the times. During his 20s, Kozlowski spent six years with a Colorado-based spiritual organization dedicated to expanding consciousness that had a satellite headquarters on Garden Street, not far from his current Santa Barbara digs. During his time with the community, Kozlowski got his first exposure to audio-visual work. He also became a father.

Eventually, Kozlowski moved to Los Angeles, seeking to turn his multimedia skills into a career, creating slideshows for corporate and rock and roll backdrops. He also put together video meditations in which he’d illustrate pieces of music by blending still shots into a visual companion.

Lily Kozlowski’s Godfathers: (left to right) Jeff Bridges, Ravi Shankar, Jackson Browne (photo by Alan Kozlowski, 2010)

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Alan Kozlowski

Those seemingly divergent interests came together a couple years after he moved to Los Angeles when Kozlowski produced an eightminute “tone poem” video in his West Hollywood garage. It was set to a piece of music featuring Shankar, whom Kozlowski had seen in concert several times by then, complemented by famed flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and an accompanying tabla player. Shankar happened to be in town just as Kozlowski completed the video and a mutual friend arranged a viewing. “Ravi shows up on my doorstep with his whole entourage,” Kozlowski says, smiling at the memory. “I was really nervous because I didn’t know if the music would go with the visuals, or any idea if he would like it.”

Shankar was smitten.

“After watching it, Ravi gazed up at me and said, ‘I’ve been looking for you for years,’” recalls Kozlowski. “I was so stunned I almost fell on the floor.”

Thus began a lifelong “guru-disciple relationship” that had Kozlowski traveling extensively with Shankar. Kozlowski played tamboura on stage with Shankar during numerous tours (including concerts at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and London’s Royal

Opera House) and also served as Shankar’s unofficial photographer, capturing the star in studio settings, on stages, and elsewhere.

Kozlowski would eventually manage Shankar’s photo archives, both during his life and posthumously.

“I had a magical, karmic connection with Ravi where we showed up in each other’s lives and he gave me the opportunity to do the best I could for him,” Kozlowski says. “Ravi was an incredibly strong presence. I was very blessed just being able to sit five feet from him and witness his ability to surrender to the moment and express something real each time. We had this magical, karmic connection that is still happening even though he’s gone. On spiritual, musical, creative, and integrity levels, he was always my guiding light. The rest of my life just flowed from there.”

It wasn’t just a one-way relationship, according to Rosenberg.

“Ravi was a big part of Alan’s life, but Alan was for Ravi, too,” Rosenberg says. “Ravi always had Alan be part of the ensemble performing at all those incredible venues, even though the instrument he played wasn’t important, because he really liked having him there.

Why was that? Because of his energy, the love, the connection that Alan was able to manifest.”

While he and Shankar strengthened their relationship, Kozlowski continued developing the multimedia side of music, learning techniques for visual arts and creating new ways to employ emerging technologies. In 1980, Kozlowski put together a three-screen slideshow to serve as a visual backdrop for Jackson Browne’s Hold Out tour, impressing the singer-songwriter with his artistic vision and technical prowess.

“He came up with lots of photographs representing things in the songs which had to be divided up into pieces and put into individual slide carousels that were projected behind me,” Browne recalls. “It was very technically complex and advanced for the time, but also just beautifully captured. I could tell then that Alan was someone special.”

Shankar soon had another project for Kozlowski, asking him to join him for two months in India in the summer of 1983 to take photographs of the sitarist and the surroundings and later in the winter to document a festival.

But Kozlowski was broke, as his first two tiny companies had gone out of business by then, so Shankar funded Kozlowski to program his multimedia shows.

That trip was the catalyst for Kozlowski to launch Pacific Ocean Post in 1984.

He needed to process the 200 rolls of Kodachrome and hundreds of hours of film shot in places that, if not for Shankar, would have been hard to access. This led to projects for friends and other musicians. Encouraged and mentored by Elektra Records founder (clockwise) Alan and his son, Stephen Kozlowski 1993; in San Francisco composing music for HQED Television Jac Holzman – whom Jackson Browne had show, 1968; with Ravi Shankar, 2008; in Paris, France with Leonardo the cat 2004

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Jackson Browne at Moxi Museum, Santa Barbara, California July 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Kozlowski’s Friends Sing His Praises:

Jackson Browne

A

lthough Browne first worked with Kozlowksi on a multimedia project for the 1980 Hold Out tour, he says that making the 1992 Cable Ace Awardwinning documentary "Jackson Browne: Going Home" with Kozlowski and his then-wife Sandra was a pivotal point in their growing friendship. “During the course of everything that went into it, we became really good friends,” Browne recalls, adding that they later took trips together to Thailand and Cuba and Spain, where Kozlowski had studied with flamenco masters in his twenties and had close connections that he wanted to introduce to the singer-songwriter.

“So many of his friends became great friends of mine,”

Browne says. “He’s a spiritual and philosophical person, and he gives voice to it effortlessly in his conversation and his references. But he’s also got a great sense of humor, which makes him a tremendously engaging and fun person to be with. And because he’s resolute in his pursuit of art, you find yourself joining up with him so willingly.”

The pair has teamed up on a wide variety of projects, photographs and videos. Through every endeavor, Browne says Kozlowski “is constantly seeing the beauty and using his skills to capture it without intruding. He’s fearless, but he’s also the tallest invisible person you’ll ever see. Or rather, you don’t see him because you simply accept his presence.”

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Browne says that’s the secret that enables him to get photographs or film that captures “something in the person or the moment that is not immediately accessible… When I look at his footage of me, I see myself in a different way. It becomes another method of self-assessment, just as writing music and songs can be a way of coalescing what’s going on in my life.

“The projects that we’ve done together have truly been memorable points in my development as an artist…

It’s about time somebody writes [about him]. He’s a real artist, a great friend, and just so deserving of wider recognition.”

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Alan Kozlowski

introduced to Kozlowski in 1981 and who, like most of the creative people Kozlowski met, turned into a close friend – Kozlowski was able to move from the technical and creative side to being CEO of a soon-to-be sprawling post-production house.

Under Kozlowski’s direction, POP surfed the transition from analog to digital, growing steadily and becoming a proving ground for testing new equipment as well as a laboratory for talented, behind-the-scenes filmmakers. The production house went on to earn three Academy Awards for visual effects for Independence Day, Titanic, and What Dreams May Come.

“Alan has a creative flair, and always had great ideas of how things should go, just being able to look at a project and see how it needed to come together through sheer instinct,” explains Rosenberg. “He knew what would work and how to reach people. That’s why the company was so successful and in so much demand.”

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Spiritual Journeys

Ravi Shankar in Venice Beach, California 1979 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

ven as he was becoming more of a businessman, Kozlowski’s creative friends continued to show up to his Santa Monica post-production house and bring along their connections. Shankar performed a concert in the atrium as a “house blessing” and George Harrison, a friend of Shankar’s since the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s days, was also a frequent visitor. “He would come by and play guitar in my office all the time,” Kozlowski recalls, smiling.

“That obviously had some marketing benefits and helped attract clients and employees. Everything fit together in a pattern and flow of collaborative work and inspiration.”

Kozlowski and Harrison later teamed up to produce In Celebration, a four-CD, box-set retrospective of Ravi’s work that was released in 1996 as part of the year-long celebration of Shankar’s 75th birthday.

Meanwhile, the success of POP also enabled Kozlowski’s move to the Santa Barbara area. First they had a weekend cottage in Ojai and then a beach house in Carpinteria before settling into a six-acre spread on Mountain Drive in Montecito, where Kozlowski lived from 1996-2004. In keeping with his twin passions, the home featured music and meditation rooms, the former furnished with almost 100 guitars.

“I somehow justified spending all of my discretionary income on [the guitars],” he says, eyes sparkling. “It was an incredible collection. I had racks of guitars all the way around the floor. Man, I was playing them every day, switching styles between flamenco, Indian classical, and rock and my own stuff, and just improvisation.”

The music room, with its vast array of instruments, became a resource for his friends and associates and hosted many a soirée attended by the likes of Browne and Kozlowski’s then-next-door-neighbor Jeff Bridges, not to mention other area luminaries Kozlowski worked with over the years – David Crosby, Michael McDonald, and Kenny Loggins among them.

The house also served as the site for Bonnie Raitt’s 50th birthday party.

Crosby, Shawn Colvin, David Lindley, Bruce Hornsby, and “other magical musical friends,” as Kozlowski puts it, joined Jackson Browne and his band in serving up a proper fête for Raitt.

Kozlowski has many such stories of music, friendship, and serendipity.

Such as the phone call he got on a random Saturday evening from Ry

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Ravi Shankar with Tabla player Kumar Bose circa 2000 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Alan Kozlowski filming feature film Travelers and Magicians in Bhutan 2002

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Alan Kozlowski

Cooder, who was looking for a specific National guitar to satisfy an itch he had while recording the soundtrack for the film Last Man Standing. “He drove up from L.A., settled into the guitar temple and I just started feeding him one after another, a 1928 Martin, one in open-tuning, over and over until he found the one he loved – a 1929 National tricone style steel guitar,” Kozlowski reminisces.

“That was a lot of fun.”

Meanwhile, as POP’s revenues eventually rose from $60,000 a year to more than $40 million and the number of employees ballooned into the hundreds, Kozlowski grew restless with spending

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the bulk of his workday in the Santa Monica office. Ultimately, a bad bicycle accident that required 13 screws and three faceplates as part of his reconstruction surgery provided the impetus for a change. “I’d become an executive instead of an artist and I didn’t envision that as the way I wanted to spend the rest of my life,” he explains. “I wanted to create again.”

After selling the company in 1998, Kozlowski embarked on a new path, or, rather, the reawakening of an old one: Eastern spirituality.

The quest for enlightenment featured several journeys back to India as well as Tibet, Mongolia, and the Kingdom of Bhutan. In 2001,

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Alan Kozlowski

Kozlowski directed, filmed, and edited Return to Dzongsar, which documented Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s return to his native land and monastery in Eastern Tibet. Two years later, he served as a cinematographer on the landmark 2003 film Travelers and Magicians, the first feature ever shot in the Kingdom.

That movie also provided a chance to work professionally with his son Stephen, a San Francisco Art Institute graduate who came on the project as second assistant camera. Stephen’s credits would later include work on Boardwalk Empire and High Maintenance. “I was so career driven when I first started out in L.A., I was barely there

to show up for him when he was young,” Kozlowski says. “So that time together was priceless. I’m grateful that I could be there to support and help him out on his path.”

While in Bhutan, Kozlowski developed a signature style of black-and-white infrared photography that reflected more of his philosophy of presence, of the perpetual student gleaning insight from the people he embedded himself with.

“I was initiated by a Tibetan Lama who taught me the practice of immersing in the moment, where you let go of all manipulation of the outer world and just be 100 percent present with what is

“The Lake of Turquoise Lions’ Tears” Alan Kozlowski on pilgrimage at the Lake of Turquoise Lions’ Tears in Eastern Tibet July 2001

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Alan Kozlowski

“Moment of Truth” – Monks with prayer horns in Eastern Tibet at Shechen Monastery 2002 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

His Holiness (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

On pilgrimage in the Kham Provence of Eastern Tibet 2001 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

Pilgrims in the Kham Provence of Eastern Tibet 2002 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

Alan playing guitar in Bhutan 1999 (photo by Peggy Day)

Wrapped in Hope 2001 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

there,” Kozlowski says. “By immersion you are able to capture what is emanating from subject matter, as opposed to what you think should be. That was a major change in the way I shoot and the way I see things.”

The infrared process has continued to captivate him for more than two decades. “It brings a certain light and otherworldliness to the visual expression of spirituality,” he explains. “The technique shows those kinds of feelings and emotes those ideas.”

The “spiritual landscapes” and portraits of the people who live in the mountains are collected in a 2003 volume called On the Path: Tibet. The collection is loosely bound so that the pages can be framed and displayed.

That approach, of inconspicuous presence, permeates his other more recent photographic pursuit, a series of portraits of rock and roll stars that include friends Browne, Bridges, and others.

“Photography has just been a way of being for me,” Kozlowski says. “It’s a meditation, an engagement in present tense and a way of connecting with circumstances and individuals. Sometimes it actually amplifies the connection, bringing it to the surface of awareness. But whether it’s architectural, landscape and nature, or an individual, it’s about complete non-judgment, just being with the moment and letting it have the opportunity to be expressed. It’s almost like a ritual.”

Pilgrims in the Kham Provence of Eastern Tibet 2002 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

“Padmasambhava on Parade” Shechen Monastery, Eastern Tibet 2002 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Jeff Bridges in Monterey, California 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Kozlowski’s Friends Sing His Praises:

Jeff Bridges

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eff Bridges and Alan Kozlowski met backstage in 1996 while watching mutual friend Jackson Browne perform at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Both men had recently moved to town. While talking backstage, they discovered that they lived next door to each other on Mountain Drive and soon became fast friends.

“We shared a ravine, and we’d hang out and eat and sometimes fantasize about turning it into a park,” recalls Bridges. “He even built some steps up my side so he could take a shortcut to go to the hot springs up our canyon. And there were parties in both our houses, always with a lot of music.”

There have been plenty of professional collaborations, too,

including ancillary material from Bridges’ Oscar-winning role in "Crazy Heart" and a segment of TV’s American Masters called “The Dude Abides.”

Kozlowski often brought his camera for more informal gettogethers and the resulting photographs are among some of Bridges’ favorites, especially ones of the actor’s Santa Barbarabased band The Abiders. Over the years, Kozlowski has captured Bridges in a myriad of unexpected moments, largely the by-product of their close connection.

“When you’re friends, you get used to having a certain relaxation that happens so that you’re not even aware that you’re getting your picture taken,” he says, with a laugh. “You’re just hanging out having a good time and later Alan shows you

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an incredible photograph… He has this way of merging with the moment while being completely unobtrusive.”

Bridges says another common thread between them was a deep involvement in Tibetan Buddhism and similar values that includes using art to inspire and/or help people. One example is the multimedia venture “Sleep Club,” which focuses on the restorative, creative aspects of a good night’s sleep. The project shot one of its videos in a massive whimsical production directed by Kozlowski at the Santa Barbara Bowl and donates profits to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign.

“We’re both very spiritual, and we share a lot of the same curiosities and ways of looking at things,” Bridges says. “God, we’ve just had so many great adventures together.”

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Alan Kozlowski

Local Presence

B

y this time, Kozlowski became a father for the second time. This time to a daughter named Lily Kaylani, which means "blessed womb." She got her name from Shankar, thereby passing on the connection with the sitarist to the next generation. “Her three godfathers are Jackson, Jeff, and Ravi, so she’s got a good musical pedigree,” Kozlowski says.

By 2012, Alan was living in Santa Barbara and bought his current home, the 4,000-square foot loft on Garden and Canon Perdido streets, which he completely renovated in his own vision.

In recent years, Kozlowski has become more visible in the Santa Barbara community. Both the Lobero Theatre and SOhO Restaurant & Music Club have hosted exhibits of his photos. Last year, the theater teamed with Kozlowski to produce a concert by Indian santoor master Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya, another longtime associate. Kozlowski also appeared on stage at UCSB’s Campbell Hall, playing the tambor behind Anoushka Shankar, Ravi’s daughter.

Meanwhile, the downtown loft’s accessibility, as well as Kozlowski’s still-impressive collection of rare acoustic guitars along with all the other instruments, has made it even more suitable for impromptu gatherings and jam sessions with friends and visiting musicians, furthering his goal of community connection.

Many locals, famous names and just good friends, have spent evenings trading stories and songs over the eight years he’s lived there. For example, one night last winter, Kozlowski hosted a small post-gig gathering for Red Piano housemusician Jason Libs on his 49th birthday.

Guests including Hana Loggins (Kenny’s daughter), former Teen Star Santa Barbara winner Jackson Gillies, longtime musical friend Chris Pelonis (who plays with Jeff Bridges’ Abiders), veteran keyboardist Brian Mann, and several others played pop songs and layered harmonies long into the night.

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Glen Phillips SOhO Music Club Santa Barbara, California 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

David Crosby, Santa Ynez, California. 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Jason Libs, Santa Barbara, California 2019 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Steve Postell in Santa Barbara, California 2017 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

Norah Jones, Encinitas, California 2008 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Sarah Lee Guthrie, Santa Barbara, California 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Photo Shoot for U.S. Elevator, Santa Barbara, California 2016 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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The Immediate Family (left to right) Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Steve Postell, Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel, Los Angeles 2017 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

(left) Chris Pelonis and Tim Flannery New Year’s Eve 2018 Solvang, California (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Mike Campbell (left) – lead guitarist The Heart Breakers - John Kay –lead singer Steppenwolf SOhO Music Club Santa Barbara, California 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Alan Kozlowski

(left to right) Tina Schlieske, Brooks Branch and Jeff Bridges in Malibu, California 2017 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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(photo by Dewey Nicks)

“I’ve always tried to show up in a way that brings benefit and inspiration to everyone and that leaves a situation with more than was there when I arrived.”

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Kozlowski’s Friends Sing His Praises:

Kenny Loggins

K

ozlowski served as director of photography, co-producer, and editor of Loggins’ critically acclaimed 1994 performance-video "Live from the Redwoods" on PBS. But the singer-songwriter says he suspects he might have worked with Kozlowski even earlier: “He was such a quiet guy it’s possible we did something that I don’t remember.”

The pair reconnected later in Santa Barbara through mutual friends and Loggins became a staple at Kozlowski’s legendary house parties on Mountain Drive. “He’s a really great host, and he loved to bring talent together in his environment,” says Loggins. “Of course, Alan would always pull out a guitar and be part of it. In the best of moments, there was a unique level of musical camaraderie in the jam sessions with all of these great and often wellknown singers and songwriters because of the sense of friendship, sharing, and generosity Alan fostered. It was always fun to see what would happen when Jeff, Jackson, Michael, and I were jamming.”

As the two became better friends, Loggins discovered Kozlowski’s more spiritual side and found himself more drawn in. “He’s a very deep, introspective guy who is very peaceful in his approach to life and that permeates his work and his friendships. It makes it easy to hang out with him.”

In fact, Loggins and Kozlowski share membership in a regular men’s circle who dive into issues they might not otherwise share with other men to compare perspectives on life and relationships. “Alan is always very quiet, but he’ll add his perspectives when he’s asked and he always offers something of quality that brings more clarity and insight,” says Loggins.

Close as they are, Loggins has only rarely been the subject of Kozlowski’s camera, although the singer-songwriter allows that the single shot hanging at SOhO is one of his favorites. “I’m proud to say that I am now part of his portfolio.”

Kenny Loggins at SOhO Music Club, Santa Barbara, California 2016 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

“My house became the after-party zone for the Lobero and SOhO and for a lot of people who come to town to play,” Kozlowski says, eyes lighting up. “Everybody just comes over here and jams. That’s one of the reasons I created this place the way I did, with all this equipment and instruments. So, it could be a gathering space for really special, intimate musical moments where my friends could get together and play music.”

Back in 2015, Kozlowski joined then-Montecito resident Johnny Irion’s band, U.S. Elevator, after donating the vintage equipment the group used to record its 2016 self-titled album. Kozlowski also shot the promo photos for the newly formed band in the waters off Miramar Beach.

A stroke two years ago cost Kozlowski the fine motor Johnny Irion, Santa Barbara, California 2016 (photo by Alan Kozlowski) control in his right hand, which “wiped out my guitar playing.” A second stroke destroyed the peripheral vision in his left eye. “For a photographer and a musician, it’s humbling when you lose your hand and your eyesight,” he admits.

The more recent diagnosis of advanced pancreatic cancer has lent urgency to wrapping up some projects and tying up loose ends. Kozlowski has been spending recent weeks in the studio, digitizing his vast library of some 50,000 transparencies and negatives. “It’s overwhelming to go through forty-five years of photographs that I hadn’t seen in decades,” he says. “I can’t wait to see what materializes.

It keeps reminding me how I’ve been blessed to have had such amazing times and experiences.”

Not surprisingly, Kozlowski has had some wistful thoughts about original musical compositions that haven’t been properly recorded and he wonders what will become of his collection Leonard Cohen, Los Angeles, California 2010 (photo by Alan Kozlowski) of guitars and other treasured instruments.

“I’m thinking about what to do with them, you know?” he says, with a sigh. “They need to be played.”

In the face of all this, Kozlowski’s Buddhist beliefs in impermanence and a philosophy of non-attachment have been comforting, allowing him to view mortality as “another transformation,” says his close friend Rosenberg, who has spent considerable time at the loft since Kozlowski’s diagnosis.

In one of those bittersweet silver linings, his son Stephen’s work as a cameraman has ground to a halt during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling him to visit from Brooklyn and spend more time with his father. “I’m so grateful that he had the time when I needed him and it’s been really very bonding for both of us,” says Kozlowski.

Meanwhile, friends from near and far have been visiting the loft as Kozlowski faces the reality of his illness. Browne has driven up frequently from Los Angeles and others have Jeff Bridges and David Crosby backstage at the Arlington Theatre, flipping off the photographer flown in to spend some precious time. “He

during a soundcheck for Jackson Browne, Santa Barbara, California 2014 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

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Alan Kozlowski

Alan Kozlowski (photo by Dewey Nicks)

“Everybody just comes over here and jams. That’s one of the reasons I created this place the way I did.”

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Michael McDonald at Santa Barbara Studios 2018 (photo by Alan Kozlowski)

Kozlowski’s Friends Sing His Praises:

Michael McDonald

“A

lan is one of those rare combinations of people who are both highly artistic and also entrepreneurial,” says veteran singersongwriter and much-in-demand vocalist Michael McDonald.

McDonald shares how impressed he was that Kozlowski “imagined [the POP] post-production studio himself from the ground up,” while also being very hands-on in doing creative work. “He’s never let the industry interfere with his artistic pursuits, or stand in the way of his growth, and so both get to flourish,” says McDonald.

Those commitments intersected in 2001 when

Kozlowski produced and shot Michael McDonald: "A Gathering of Friends", featuring Jeff Bridges and Kenny Loggins among many other musical guests. “He had a guerilla approach with using ground-level equipment that was really groundbreaking at the time,” McDonald recalls. “Alan did most of the shooting himself and probably covered what would normally take three cameramen to do. It was just visually and sonically exciting because Alan understands what you’re doing and how the audience in the seats is being affected – the essence of what live music is all about.”

McDonald is even more moved by what Kozlowski brought to the Santa Barbara musical community,

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including the private gatherings he was often privy to.

“Alan’s been great as a catalyst to bring all these artistic people who he knows together when, if it was up to the rest of us, we wouldn’t often do that even though we live in the same town,” he says. “Alan’s approach to being effective as an artist in his own right was to be embedded into it while remaining unobtrusive, willing to make it not about his imprint, but about capturing what he saw as the truth. He’s always been focused on the Santa Barbara music community and he is a big proponent of people who have chosen popular music as their path and documenting the lifestyle. His efforts have really raised the bar. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude.”

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has so many people who love him,” Rosenberg says. “They’re showing up on a daily basis, a constant parade. You almost have to take a ticket to see him. Everybody who has been touched by that heart of his and how he connects with people in a way that makes them feel special, just wants to give something back.”

Normally one who gives more than he receives, Kozlowski has been moved by the displays of affection. “There’s been a tremendous outpouring of love around me with my friends… Special people in my life who I’ve always been there for are just showing up in a way that is mind blowing.

It’s almost been hard to flip that switch and just take in the love and support. It’s overwhelming and incredibly meaningful to know the impact you’ve had on people.”

Kozlowski says his difficult diagnosis and pending mortality hasn’t changed his philosophy about life. “I’m an experience in search of a moment to manifest through... It’s all about blessings and honoring those blessings, that aspect of Ravi where I’m still waking up feeling gratitude. Right now, every day is a new adventure in being present and letting go,” he says. “I’m grateful for the blessings of this lesson. I’ve been riding some waves of emotion, but I have had a really blessed life.”

Kozlowski’s Friends Sing His Praises:

Rand Rosenberg

I

nvestment banker Rand Rosenberg met Alan Kozlowski when the latter was seeking to realize some liquidity from the Santa Monica-based Oscar-winning postproduction company Pacific Ocean Post. It took a year to shift from a potential IPO to instead finalizing a sale, but it only took moments to solidify the friendship.

“Right from that first day it was obvious that there was a common bond, a connection that we shared even though I came from a very straight up corporate Wall Street world and Alan was in a creative space,” Rosenberg recalls. “Just walking into the POP office for the first time, I felt an unbelievable sense of warmth and excitement.”

Rosenberg joined Kozlowski and his then-wife Sandra on a five-week trip to Tibet right after they had both sold their companies, sparking a series of adventures over their more than two decades of a relationship that has been marked by such anecdotes as Kozlowski buying parcels for both of them on an island of Thailand and a “magical” road trip to drive a used van from the Midwest to Santa Barbara.

They also bonded over a shared love of music. But the kinship goes much deeper, Rosenberg says. “It sounds very Santa Barbara, but we truly have a heart and soul connection where our beings are just in tune with one another. We are always able to listen and understand each other in a truly heartfelt way.”

Which is why Rosenberg didn’t think twice about moving to Montecito when Kozlowski called to tell him he’d found the perfect property for the retired financial expert to purchase – all the better to get together more easily. “There are maybe two or three people in your lifetime who are significant game changers for how you experience the planet,” he explains. “Alan is one of those for me. Meeting him shifted my life in such a positive direction, from music to spirituality to adventure. He opened up so many doors, and unselfishly brought so many people, friends of his, into my life.”

Alan and his family walking on the beach in Santa Barbara, California 2020 (photo by Harry Rabin)

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AN ICON LETS HER GUARD DOWN

WENDY FOSTER HAS DEFINED MONTECITO FASHION SINCE THE ‘70S. MEET THE WOMAN BEHIND THE BRAND.

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E N D Y FOSTER wears black low-heeled boots, a black cashmere sweater and white linen pants with her salt-and-pepper hair gathered loosely at the nape of her neck. She embodies her signature style, what she describes as “soft and strong, practical, with a foot in handmade.” It’s a style that didn’t really exist in Santa Barbara until she opened her first store in the ‘70s. Now, it’s iconic, and many would say the same about Foster. Outside her shop in the Upper Village, people sitting at iron tables peek up from their lunches to watch her pass by.

As we enter the Montecito Coffee Shop, a woman sitting near the register claps and yelps, “Yay, it’s my favorite person!”

BY MEGAN WALDREP

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Foster nods hello then leads us to a table tucked in the back. Though many know Wendy Foster as a pioneer of Santa Barbara fashion, few know the woman behind the brand. I have lots of questions, but before I can get one in, Foster beats me to the punch. As soon as we’ve settled into our seats, she asks, “Have you taken anyone to the Frog Wall yet?”

Foster is referring to our first encounter some five years ago, when I interviewed her for a small feature in a magazine. After a few minutes of small talk, she asked if I’d been to the Frog Wall. I shook my head and soon we were in her white Prius driving out of Montecito, circling the roundabout to Alameda Padre Serra, and up into the hills of the Riviera. During the ride, she spoke of past trips to Paris for wholesale merchandise marts and I conjured an image of her after a long day, reclining in a chaise lounge framed by tufted silk curtains in a Parisian suite.

She parked curbside on Paterna Road and we climbed out of the car. In just a few steps we were, in fact, in front of the so-called Frog Wall – a stone wall shrine of all manner of frogs – ceramic, stuffed – accumulating since 1989. I asked if she’d mind posing for a picture for the Santa Barbara Sentinel, where I was editor at the time. Somewhat bemused, she agreed, wondering why anyone would care. I gently reminded her that she’s famous around these parts and people would love it. Puzzled yet gracious, she stood nearby and flashed a smile. (photo courtesy Wendy Foster)

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Back at the coffee shop, Wendy opens up. “I hear that people are scared of me,” she says. “People tell me, ‘When I first met you, I was scared of you.’ I don’t know…”

She leaves the thought lingering, but I get where it’s coming from. To people who don’t know her, Foster’s aura of elegant reserve can be disorienting. They’d probably never guess she spent her girlhood days parading around the house in her mother’s clothes.

“I lived in Palm Beach. My mother was a socialite and she used to go out every night,” Foster explains. “I would sneak into her closet, I guess I was four or five years old, put on her gowns, drag them around in her high heeled shoes and dance to ‘Tico Tico.’”

Her family relocated to Montecito when she was six and they lived “on top of that hill there,” she says, pointing to the land across from her shop. “And we owned all the property to the YMCA and over to the next big house.”

Foster attended Crane Country Day School and Marymount School and she says growing up in our elite enclave gave her a sense of what women want out of fashion, especially in Montecito.

“Real life” started, she says, when her parents divorced and her father moved to Mazatlan, Mexico. At her stepfather’s request, Foster attended Santa Barbara Junior High and then graduated from Santa Barbara High. She says that was a tough time, socially, and her weight also became an issue. Once a size eighteen, she credits her family for taking her to the Sansum Clinic to help get her weight under control. “If you have that problem when you’re young and address it and learn to control yourself, then you have that gift your whole life,” she says.

Though body conscious as a teen, Foster still loved clothes. Her passion for quality fabrics began in her mother’s wardrobe in Palm Beach and never stopped. After stints at Monterey Peninsula College and Boston University, Foster moved to Mexico City and snagged her first job in fashion when a few friends started a clothing line of Mexican designs and Foster joined in. She stuffed her VW convertible to the brim and traveled up and down the California coast, selling their designs to every store she hit. “I didn’t know how unusual that was,” Foster says, using her napkin to wipe mayonnaise from her lip after biting into her tuna fish sandwich.

“They were fabulous, just shirts I was selling.”

The Montecito Coffee Shop is not quite full. Families are seated at a few tables. Nearby a couple politely perk

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their ears in our direction, trying to hear what Foster is saying.

Foster explains that her drive up the coast was a precursor of things to come. One small lead-withyour-gut move that helped form the woman we know today. There were others. For example, while in Paris working for UNESCO, the 26-year-old Foster decided she wanted a vacation, maybe to work

Ulpan, for seven months while still in a cast. Unfortunately, according to Wendy, the staff she eventually hired began to steal and the business fizzled out. “My Hebrew was pretty good,” she laughs. “But how do you say, FU?” It wasn’t all bad. She met a man and fell in love, an Israeli who grew up in a Russian Gulag. His background made a big impression on Foster and

on a farm. Inspired by Leon Uris’s Exodus, she traveled east to Israel.

“There weren’t any Jewish people in Santa Barbara, and I found out about them when I read this book,” explains Foster, adding that she was drawn to the closeness of Jewish families and to being part of a tribe. “And when I went to Israel, boy did I belong,” she says. “When I went over there, I found my worth. I wasn’t afraid of anybody.

I could just go right up, and I was an equal.”

After a car accident that put her in the hospital, she linked with the Rothschild family and they offered her the opportunity to start a restaurant at their country club. So, she did, running an Arab-American restaurant from 1963-1967.

At the beginning, she did most

helped inspire her work ethic. Even today, Foster is tightly bound to her work. She hardly ever goes out and prefers it that way. “I’ve worked so hard my whole life, just worked like a dog for that place, and I was always too exhausted to go to dinner after.”

Bringing beauty to people is what draws her to fashion. She flatly admits, however, that her career has been based on a fear of failure.

“When I opened that store [Wendy Foster Montecito, next to Pierre Lafond Market & Deli], there was a man who came in and said, ‘What are you doing opening this store? You’re going to be out of business in six months!’”

She says that fear still drives her.

When I mention that, considering her presence in Santa Barbara County, people would be surprised to hear this,

of the cooking while also studying at the Hebrew language school,

she looks up from her tea and shrugs.

“We all have something,” she says.

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HOMEWARD BOUND

A

fter Israel, Foster returned to Santa Barbara and became a letterpress printer for seven years, printing mostly stationery and posters, a trade taught to her by a boyfriend at the time. “Now that I look back on the things that I did, I wasn’t as bad as I [thought] myself to be. I can’t draw, only stick figures. I got this book at Chaucer’s… that reminds me, I have to go to Chaucer’s today,” she says and pulls a notebook from her purse, takes my pen from across the table, and adds to her to-do list.

Note-to-self accomplished, she continues with the anecdote. “I bought a book about drawing every kind of animal. It’s for children but I thought, I could do it,” Foster says, reflecting a kind of buoyancy in her need to learn, a spirit of inquiry that keeps her young at heart. Her unpretentiousness is just one of Foster’s most defining traits.

She says the graphics business was a stressful time, trying to create art while managing things such as taxes and payroll. Around that time, she met Pierre Lafond. Lafond was older and married then, so she dismissed the thought of a romantic

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relationship. Plus, he intimidated her. But when they both became single, he called.

“And when he walked in the door, I was so happy. I knew I was saved,” she says.

Not only had she found a life partner, but a business mind to help with operations. I ask if associating her business so closely with her husband’s is a challenge or benefit. “It’s great benefit,” she says. “He sheltered me.”

Foster says her husband, who turned 90 last year, is “amazing.” When I ask what she admires most about him, she slices the air with her hand and says, “The straight line. The direction… He’s such a steady compass.”

Since they met, Foster has built a fiveshop empire that includes the original Wendy Foster and Wendy Foster Sportswear in the Upper Village, Angel on Coast Village Road, Wendy Foster on State Street, and a rustic high-end boutique of her namesake in Los Olivos. The “soft and strong” style defines each location, though set to slightly different temperatures as her buyers respond to their clientele’s tastes.

Foster is turning 80 next year and admits jetlag is much harder than it used to be – one of the reasons she hired her muchloved buyers years ago.

I ask if she’s experienced ageism in the fashion industry, especially at markets in New York City. “No, no,” she says, the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile.

“I’ve been in it so long, I’m the queen of the hop.”

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OFF THE CLOCK

L

afond and Foster live a quiet life in the former Clinton Doyle Hollister residence on El Caserio Lane, a missit-if-you-blink road in downtown Santa Barbara denoted by a rusted metal sign off East Canon Perdido Street. It’s a private street lined with historic houses adorned with Spanish red tile, worn wooden fences, and manicured gardens of lemon trees, brightly colored succulents, and flowering vines.

After work, they enjoy dinner together – which Lafond brings home every night – the evening news, maybe a movie. And each morning before work, Foster practices the piano, something she’s done every day for almost five decades. She took her first lesson at age 33 while renting Robert Mckee Hyde’s house, the founder of Montecito’s bohemian community on Mountain Drive. “They had a grand piano and I started playing jumbo notes, very easy songs.”

She’s now a classical musician or “classical practitioner,” she’s quick to correct, currently working on Chopin’s Ballade No. 1. “You go into somebody’s heart when you listen to them play,” Foster says and she should know: she’s hosted a weekly piano club at her house for 30 years.

“We’re all kind of into a Tango thing right now,” she explains. “Somebody comes in playing the Tango and we all sort of get inspired.”

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C

SEEKING BEAUTY

ircling back to fashion, I ask about her closet. “It’s very small. Not even as long as that,” she says, gesturing to the wall across from our table about six feet wide. “My theory is, the fewer clothes you have the better it is, because it forces you to be more creative.”

How she chooses outfits each day is simple. “I wear the pants that I can fit into,” she laughs. “And these pants,” she says, kicking her leg to the side to show me a wide leg, highquality linen, “I even wear them in New York in the winter.”

Her personal color palette is black, white, grey, and brown, which is an easy match with her new fashion favorite, a Patagonia puff jacket or “puffers,” as she calls them. She once owned an extensive collection of handmade Mexican jewelry, but she’s since sold it, preferring a simpler look. “But I like jewelry on people.”

When I ask what else makes her happy besides fashion, Foster brings up a past illness that left her in bed for months on high doses of the steroid Prednisone. She was eventually tapered off, milligram-by-milligram, “and I got into this zone where I was so happy, I was ecstatic.”

The elevated mood swings had her skipping down State Street and singing at the top of her lungs. “Once you’ve been that happy, you can go back and be that happy again,” she says.

Foster, though, doesn’t need a drug to get there now, only green grass or plants. “I can get myself into ecstasy by looking at palms. It reminds me of Florida because I grew up around them.”

In Foster’s backyard on El Caserio, she has spent almost 50 years cultivating a tall flower garden in a 45 x 90 plot in her backyard. Every Friday, someone comes to cut fresh roses, dahlias, and camellias from her garden to fill her home. “We’re living in such a fantastic thing here. This world is just…”

The conversation drifts to space, dark matter, the magic of evolution and, well, the wonders of existence. “All those millions of years we’ve evolved to who we are and it’s all around us. It’s an amazing thing,” says Foster.

WENDY FOSTER WWW.WENDYFOSTER.COM

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Create the home of your dreams in this ideal Hope Ranch location! Resting on 2 stunning and usable acres, 4655 Via Huerto overlooks panoramic ocean and island views, as well as huge mountain views from several vantage points.

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GRUBB CAMPBELL GROUP 805.895.6226 | DRE 01236143

GRUBB CAMPBELL GROUP 805.895.6226 | DRE 01236143

GRUBB CAMPBELL GROUP 805.895.6226 | DRE 01236143

LO C A L LY OW N E D | G LO B A L LY CO N N E C T E D

| L E A R N M O R E AT V I L L AG E S I T E .CO M | D R E 0 1 2 0 673 4

All information provided is deemed reliable, but has not been verified and we do not guarantee it. We recommend that buyers make their own inquiries.

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. . .GO

A HANDY GUIDE TO WALKING AROUND MONTECITO STORY BY NICHOLAS SCHOU

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perfect gateway to Butterfly Beach, which offers a striking view of Santa Barbara’s bay, and is a favorite spot for local dog walkers and joggers, is the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore (1260 Channel Drive; fourseasons.com/santabarbara).

During certain parts of the year it’s possible at low tide to walk along the sand to Miramar Beach on the other end of town. Along the way you’ll see the gamut of luxurious beachfront properties mixed in with funky vacation cottages, with great opportunities for picnicking, sunbathing, and swimming; and depending on the conditions, there’s ample opportunities for bodysurfing, paddle boarding, and surfing.

ROA D

11 Parma Park

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side from its sandy beaches, stunning mountain views, and laid-back charm, Montecito is known for its extensive network of hiking and walking trails. Each of the creeks and canyons above town boasts trails of varying length and difficulty that offer everything from wildlife sightings and panoramic ocean views to – depending on the season – waterfalls, swimming holes, and natural hot springs.

If you’re not into sweating up a steep slope, however, Montecito also offers blocks of shopstudded sidewalks, a more relaxing ambulatory experience. Montecito’s natural geography lends itself to three separate starting points that triangulate the town geographically. What follows is what you can expect to find along the way.

Now go explore, connect the dots – and enjoy!

HA

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PHOTOS BY EDWARD CLYNES

EAST

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East Beach

Foot Paths Proposed Foot Paths Primary Roads

TAKE A HIKE Walk Montecito ROAD

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. . .GO TAKE A HIKE If you can make it that far on your eastward beach walk, consider stopping in at the Rosewood Miramar Beach Bar (1773 South Jameson Lane; rosewoodhotels.com) for a quick drink or light lunch. Just remember, don’t linger too long if you plan to retrace your steps on the sand while it’s still above water.

Back above Butterfly Beach, Butterfly Lane provides an inland pedestrian tunnel that leads to Montecito’s shopping district. From there, if you turn right on Coast Village Road, you’ll find a wide variety of shopping and dining opportunities (more on that below).

The Montecito Inn (1295 Coast Village Road, montecitoinn.com) is situated at the east end of Coast Village Road. If you’re coming from the Miramar Hotel, it is a straight shot walking west along North Jameson Lane, which includes a recently installed walking path courtesy of the Montecito Trails Foundation and the Bucket Brigade.

The Montecito Inn provides an ideal base for exploring Montecito’s posh shopping district, which extends from east to west along Coast Village Road above Butterfly Beach. On a stroll through the Lower Village you’ll find everything from perfectly scrambled egg sandwiches served on brioche buns and fresh-brewed coffee to lively brunch and lunch spots with expanded outdoor dining – over 20 eateries from which to choose. There are even boutique wine shops with opportunities for wine tasting from local wineries. And if you’re in a romantic mood, you’ll find a variety of high-end fashion and designer jewelry from boho chic to highend classical elegance.

At the far west end of Coast Village Road you will find the Montecito Country Mart, another quaint shopping area replete with its own collection of shops and clothing boutiques, eateries, an old-school but still hip barber shop, and a large grocery store. If you’re feeling

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GREAT

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The property information herein is derived from various sources that may include, but not be limited to, county records and the Multiple Listing Service, and it may include approximations. Although the information is believed to be accurate, it is not warranted and you should not rely upon it without personal verification. Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Realty are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker logos are trademarks of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. The Coldwell Banker® System is comprised of company owned offices which are owned by a subsidiary of Realogy Brokerage Group LLC and franchised offices which are independently owned and operated. The Coldwell Banker System fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.

. . .GO TAKE A HIKE extra-energetic and you want to keep going west, you can walk under the freeway and you’ll find the Andree Clark Bird Refuge around which you can follow the picturesque lagoon-lined path that will lead you to the beaches of Santa Barbara, our local zoo, and a whole other town to explore. But that’s for another day.

Starting point number two takes us east to the beachside Rosewood Miramar, near the intersection of South Jameson Lane and San Ysidro Road. It provides the perfect launching pad for exploring Montecito’s network of neighborhoods from the more reserved but still shopping-friendly Upper Village to the lower more bustling Coast Village Road.

From San Ysidro Road, you can stroll 20-30 minutes towards the mountains to Montecito’s Upper Village, where there are a multitude of dining options ranging from traditional diners and takeout grocery counters to upscale northern Italian fare. Bookworms won’t want to miss one of the last standing independent bookstores in the Santa Barbara area, Tecolote Book Shop (1470 East Valley Road #52; tecolotebookshop.com).

On the shopping front, the Upper Village boasts a number of high-end boutiques, beautifully curated antique stores, and a small local grocery store that locals frequent for high quality food and good service.

If what you’re looking for is a peaceful walk through the semi-rural streets of Montecito, you can turn right on San Leandro Lane from San Ysidro Road, which will take you to the entrance of the Ennisbrook Open Space several blocks down the road on the left, where there’s a picturesque and well-shaded trail that brings you north alongside San Ysidro Creek up almost as far as East Valley Road before looping back downhill.

The last of our three starting points is all the way at the other end of town, just off San Ysidro Road above Montecito’s Upper Village. Nestled in the residential neighborhood of gated estates and winding semi-rural roads is Montecito’s landmark vacation and wedding destination, the San Ysidro Ranch (900 San Ysidro Lane; sanysidroranch.com). Ranked one of the world’s top small hotels, the Ranch has a rich history of famous

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. . .GO TAKE A HIKE honeymooners, world class gardens, and fine indoor and outdoor dining.

From here, it’s an easy walk downhill to the Upper Village.

If you’re adventure-minded or have kids (or dogs) with energy to spare, you can hike up the challenging San Ysidro Trail, which begins just east of the Ranch and carries you along the creek to a seasonal waterfall, then through a series of switchbacks up several hundred vertical meters to Camino Cielo.

It’s a bit more than an eight-mile round trip, so come prepared with snacks and plenty of water and sunscreen and remember to stay on the trail at all times because poison ivy is not your friend.

From wherever you begin your hike, you’ll find that exploring Montecito on foot is not only manageable, but a perfect way to fully appreciate all there is to discover at every turn. We hope this map helps guide your adventure.

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Keller Williams Realty | Montecito | Santa Barbara

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From Politics to Provence in a Bottle

F

Montecito Resident Makes A Fresh Start Importing Unique Wines

rank Caterinicchio has a simple explanation for what, at first glance, seems like a surprising career shift from the bruising world of politics to the finer pursuit of great grapes. “Working with wine is more fun,” he says.

The Southern California native, who recently became a full-time Montecito resident, spent more than four decades as a political consultant, promoting candidates and pushing ballot measures before he made the switch to wine importer, focusing on organic wines out of France’s beautiful Provence region.

The change isn’t as big a disconnect as it may seem. In truth, Caterinicchio’s former life as a politico planted the seeds for his new one in wine. His job included frequent international travel, much of it to France, where, “I got swept up and became really familiar with the usuals – the Burgundies and the Bordeaux,” explains Caterinicchio.

“And I found myself tasting with legends, like Armand Rousseau, Philippe Drouhin, and Noel Ramonet,” revered French producers all.

About three years ago, his French travels took Caterinicchio to Provence, the storied region in the southeastern part of the country where charm and sex appeal collide in close proximity to the Italian border, the Alps, and the gleaming beaches of the Mediterranean Sea. Its lavender fields and olive groves are famous, but as a world-class, wine-growing region, Provence remains “a hidden gem.” Caterinicchio discovered that, “It’s actually producing some great wine and from very high-quality producers.”

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by Gabe Saglie This is the southern Rhone Valley, so red grapes like syrah and grenache and whites like viognier and roussanne flourish here. It turns out it’s also on the leading edge of organic-wine growing, as well as a host of unique winemaking techniques.

“I was tasting really incredible stuff,” recalls Caterinicchio, “and it occurred to me – I’d like to get these imported.”

Provençal Collective is a career jump for Caterinicchio but, above all, a labor of love. The wine aficionado runs his new business out of the guesthouse on his Montecito property along Lingate Lane, with most of his inventory stored in a temperature-controlled facility in Goleta. His line of imports represents small, boutique producers and is largely comprised of bottles that are impossible to find anywhere else in the country.

The current phase of his endeavor may be the most important, though: luring consumers in what is an increasingly competitive marketplace. “It’s tough,” Caterinicchio admits, “but once you get people to taste them, they love them, and they realize these wines are solid, especially for the price.”

Most of Caterinicchio’s imports range between $25 and $50 a bottle.

Caterinicchio’s had good luck hosting popFALL

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World Organic Wine Fair held in Montpelier.

For the latest wines available to the public, check out Provençal Collective’s website, www.provencalcollective.com.

Tasting wines produced in different countries and in different styles – it’s like taking a trip around the world.

Frank Caterinicchio and Lee Ann Stevens of Montecito-based Provençal Collective, Inc.

up tasting events at country clubs throughout Southern California. “That’s a clientele that’s not looking for TwoBuck Chuck,” he says, referencing the uber-discounted line of Charles Shaw wines that have been flying off the shelves at Trader Joe’s for years. “Nor do they want a $500 cabernet. They want something in the middle that’s a conversation starter and that introduces them to something new.”

Education, about the concept of organic wines in particular, has become an early calling card for Provençal Collective. “The message, generally, is that ‘organic’ means no pesticides or herbicides were used in the process,” says Caterinicchio. “They are almost always hand-picked and processed all the way through by hand. They tend to be low in sugar and low in alcohol. And no sulfites are used in the processing of the wines,” he continues, referring to widely used preservatives.

“Any sulfites are usually naturally occurring.”

It’s the stories behind the labels, though, that have become Caterinicchio’s best marketing tool. Like Domaine du Tix, a property where clay-limestone soils, and the effects of the famed northwesterly winds known as the mistral, generate exceptional fruit. Provençal Collective features its 2013 Cuvée de Bramefan red blend ($29) and its 2016 Viognier ($29), though it’s the 2017 La Femme Rouge ($45) that makes Caterinicchio swoon. The 50-50 syrah-grenache blend is organic and aged in clay jars. “It tastes so unique and so different, it’s truly something special,” he says.

At Domaine Vintur, located near the historic village of Avignon, vines are 30 to 60 years old, generating wines that are layered and complex. The Effervescence ($25) is a low-alcohol bubbly made from a grape called bourboulenc and the 2015 Cuvée le Bélénos ($30) is a red blend of syrah, grenache, carignan and mourvedre.

Caterinicchio is partial to the Cuvée Séléné, a white blend whose minerality and tropical notes earned it a gold medal at the 2020 FALL

As the company’s wine offerings continue to grow, Caterinicchio’s political know-how, it turns out, is helping navigate the often-treacherous waters of international importing.

A proposed Trump administration tariff on French sparkling wine caused some concern but it has since been rejected.

And then there’s the economic fallout of the global coronavirus pandemic, with near- and even long-term effects yet to be seen.

Caterinicchio is focusing on the wine-savvy Santa Barbara and Southern California communities, though, as he continues to promote his finds, one bottle at a time.

“There are some truly great wines coming out of Santa Barbara,” he says. “But that’s the great thing about wine – you don’t have to just drink California wine. Tasting wines produced in different countries and in different styles – it’s like taking a trip around the world. And that’s what’s so appealing about it.”

Domaine Vintur’s Resident Winemaker James Wood

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WENDY FOSTER M O N T E C I T O | S A N TA B A R B A R A | L O S O L I V O S

UPSTAIRS AT PIERRE LAFOND

A S A N T A B A R B A R A S T A P L E F O R S T Y L E F A M I LY O P E R AT E D F O R M O R E T H A N 4 0 Y E A R S we would like to extend our sincere gratitude for the unwaivering support & friendship of the santa barbara community & beloved visitors o v e r t h e y e a r s . w e a re h o n o re d t o b e p a r t o f t h i s re s i l i e n t c o m m u n i t y.

WENDY FOSTER MONTECITO

路

W E N D Y F O S T E R S P O RT S W E A R

WENDY FOSTER LOS OLIVOS

路

ANGEL MONTECITO

W W W . W E N D Y F O S T E R . C O M

|

路

路 WENDY

F O S T E R S TAT E S T R E E T

U P S TA I R S AT P I E R R E L A F O N D

W W W . S H O P U P S T A I R S . C O M

T h e O l d e s t C o m m e r c i a l W i n e ry i n S a n ta B a r b a r a C o u n t y

The Oldest Commercial Winery in Santa Barbara County F A M I L Y O W N E D & O P E R AT E D S I N C E 19 6 2

FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED SINCE 1962

Lafond Winery & Vine yards

Santa Barbara Winery

Lafond Winery & Vine yards

Santa Barbara Winery

T H A N K Y O U T O O U R S A N TA B A R B A R A C O U N T Y C O M M U N I T Y & F R I E N D LY V I S I T O R S F O R Y O U R S U P P O R T we’d like to extend our sincere gratitude for the support & friendship of the santa barbara community & our loyal wine club members over the years. w e a re h o n o re d t o b e p a r t o f t h i s re s i l i e n t c o m m u n i t y.

P I E R R E L A F O N D . D AV I D L A F O N D . M I C H E L L E L A F O N D

S A N TA B A R B A R A W I N E RY S A N TA B A R B A R A F U N K Z O N E TA S T I N G R O O M & W I N E R Y 2 0 2 A N A C A PA S T R E E T, S A N TA B A R B A R A | 8 0 5 . 9 6 3 . 3 6 3 3 W W W . S B W I N E R Y. C O M

L A F O N D W I N E RY & V I N E YA R D S W I N E R Y & V I N E YA R D S I N S TA . R I TA H I L L S 6 8 5 5 S A N TA R O S A R O A D , B U E L LT O N | 8 0 5 . 6 8 8 . 7 9 2 1

S A N TA B A R B A R A F U N K Z O N E TA S T I N G R O O M 1 1 1 YA N O N A L I S T R E E T, S A N TA B A R B A R A | 8 0 5 . 8 4 5 . 2 0 2 0

W W W . L A F O N D W I N E R Y. C O M

Moguls and Mansions

by Hattie Beresford •••

Goodhue, the Expo, and Santa Barbara Style

T

he 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

Diego is widely credited with having promoted a new architectural style in the nation, that of Spanish

were an appropriate choice from his vast body of work because the

Colonial Revival. Santa Barbara came to embrace the

California Building at the fair resembled a Spanish Mission, and its

style and its various permutations after the 1925 earthquake devastated

façade looked remarkably like Santa Barbara’s own.

the mainly Victorian brick business district on State Street. At that time, several examples of Spanish Revival style were already in place, so the earthquake’s timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous for the transformation of Santa Barbara from a stodgy Victorian matron into a romantic Spanish señorita.

Even before the San Diego Exposition, a unique regional architectural style for California had been gaining adherents for nearly

Mission Revival: From Chicago to Santa Barbara

T

he architecture at the Chicago Exposition of 1893 was an eclectic array of styles as each state and each country

attempted to distinguish itself with representational buildings.

two decades, that of Mission Revival. In 1893, Henry Chapman Ford,

Ireland, for instance, created a whole village with thatched roofs

Santa Barbara’s first resident professional artist, had returned to his

and Celtic crosses, and Pennsylvania constructed a reproduction

hometown of Chicago to exhibit 24 etchings of the California missions

of Independence Hall. Florida, meanwhile, had reached back to its

at the World Columbian Exposition in the Windy City. The etchings

colonial roots with a reproduction of Fort Marion in St. Augustine,

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(left) Guide book for 1915 exposition. (above) The California Building at the World Colombian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago inspired the Mission Revival style (Library of Congress)

but the hands down favorite, according to reviews of the day, was the “exotic” California Building and its displays. “Nothing in the whole exhibition,” said one reviewer, “even approached the display made by the Californians.” San Francisco architect Arthur Page Brown won an award for the design.

From that time forward, Santa Barbara, along with other California cities, slowly moved toward a regionally historic architectural style.

William H. Crocker, son of the Southern Pacific Railroad magnate, had been invested in Santa Barbara property since 1886. Along with Las Fuentes Ranch (today’s Birnam Wood), he owned property fronting the 2000 block of Garden Street. In 1894, Crocker engaged the office of Arthur Page Brown to design five houses on this block.

Their style, of course, was none other than Mission Revival. These cottages became the first stucco homes in Santa Barbara and featured

One of the five cottages on Garden Street commissioned by William H. Crocker in the Mission Revival style (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

several of the elements of Mission architecture, which includes red tile roofs, scalloped parapets or gables, stucco walls, arches, and columned

of a conventional Eastern home. Crocker intended these cottages to be

arcades. The cottages’ resemblance to missions, however, was only in

rental units for affluent winter visitors.

the decorative details. The basic structure of each house was still that

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Transplanted Easterners, especially, were particularly drawn to

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A recent restoration by Harrison Design brought this Crocker cottage back to its original Mission Revival design, a true gift from the owner to the historical architectural integrity of the upper East Side (Jim Bartsch photo, courtesy Harrison Design)

In the early 1900s, local architect Francis W. Wilson was hired by the Southern Pacific Railroad to design a new passenger depot in Santa Barbara.

Completed in 1905, the station remains an excellent example of Mission Revival style. Edward Payson Ripley, president of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway lived part time in Santa the revival style. In 1912 and 1916 respectively, two Detroiters, Clarence Black of

Barbara, and Wilson became a favored architect

Cadillac Motor Company and David Gray of Ford Motor Company, commissioned

for the A.T. & S.F. Among several commissions,

architects to design Mission Style homes. Black even had a view of the Santa Barbara

he designed a beautiful Spanish style Harvey

Mission from the azotea of his home on the Riviera, and he made the Santa Barbara

House hotel and depot, called Casa del Desierto, in

Mission a special recipient of his philanthropy.

Barstow (more than worth a visit).

Local architect Francis W. Wilson designed the Mission Revival train depot for Santa Barbara (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

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The Spanish Evolution of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

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hanks to another world’s fair, the Panama California Exposition of 1915, a related but different Spanish style, became popular, Spanish

Colonial Revival. A highly ornamented, romantic yet imposing style, it had never made an appearance during Santa Barbara’s own colonial days.

It was the style, however, that was chosen for, and popularized by, the San Diego Exposition in Balboa Park. The lead architect of the Panama-California Exposition was Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the New York architect known for his ecclesiastical, academic, and institutional work, mainly in the Neo-Gothic tradition. As luck would have it, Goodhue had strong ties to Santa Barbara.

In 1891, after a seven-year architectural apprenticeship in New York, Goodhue had formed a firm with Arthur Adams Cram. That same year, he took a several-month-long leave of absence to visit Mexico, his first journey outside the United States. It was quite an adventure. Though he and a companion traveled mostly by train, their occasional forays on horseback required the accompaniment of six shooters. Goodhue was entranced by Mexico’s Spanish Colonial architecture with its Baroque

Goodhue became entranced with the picturesque courtyards he found in Mexico

Churrigueresque detailing and was fascinated by the integration of sculpture, mosaic, and color in the architectural details.

(He was also entranced by the señoritas, and only a sudden departure put an end to one budding romance.)

Upon his return, he published a book about his experiences entitled Mexican Memories.

Nevertheless, as the years passed, the images of Mexico receded as his Eastern architectural commissions required different revival styles.

In 1901, Goodhue was hired by a self-described “gentleman of leisure,”

Drawing of the cathedral in Mexico City from Goodhue’s Mexican Memories, published in 1892

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New Yorker James Waldron Gillespie, to design his winter residence in Montecito. How their paths had crossed is unclear, but the eccentric Gillespie, who owned a large parcel of land on Parra Grande Lane and had improved it with exotic horticultural specimens, was ready to build his house and lay out his gardens.

Gillespie knew exactly what he wanted, so he took Goodhue on a month-long journey to Italy, Egypt, Persia, and the Arabian Peninsula where he could point out the features he wanted incorporated in his house. He also purchased furnishings and decorative elements like doors and fireplace surrounds for his new home. Goodhue and Gillespie rode horseback 400 miles each way from the Caspian Sea

The courtyard of the Prado building at Balboa Park shows a marked similarity to the “Courtyard of the Picture Dealer,” which Goodhue sketched in Mexico (Author photo)

to the Persian Gulf to see a split window feature that Goodhue had claimed didn’t exist in classical architecture, but Gillespie knew did. It was later employed in the design of the home.

According to Romy Wyllie, author of Bertram Goodhue: His Life and Residential Architecture, Goodhue became entranced by the exoticism and mystery of Islamic architecture whose influence had found its way into both Spanish Renaissance and Byzantine buildings. These details included tiled domes, decorated towers, expanses of plain adobe wall surfaces contrasted by ornamentation around doors and windows, decorative grills, water fountains, tiled alcoves, and shallow reflecting pools. All these features and more found their way into Gillespie’s El Fureidîs. The completed design appeared in a 1903 edition of Architectural Review and received high praise. Gillespie, himself, was due a great deal of the credit. When the house was completed in 1906, the grounds with their Persian water gardens and exotic plantings were open to the public and soon

Goodhue and Gillespie’s El Fureidîs was an eclectic mix of architectural styles garnered from their travels to Italy, Egypt, Spain, Persia, and the Arabian Peninsula (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Musuem)

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Gillespie and Goodhue remained fast friends throughout their lives.

Several times Goodhue and his wife, Lydia, spent entire summers as guests at El Fureidîs. So taken was Goodhue with Montecito that he and Lydia purchased land above Mountain Drive on the west side of Hot Springs Creek in 1905. (Most likely today’s 985 or 995 Hot Springs Road.) The Goodhues were embraced by Santa Barbara of the day, and it was not unusual to find their names included on the society pages. In 1907, for instance, Mrs. Oothout hosted a lunch for them at the Country Club (then on Channel Drive) and Lydia hosted a ladies’ lunch at El Fureidîs.

The Expo

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etween 1909 and 1911, San Diego and San Francisco were competing, often bitterly, for the honor (and attendant

commerce) of hosting the next World’s Fair. In 1911, after President Taft and Congress threw their support to San Francisco, San Diego pressed ahead with plans for its own exposition. That June, Gillespie, who had been absent from Santa Barbara for two years, arrived with

Goodhue designed a Persian inspired conversation room for Gillespie (Courtesy Library of Congress)

news that the Goodhues were soon to follow. After all, Bertram

and Carpinteria, which would eliminate the need for tide tables in

Grosvenor Goodhue had been chosen as lead architect for the Panama

the planning of auto travel along that stretch of coast. Goodhue

California Exposition in San Diego, which was slated to open in 1915.

contributed an editorial in support of the project as well as funds.

Goodhue’s assistant and architect in residence for the project would be

Almost four years later, at precisely midnight, December 31, 1914,

Carlton Monroe Winslow, an associate of his firm. Winslow influenced

President Woodrow Wilson in Washington, D.C. activated an electric

the decision to use Spanish Colonial style and designed several of the

switch to turn on the lights at the Panama California Exposition

buildings at the Exposition. (Afterward, Winslow maintained an office

in San Diego. The same current also touched off a firework display

in Santa Barbara and completed several Santa Barbara commissions,

while floodlights from the warships in the harbor illuminated the new

most famously, Casa Dorinda in Montecito.)

Spanish City in Balboa Park and its tens of thousands of celebrants.

As construction began on the two expositions, Santa Barbara’s

The Expo was open!

civic leaders immediately embarked on plans to bring some of the

Goodhue and Winslow had designed an amazing faux Mexican city

expected tourist money to Santa Barbara. The most important

of impressive buildings ornamented with Churrigueresque detailing,

thing, they believed, was that there needed to be a good road into

soaring towers, tiled domes, and numerous courtyards. Visitors who

the city for autoists from the south. Plans were developed for the

entered along the massive, quarter mile Puente Cabrillo through the

Rincon Causeway, a three-part wooden causeway between Ventura

arched portal of the walled city magically escaped the 20th century

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The Rincon Causeway was essentially three stretches of pier running parallel to the coastline. It was completed in 1912, in plenty of time to facilitate and profit from the expected tourist boom in California when the two Panama Expos opened.

(Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

to enter a bustling, historic Spanish ciudad. Covered arcades and a grand plaza along with numerous fountains and reflecting pools charmed them. The Goodhue-designed California Building, with its ornate sculptural details, lofty tower, and tiled dome annex, strongly resembled elements of the Catedral Metropolitana in Mexico City.

Despite the fact that most European countries couldn’t participate due to the outbreak of WWI, the fair was extensive and many visitors hired electroquettes to tour the expansive grounds. Intended to show the world the wonders and industry of the West, the buildings and grounds hosted an eclectic array of exhibits. International Harvester sponsored a tractor demonstration field. There were also model farms

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Santa Barbara’s Grace Meeker takes a photo while Isobelle Baker steers the electroquette along the Puente Cabrillo in 1915 (Courtesy Montecito Association History Committee)

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Colorized postcard of the Puente Cabrillo with tower and dome of the California Building in the background (Courtesy Balboa Park Online Collection)

and orchards as well as a model bungalow. Lipton constructed a tea garden. A Persianinspired lath house housed exotic flora. Buildings of Spanish Colonial splendor offered displays of fine arts, science, industry, and home economics, and an organ pavilion donated by the Spreckels brothers offered daily concerts.

Colin Campbell Cooper’s painting of the entry portal and California Building of the Panama California Exposition (Courtesy Balboa Park Online Collection)

Throughout it all, the landscape, garden, and buildings were the greatest “wow factor,” just as they are today! The fair introduced millions of people to Spanish Colonial style, and Goodhue, already a much sought after architect, became an even hotter commodity. The fair brought him commissions from many states in the Union, including Hawaii. The romantic scenes at the fair were also grist for artists like Santa Barbara’s own Colin Campbell Cooper who would soon have a

Back view of California Building and its tower and dome today. Photo taken from the courtyard of the 1935 Old Globe Theatre. (Author photo)

La Laguna de las Flores is still a popular site today (Author photo)

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Colin Campbell Cooper captured the idyllic charm of the Laguna de las Flores (Courtesy Balboa Park Online Collection)

Today, the Sacramento Building serves as the San Diego Museum of Art (Author photo)

Santa Barbara studio in Bernhard Hoffmann’s Spanish-style Meridian Studios built around the old Lugo Adobe.

Goodhue’s Work in Santa Barbara

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n 1915-16, Goodhue designed a home and gardens for Henry Dater, Gillespie’s cousin who owned the property next to El

Fureidîs. Dater called the home Dias Felices but found he was rarely there. In 1924, he sold the property to the Ludington family, who expanded and remodeled the estate, renaming it Val Verde. Though he utilized the elements of arched windows, red tile roofs, and stucco grills, the Churrigueresque details were minimal if not absent. Dater’s home was completed in 1918, and one section bears a striking resemblance to the south terrace of the House of Hospitality in Balboa Park in San Diego.

During this time, the Goodhues resumed their social life in Santa Barbara. Again their names appeared in the society pages. In summer 1916, during which time they stayed at the San Ysidro Ranch, they attended the opening play of the season at the short-lived Country Playhouse in Montecito. The octagonal playhouse was the brainchild of Mrs. William Miller (Eleanor) Graham of the original Bellosguardo and

The very definition of Churrigueresque (Author photo)

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stood near the Bartlett Polo Fields off Middle Road. It was intended to be a community theater that featured amateur productions. Many of Santa Barbara’s most illustrious residents took part in its productions.

Also that summer, when it became known that Goodhue was to be the architect for the new clubhouse at the Santa Barbara Country Club, a rush of sales in the subdivision that lay between Alston Road and the new golf course ensued. This tract was the property of the Alston Land Association whose principals were George Owen Knapp, Frederick Forrest Peabody, Edward Payson Ripley, and Walter Douglas.

In 1918, the completed clubhouse wore the Spanish Colonial style.

Interior of Goodhue’s La Cabaña in Montecito (Courtesy Randy Solakian, MontecitoEstates.com)

A baronial hall with Mudéjar ceiling and fireplaces graced the interior, and a roofed arcade offered spectacular views of the landscape, sea, and

East Valley Road and Picacho Lane with established plantings and

islands. Churrigueresque details adorned the tower and the entry to the

great ocean views. A previous owner had named it Sunnyside, and

club. Sitting there on the side of the hill, it was an imposing edifice,

in one corner stood an old dilapidated adobe, which had been used

visible from a great distance. It wasn’t universally liked, and, given

as a stable. He tore down the old wooden house, which he called a

Goodhue’s reputation as an ecclesiastical architect, a local wag dubbed

“terror,” and used the lumber in his conversion of the adobe stable

it The Church of Saint Golfus.

into a cottage named La Cabaña. By February 1919, the Morning

That same year, Goodhue, who had never built on his acreage off

Press was able to report that the Goodhues were making progress

Hot Springs Road, found, as he described in a letter to a friend, “a

in the development of a very wonderful place in Montecito.

very great buy.” It consisted of 12 acres on the northeast corner of

Interestingly, not one Churrigueresque detail made it into the

Photo of Montecito Country Club in 1918 shows the simplified Churrigueresque ornamentation around the entry and on the tower as well as the original design of the building (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

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design. Goodhue was moving forward toward a simplified version of Spanish style.

Also in 1919, Goodhue drew plans for a new church for the parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Montecito. The 1898 Victorian wooden second church (the first had been of adobe) was becoming too small and its architecture was no longer in vogue. Goodhue’s plans did not come to fruition, and it wasn’t until 1936 that the three Cudahy sisters donated funds for construction of a church whose Spanish Colonial Mission style was distinctly foreign, as it was patterned after colonial New Mexico’s architecture.

In 1921, the Goodhues spent the summer at their Montecito home, and Goodhue responded to a call for plans for a commercial streetscape in the Spanish mode for Santa Barbara. The newly

1963 photo of the south courtyard of the Parado building at Balboa Park taken by HABS, the Historic American Buildings Survey of the Library of Congress

formed Community Arts Plans and Planting branch, spearheaded by city improvement spirits Bernhard Hoffmann and Pearl Chase,

Lutah Maria Riggs also created designs for the project. In the end,

was promoting this architectural style for Santa Barbara. Hoffmann

it was James Osborne Craig’s design, which incorporated the De la

had purchased the De la Guerra Adobe and most of the rest of the

Guerra Adobe into the plan, that won out. When Craig died during

block and wanted to develop it into a commercial complex in the

construction, Carleton Monroe Winslow, Goodhue’s resident architect

form of a charming Mexican Village. George Washington Smith and

for the Panama California Exposition (and Mary McLaughlin Craig), completed the project.

The original south façade of the Montecito Country Club had a walled open deck on its top story and an arched loggia on the main floor (Courtesy of Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

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These early efforts of inserting Spanish Colonial architecture into Santa Barbara’s Victorian business district through such buildings as

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SALTOPTICS.COM

the new City Hall, the News-Press building, El Paseo, and Meridian

(Sources: Official Guide Book of the Panama-California Exposition

Studios, coupled with an active citizen’s group promoting Spanish

1915; contemporary Morning Press articles; Santa Barbara Architecture

architecture, came into play after the 1925 Earthquake laid waste to

by Andree, Young, and Halloran; “James Waldron Gillespie’s El Fureidîs

State Street. The time was ripe to rebuild in a different way and to

by Hattie Beresford; Montecito and Santa Barbara by David Myrick;

provide for a unified architectural style.

El Pueblo Viejo, revised second edition, by Conrad, Days, Nelson, and

Goodhue died suddenly of a heart attack in 1924, and his

Oglesby; Bertram Goodhue: His Life and Residential Architecture by

widow came to live at La Cabaña. Over the years, the property was

Romy Wyllie; Bertram Goodhue by Richard Oliver; Library of Congress;

subdivided into several smaller lots, with La Cabaña today located at

https://archive.org/details/TheOfficialGuideBookOfThePanama-ca

the end of an access road. Though Goodhue’s works in Santa Barbara

liforniaExpositionSanDiego1915/mode/2up; https://archive.org/

were few, his influence on her architecture was great, as, one after

details/committeeofonehundred; https://pancalarchive.org/about-the-

another, California architects adopted and adapted the style in their

exposition/)

own unique ways.

This view of Val Verde, the former Dater/Ludington Estate, reveals an architectural kinship with the south courtyard of the Prado building at Balboa Park (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

ED

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S

miling broadly, Pete Muller emerges from behind the piano to thank the family, friends, and fans who have gathered at SOhO, the downtown Santa Barbara music venue, on a late spring evening in 2019 to celebrate the release of Muller’s new album, Dissolve. The singersongwriter’s fourth record, like its predecessors, features mostly jazz and soul-tinged Americana, songs that explore themes of connection, love, heartbreak, and acceptance in relationships of all kinds.

Neither Muller’s easygoing stage presence nor the vulnerable nature of songs such as “Scraps of Your Love,” “Gentle With My Heart,” “Loving and Loathing,” “Let You In,” and “Kindred Soul” hint at his day job as a pioneering and highly successful hedge fund creator who brought cutting-edge quantitative analysis to the New York finance world in the early 1990s when he created an innovative proprietary trading group at Morgan Stanley he named Process Driven Trading (PDT).

After scaling the heights of New York’s financial world in the whirlwind late-‘90s/early 2000s era, Muller took a step back to reassess his life, traveling in Asia and plumbing the depths of his inner world through music and meditation. He was able to spin PDT off into his own firm in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis while also making a home for himself and his family here in Montecito, where he keeps the company ahead of the competition by managing scores of PhDs and computer specialists while also finding time to create music and surf as often as he can.

Right now, though, he’s content

PETE MULLER’S AMAZING JOURNEY

TO EQUILIBRIUM

Pete Muller surfing the Cove at Rincon, captured by Surf Happens founder Chris Keet

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BALANCING ACT

BY STEVEN LIBOWITZ

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PETE MULLER

to launch into a medley of Beatles songs to close out the night with a party while his wife and a bunch of their friends and people he’s never met dance in front of the stage.

Just a week before, Muller was finishing up band rehearsal at his home music studio, which he refashioned out of what was previously a gardening shed, and now boasts professional equipment and a view of its lush surroundings through a large plate glass window. The SOhO show, his first major gig in his hometown in four years, is special and Muller is going all out in preparation.

Though we’ve barely met before – just a quick introduction a year earlier when Muller happened to be noodling on the keyboards at the Red Piano – Muller does his best to make his interviewer, who is having a significant bout of back pain, feel comfortable. “Tell me about your back,” he says, settling onto a cushion on the floor of the studio while he motions to an adjustable chair that will have me towering above him. “Can I get you something to support it?

Or would you like to go up to the house instead?”

But the bigger building is bustling with wife, kids, and barking dogs anxious to greet a visitor so we contemplate trying the two-bedroom guest house between the two buildings where the violinist has been staying. Muller pauses. “Let me call her,” he says. “If she’s there, I’ll ask if we can borrow it.”

Fortunately, she’s headed out for lunch, so it’s only a few minutes before we’re sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, water glasses at hand, the recording devices checked and rechecked.

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Muller, though, still wants to make sure I’m okay.

“What do you do physically to get better?” he asks. “What’s your exercise? I have a guy here in Montecito who is one of the best I’ve ever found. His name is Isaac Osborne at Motion Unlimited. I had a thing with my back ten years ago and he was great. He will look at what you’re doing, how you’re moving. He’s a healer in the deep sense of the word. What he ended up doing for me changed my life… Maybe he can help you.”

And there it is, the complexity of Pete Muller: Wall Street capitalist who built a hugely successful hedge fund firm with smarts and sweat; singer-songwriter whose heartfelt songs can evoke tears; poker enthusiast with final table appearances at the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour; former nationally competitive collegiate Ultimate Frisbee player turned avid surfer who spends up to 100 days a year in the water; creator of clever crossword puzzles that have appeared in The New York Times and Washington Post (and, now, the Montecito Journal weekly); spiritual seeker who practices meditation and yoga every morning. Not to mention, a regular guy who’s concerned about another guy’s back. These seeming polarities coexist on a continuum fueled by a drive for challenge and connection that would exhaust most of us. But the 56-year-old Muller seems to manage it all with aplomb and still be a nice guy – one who wouldn’t even think of displacing a house guest who’s on his payroll, even for an hour, without her permission.

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(photo by Dewey Nicks)

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ETE MULLER was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Wayne, New Jersey, the son of Kurt, a chemical engineer from Austria who met Muller’s Brazilian physician-psychiatrist mother Eva when she was a post-doc in the States. “They were both pretty serious people who worked really hard. That’s where I got my work ethic,” Muller says.

His mother, who earlier had taken her own father’s place as the only doctor in a tiny town in the mountains of South Brazil, became a psychiatrist in the U.S. and grew a 60 patient-hours-a week practice, more than twice the average. “And she would still cook a great dinner every night,” says Muller, who wrote, “Alive in Me,” the emotional center of Dissolve, in tribute to his mother after she passed in 2018. “I learned a lot about how to be with people and understand them from her.” His father was a chemical engineer born in Austria who spoke six languages and was a passionate amateur photographer, shooting sporting events for the local town paper after he retired. He was extremely disciplined and precise in everything he did.

Muller credits his father with teaching him the value of competitiveness and persistence. That showed up in the chess matches they played throughout his childhood. “He never let me win,” Muller says. “I still have the photograph of when I beat him for the first time when I was sixteen. I remember the move – I can still see it in my head. I tried and tried and tried and then I finally got him.”

Muller was an early math whiz, but also studied music. Initially it was classical piano, but he switched to jazz at around 15 when a music teacher turned him on to the innovative saxophonist John Coltrane.

“I learned how to improvise just jamming with my teacher, and that changed my life,” he recalls. He sees a line between his early affinity for jazz and his ongoing ability to think outside of the box and implement decisions quickly.

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PETE MULLER Muller majored in math at Princeton and played in a jazz band. After graduating in 1985, he did a summer internship for a computer firm in Germany. He turned down the company’s offer of a full-time position in New York, heading instead to Northern California where he’d been invited to play music for a rhythmic gymnastics team.

There, he started jamming in a jazz band that he hosted at his home every week. To pay the bills, he went to work as a researcher and programmer for BARRA, an investment software company that used complex math formulas to aid fund managers in making decisions and controlling risk.

Muller says he was comfortable but not overly challenged.

“There was something in me that just wanted more. That’s when I started playing a lot of poker.”

As with jazz, and later, surfing, the card game became more than a hobby. It started as a home game with friends and eventually turned into overnights at a local poker club playing at the highest possible limits. “We’d get there Friday after work at five or six, and play until Sunday about noon, and I wouldn’t miss a hand,” says Muller. “I’d eat at the table, and run to the bathroom in order to get back in time to get dealt in. That’s the way I approach everything: once I’m interested I just obsess. I want to figure it out.”

That mission accomplished, it wasn’t long before poker became the path to trading, with Muller looking for a way to use quantitative techniques to forecast returns rather than just model risk. BARRA wasn’t interested in letting him try his hand at creating his own hedge fund, so he started looking elsewhere to apply math to the market, a practice that has defined Muller’s career ever since.

Our inquiry into Muller’s journey from hedge fund innovator to serious singer-songwriter to his current midlife equilibrium as one of Montecito’s genuine Renaissance men, begins with turning cards into quant investing.

Q. A.

Pete, you said that you used to play poker. How did you go from betting on a pair of aces or bluffing with nothing to using mathematics to create a new kind of hedge fund at Morgan Stanley?

Quantitative investing is all about using statistics to figure out the future distribution of events, and taking the emotion out of decision-making.

In that way it’s remarkably similar to poker.

Morgan Stanley found me when they were looking for a quant strategist who could speak at conferences and write articles and I was already doing most of that [at BARRA].

They wanted to hire me, but I really liked my life in California, where music was a big part, and I wasn’t sure it was the right move. So I told them if they let me start a proprietary trading group (an internal hedge fund), I would give it a shot.

It was a very experimental thing at the time, to figure out how to analytically make money by making markets more efficient, and I didn’t have any trading experience. But I emphasized my poker experience and managed to convince them to take a chance.

Pete and his mother, Eva, at their home in N.J., early ‘80s

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PETE MULLER So, you went to New York. This was in the late-’80s, an intoxicating time for Wall Street.

Did success come as easily it had in poker?

No. It was really hard. There was so much I didn’t know, and I had many misconceptions about how markets actually worked. It became an obsession and a very intense time in my life. It took everything I had to make things work, but I was so excited about the goal that I just went for it. I built a team of very smart, caring, hardworking people, and together we figured it out and built a machine that worked. We built statistical models to predict the future direction of security prices, and then traded on those models, diversifying those trades across a lot of assets. We were extremely rigorous scientifically and our process worked really well. After seven years of doing it, we got pretty good.

Sounds like heady times, literally and figuratively.

They were. But my singular focus on work led to trouble in other areas of my life. I was pretty stressed out. I had achieved my original objective – figuring out how to make money consistently trading in the markets, something very few people had ever done. Figuring out how to grow the business and get bigger was fun, too.

But I also had to figure out how to protect the intellectual property we had created.

Playing defense, protecting what we built – that was less fun.

One of the reasons we were so successful is that I spend a lot of time worrying about what can go wrong. But that meant I was worrying all the time. I was aware of it, but that awareness didn’t help – I had lost balance in my life. I wasn’t playing music anymore, which had always been important to me. And I wasn’t growing or learning in the same way. I had a relationship with a woman who I cared about a lot, but the pressure got in the way.

Then one day, one of my most important leaders of our group came to me and said it was time for her to move on. She told me, “I made enough money, I want to move to California, start a family, get a dog, I want to study psychology, live by the ocean.”

After she left, things with my girlfriend of four years broke down too, and my life kind of fell apart. I said, “Okay, maybe I’m done too.”

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EALIZING he was on the verge of burning out, Muller contemplated retiring, but didn’t want to abandon the team and department he’d built. Instead he took a seven-month sabbatical. It was a self-designed journey to find himself that included hiking in the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan, kayaking the Grand Canyon, and, most importantly, reconnecting with his love for music, which came when he sat down at a grand piano in a hotel bar on Kauai and just let his emotions pour over the keyboard.

Back in New York, he started writing songs about heartbreak and even took an electric keyboard down into the New York City subway to perform on the platform, once shocking a Morgan colleague who happened by. When the seven months elapsed, he returned to PDT, but with a different attitude. He negotiated a reduced schedule that left him time to play coffeehouses and work on his music. Before his 2002 debut album, Muller created a homemade demo CD showcasing his original music.

I read you weren’t very happy with how that first demo CD turned out. Why was that?

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I was so naïve. I joke about wanting to find all the copies I gave to friends and burning them. What I created was very emotional and very sincere, but it wasn’t very good from a songwriting perspective.

I didn’t do a good job of making the experiences I was singing about universal enough to connect to others. Plus the singing was pretty mediocre.

My first real record, Just One Lifetime, was a lot better, but instead of hiring a producer to help tweak the songs and record in a real studio, I just hired a recording engineer and did a live recording in my apartment. Lesson learned!

I wanted to get better, and decided to go to apply to graduate school in composition.

My first choice was Berklee (College of Music in Boston), but that wouldn’t have worked out well with my continued role overseeing PDT. So I ended up applying to and getting into the graduate musical theater program at Tisch/NYU. It was amazing to learn how to critique and receive criticism in a nurturing but objective way, and handle the pressure that can come with sharing one’s art. The book The Artist’s Way was really inspiring.

Instead of obsessing over creating something perfect, you just keep creating, and hopefully good stuff eventually

Muller and his bandmates (left to right), Eric Donnelly, Skip Ward, Melissa Soltero, Martha McDonnell, John Whooley, and Dave Silliman playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2019

Gilding the Grid Pete Muller, Puzzle Master 1

5

ACROSS 1 For ____’s sake!

5 Former FBI director/special counsel Robert, minus the letter that appears twice in above answer

H comes from it. But if you don’t create, you don’t have a chance. That was a big lesson.

I dropped out of the Tisch program, as musical theater wasn’t really my thing. But I really wanted a supportive community to be around, so I started a weekly songwriter circle at my downtown loft. We challenged ourselves to write a new song every week, and that helped us all improve. I cooked dinner for everyone and people brought bottles of wine. It was a great period in my life.

When I did my second record in 2004, More Than This, I had improved a lot. It was a fun journey.

That’s when you met Jillian, right?

Yes, that’s right. I was smitten. I still remember on our second date, she asked me to play her a song I had written. She sat next to me on the piano bench and I played her one. She asked for another.

I ended up playing eight songs for her.

Then she said, “That song, ‘Come Round,’ that you wrote about that other girl. It’s my favorite. Can you play it again?” I said, “You want me to play a song I wrote about another girl?” And she said, “Yeah!”

I thought, “This is a pretty confident woman!”

ow fast did you come up with Pete Muller?

Probably not as fast as Muller himself would, and not just because the answers are personal. Then again, unlike Muller, you probably don’t spend several hours a week solving crosswords and even more time constructing them just as a respite from your brainy day job.

Muller started solving word puzzles when he was a teenager and never really stopped. He enjoys applying the knowledge and deductive reasoning required to complete a grid, but also craves the connection with whomever created them, albeit virtually. “I have always loved solving crossword puzzles,” he explains. “There’s a wonderful interaction that takes place between the solver and puzzle maker.”

Muller decided to try his hand from the other side of the looking glass in 1999, turning to creating his own grids as a form of escape when his mind became overloaded with mathematical formulas and business strategies while building up the Process Driven Trading proprietary trading group at Morgan Stanley.

“The thrill came from the challenge of creating a puzzle people would enjoy solving,” he says, echoing the reason he pursues most of his endeavors in both work and play. “There are a lot of cool, interesting problems that come up in constructing a puzzle.”

He sent an early puzzle into The New York Times, where Will Shortz – the famed games master who has been the crossword puzzle editor there since 1993 – turned it down, but with

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an encouraging note. Muller kept at it though, and eventually Shortz published one of Muller’s puzzles, a significant accomplishment in the crossword community.

Eighteen of his crossword grids appeared in the Times over the years before Muller decided to up the ante by starting a website to publish his own monthly creations. Ever the innovator, Muller’s recent puzzles are music-themed meta crosswords, a more challenging type of crossword wherein the solver also has to figure out a final answer after the entire grid is filled in.

The answer is almost always a wellknown song title, which provides another opportunity for the polymath who has released four albums of his own compositions as a singersongwriter. “Every month, my band gets together and learns the song that was the answer,” he says. “Then we make a (usually funny) video to go along with it.”

His monthly music-themed meta puzzle is now hosted by the Washington Post.

Despite his busy schedule, Muller still regularly spends some time every day solving the crossword grids, although most straightforward puzzles are too easy for him, even the Times’ early-week offerings. But he can find ways to make them interesting. “I have to challenge myself, so I do the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday ones only looking at the down clues,” he says. “That makes it a lot harder.”

His favorite crossword to solve? The variety cryptic in the Wall Street Journal

by Henry Cox and Emily Rathvon.

“Sometimes that one takes me a couple hours to solve. Fortunately, it only appears once a month!”

•MJ

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PETE MULLER

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ULLER AND JILLIAN, contemplating having children, moved to California in 2007 where they bought a modest beach house which now houses his growing collection of surfboards. Surfing, of course, also became an obsession.

Screens at Muller’s New York and Montecito offices stream hi-def video of the California surf in real time.

It was Jillian’s influence that got Muller back to PDT full time. She noticed that while her husband was thoroughly enjoying surfing and singing, his role as more of a consultant was trending toward complete retirement, leaving a big hole in his life. She noticed he seemed to be missing the intensity of managing people and analyzing the market. Muller agreed.

(photo by Dewey Nicks)

Muller with friend and producer, the late Rick DePofi, about to go surf Rincon

So you just took it back over?

Well, it was a lot more complicated than that, but yes, that’s how it eventually turned out. The group was doing fine, but we weren’t hiring or investing in the future. I saw the inevitable decline on the horizon.

When I returned, I tried to bring more energy and passion to what we were doing. I pushed us to take the risk of hiring more smart people, training them, and setting ambitious goals. I said, “Come on, let’s do this! Why not?

Let’s try it! Come on!” It worked.

So you were back full time, all in?

Yes – they picked choice one, which worked out well for me and for the firm. But I also wanted to keep doing music. Every month when I went to New York, I would do a gig downtown at a place called Café Vivaldi in the Village. I got friendly with the owner, and he said, “You can play here anytime.” I’d always learn a new song for the gig, and every time I’d perform with a slightly different configuration of musicians. Friends and strangers would show up for our jams, and it was always my favorite night of my NY week. Those gigs kept the music going while I re-engaged with PDT and started a family.

I just want to note that you’re spreading your arms wide with a big smile on your face.

That’s what I do – if I’m working on something, I’m all in, or I don’t do it.

So all of a sudden I’m back running the group. But I wasn’t going to give up living in California. I told my colleagues, “I want to live in Santa Barbara, but I can fly back here every month and spend a few months during the summer and I think I can run the group that way. That’s choice one.”

Choice two?

I quit. You guys can have it. It’s all yours.

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PETE MULLER

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FTER THE 2008 financial crisis and the institution of the Volcker Rule, Morgan Stanley was forced to spin off the business. The transition took a while but it became an “incredibly amicable win/win for everybody,” Muller says. When the separation finally became official on New Year’s Day, 2013, all 80 employees remained with PDT. PDT became even more successful after you went out on your own.

Yes. It turned out we could do exactly what we were doing as our own firm, in fact, knock on wood, even better. Our research culture is very collaborative.

We have a huge amount of data and experience building models. Because of our reputation, we’ve been able to attract some of the smartest (and nicest!) people I’ve ever met to join us.

And I trust they will continue to make PDT even better, long after I finally do retire.

Okay, I feel like I have to ask this: When you manage a hedge fund and you do investing, somebody has to lose for you to win, correct? I understand the market grows, but it’s a zero-sum game. Is that right?

No, it actually doesn’t work like that.

Our type of trading makes markets more efficient, which is a good thing for investors.

Trust is a huge part of our culture.

In all of our relationships – with our employees, our investors, and with markets, we strive to be as honorable and ethical as possible.

OK then. So it’s not like Billions on TV… Let’s go back to the music. It had been more than a decade between your second album, More Than This, in 2004, and Two Truths and a Lie, which came out in 2015. I’m guessing that’s because you were pretty busy with getting the company fully established and also raising the kids. What changed in your musical approach?

I found a producer, a Grammy winner and wonderful human, Rick

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Muller with his bandmates (left to right), Katie Jacoby, Skip Ward, Muller, Dave Silliman, John Whooley, and Melissa Soltero, photographed at his home in Montecito

DePofi, who became a good friend, and we worked to create something special together.

When we first met, Rick wasn’t sure he wanted to invest that much time in someone who wasn’t a full-time musician.

I learned he was a surfer, and I shared that I had a home on a great surf break in California. He really loved surfing too, and that sealed the deal. We recorded most of the record at Santa Barbara Sound Design over two weeks, and started every day with a surf session at Rincon. I also learned Rick was a part-time trader, so we had something else to bond over. We’d be traveling somewhere together and I’d look over at him studying option charts while I worked on song lyrics. We were similar spirits and really bonded, and he ended up designing my home studio in Montecito.

Rick passed away a few years ago, from an incurable brain tumor. He was the inspiration behind my spearheading the purchase of the old Power Station in New York [the famed recording studio where such iconic albums as Madonna’s Like a Virgin, the Clash’s Sandinista!, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. and The River were recorded], which they were

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going to turn into condos, and make it the New York center for the Berklee College of Music, where I’m a trustee.

Making Two Truths and a Lie was a really great experience. But I still wanted to get better. I wanted to work on my singing.

So, I found an amazing voice teacher (Valerie Morehouse) whom I still take lessons from. The voice is a muscle. If you practice singing every day, it gets better, it gets stronger and you get more control. I felt pretty silly for not realizing that sooner.

It seems that this analytical mind of yours is employed a great deal even in creative pursuits. Maybe you don’t create a computer model, but you figure out the best plan using your own operating system.

I love that you said operating system.

I try really hard to come up with what works. Then I surround myself with good people and ask them to help make it better. It’s how I run my group, how I do music, how I approach almost everything in life. I love it when someone tells me how I can do better.

I’m listening. Go ahead and challenge me - I’m very open to being convinced – but it’s not easy! I really like it when my mind is changed, because that means I’ve learned something.

PETE MULLER

N

OWADAYS, Muller isn’t as singularly focused on work as he once was. He continues to commute monthly to New York but strives to spend quality time with Jillian and their two schoolaged children, as well as nurture his music career and his surfing obsession.

Being in Montecito has allowed him to spend more time on his music and last year’s Dissolve is evidence his obsessive approach to self-improvement is paying dividends in the writing, recording, and performing.

Muller, per Jillian’s advice, went out on tour with the album as an opening act to see how strangers would react to his music. The response proved validating, especially in Cleveland, where “Alive In Me,” which he wrote for his late mother, had people passing around tissues and crying. Several of his songs have received significant radio play, and “San Diego” and “Not Your Man” spent weeks on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts.

Living out here with your music and surfing and family, are you still as handson with PDT? And what keeps you from heading toward burnout again when your role is more about running the operation than creating new models?

I’m not working as intensely at it as when I first started it, but I’m deeply involved. I have a lot of people that have worked with me for a long time who are smarter than I am, and I let them drive. I still advise them and help guide them. The creative collaborative energy at PDT is what keeps us at the top of our game, and it’s a thrill to be around it. We’ve managed to attract a collection of people – research scientists, technologists, and business folks – who are excited, energized and interested in creating the best quantitative finance firm in the world. But in a way, it’s more a living, breathing piece of art, than a typical company. If PDT was all I did, I would go nuts. And if I only did music, I think the intellectual part of my brain wouldn’t be challenged enough. So, I really like the combination.

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Have you brought a different mindset, that ability to process your own emotions through song, into managing all the things that are part of the job, not just coming up with the best models, but serving as a teacher and

(photo by Dewey Nicks)

(photo by Dewey Nicks)

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psychologist, helping your staff manage their emotions?

Yes. I think I get that from my mom. She was great at helping people deal with their neuroses. Most people stop when they get scared or feel too exposed. Or they get afraid of failure.

Or of success. One of my favorite quotes is from Nelson Mandela – “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

One thing I learned is that if you’re afraid of something, other people are probably afraid of it too.

So you say, “Yeah, I’m scared. I’m just going to frickin’ do it anyway, and I’m going to see what happens.”

As a leader, doing that can inspire others to face their own fears.

If you can get people that work with you to trust you, you can use that trust to push them really hard, with the end result being great not just for the company but for them. Many people at PDT have grown far more than they ever imagined they would, and I think a big part of that is our safe yet demanding culture.

S ALTAR CHITECT.COM

PETE MULLER

W

E’D AGREED to talk for an hour, but before we knew it, two and a half hours had elapsed.

Both of us had other obligations we were neglecting. So we agreed to meet again within a week or two. Due to a number of circumstances, including the transition of the Journal’s new ownership, that turned into a year. We picked up the threads in June 2020, though the COVID-19 pandemic had forced us to continue by phone. As you might guess, Muller isn’t one to spend a lot of time doing the Netflix-and-chill thing, even during sheltering-in-place orders. We picked up with that timely topic.

How has the coronavirus crisis over these last few months been for you? Are you plunging more into work or more family, more music, more surfing?

I work at home a lot, so the biggest change for me has been that I haven’t traveled to New York at all, and that’s made me even more efficient. Being at home has allowed for more family time, too. I did my first ever father-son backpacking trip with my son to Forbush Flats where we hiked two miles and just put up a tent, cooked dinner, cooked breakfast, and came back up. That was great. And I’ve been getting in the water (surfing) a lot.

It’s been really productive for music, too.

I’ve written seven or eight new songs with

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some collaborators, including a song that’s a commentary on what’s currently going on in America, “God and Democracy.”

(Sample lyric: “I’m hopeful but I’m frayed/ Can we still find our way?”)

I also started a foundation to support small venues around the country, places that have touched my heart and are just an incredibly important part of the music ecosystem. It’s a fantastic thing for musicians to be able to play in supportive environments, and many of these places are under intense financial pressure due to the pandemic.

We’re hoping to do an “empty stage” tour later in the year, playing at some of these places and interviewing the club owners about their venue’s history.

Just before this hit, I was about to start playing weekly in SOhO’s back room for happy hour on Friday nights. And I hope that I’ll still be able to play there once this is all over. When I have a weekly gig, I make myself learn a new cover or write a new song. I have to grow in some way.

I want to keep writing and performing with songs that move people. That’s a big part of the journey. In the meantime, the band’s been doing some streaming shows, and that’s been a lot of fun.

Hearing about the “empty stage” tour, I’m reminded of Math for America, one of the other causes you support. Why does that inspire you?

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I started it with Jim Simons, who founded (the larger quant firm) RenTec. We had lunch years ago and were talking about poker, which we both love. Jim was trying to raise money for graduate math research, and we decided to host a charity poker tournament to help. It was a blast and we raised $500,000, which was great except we thought there were more pressing things to do in terms of helping the world. We did it again the next year and wanted to donate the money to help improve the quality of pre-college math teaching. It was Jim’s idea to start a new organization, Math for America, and I’ve been thrilled to be part of it. We still do the poker tournament every year, and it raises $1.5 million. We’ve created a community of a thousand top math and science teachers in New York City who meet regularly, take additional courses, compare notes, and receive a nice stipend for taking part in the program. They all feel a higher sense of self-esteem as a result. We are looking to have the government adopt the model and build a national teaching corps that recognizes and rewards great teachers.

It sounds like you might be busier than ever. Between work, crossword puzzles, spiritual pursuits, family, and on and on, how do you manage to juggle so many diverse pursuits and stay in balance?

PETE MULLER I have been trying to slow down a little bit! I wrote an aspirational new song recently with the lyrics: “I’m going to put more spaces in my days / Run less ragged, act less crazed / Take more time just to be amazed. I’m going to put more spaces in my days.” I’ve always tried to take time to do nothing. It’s so important to slow down and make sure you stay connected.

It’s a real challenge, because I try to do so many things at a high level. I can handle huge amounts of stress related to taking on things that I am passionate about. If I don’t have the passion, the stress is toxic.

When I started pursuing music really seriously, I loved the challenge of getting better. But it created some stress in my marriage. Just like with anything new I take on, I got really intense and was harder to be around. At first my wife didn’t realize how important creating music was to my growth. And I didn’t appreciate how challenging it would be for her to be married to someone who was so seriously pursuing music.

Sometimes I would process emotions related to our relationship in song, even though I tried very hard to obscure any personal details. We’ve both grown in our understanding of each other through the process, which is a good thing.

Judging from the longing quality of your songs, I have to wonder whether you wish you had a mathematical formula to avoid these sorts of struggles, decipher relationships, maybe predict human behavior with the same sort of efficiency and nuance you do with the market. Wouldn’t it be great to have a way to know or predict what someone else might want or do?

No, that wouldn’t be interesting. The whole point of a relationship is to have somebody who surprises you and pushes you in directions that you wouldn’t go, in a way and from a place where you can feel safe for growing. By definition, if you can figure them out, then you don’t need the relationship. Part of what makes it worthwhile is that it’s an interesting puzzle, and it brings something new to your thinking that you didn’t have before.

Isn’t that the whole point of love and deep friendship, feeling safe enough to open

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(photo by Dewey Nicks)

up? When you love, you are completely open.

So we have this math-whiz, hedge fund creator who revolutionized quant investing, the creative musician who pours his heart into songs, and the guy who meditates and surfs and spends lots of time with his family.

How do those things coexist in you? Do they consciously toggle between the left brain and right brain? Is it sequential or more like a simultaneous thing? Do they fight with each other or operate smoothly together?

The commonality is creativity and flow.

I love moving back and forth between solving really hard problems related to my different passions – music, PDT, or crosswords. I try to get to a deep place where I’m really calm, then focus my mind to see deeply into possible solutions without getting stressed. When I’m in that open place, ideas just seem to flow, and answers to difficult problems just seem to

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show up. Most of them don’t work, but every once in a while, a great one shows up, and that makes all the difference.

It seems you’re coming from the idea that intelligence, diligence, discipline, and openness is what lets you be creative and solve problems.

But it’s also about operating from a place of both dignity and confidence with a humility that you have to allow something to just arrive. And somehow that lets you accomplish all that you have and stay pretty balanced. Does that fit?

It does. But please don’t portray me as someone who has it all figured out. I’ve had a lot of struggles and a number of things in my life that have gone spectacularly wrong, and I hope I have more, since those are the times I’ve grown the most!

I do try to live the most connected, heartfelt life that I can imagine, and inspire people – especially in our world right now – to follow their own passions in the most genuine way possible.

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THE SECRET’S OUT

BYTED MILLS

SUSAN READ CRONIN’S FIRST LOCAL LOOK MONTECITO ARTIST SUSAN READ CRONIN FINALLY HAD HER COMING OUT PARTY.

A

fter years of shuttling back and forth between here and her other home in Vermont, Cronin and her husband, Ted, the founding partner of Manchester Capital, decided in 2016 to make Montecito their permanent home. Since then, though, the artist has mostly kept a low profile locally, despite having

gallery representation on the East Coast and elsewhere and years of sculpture and illustration to show.

That changed on a Wednesday night in January when the couple opened their home to an invitation-only crowd of art enthusiasts and collectors. The evening was put on by Palm Desert-based Heather James Gallery, whose newest satellite gallery is on Coast Village Road.

For the show, the Cronins converted a former media room designed by the previous owners into a combination showroom and reception area. “It was such a pleasure to show my works to the community,” Cronin said. “People had great questions... I think everybody had a good time. I’m still getting thank-you notes. There were a lot of good vibes to come out of it.”

A shorthand description of Cronin’s work could be: Giacometti meets Chuck Jones. Her bronze castings feature a cast of animal characters – mischievous rabbits, loyal dogs, creative elephants. Alongside them, you will find anthropomorphic vegetables and fruits, as well as humans hollowed out into wire frames.

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THE SECRET’S OUT

Most of these works – at least the ones in the January show – are no more than a square foot. They are meant as centerpieces, conversation starters. She has several in her kitchen (“Where we really live,” she notes), where they take on a life of their own. “It feels like there’s all this activity that’s happening with these little guys,” she says. “Unlike with something hanging on the wall, you can walk around them...

The work that I do is to be lived with, played with, rearranged, moved around.”

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where her animals as subject matter started. She spent her childhood on a farm in Vermont, but nothing about it sounds pastoral.

“To put it nicely it was a bit of a gulag,” she jokes. “You’d have to pick rocks out of a field and rake the leaves. We took frequent trips to the dump to find things to salvage.”

Summer camp was a refuge, and that led her to the famed Outward Bound wilderness school and student conservation groups. She also

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THE SECRET’S OUT

kept busy making things – knitting outfits for dolls, drawing clothes;

the walls of her home, and are featured on her business cards and

whatever kept her occupied.

promotional material. But both forms are about the negative space

Her father worked in the stock market, but his hobby was

around them. Her sculptures are roughly assembled, nothing realistic

cartooning. “When he came home from work, I’d ask him to draw

or intricate and that’s because, as she explains, she likes to see the

something for me.” (One of his cartoons hangs in her kitchen.) His

silhouettes her works cast.

artist bent may have rubbed off.

In the 1990s, Cronin grew interested in bronze, studying with

Cronin left home at an early age, went to boarding school in

sculptors Jane B. Armstrong and Walter Matia. She is self-taught, with

Washington, D.C. then to Williams College in Massachusetts, where she

no MFA to her name. “I just do it and see where it goes,” she says.

majored in English. “I was getting so overwhelmed with the reading that

That attitude has led her to mixing elements in her work, like

I needed a ‘gut,’” she says, slang for what they’d call an “Easy A” now.

Art class was her gut. Not only was it “easy,” she wanted to be there.

combining a “Michelangelo Mouth” with a cheeky rabbit, or collaborating with another sculptor like Elliot Offner and placing

And then there were the trips into New York and its museum world.

“shoes” on his bronze pig. Characters she knows don’t work as

She counts Jim Dine as an inspiration.

standalone pieces wait for the right partner, and that’s how some of her

Interestingly, the other main focus of her art is the opposite of threedimensional. Cut-out silhouettes, an 18th century art form, adorn

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work comes together.

Cronin’s work has been shown at galleries in Montana, Denver,

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It is not our intention to solicit the offerings of other real estate brokers. We are happy to work with them and cooperate fully. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Equal Housing Opportunity. DRE License Numbers for All Featured Agents: Greg Tice: 462018 | Joe McCorkell: 2051326 | Jason Siemens: 1886104 | Lauren Daniels: 2015901 | Ray Benenate: 778964 | Julie Greener: 1250774 | Kristi Curtis: 2012866 | Robert Heckes: 01723319 | Tyler Mearce: 1969409, Renee Marvin DRE: 2056190

THE SECRET’S OUT

and elsewhere. She has also written and illustrated a guide to bronze

Her husband sits on the board of the Music Academy of the West,

casting, inspired by fielding the same questions over the years. It’s

so you may know the couple through his work there. “There are so

written so that all ages can understand the time-consuming process,

many creative people in this area, or are artists with several career

which takes weeks and weeks. She currently drives to a foundry in

levels,” she adds, considering her guests from the January show. “Or,

Oxnard to cast the bronze.

some might be retired and want to do art instead of, you know, real

Another question she gets asked a lot: does she do commissions? Not really.

estate.”

Being in contact with so many artists and so many disciplines has

“I have so many things that have to come out of me before [I get to things that] come out of somebody else’s head,” Cronin explains.

freed Cronin up to explore such things as poetry. And then, of course, there’s the weather. “When I first came here, I wanted to be outside all

January’s show “pulled back the curtain” on Cronin’s art life. Even

the time,” she laughs. “I used to hope for a rainy day so I could stay

friends who knew she was an artist hadn’t really seen the full extent

inside and actually work... You do get a bit used to it, but I appreciate

of her creativity. Others had never really been to her home. “We’re

it every day.”

not really social butterflies,” she explains. “Ted works a lot. I’m in my studio. We’re not big entertainers, so this was all new to us.”

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Cronin loves the quality of dining here and how close-knit it all is.

Friends visit each other’s tables at restaurants to chat, something that

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didn’t happen in Vermont. Their usual haunts include Lucky’s, Tre Lune, and Cava to “change it up.”

She says it “warmed her heart” that she sold some of her works during her show and knows that “a piece of me” is in the buyer’s home. She feels the same way about the work of friends she has in her home. “Every time I pass by their work I think of them.”

Cronin’s work might start finding its way into the community at large, but there are no major plans as of yet. (Right now, the best place to see it is her husband’s office at 1157 Coast Village Road.) But anybody interested can contact her at www.susanreadcronin.com.

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147

THE SILLY SEASON

C

ould any beauty pageant be more moving than one held each August in Ocean City, New Jersey – for hermit crabs?

The winner sashays down a flower-strewn runway, its shell gaily decorated with sequins and beads. In salute, a chorus of singers belts out “Here it comes, Miss Crustacean!”

Welcome to the Silly Season, when people across the land grab any excuse to hold a summer festival. Of course, this year America has a serious health problem. We’re not holding festivals or traveling to see how other people live. So let’s plop in an armchair and discover some events that serve to remind us: One day, we’ll all be seeing each other again and joining America’s fun, oddball festivities.

Our warm-weather celebrations follow a tradition that began when pioneers raised barns together and then held a hoedown with food and music and dancing under the open sky. My favorite summer events, though, were created to reap a harvest of whimsy.

Some honor a community’s most valuable product, but nothing as predictable as corn in Kansas. We’re talking swamp cabbage. Bologna. Duct tape.

At the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, you can sample garlic ice cream – but don’t look for a kissing booth.

The Great Texas Mosquito Festival in Clute celebrates 148

SUMMER’S SCREWBALL FESTIVALS

BY JERRY CAMARILLO DUNN, JR.

THE WORLD’S UGLIEST DOG CONTEST:

PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA what a local official calls “the only natural resource we could come up with.” The festival mascot is a 25-foot-tall, blow-up mosquito wearing a cowboy hat. Event staff are known as the “Swat Team.”

Battles among athletic titans are popular, too. In the watermelongrowing country of Luling, Texas, contenders clash in an epic seed-spitting match. For a competition in Anchorage, Alaska, locals pull lavishly decorated outhouses across the snow. (“Don’t be number two in this race to the finish,” urges the sponsor.) During New York City’s International Pillow Fight Day in Washington Square Park, participants can forget their adult stresses as they (gently) pummel strangers.

In Beaver, Oklahoma, offbeat Olympians meet at the World Championship Cow Chip Throwing Contest. These bull-chip artists can really sling it: The record toss is 188 feet, 6 inches. And although we might turn up our noses at this event, its origins lie ennobled in American history. On the plains, pioneer families once gathered sunbaked buffalo poop to burn for cooking and heat, tossing these organic Frisbees into open wagons and competing for distance.

With the ecstasy of warm weather, it seems our blood runs wild. We like to get together to shake off the winter blahs and forget the serious-mindedness that keeps the workaday world working.

Over the years I’ve attended all kinds of Silly Season events. Here are some I hope you too can visit one day: FALL

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his was probably the world’s only beauty pageant that the contestants hoped to lose.

A competitor named Curley – a Chinese Shar-Pei with no fur – was being paraded past the grandstand to roars of delight and approval. His head looked like a basketball with half the air let out. His bald, black hide hung in folds. Asked to describe this young pageant hopeful, an official whistled softly: “Five miles of bad road.”

Which meant that Curley had a good chance at the winner’s circle in the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. But his competitors weren’t to be trifled with. Yawning and scratching at the Petaluma fairgrounds were Boston terriers with stately underbites, mystery breeds that looked like baggy pantyhose,

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and a toy poodle wearing a sign around its neck that said: And I Have Bad Breath, Too. One bulldog was led into the arena with eyes that popped out like hard-boiled eggs. A little girl took one look at him and burst into tears.

“That dog,” she wailed, “is a hundred times as ugly as mine!”

One year a “porkshire terrier” was disqualified from the beauty contest when judges surmised that it was actually a baby pig. Other pageant entrants have included a “chihuahua-terrier possibility,” a “police dog in plain clothes,” and Phred, an Italian greyhound with ears that resembled potato chips. Friends of Phred’s owner clamored, “Tell them what you do for a living, Debby!” “I’m a dog groomer,” she moaned.

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But what becomes of an ugly dog when the ugly dog contest is over?

The owner of Pretty Boy Floyd, a low-slung English bulldog with eyes that don’t match, patted her pet. “I love him and couldn’t live without him,” she said, scratching his lop ears. “It’s just Floyd and me.”

The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest takes place in June at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma; 707-283-3247; www.sonomamarinfair.org. Petaluma is located 40 miles north of San Francisco.

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THESILLYSEASON

TWINS DAYS:

TWINSBURG, OHIO

“F

ay and Ray, meet Cody and Dodie.”

“Eldon and Feldon, this is Marilyn and Carolyn.”

Putting two and two together – that’s the purpose of Twins Days, held in an Ohio town called (what else?) Twinsburg. The civic motto: “To Pair Is Human.”

Visitors at Twins Days enjoy events such as the Double Take Parade.

Everyone sees double as the twins pass by – and twins themselves love to stare at each other, a big reason why some 2,400 pairs attend this world’s largest confab of clones.

Attendees also find new meaning in the term “double dating.” Twin Pennsylvania farmers of late middle age – resplendent in identical shirts of hot pink and turquoise – said they’d like to marry a set of twins to take back home. Luckily, the brothers had similar taste: “We don’t want painted women . . .” “. . . with false eyelashes. They can’t be . . .” “. . . divorced. And they have to be . . . ” “. . . young.”

Underlying the festival’s “most identical” contests and other fun events is a serious theme: the deep bond that exists between twins. “Everyone else has to look for a best friend,” one twin explained. “But we’re born with one.” A mother of triplets said the most amazing thing about her

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little girls is their ESP: “One falls, and another cries first.”

This special connection goes to the very founding of Twinsburg, which was named to honor its two most remarkable citizens, identical twins Moses and Aaron Wilcox. According to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, the brothers “married sisters, were lifelong business partners, were stricken

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(805) 565-4000 Homesinsantabarbara.com 1255 Coast Village Rd, Suite 102B DRE 01499736/01129919

It goes without saying that the last few months have been a tumultuous time for everyone, and the global pandemic and associated social distancing and quarantines have had far reaching consequences for nearly every type of trade or commerce.

The local real estate market in Santa Barbara and Montecito is no exception, and we as agents are keeping tabs on the rapidly changing situation. While several listings have been withdrawn from the market, there are still buyers seeking to find their new home, thanks in part to record low interest rates. Working within the new mandates from the California Association of Realtors, we are still actively working for our clients, helping them reach their real estate goals.

Please contact us for the very latest on market conditions; we’re here to help.

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THESILLYSEASON

DAWN OF THE BATS: CARLSBAD CAVERNS, NEW MEXICO

with the same ailment on the same day. Both died on September 24, 1827, and were buried in the same grave!”

One summer day during the festival, Sherry (of Sherry and Terry) was overheard accepting a date for that night with Rick (of Dick and Rick).

As a twin, she knew all the tricks. “Don’t you dare send your brother, now!” she warned. “Don’t you switch on me!”

Rick smiled and offered his arm. “How do you know,” he said with a wink, “that I already haven’t?”

Twins Days is held in August; https://twinsdays.org. This is the world’s largest annual gathering of twins. Twinsburg is located 25 miles southeast of Cleveland.

T

here’s not much going on in the middle of the desert in the middle of summer. Maybe that explains why hundreds of people had gotten out of bed before dawn for a close encounter with bats – thousands and thousands of them.

Everyone sat in a rock amphitheater near the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns. The constellation Orion twinkled high above. In the inky blackness people felt around in their backpacks for breakfast snacks. “I can’t see,” said a voice in the dark. “I don’t like to eat what I can’t see.”

In the summer a colony of about 400,000 Brazilian free-tailed bats calls the cave home. A park ranger explained that “bats are our friends.”

Every night a vast cloud of them flies off to nearby river valleys and eats tons of insect pests, including mosquitoes and black flies. (“It’s not a pretty job, but someone has to do it.”)

The ranger announced that the bats were about to return to the cave from their nightly romp. Did he seem to glance nervously at the skies above his head? (You never know what bats are guano do.)

Rocks and cactuses soon faded into view, silhouetted against the pink sunrise. Black shapes fluttered in the air as the dark symbols of night came home. They tucked their rubbery wings and dive-bombed from 152

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SHEELA HUNT sheela@villagesite.com | 805.698.3767 www.SheelaHunt.com | DRE 01103376

REPRESENTING BUYERS AND SELLERS IN MONTECITO AND SANTA BARBARA with over $200,000,000 in closed transactions in all price ranges

“We have used Sheela Hunt for multiple real estate transactions, and she is consistently fabulous!

Sheela is attentive, responsive and thorough, and has a total knowledge of the market. We have found her advice invaluable and will definitely ask for her help again in the future” ~~~~ “I have used Sheela Hunt as my real estate broker for 6 transactions in Santa Barbara over the past several years. I am extremely pleased with her knowledge of the market, her professionalism and attention to detail in the transaction phase. Sheela was always a pleasure to work with and I would use her again for any future real estate transactions” ~~~~ “Sheela Hunt is absolutely a terrific professional. She helped me in every step of the way with my purchase in Montecito from showing the home several times, negotiation of the purchase price, home inspections, closing, and through moving in. Sheela was dedicated to the project, taking calls/emails around the clock, and communicated all developments to me promptly. Sheela is also genuinely engaging and fun on a personal level. I highly recommend her”

Thank you to all of my clients over the years for allowing me to assist with your real estate needs and for your referrals and recommendations.

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All information provided is deemed reliable, but has not been verified and we do not guarantee it. We recommend that buyers make their own inquiries.

THESILLYSEASON

EVENTS OF THE SILLY SEASON INTERNATIONAL PILLOW FIGHT DAY: NEW YORK, N.Y. Held in Washington Square www.facebook.com/nycpartiesevents

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP COW CHIP THROWING CONTEST: BEAVER, OK. 580-625-4726 https://beaverchamber.com/events

hundreds of feet in the air down through the cave entrance. People in the amphitheater not only gasped at the sight, but listened to the soft whizzing of wings, holding both hands cupped behind their ears. They looked just like . . . well, bats.

The Dawn of the Bats takes place in July starting at 4:30 a.m.; 575-785-2232; www.nps.gov/cave. The day includes ranger programs and hikes. From May to October, visitors can view the returning bats any morning, and also during a sunset amphitheater program as bats swarm out of the cave.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located 20 miles southwest of Carlsbad.

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RAYNE FROG FESTIVAL: RAYNE, LA.

337-334-2332; www.raynefrogfestival.com.

Races and jumping contests; frogs costumed as Elvis, etc.

Frogless visitors can rent amphibians for the competitions.

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WATERMELON THUMP: LULING, TX.

GREAT TEXAS MOSQUITO FESTIVAL: CLUTE, TX.

http://newsite.watermelonthump.com.

Watermelon-eating and seed-spitting contests, music.

800-371-2971 www.mosquitofestival.com Includes a Mosquito-Calling Contest and Mosquito Legs Contest for men, women, kids.

UNDERWATER MUSIC FESTIVAL: LOOE KEY REEF, FL.

800-872-3722 www.lowerkeyschamber.com Submerged songfest with music streamed from underwater speakers. Divers and mermaids play whimsical instruments (e.g., Trombonefish, Fluke-a-Lele).

GILROY GARLIC FESTIVAL: GILROY, CA. 408-842-1625 www.gilroygarlicfestival.com Food booths, cooking competitions.

MISS CRUSTACEAN BEAUTY PAGEANT AND HERMIT CRAB RACES: OCEAN CITY, N.J.

800-232-2465 www.oceancityvacation.com Pageant contestants vie for the coveted Cucumber Rind Cup.

SWAMP CABBAGE FESTIVAL: LABELLE, FL.

Held in February www.labelleswampcabbagefestival.org Swamp cabbage is another name for the heart of the sabal palm, Florida’s state tree. Armadillo races, classic car show.

LaBelle lies on the Caloosahatchee River, 28 miles east of Fort Myers.

OUTHOUSE RACES: ANCHORAGE, AK.

Held in February www.furrondy.net/events/outhouse-races

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155

ENDLESS SUMMERLAND

BY LESLIE A. WESTBROOK

PHOTOS BY EDWARD CLYNES

It’s just .7 of a mile from Field + Fort to the Summerland Antiques Collective and the tiny town (pop. 1,500) has enough retail goods in between to furnish a sultan’s palace… and then some.

DESIGN | ART | HOME | GARDEN | ANTIQUES

INSIDE LILLIE AVENUE’S UPSCALE RETAIL EXPLOSION

O

nce upon a time, in the late 1800s, Summerland was founded by a group of Spiritualists who communicated with those on the “other side.” Twenty-five by 60-foot tent sites were sold for $25 and folks began building hillside homes with a view.

Slowly, but surely, the town’s commercial district sprang up. There was a large Spiritualist hall for holding seances, markets, bars, a school, a gazebo, even a candy store.

Half a century later, when the 101 freeway destroyed the old downtown, Lillie Avenue featured a small market, run by the Azar family – where you will now find The Nugget – a surf shop, a seashell store and, for a brief time, a videorental store. There was never mail delivery, only a post office (the original tiny post office is now part of The Well at the corner of Lillie Avenue and Colville).

A church and a gas station added to the retail strip of Lillie Avenue with a highly regarded elementary school just a block away.

At one point, some people looked down their noses at the tiny beach town and considered it little more than a refuge for hippies, surfers, and nude sunbathers. After a water moratorium instituted in the 1970s was lifted, a spurt of housing growth dappled the hillside topography with larger, more-upscale homes that took full advantage of the town’s fabulous views.

Little by little, retail businesses on Lillie Avenue and its side streets began to blossom. The original grocery store moved to the eastern entrance to town and morphed through two owners before the attractive building was revitalized to its current incarnation as Field + Fort. Beauty salons and a nail parlor came and went. So did a medical marijuana dispensary and even a dentist.

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The French Bulldog and Café Luna offered food and conviviality while The Nugget held down the fort with strong martinis and the best French fries in the region as year-round Christmas tree lights decorated the saloon visited by Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. The Nugget survived and Tinker’s still serves up affordable, fresh shark burgers and hamburgers that teens and families can “take-out” to Lookout Park, just through the 101 underpass.

In the aftermath of the Thomas Fire and debris flow, and in the unlikely time of a global health pandemic, Field + Fort, The Well, and Porch burst onto the retail landscape, securing Summerland as an easy, one-stretch shopping destination for all things beautiful for home and garden in a wide variety of price ranges (with no shortage of high end) for those seeking comfortable and chic lifestyles. Summerland’s days as a “a poor man’s Malibu,” as one long-term resident put it, may be numbered.

S But Summerland has been long known for its antique shops. Early on, savvy dealers from Los Angeles and San Francisco, driving up and down the coast, bought treasures from Summerland antique dealers to mark up and sell in their fancier city showrooms.

Then, around 2010, Summerland began to turn a wee bit fancy itself.

Susan Bridges, Oprah, Noah Wyle, and Malcolm McDowell’s wife Kelley shopped at Rue de Lillie Antiques, located in a small historic house.

Carolina Pierpont opened Méditerannée in two different locations and hosted huge, fun parties with live music among the antiques, art, and garden goods. From his Europa showroom, Patrick Aumont (who left town under the darkness of night) sold very high-end, tasteful pieces to the likes of Ellen DeGeneres and a wealthy clientele, as well as to other dealers.

anta Barbara-based interior designer Christina Rottman has been shopping in Summerland on and off for years. “It’s such a luxury to be able to provide for our clients without having to travel far and wide. Typically, we’d have to go to L.A. or New York or out of the country. Now we have beautiful, eclectic inventory right here at home,” Rottman said, “Lillie Avenue is such a special destination and the level of sophistication and what Summerland offers now is world-class.”

Rottman used to drive to Los Angeles to work with Scotti Sitz at GARDE and Shane Brown at Big Daddy’s Antiques. Now, their merchandise is now close at hand. “L.A. designers are coming here now,” she says, which other Summerland shopkeepers confirm.

And why wouldn’t they? Who wouldn’t prefer strolling Lillie Avenue to navigating L.A.’s sprawl and traffic?

“There’s all kinds of über talent coming together,” Rottman concluded.

“What Kyle Irwin has done at Field + Fort is brilliant! The integrity of products, the designers he represents, and amazing food!”

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157

Montecito-based interior designer Ann James, busy with local projects as well as a condo in San Francisco and a plantation house on the island of Lanai, is delighted with what is happening in Summerland.

“It makes Summerland a definite destination spot with wonderful home furnishing stores. It can only mutually help all the shop owners.”

Interior designer John de Bastiani, who divides his time between homes in Los Angeles and Montecito, praises the rise of Summerland as a design quarter. “People are hungry for it and there’s so much construction and design going on in Montecito. It’s so easy too, with plenty of parking. A lot of designers are coming up here.”

There’s also unanimous ringing of delight in the air among Summerland’s stalwart business owners, such as fine oriental rug dealer Shaw Zahiri, Mary Suding of Mary Suding Antiques, and dealers at the Summerland Antiques Collective, among others, who are delighted at the new businesses drawing more designers and customers to town.

As one Summerland Antiques Collective dealer, Anne Luther, noted: “Wow! Summerland is on fire! Now all it needs is for someone to take over The Big Yellow House and put in a good restaurant!”

SUMMERLAND ANTIQUES COLLECTIVE

C

ountless interior designers, collectors, and those searching for treasures amidst the bounty as they wander the aisles have shopped here. Ty Warner and Oprah have been customers, and many other famous folks (this was a favorite stop for comedian/antique collector Jonathan Winters, who even helped load furniture!).

Today 20 dealers sell everything from antique jewelry to furnishings and fine art. Longtime dealers in the long-running antiques emporium include Reginald Eaton, who started here in May of 1989 and is still going strong over 30 years later; Adonna Brooks and Sue Castellanos, both selling for over 20 years in the collective; and Laura White, with close to 30 years.

Longtime dealers R. Jay Friedmann, with over 45 years in

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the antiques trade, has over 20 years at the collective and Nick McKinney, with some 50 years dealing in antiques under his belt, also has been in the collective for two decades. Co-owner Grace Owens spent 38 years as an interior designer (she is now retired) but can be found helping out at the collective and has been selling there for a decade.

“Summerland Antiques Collective has survived two major recessions, the Thomas Fire and debris flow, and is powering through the pandemic,” reports co-owner David Owen. “We’ve already felt the benefit and we’re thrilled to have Field + Fort and The Well open and help make Summerland an antiques destination again and the anchor for the Summerland Antique District.”

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MARY SUDING ANTIQUES

“I

am thrilled and I think it’s wonderful! The new businesses are doing beautiful jobs,” effused longtime antique dealer Mary Suding, whose original location was nestled next to the 101 northbound entrance. She relocated into the barn-shaped spot on the hill behind Summerland’s post office almost 20 years ago.

“I’m so pleased, because there were a few years here when Summerland was overly quiet and some of our better shops picked up and left. There’s a lot of history here and we love it.”

Mary Suding Antiques enjoys a mix of longtime customers alongside new ones from all over the world who need to furnish newly purchased homes in Montecito and Summerland.

Suding continues to carry 18th century furniture, folk art, garden ornaments, garden furniture and unique objects but has also “changed with the times” to also offer many au courant mid-century pieces.

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SUMMERLAND ORIENTAL RUGS

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all on Shaw Zahiri, who has also been selling in Summerland for about two decades, and he will more than likely invite you to share a cup of tea and conversation (from a safe distance), which is the custom in his homeland of Afghanistan.

Shaw recently moved into the “much better and much larger spot” (across the street from his longtime locale for 20 years) earlier this year, where he can better display his wares. Back in the old days, Shaw even put up a traditional Afghan yurt covered with a rainbow array of magic carpets that was a huge hit in the neighborhood for a brief time, Shaw, who vacillates on the name of his business between Summerland or Summerkand (a reference to Samarkand) Oriental Rugs, has long dealt with many interior designers including Penny Bianchi, Ann James, Kay Lemke, and Deborah Lynn Henno Design.

“Shaw is a great person and I love working with him,” says Henno. “He has exquisite rugs from around the world and his pieces add so much beauty and ground a project.

I love his new location and I am so happy for him. It’s beautiful that he’s able to show in this new, large space. We just finished a couple of big projects. I always emphasize to my clients that he will also care for the rugs, clean, do repairs, add borders.”

Henno, who has many Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley projects in her portfolio from the past 20 years, adds, “Summerland is a now design district with so much character and we are so fortunate to have all those resources here. Design colleagues that have seen my things on Instagram shop in Summerland now.”

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SACRED SPACE

J

ack and Rose Herschorn opened Sacred Space in the summer of 2004. The couple created a magical garden where they display Balinese outdoor gazebos that customers can “trial drive” before customizing a gazebo, pavilion, or other beautiful garden structures for their own gardens. Amidst all things Asian and Southeast Asian, seekers of enlightenment can also find antique benches, daybeds, rare Tibetan, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian and Nepalese furniture, decorative items and garden art, water features, and pottery, including statues of deities.

The couple have even hosted the Dalai Lama’s seer among other special guests, adding opportunities beyond shopping and sipping tea in their calm, spiritual setting.

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GARDE

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ARDE opened three years ago in Summerland and whether it’s a $15,000 Faye Toogood Roly Poly dining table, or one of the subtle and beautiful hand-dyed and hand-woven pillows crafted by indigenous weavers in Mexico from designs by Madda Studio’s Maddalena Forcella, the tasteful selections of owners Scotti Sitz and her partner John Davidson scream sophistication. (Well, maybe they whisper.) In the restored, three-story 1921 barn-like structure, they opened up the windows and let the light flow into the former Summerhill Antiques space, where beloved antique dealer Bea Hyp (before her untimely passing in 2017) always had great stories to share with customers and looky-loos alike.

“I’m so happy to see what is happening in Summerland. I’ve been

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coming here for many years and I’ve watched the change and evolution of this very special beach town,” said Scotti. “I confess, when I first decided to open GARDE in Summerland, I thought, what have I done? But when the fires started, and then the mudslides devastated the communities, I really had to think twice.

After talking to a few residents who are so committed to this area, I decided I wanted to be a part of the recovery and restoring. The first year was difficult. Closures, rain, etc. It took longer to open than we had hoped. Our first year was quiet, but we managed to stay open. By the second year, things were looking up. It’s always been important to me to take a little risk, with a little instinct, hard work, and prayer!”

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FIELD + FORT

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ield + Fort burst on the scene to great fanfare just in time for holiday shopping last December, only to prematurely shut down due to COVID-19 before carefully re-opening.

Interior designer Kyle Irwin’s great taste, combined with business partner Susie Bechtel’s enthusiastic and “can do” attitude – not to mention the added treat of chef Austin Moore turning out super and unusual breakfast treats and lunch items that can be ordered online from their café – raised the retail bar in Summerland.

First impression: A West Coast/Summerland version of New York City’s stylish Bergdorf Goodman with everything from high-end designer furnishings to bedding to kitchenware down to Irwin’s favorite savory pasta sauces. Their new “by appointment” showroom in the building next door features a beautiful and expanded array of art, antiques, accessories, garden, and vintage one-of-a-kind items.

Kyle Irwin was already familiar with Summerland’s retail landscape as one of the co-owners of the original bō•tan•ík .

“I first came to Summerland in 1999, and there are definite similarities between then and now. Few retail businesses existed in Summerland twenty-one years ago,

and many storefronts were empty again just six months ago,” said Irwin, “When new energy is put into a place, it gets the ball rolling in a good way. Not only are we enjoying tremendous support from our local community, but we are already seeing a number of out-of-town designers and customers shopping with us, both for local projects as well as those outside of the area. Summerland is quickly becoming a real design corridor with a great collection of inspiring sources for home and garden.”

Susie Bechtel agrees. “We are thrilled to see that most retail spaces that were vacant when we opened in November 2019 have since been occupied. Not only have businesses moved back in, but we are excited to see the arrival of so many of our favorite home and garden resources now in one place… businesses we have shopped at and supported both personally and professionally for years. Each brings something new and fills a niche, the synergy of which is profound for a community this size.”

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bō • tan • ík “I

’m so excited with the changes coming to Summerland. New life is coming in with tons of great energy!” enthused bō•tan•ík owner Molly Hutto, who purchased the home and garden store in 2015.

Set within one of Summerland’s historic houses, the shop is filled with Hutto’s “curated items for the home and garden, with a classic neutral palate.” Known for its succulent gardens, bō•tan•ík carries a range of affordable, decorative home accessories, including frames, candles, pillows, throws, lamps, furniture, pottery, orchids, garden plants, as well as garden fountains. Home furnishings include dining tables and chairs, accent tables, occasional chairs, sideboards, consoles, and benches.

“I love rattan and reclaimed elm furniture because it usually adds a nice neutral color that works in any style of room,” says Hutto.

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THE WELL

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t the onset of the pandemic, dynamo Shane Brown roared into Summerland after coveting the space at the corner of Lillie and Colville. He splurged on huge olive trees, built walls with fountains and repurposed antique doors and window frames as he went to work on his latest venture. Brown not only brought his unique and fun taste to town with his “upcycled” creations and custom-designed garden walls, fountains, and fireplace walls, but also attracted many of his longtime interior design clients and fans who frequent his Big Daddy Antiques showroom in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles-based interior designer Shan Hinton, of Shan’s Pour La Maison, is a longtime fan of the antique and objets d’art dealer. “It’s lovely! I walked in and I thought I could move in here

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tomorrow. It’s fantastic and has a very European feeling,” notes the United Kingdom native. “I could go in and buy the whole lot. I do have lots of clients in and around Montecito and Santa Ynez, so I was so happy that he opened up there as it’s bit of a schlep to drag clients to L.A. for great accessories and lamps and other things.”

Hinton had already been shopping for her clients at GARDE, bō•tan•ík, and Summerland Antiques Collective for some time.

“There are such great places, and it’s even better now that there’s more,” she says. “I’m very excited that Summerland has become such a great place to shop and it makes my life much easier now!”

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PORCH

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popular fixture on Santa Claus Lane in Carpinteria for almost a decade, Porch owner Diana Dolan decided to make the move to Summerland while looking for a pop-up space.

Dolan carries lines that she says represent “the relaxed California aesthetic: modern beach chic with a global influence. Our unique furnishings and treasures reflect a person’s soul and support our indoor-outdoor Santa Barbara lifestyle.”

Porch is now open and located in the former Just Folk building that has been freshened up and painted inside and out in Summerland’s “historic white.”

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“We carry specialty pieces to make your home or garden uniquely yours, all the things you need to make your house a home,” Dolan says.

Vintage rugs, locally crafted dining tables, accent chairs, and lighting are all part of the mix along with Porch’s network of both established and emerging local artists shown in rotation that includes painters Pedro de la Cruz and Lety Garcia and photographers Will Pierce and Michael Haber.

The icing on the Summerland cake? Tarot card reader Mary will set up her table and help customers communicate with well, you know what.

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Life is Better

with Chocolate Caviar Chocolate Cheese

Jules Montecito | 1292 Coast Village Road | 805-319-8876 | julesmontecito.com (across from The Montecito Inn )

Dynamic Trio

by Leslie A. Westbrook

Three Artists Help Keep the Carpinteria Scene Female Friendly

T

he art world, like much of the rest of the world, has been slow in recognizing the contributions of women. Although Artemisia Gentileschi in the 17th century and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who was plenty busy painting Marie Antoinette and the French Royal Court, were successful during their time, most women artists have struggled to be taken seriously. In the 1970s, women artists who took off their

clothes got attention (think Lynda Benglis’ famous nude spread in Artforum magazine and feminist artist Hannah Wilke’s nude self-portraits). Only recently have women Abstract Expressionist artists of the 1950s – some who were married to their more famous counterparts – been given their due with large museum exhibitions. For the most part, though, the art world is and continues to be a “good ol’ boys’ club.”

Which makes it all the more refreshing that the small town of Carpinteria, best known for its longtime moniker, “The World’s Safest Beach,” is also home to quite a few accomplished artists, many of them women. In fact, the Carpinteria Arts Center, which gives equal time to artists of all ages and genders, kicked off last year’s opening of its newly remodeled building and exhibition space with a one-woman show featuring Patricia Houghton Clarke’s “Facing Ourselves.” The Carp resident’s photographic documentary portrait series addressed migration and immigration issues.

While the work on these pages may not be as radical as that of their predecessors, these women painters are no less dedicated to their craft. They all take their work seriously and when not at their easels, they each take advantage of Carpinteria’s inspiring geography, which often influences and/or appears in their work. Lety Garcia is often spotted riding her bike around Carpinteria while photographing sites of interest to paint, Cayetana “Tani” Conrad hikes the Franklin Trail and her nature landscapes reflect what’s underfoot, and Baret Boisson walks her dogs daily along the bluffs and the beach gathering inspiration from ancient times from the paths she wanders.

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Lety Garcia

L

ety Garcia grew up in Santa Barbara with three brothers, raised by a single mom. Garcia is keen to share the story of her early artistic journey again and

again, she says, because it “illustrates the power of meeting the right mentor, at the right time, in a young life. When I was twelve years old, we lived next door to a woman who painted large, snow-covered mountain scenes on her front porch.�

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One day, a young Lety ventured up the driveway and asked if she could watch her neighbor while she painted. “I kept coming back and she would set up still lifes for me to draw,” Lety recalled.

Eventually, the neighbor suggested to Lety’s mother that she buy art supplies so that her budding pupil could paint alongside her. “Thus, began my first mentorship. From that time forward, painting has been a place where I can go and feel I am most uniquely myself,” Garcia said.

That early experience informed her school electives and she “just kept painting.” She attended U.C. Santa Barbara, majoring in Art Studio with an emphasis in Painting, and studied under noted Santa Barbara artist Hank Pitcher.

Activism is also a driving force for Garcia, who often donates works to local fundraisers such as Friends of the Library and more recently to help feed those who are struggling due to COVID-19.

“The most rewarding part of being an artist, and a painter in particular, is that I have the pleasure of putting my paintings to ‘work’ to help support

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causes I believe in. I find it very gratifying to be able to contribute what I make in exchange for raising awareness and funding for nonprofits that provide services for many others.”

In 2017, she began rendering drought-tolerant plant life as a means to raise awareness about the drought, which concerned her greatly. She continues to paint succulents and agaves because she hasn’t tired of their sculptural forms – nor the conservation conversations they inspire.

Lately, Garcia has been turning her painting focus to bridges and freeway overpasses, including a pedestrian walking bridge over the freeway and the Emma Wood State Beach overpass that she has painted numerous times. She hopes to get back to bridges and freeway scenes when she can venture out freely again.

On occasion, via Instagram (@letypainter), she offers an original work of art at a discount with thirty percent of the proceeds donated to The Food Bank of Santa Barbara County.

“I’m very grateful for the support and to be able to help! I wondered if the subject matter of my painting would change or shift (due to the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order) but so far, no,” Garcia concluded. “I have made a conscious choice to continue to paint what has always held my interest. Staying in this focus while I paint allows me the mental freedom not to think about the current, shocking state of the world. I prefer to keep my painting time as a private, meditative free-will state.”

| www.letygarcia.com | lgarciapainter@gmail.com | @letypainter on Instagram |

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Baret Boisson

T

hough art was in her blood from an early age, self-taught artist Baret Boisson’s entrance into the world of art blossomed quite accidently and spontaneously over a glass of wine.

Born in Italy to a single mother who was an artist, Boisson spent her early years in South America and moved to Dallas, Texas before being sent off to boarding school when she was just 11 years old.

“Art has always been a part of my life. I remember my mother pushing my stroller through countless museums across Europe. She recalls me pointing a tiny finger at the paintings I liked. Later, we moved to Suriname, a country at the edge of the Amazon rainforest, where meals were served on vibrant green banana leaves and my mother made her own earrings from dried gourds she painted. I grew up surrounded by beauty, color, and art.

I know that this has informed much of my sensibility.”

Boisson’s own artistic journey – on canvas, with clay and in assemblage – began one evening in Los Angeles when a friend, attempting to cheer up Boisson while she was in a deep personal-life funk, lured her over with glass of wine accompanied by art boards, paintbrushes, and paint. When

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Boisson completed her first painting, she likened picking up a paintbrush to a “fish finding water.” Since the completion of that first portrait of two boys, she has dedicated herself to making art full time.

Her works are in several mediums and styles. Her folk-art style paintings from her “Inspiring Greatness” series feature portraits of heroes whose words and deeds have inspired her, including Muhammad Ali, Abraham Lincoln, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Marian Anderson, and Eleanor Roosevelt. A solo show at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee in 2016 showcased these images. While she continues to paint heroes, including young environmental activist Greta Thunberg among others, her current obsession is of a more personal nature.

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Large abstract pieces in her “All of My Relations” series speak to how we are all connected. The series is named for the Lakota phrase, Mitákuye Oyás’i (All Are Related), a prayer of respect, honor, and love for all of mankind, and for the Earth.

“This speaks to an interconnectedness that encourages us to respect not only our family, friends, and neighbors, but all with whom we share the earth: the birds, the insects, the trees, and even the rocks and rivers. It’s a prayer of oneness and harmony that I’ve been calling upon in a body of work that feels both deeply personal and universal,” says the artist.

The sights, smells, and sounds on daily walks with her dogs along the beaches and bluffs of Carpinteria delight Boisson’s senses. “The soaring birds and the expanse of the blue ocean, the sunsets and the wildflowers all influence my color palette. Beyond that, the very ground upon which we take these daily walks bears witness to the legacy of the Chumash Indians who made their home in this very spot. This legacy, that is remembered and celebrated, sets Carpinteria apart.”

As with Lety Garcia, Boisson says the COVID-19 outbreak hasn’t interrupted her work flow. “My days actually don’t look very different. I am used to and love being alone,” she explained. “Still, I cherish my time with friends and enjoy having studio visitors. I do miss that. But I feel a connection to the rest of the world in a way that I haven’t before.

“It’s been crazy! We are all in this together, and hopefully some good will come out of this shared experience.”

| www.baretboisson.com |

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Cayetana “Tani” Conrad

T

ani Conrad remembers staring at the design on a milk carton when she was about seven years old.

“I realized that someone got paid to color,” she said. “That seemed like a great job to me. At about age twelve or thirteen, I became aware that some of my friends were good at something – like soccer or tennis. Most impressive was one friend who could play “House of the Rising Sun” on the guitar. So that summer, I asked my father to teach me how to paint with oils.” Conrad’s father was well-known author, artist, raconteur, and longtime Carpinteria resident Barnaby Conrad, a man of many talents who mastered trompe l’oeil with his paintbrush. Tani’s father taught her how to paint initially. Her brother and two of her grown children are also painters and/or illustrators. “So my family has influenced my art,” she explained.

Born in San Francisco, Tani spent “many vacations and happy summers rafting at Rincon Beach” as a young girl near the house her father Barnaby and stepmother Mary built at Rincon Point in 1969.

Conrad moved to New York City where she studied theatre design at NYU and lived on the East Coast most of her adult life, yet she used what she

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calls, “California colors… Mediterranean blues, pinks, greens” in her paintings, where her subject matter ranged from portraits and figurative works to still lifes that she painted while living in Connecticut. The painter moved back to Carpinteria in 2005 where she launched a swimming pool series.

“Every time I go into a museum or an art gallery I am influenced by some work of art. There are so many artists throughout history whose work I love,” said Tani, citing Vermeer, Da Vinci, and the simplicity of Japanese Ukiyo-e prints. She cited Morandi and Diebenkorn as lasting influences and loves Gauguin.

Her most recent work, done in her painting studio in Ventura, are meticulous close-up studies of nasturtiums and woodland paths one might find under foot on nature walks or in a magical fairy garden.

“Although my nature paintings are all inspired from plants I see around Carpinteria, I don’t consider them to be about a specific place. Rather they are more about a feeling one might have had when being still in nature, particularly when one was a child. It could be anywhere.”

Since the Bell Arts Factory art studios closed, Conrad has been working at a small kitchen table in her Carpinteria residence with odor-free acrylics and mixed media on smaller abstract pieces and small 5” x 7” collages using cut paper she has painted.

“The colors and shapes are calmer. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it is because life is simpler when you stay at home,” said Conrad.

Still, there are always struggles, she admits, but with experience comes revelations.

“It took maturity to realize that struggle is part of the process and to not get upset when a painting goes through an ugly phase. In my younger years, I obliterated so many paintings. Now, I work with and see each layer as a bit of history to add to the painting.”

| www.taniconrad.com |

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SÉLÉNÉ

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In Full Bloom Exploring the Star-Studded History, Picturesque Back Roads, and Unique Architecture of the Hearst Hacienda at Fort Hunter Liggett

Story by David Baum, with photos by Susie Baum

We Smell It Before We See It, a heady rush like the aroma of orange blossoms, but warmer, softer – more honey and less spice. Our car climbs a short hill as acres of lupine flowers break into view, emitting the fragrance of neroli. It’s late April in Central California, and the wildflowers are at their peak.

Scanning the shimmering stalks of lavender, fuchsia, and blue, I realize that I’ve been called here, not just to witness this dazzling floral display, but also to visit a historic hotel where my parents sojourned more than 60 years ago: the Hearst Hacienda at Fort Hunter Liggett, dubbed the Milpitas Ranchhouse on the National Register of Historic Places.

During the 1930s, William Randolph Hearst’s holdings in this area encompassed hundreds of

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thousands of acres, a vast swath of Central California that extended from this tranquil inland valley all the way to the Pacific coast nearly 30 miles away – as the hawk flies – over the grass-clad hills of the Coast Range.

The bird’s-eye view must be spectacular. It’s not bad from the car either. Vineyards blanket the landscape on both sides of Jolon Road, their miniscule grapes soaking up the late spring sun – a promise of future vintages. But I am thinking about the past, about the history of this rugged land, and about the woman who helped William Randolph Hearst build an empire here.

Julia Morgan is best known for designing Hearst Castle, the jewel in William Randolph’s real estate crown. My wife Susie and I have toured this coastal palace on several occasions, and we are curious to see the Hacienda, its country cousin.

One of four Mexican Land Grants in this part of California, Hearst bought the ranch, along with an extensive cattle operation, in 1925. He retained Morgan to design the Hacienda, which took three years to construct. He added an airstrip and a phone line to connect the remote outpost with Hearst Castle.

Guests at Hearst Castle occasionally embarked on all-day journeys via horseback to the Hacienda. Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, William Powell, and Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies reportedly made the trek. Herbert Hoover, Jean Harlow, and Errol Flynn also visited the Hacienda, attending fiestas in the dining hall. David Taylor, ranch manager at the Hacienda during its era as a working cattle ranch, left a memoir that describes these celebrity visits. He tells of grand fiestas that included a mariachi band in the balcony above the dining room.

Small Brown Signs

flank the road as we approach the guard gate, each bearing a single word. Honor. Integrity. Respect.

Courage. Loyalty. Selflessness. We pass through the gate and traverse a short hill as the Hacienda comes into view. Architecturally, the building

is compatible with the Mission San Antonio de Padua, just half a mile

Hearst, however, only owned the Hacienda property for about 10 years.

down the road, although Morgan added a few Spanish Colonial and

In 1940 he sold it to the United States Army. Today the military operates

Moorish touches, such as the massive gold dome that crowns the

the Garrison at Fort Hunter Liggett as a Total Force Training Center –

Commander’s Suite – our quarters for this visit.

and the Hacienda as a VIP hotel, accessible to civilians with a routine

With two bedrooms and a large living room, the suite is excessive

security check. The Army added an industrial kitchen and restaurant,

for a party of two, but it was the only accommodation available with a

where guests can order simple lunch and dinner fare, and belly up to the

kitchen, and restaurant options here are slim. I plop down on the sofa

bar with the enlisted men and women stationed at the base.

and gaze up at the reinforced concrete beams above me – an ideal

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more than 700 buildings in California, prompting the American Institute of Architects to honor her with its highest award, the AIA Gold Medal. In Santa Barbara, Morgan designed the Margaret Baylor Inn on Anacapa Street, currently known as the Lobero Building. She also designed the city gymnasium on East Carrillo Street, adjacent to the Recreation Center. In Montecito, Morgan is responsible for a 3,000-square-foot ballroom at the Peppers Estate on Hot Springs Road, now the centerpiece of a popular bed and breakfast inn.

Full Disclosure:

building material in a land of frequent wildfires and occasional earthquakes.

Morgan’s first building of this type was the 72-foot-tall bell tower at Mills College in Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco.

This iconic structure emerged unscathed from the devastating 1906 earthquake, cementing her reputation as a leading proponent of reinforced concrete design.

As architects go, Julia Morgan was a rock

William Randolph Hearst and architect Julia Morgan reviewing blueprints of the Hacienda

studied over the past four centuries.

A mere five feet tall and 100 pounds, Morgan

if you are looking for shopping, restaurants, or any type of nightlife beyond listening to crickets, the Hacienda at Fort Hunter Liggett is not for you. It’s a great base

has been described as “a prim woman in drab

for biking, hiking, and exploring the

star. Among female architects, she was one

suits, hair pulled back in a tight bun,” who

surrounding countryside – especially in the

of a kind. She was the only woman in her civil

expressed her exuberance mainly through a

spring, when the hills are green and the

engineering program at U.C. Berkeley, the first

colorful collection of hats, collected during

wildflowers abundant. There is also rustic

woman to receive an architectural license in

the years she spent in Paris. Biographer Mark

camping along the San Antonio River, and

California, and the first woman to be admitted

Wilson called her a quiet feminist who blazed a

rock climbing at the end of the road.

to the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure

trail for women in a decidedly male-dominated

des Beaux-Arts program in Paris, where Pissarro,

profession.

Renoir, and many other prominent artists have

From certain angles, the Hacienda maintains its historic charm. It is flanked

During her long career, Morgan designed

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by tranquil gardens and commands a view

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over open grasslands towards a range of virgin hills. Yet a broad expanse of asphalt surrounds it on two sides, and the view from the rear overlooks a fire station and other functional structures on the base.

On our first morning, we linger over coffee in the garden, admiring the faded patina of the old stucco walls. We walk around the premises, pausing to take in some mosaics fashioned of Mexican tile purportedly selected by Hearst himself. We admire the murals in the dining room, created by artist Bill Runyon, whose work also graces the walls at the San Francisco Presidio.

We ask the desk clerk to unlock the Tower Rooms so we can see the hand-carved doors and shutters that Morgan designed. Marion Davies reportedly stayed in one of these suites during her visits, the clerk tells us. Oddly, Hearst never spent the night at the Hacienda, squelching my speculation about their clandestine trysts.

As the sun climbs into the sky we load our bikes on the car and set off in search of a quiet stretch of road. Around here that’s not hard to find. Fort Hunter Liggett occupies hundreds of thousands of acres, much of it wilderness, traversed by some of the prettiest backroads in California.

After a few miles we unload the bikes and start pedaling. Crossing a wood-plank bridge spanning the San Antonio River, the road turns from asphalt to dirt, then dirt to grass – a barely discernible two-track meandering through colorful, flower-specked meadows and majestic oak woodlands. This is Steinbeck territory. His magnum opus, East of Eden, was set on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, less than 20 miles from the Hacienda. For this trip, I brought along a copy of Steinbeck’s third novel, To a God Unknown, which is set in the tiny town of Jolon, just a few miles away.

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This land is unspoiled, in part, due to its relative isolation. For more

East, through King City – the same path now navigated by Interstate 101.

than 100 years, the historic El Camino Real that connected all of

The picturesque Hacienda and adjacent Mission San Antonio have been

California’s missions ran through this valley. When the Monterey and

off the beaten path ever since, prompting one travel writer to call it one of

Salinas Valley Railroad was completed in 1874, traffic was diverted to the

Monterey County’s best kept secrets.

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191

Among The Many slides in my father’s Ektachrome archives is a picture of himself, sitting on the edge of a swimming pool, with the arches of the Hearst Hacienda as a backdrop. Ted’s pose is relaxed, his gaze steadfast, taking in the distant hills. That leisurely gaze summoned us here, a bugle from the past.

As a medical officer in the United States Army, Ted’s duties included an occasional rotation at Fort Hunter Liggett.

Perhaps because he was newly married, his commanding officer allowed my mother, Rita, and him to reside here together, in a ground-floor suite not far from our quarters.

On our final night, Susie and I carry our dinner out to a picnic table on the edge of the property, adjacent to the rooms we have identified as my parents’ honeymoon suite. We uncork a bottle of Monterey

The newlyweds: Rita and Ted Baum, 1958

County pinot noir farmed from the Santa Lucia Highlands, a coveted stretch of

tour of the old mission. A leisurely bike ride through stunning scenery. A hike among granite

vineyards on the eastward flank of the

monoliths at Indians Ranch. A lazy picnic by the San Antonio river, reading our books in the dappled

Coast Range, just up county.

shade of a sycamore tree, surrounded by wildflowers.

We drink to enduring love, and to

Once the sun slips below the horizon we retire to the Commander’s Suite with the remainder of

perfect days like this one: A self-guided

the wine. I light a blaze in the wood-burning fireplace, pondering the perennial question: Why do we

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travel? Couldn’t we do many of these same things at home?

The sonorous call of a great horned owl drifts in through the open window, across the lawn from where the swimming pool used to be.

I see my parents through a sepia haze: my dad just home from the Korean War, marrying my mother, and finding themselves here at this historic site.

The past collides with the present as the embers burn low. I think

We travel to learn – to meet new people, encounter new ideas, immerse ourselves in unusual sights, smells, and sounds

about my conversation with a noncommissioned officer in the bar downstairs, pursuing his E-6 leadership training to advance his rank to staff sergeant. He wants to join his comrades in another questionable war, to fight off evil in a distant land.

Steinbeck maintained that the perpetual struggle between good and evil is what makes us human and that redemption lies in confronting this inner struggle. The answer to my question becomes suddenly clear: We travel to learn – to meet new people, encounter new ideas, immerse ourselves in unusual sights, smells, and sounds. By letting go of the familiar, we free the mind from its habitual boundaries. The best trips encourage contemplation – a word that belongs on one of those little brown signs.

The owl lets loose a mournful cry, followed by a bugle from somewhere on the base. I tune in to the stillness, raising a toast to gods unknown.

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Resilient, Together

“American Riviera Bank came through on our PPP loan for us as they always do, with confidence and outstanding service.

Now we’re working together to deliver a great rest of year.”

— Todd Meznik, Chief Financial Officer at Santa Barbara Auto Group What does True Community Banking mean? It means working together to find solutions under even the most trying of circumstances. It means we care about your employees as if they were our own.

COMMERCIAL LOANS | COMMERCIAL LINES OF CR EDIT | COMMERCIAL R EAL ESTATE LENDING

Preferred SBA Lender

AmericanRivieraBank.com • 805.965.5942 Santa Barbara • Montecito • Goleta • San Luis Obispo • Paso Robles

MONTECITO LIVING

LISTING AGENT ANDREW TEMPLETON 805-895-6029 FSGROUP@COX.NET

CALRE #01397847

LISTING AGENT BARBARA KOUTNIK CALRE 805.565.8811 BCKOUTNIK@AOL.COM

COLDWELL BANKER RE ALT Y

VILLA FIESOLE - TUSCAN VILLA WITH OCEAN AND MOUNTAIN VIEWS ~ 5BD/7BA ~PREMIER LOCATION OFFERED AT $4,795,000

#00809916

REMODELED BIRNAM WOOD HOME ~ OPEN FLEXIBLE FLOORPLAN ~ 3BD/3.5 BA ~ LUSH PRIVATE SETTING OFFERED AT $4,175,000

The property information herein is derived from various sources that may include, but not be limited to, county records and the Multiple Listing Service, and it may include approximations. Although the information is believed to be accurate, it is not warranted and you should not rely upon it without personal verification. Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Realty are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker. All Rights Reserved.

Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker logos are trademarks of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. The Coldwell Banker® System is comprised of company owned offices which are owned by a subsidiary of Realogy Brokerage Group LLC and franchised offices which are independently owned and operated. The Coldwell Banker System fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.

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