West Hollywood Magazine by West Hollywood Magazine

Game On!

The Horn Serves Fresh & Exotic

BILLY HaIneS

The Legacy Lives On

GOOD nIGHT Three Takes On An Ideal Night Out

the Architect

Patrick Tighe: Creating Spaces to Create Experiences PREMIERE ISSUE | Fall 2014

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City of West Hollywood California 1984

C O NTENTS Three Nights Our Ideas for Food and Fun 21

The Horn When You Want Your Dinner to Be Wild Remembering Billy Haines The Legacy Lives On / 24

The Enclave A Cul-de-Sac of Art and Design Words of Women A Poetic Look at Fashion

Patrick Tighe Big Design in Small Spaces / 46 52

Night Shift The Pacific DESIGN Center After Dark Intersecting Fashion, Design and Celebrity / 62 Virtually Famous West Hollywood Digerati / 68 Behind the Orange Curtain A Weekend Getaway

East Side / West Side All Around the Town Drawing a Line Todd Williamsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art BEDTIME STORIES CHRISTOPHER RICE / 98

www.dedon.us

A Ne w Look at W e st Holly wood Ins ide a nd Ou t JOSHUA STUART When I first moved to West Hollywood I knew that the city was a center of great nightlife, shopping and dining. As time went by, I learned that West Hollywood also is home to many of the world’s leading interior designers and their showrooms, an inspiration for cutting-edge architects like Patrick Tighe and home base for Hedi Slimane and his Saint Laurent design studio. My primary goal with this premiere issue is to call out those aspects of West Hollywood and what makes the city legendary. For example, while West Hollywood celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, in this issue we take you back to an even earlier time with a story about how the legacy of interior designer William Haines lives on here. We also reveal those stunning aspects of West Hollywood that sometimes are out of sight. We share a rare nighttime look inside the Pacific Design Center, as seen through the eyes of Ian Morrison, our men’s fashion photographer. That look features clothing from designers with stores based in West Hollywood. As this issue makes clear, West Hollywood is the epicenter of design and style in Los Angeles County and, dare I say, the West Coast. That is one of the many reasons why West Hollywood is a place where people and new businesses want to be. In the next two years we will see more than a half million square feet of new retail space and more than 1,500 new apartments and condos built here. As you read this issue, please note that the majority of our photography and all of our design and stories are original. The content, design and quality of West Hollywood Magazine must reflect a city that is unique and doesn’t fit any template. I welcome feedback from you about how we can celebrate what is special about West Hollywood and the people and businesses that thrive here.

Josh Stuart, Publisher

new york

dallas

los angeles

high point

las vegas

LA Showroom - 8620 Melrose Ave. West Hollywood

Matthew Pendant

arteriorshome.com

CO N T RIBU TORS CARRIE SHALTZ PUBLISHER / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JOSH STUART CREATIVE DIRECTOR MATTHEW MORGAN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY PAOLO RICARTTI EDITORIAL ASSISTANT NATHAN ZAKHOR

Carrie, a Midwest native, received her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Michigan. After a successful commercial photography career in New York City, Carrie, who lives in Los Angeles, now combines her passion for space and portraiture into dynamic architectural imagery.

IAN MORRISON

Ian Morrisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curiosity about photography peaked after high school in suburban Seattle. His passion is shooting portraits of people, be they models, neighborhood regulars or inhabitants of places he visits. Morrison lives in Los Angeles, where he regularly shoots for L.A.-based designer Thomas Wylde and Flaunt magazine.

BEAUTY EDITOR JENN HANCHING ILLUSTRATIONS RACHEL BROWN CONTRIBUTING WRITERS GUS HEULLY RICHARD FRAZIER CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS LEE CHERRY NATE JENSEN IAN MORRISON NIKKO QUINONES JAMES PERRY JOHN RUSSO CARRIE SHALTZ JOSHUA SPENCER NAOMI YAMADA ALANNA YOU

NAOMI YAMADA Naomi Yamada is a photographer and illustrator based in Los Angeles who has worked as an art historian at the Getty Museum. Her interest in photography and painting led her to build her own studio where her work emphasizes the natural beauty of life by using an analog approach or medium.

RACHEL BROWN Rachel Brown is a full-time artist who lives and works in West Hollywood. She uses Sumi ink, watercolor and charcoal to capture the energy and life of her subjects. Her work can be viewed online at rachelbrownart.com.

JOSHUA SPENCER

Joshua Spencer is a Los Angeles-based editorial photographer. He brings a photojournalistic approach to his editorial images by trying to catch the unconventional and unplanned moments of life.

(323) 800-6751 josh@stuartscottmedia.com

facebook.com/westhollywoodmagazine Twitter @WestHWoodMag Instagram @westhollywoodmagazine

NATE JENSEN

Nate Jensen grew up in the Midwest, interned in Kansas City, studied and lived in Rome, and now has rooted himself in Los Angeles, where his work as a model led him into photography.

Cover Photo by Art Gray Photography

West Hollywood Magazine is a publication of Stuart Scott Media, Josh Stuart and Henry E. (Hank) Scott, managing partners.

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Photo by Brian Lindensmith / All Access Photos Bootsy Bellows, 9229 Sunset Boulevard

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THREE NIGHTS Our Takes on Food & Fun

The Melody Room, Ciro’s, Mocambo. Since at least the Fifties, well before West Hollywood was actually incorporated into a city, the area was known for its nightlife at clubs like those on the Sunset Strip. While those clubs have disappeared, the nightlife scene has become ever more vibrant (and a lot less focused on Hollywood, though there are still places where you have to wade through paparazzi to get inside). It’s actually near impossible not to enjoy yourself in West Hollywood today, especially on a weekend night, given the many options. Those options can seem overwhelming, which is why we’ve crafted this brief guide to help you choose from among the variety of what West Hollywood has to offer. In issues to come we will call out more.

A New Take On (and An Old Look at) Hollywood With a decor out of the Sixties with tufted leather banquets, and an entertainment menu that includes strippers and puppets, David Arquette has managed to bring to life the Hollywood of the Fifties and Sixties for a new generation. His Bootsy Bellows, at 9229 Sunset Boulevard near Doheny Road, is named for his mother, a former burlesque dancer and pinup model. This is a place where you’ll spot paparazzi lurking outside, waiting to snap a shot of Rihanna or Christina Hendricks or Joe Jonas. Before your night out at Bootsy Bellows, you might stop at Dan Tana’s for dinner. There really is no place in or around West Hollywood that better evokes Old Hollywood. Dan Tana’s this year is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It was opened in 1964 by Dobrivoje Tanasijevic (who changed his name to Dan Tana), a Yugoslav American football player and restaurateur who also is famous as the proprietor of the old Peppermint Twist, which introduced the dance that no one reading this who is under the age of 40 likely will recognize. The interior, with its red-leather booths, red-checked tablecloths and eccentric framed football jerseys and watercolors, is filled both with celebrities such as Ryan Phillippe, Cameron Diaz, James Woods and Benicio del Toro and lesser-known fans of the restaurant’s traditional Italian cuisine. Dan Tana’s is at 9071 Santa Monica Boulevard just east of Doheny.

Edge AND Style in the City Center The restaurants and nightclubs on the Sunset Strip continue to be a draw for visitors to West Hollywood. The Strip is still the primary route for tour buses whose drivers point out the club where River Phoenix died (the Viper Room), the hotel where Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham drove his motorcycle down the hallway (now the Andaz) and the then-apartment house where John Wayne reportedly brought a cow to his penthouse so his coffee guests could get their own cream (now the Sunset Tower hotel). But in the last few years a nightlife neighborhood has developed in the center of West Hollywood that is less focused on celebrity and rock and more on edgy entertainment. The centerpiece of that is DBA at 7969 Santa Monica Boulevard. Sure, there’s a bar, there’s music. But there’s also a rotating series of events that has made this club perhaps the most creative in Los Angeles. Consider the recent run of “Tarantino,” an homage to that director and screenwriter in the form of a mash up of music from his most celebrated films. Then there is “The Writer’s Room,” not your Mother’s idea of a book club, where the sometimes raucous Reza Aslan interviews the 17

(Edge and Style CONTINUED) likes of screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and political writer Mark Leibovich. And there’s “Cat Face,” a party where drawing some whiskers on your face gets you in the door cheap. You’re going to want dinner first. When you consider the food, the ambiance and the crowd, the obvious choice is Laurel Hardware at 7984 Santa Monica Boulevard. The name, adopted from the real hardware store that once occupied the space, is a dramatic contrast to what you’ll see when you walk through the small and simple front room into the dramatic space at the rear. A wall of glass fronts a large garden of diners, who also sit casually inside on chairs and sofas. The bar is always humming with a crowd that’s a mix of gay and straight, male and female, Hollywood and real estate. Warning: If you’re planning on dining on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, make a reservation for dinner. If you just plan to hang at the bar, be prepared to wait in line on the sidewalk outside.

Boys (and NOW Girls) Just Wanna Have Fun If you’re a gay man, if you’re a straight woman, hell if you’re a straight guy with gay buddies who wants to meet straight women, The Abbey, on North Robertson Boulevard south of Santa Monica, is the place to go. David Cooley opened it as a coffee shop in 1991, and over the years it has become perhaps the world’s best known gay bar and restaurant. It also is quite accepting of people of all sexual persuasions who are looking for simple meals on an outdoor patio and a range of entertainment that might include go go boys or Gloria Gaynor. Sunday brunch is one of its most popular draws. (As was Elizabeth Taylor, a regular until her death in 2011). If you want to dine elsewhere before partying at The Abbey, consider The Horn, which is opening around the corner at 8933 Santa Monica Boulevard. The owners have described the menu in a way that makes it sound like comfort food, but in reality it is quite exotic comfort food, with an ever-changing menu of fresh wild game. Deer? Pheasant? Ostrich? If you want to take your palate on an adventure, The Horn is worth a visit. You’ll find a more conventional menu at Tortilla Republic at 616 North Robertson Boulevard. The menu is Mexican, and while the food is good, it’s the atmosphere and the crowd that are the biggest draw. The bar is a regular after work gathering place for local creative types. The dining area has ropes draped from the ceiling that you’d expect to see on a ship along with a dramatically sculptural tree, all arching over a crowd of stylish people who look as if they work in entertainment or some hip form of media.

BOOTSY BELLOWS 9229 Sunset Boulevard (310) 274-7500 bootsybellows.com

THE VIPER ROOM 8852 West Sunset Boulevard (310) 358-1881 viperroom.com

DAN TANA’S 9071 Santa Monica Boulevard (310) 275-9444 dantanasrestaurant.com

LAUREL HARDWARE 7984 Santa Monica Boulevard (323) 656-6070 laurelhardware.com

DBA 7969 Santa Monica Boulevard (855) 367-7969 dbahollywood.com

THE ABBEY 692 North Robertson Boulevard (310) 289-8410 sbe.com/nightlife/brands/ theabbeyfoodandbar/

THE HORN 8933 Santa Monica Boulevard thehornweho.com TORTILLA REPUBLIC 616 North Robertson Boulevard (310) 657-9888 tortillarepublic.com

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Photographs by 20 Joshua Spencer

Owner Adam Klesh pictured left and executive chef Aaron Mitrano at right.

THE

If you were blindfolded some evening and led on a walking tour of West Hollywood, the scent in the air just might tell you where you were.

hint of the chili powder, cumin and paprika that flavor tacos would signal that you’re on the stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard known to some as Boystown.

The exotic smells of kotlety, pelmeni and varenyky would signal the city’s East Side, where restaurants like Kashtan and Traktir cater to the city’s Russian-speakers. The raw odor of car exhaust would tell you you’re on Sunset Boulevard, where many of the better restaurants are tucked away inside hotels. And the smell of tobacco from the bar crowds, mixed with a whiff of the oregano and garlic that flavor pizza and a

However more exotic scents recently have come wafting from that part of Santa Monica Boulevard. They are the smells of ostrich, venison, pheasant and other fresh game served up at the recently opened The Horn. Adam Klesh, co-owner of The Horn with Daniel Cammarata, got his start in the restaurant business at the age of 12, when

as executive sous chef at STK and served as chef at The Abbey.

he went to work as a soda jerk at Malley’s Chocolates, the iconic candy and ice cream shop founded in the Depression Era thirties in Ohio.

Klesh and Cammarata, longtime friends, have described the menu as “Mom’s comfort food.” For sure, they will serve beef and pork. Being in Southern California, The Horn’s menu naturally will have vegetarian and vegan options as well. But it’s the fresh game that is likely to differentiate The Horn. The menu will constantly vary, based on what assortment of fresh meat is available. Klesh said The Horn will follow a “never ever” policy — never, ever using meat from animals exposed to antibiotics or growth hormones that has been treated with any artificial color or ingredients. The Horn won’t buy from large-scale meat producers, focusing instead on ranchers who let their animals graze naturally.

“I instantly fell in love with hospitality of all sorts,” Klesh said. “Everything from a properly crafted Negroni to the kind of sheets I wanted to see put on the bed.” Klesh worked his way through every aspect of the restaurant business, learning on the job in the kitchen, the dining room, behind the bar and in the office. He made his way to New York City, where he honed his creative chops by working at places like SideWalk Cafe. That edgy restaurant and music venue opened in the East Village’s anarchic 1980s. It was known as the launch pad for new talent and home to the Antifolk movement, whose goal of subverting the earnestness of 1960s folk music attracted performers like Beck and Michelle Shocked. Klesh also had more conventional experiences, working with Viceroy, the first really upscale restaurant in New York City’s gay Chelsea.

In addition to lunch and dinner, The Horn will have a late-night menu with food served until 2 a.m. Guests will be able to sip after-dinner cocktails on a rooftop lounge, which will also be used for weekend brunches. The interior, warm and masculine, was conceived by Klesh with the help of Cammarata and Jeff Trotter, who went on to create his own design studio after working with Klesh. The concept? “It’s out of my own head,” Klesh said. “Most of it comes from the madness of my own mind.”

In 2011, Klesh moved to Los Angeles. He admits that he had been one of those arrogant New Yorkers who at one point couldn’t imagine living in a place that he perceived as being as vapid and uncreative as Los Angeles. But he took note of the One aspect of The Horn that is seemingly unending migration more carefully considered is its to Los Angeles of creative gay “...it comes from the madness of my own mind.” name and its logo — the horn of New Yorker hosts, promoters a rhinoceros, an animal that will and entertainers (many of them his friends) such as Mario Diaz, DJ Aaron Elvis, Wendy Ho, Lady forever be in Klesh’s heart and mind. His brother, Ryan, who died at Scoutington and Jonny McGovern. At first, he debated whether he the age of 30 in 2006, is what the rhinoceros symbolizes for Klesh. As should move to New Orleans or Los Angeles. He settled on LA when he a boy, Klesh had a minor speech impediment that led to him calling his brother “Rhino.” realized that this is the home of what he calls his “transplanted family.” Klesh has two tattoos of a rhinoceros — one on either side of his chest — marked with the dates of his brother’s birth and of his death. He also has memorialized him by collecting symbols of the rhinoceros in journeys to 37 countries around the world.

Now that he’s here, Klesh has enthusiastically embraced West Hollywood. He senses an evolution in a neighborhood still known by some on the East Coast largely for its rainbow flag-colored crosswalks — brightly colored symbols of the gay life of old. “I’d like to see a controlled version of the New York that I still miss,” Klesh said, referring to both his and that city’s more tumultuous past. “I’d love to see the Pacific Design Center take off more. I’d love to see more fashion. I’d love to see West Hollywood put itself on the map in a re-invention.”

The rhinoceros emblems will be on the walls of The Horn, but that animal will never be on the menu. Instead Klesh intends to promote an organization called Save The Rhino that works to preserve that endangered species in Africa and Asia.

The Horn is likely to play a part in that re-invention of Boystown by introducing the sort of sophisticated cuisine that until now has been found only on Sunset Boulevard and Melrose Avenue and farther east on Santa Monica at Laurel Hardware. To do that, Klesh has engaged Aaron Mitrano as executive chef. Mitrano has served

“I wanted to pay homage to my late brother without sadness,” Klesh said. The Horn is located at 8933 Santa Monica Boulevard just east of Robertson, at the space formerly occupied by Marvin’s Pharmacy. 22

Remembering Billy Haines W h e r e H o l ly w o o d R e g e n c y a n d I t s C r e ato r Li v e O n in 1973 at the age of 73. But his legacy lives on in West Hollywood. At William Haines Designs, headquartered in the Pacific Design Center, Peter Schifando and Jonathan Joseph offer their clients the famous Elbow Chair and Brentwood Chair among other Hainesdesigned pieces of furniture. And in a house on Holloway Drive lives Jean Hayden Mathison, who was Haines’ assistant for nearly twenty years. Mathison offers up a personal account of what it was like to work for a man celebrated as an actor, as an interior designer, and as a gay man who left his movie career because he wouldn’t William “Billy” Haines, the designer to the stars, died stay in the studio closet. He was Hollywood’s top box office star in 1930. His was the imagination behind the interior of William Annenberg’s famous Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage and unique pieces of furniture in the homes of Nancy Reagan, Joan Crawford, George Cukor, Betsy Bloomingdale and the White House. He is the interior designer credited with moving Hollywood’s famous away from a focus on glitz and glamour toward design in which function was as important as form, a design some call Hollywood Regency.

Opposite page, Joan Crawford at home with Alfred Steele seated in custom Haines’ Round Back chairs. This page, Haines at center with Jimmie Shields to his right and Jean Harlow. Jean Mathison circa 1960.

approached her to say that he and Haines were pleased with the way she answered the telephone and hoped she would join them. With that she began a career that would take her to the White House and the American ambassador’s residence on London’s Regents Park. She dealt with the likes of Joan Crawford and Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra. And she developed a talent for management of the design process, which included overseeing the work of the craftsmen who build the cabinets and sofas and chairs that Haines and Graber Mathison remembers that after her second week in that designed. “I was the office Mussolini,” she said. “I made part-time job Ted Graber, Haines’ business partner, the trains run on time.” Mathison moved in 1946 to what now is West Hollywood from Seattle, where she had worked in advertising at the Post-Intelligencer, the city’s leading newspaper. Her first job in California was working at the front desk in Mickey Rooney’s office at 8782 Sunset Boulevard. After a brief return to Seattle in 1949 to recuperate from tuberculosis, she returned to California in 1951. In 1955 she was sent by an employment agency to fill in for a secretary working for William Haines.

One of the biggest of those management jobs was the completion of the redesign of Winfield House, the London residence of the American ambassador. Haines was engaged for that job by Walter Annenberg, the American newspaper and magazine publishing tycoon, who was named ambassador in 1969 by Ronald Reagan. Annenberg had loved Haines’ work on Sunnyland, Mathison recalled. So when he was named ambassador, “they called Billy and said ‘You have to get over here’.”

“Billy said, ‘What you really want is an oasis’,” Mathison recalled. “Walter said, ‘That’s exactly what I want. And I don’t want to see a single grain of sand except in the golf traps’.”

Haines and Jones started work on the project in 1963. By the time they had finished, the two hundred acres of desert were transformed into a 25,000-squarefoot Mid-Century Modern house with a nine-hole golf course and eleven lakes fed by wells. The interior With Haines and Graber often travelling to work for featured an enormous open area with low sofas and clients, Mathison found herself working in London on chairs and tables designed by Haines and arranged in the completion of the project, for which Annenberg an apparently casual way around one another. Pink and yellow, favorite colors of Annenberg’s wife, Leonore, himself paid more than one million dollars. were predominant. “The Brits went crazy for the place,” Mathison said, recalling that they initially had been nervous about The house became known as the “Camp David of having a Hollywood interior designer working on such the West,” with the Annenbergs hosting Presidents a prominent London building. It sat on twelve acres in Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, George H.W. Regent’s Park — the largest private garden in London Bush and George W. Bush. Queen Elizabeth II visited other than that of Buckingham Palace. When the design Sunnylands in 1983, with Annenberg proclaiming that work was completed, Annenberg threw a party. “The she would “see how ordinary Americans live.” The estate, now managed by the Annenberg Foundation Trust, Brits loved it,” Mathison said. continues to serve as a meeting place for American Mathison recalls Annenberg as a “great guy.” She remembers presidents and other world leaders. going with Haines and architect A. Quincy Jones to Rancho Mirage in the early 1960s to survey the two hundred acres of While Mathison was an employee of Haines and Graber, desert land that Annenberg had purchased and hoped to turn she also was their friend. She recalls that the office was like a family, with many of the six or seven employees into an enormous winter retreat. lunching together and sometimes going out on the After hearing Annenberg talk about what he wanted, town. When Haines moved his sisters to Los Angeles 26

Opposite page, Sunnylands, Rancho Mirage (Annenberg Foundation Trust). This page, Haines’ office.

from their family homeplace in Staunton, Virgina, they Walter Annenberg, Joan Crawford, Betsy Bloomingdale. quickly became Mathison’s best friends. One of those It was quite a life for a woman who was born in Tulsa, sisters, Anne Haines Langhorne, lived in an apartment Oklahoma and called herself an “Oakie girl.” at Mathison’s Holloway house. Mathison has remained in the house on Holloway that Mathison also got to know Jimmie Shields, Haines’ she bought in 1959. Recently she took a guest on a brief partner. “He was a dear friend,” she recalled. “He took tour of the first floor, full of some of Haines’ celebrated care of every thing at home. In the later years (when pieces of furniture, including Chair No. 13 (Haines took Haines was ill from cancer), he chauffeured Billy around.” to numbering his furniture), which was known as the Seniah (“Haines” spelled backwards). In the dining Mathison had another family. In 1974 she married Dick room she rummaged through a cardboard box packed Mathison, a writer with five children who worked for with photos from the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies of the Motion Picture Association. Her husband died in Haines and some of his projects. Among them is a black the 1980s, but Mathison and her step-children remain and white photo of Mathison herself, standing, arms close. “They are such great children,” she said. “I have folded, in a chic plaid suit with her blonde hair tousled such a close family.” Laughing, she added: “I didn’t need and a smile on her face. to spawn any of them.” Sorting the photos on the table, Mathison explained Haines succumbed to cancer in 1973, and Shields, that her ninetieth birthday is approaching in November. morose at the loss, took his own life months later. So how does she feel about the life that she has lived? Mathison carried on with Graber until 1985, when Mathison smiled. “I’ve really had only three jobs,” she she retired. Graber brought Peter Schifando into the said, referring to her time at the Post-Intelligencer, working for Mickey Rooney and her career with business before he retired in 1989. William Haines. “I’ve loved them all. I’ve really had London, the White House, New York City. Frank Sinatra, an amazing life.”

the Enclave

Living & Workin g with Style By Richard Frazier Photographs by Carrie Shaltz

On land that was once a poinsettia field, tucked discreetly on the hillside between Holloway Drive and Sunset Boulevard, Holloway Plaza Drive is a lush cul-de-sac not much longer than a football pitch. Built in the late thirties, Holloway Plaza has evolved over the past twenty-five years into a hotbed of artists, interior and product designers, architects and a fashion house’s showroom. It’s a little disorienting at first. It feels as if you’ve turned the corner and ended up in a fantasy of the perfect suburban street. Clearly someone has paid attention to the “vibe.” The more you look, the more you see. A beautifully espaliered jade plant is trained to flair out and up across a slatted wooden fence. A pair of enormous weathered tree trunks sit in mute conversation on a back porch while an antique, turf-filled canoe serves as a planter for succulents and grasses in front of a studio. None of the spaces on the drive are more than fifteen hundred square feet on two floors, so each becomes an exercise in the judicious and creative use of space.

The cottages tumble up along the street lined with blue oaks, palms, gum trees and vintage ficus hedges. Ground cover of every sort spills over from beautifully maintained beds. And yes, there’s even a white picket fence. If there is a “founder” of this enclave it must be Frank Pennino, a legendary Los Angeles designer who counted Springsteen and Spielberg among his clients, to mention a few. Frank had a passing acquaintance with the son of the developer who tipped him off to a vacancy, and he moved in immediately. “Whoever the architect was for this place was brilliant,” he said. “The cottages are all slightly different but they live together beautifully.” As more units became available, Frank made it his business to ensure the cottages were filled with “sensitive, artistic people,” including fine artist Mark Willems and architect Tim Morrison of TM Morrison & Associates, whose decorator aunt had once occupied a cottage on the drive. “It’s become a real community here,” Frank said. “We see one another nearly every day and share resources, borrow a cup of sugar and know about all the dramas that unfold in one another’s lives.” Mark Cutler of Mark Cutler Design (one of the top forty design firms in America, according to Robb Report) apologizes for being so late to call me back. In his charming, soft Aussie

The studios of Philip Nimo Design, Mark Cutler Design and Phillip Sherman Design.

ou’ve driven right by it, more than once. Odds are you never noticed the pair of small stone eagles benignly guarding the entrance. If you did notice it, you probably thought it was a private drive. It is. And it’s the entrance to an enclave.

This page, the studios of Phillip Sherman Design, artist Mark Willems, Mark Cutler Design and Rich Johnson.

accent, he confesses that he’d like to tell me “… that I got so busy yesterday I couldn’t call you back, but the truth is, I just plain forgot!” I’m immediately disarmed by this man’s candor and dearth of self-importance. Entering Mark’s studio you know you’re in a workspace of the most elegant sort. Layers of neutral colors act as background for ideas. The stairwell to the upper level is lined with framed magazine covers featuring his work. A round, cerused oak conference table next to a pin-up wall is surrounded by chalk-grey Provencal chairs. A nail headed slipper chair in buttery, worn leather sits in the corner. It’s warm, chic, restrained, and not a bit intimidating. He laughs when I ask him how he found Holloway Plaza. “I used to come visit Tim Morrison here years ago when I worked for another architecture firm and always loved it,”

he said. “I always thought….’Someday I’ll have a studio here.’ When I went out on my own twelve years ago I called Tim, and he told me there was something available. Since then I’ve lived here, had my studio here, and my partner has another studio down the street. I wanted an office that speaks to what we do. There’s an intimacy here you can’t find anywhere else, and I think it’s unique in L.A. The landlord largely leaves us alone, and as a result we all take responsibility for the place. We tend the gardens, look after the landscaping and have a real sense of ownership. I love working in a place with such personality and the sense of it being our little secret in the midst of all the craziness. I recently broke my ankle, and I’ve been taking Uber to work for weeks now. Every time a new driver comes up the drive they tell me they’ve never known this was here.”

Kevin Kolanowski, the bewhiskered, gentle and stylish founder of Fuse Lighting, has had his studio there for over twenty years and has lived there for six with his partner, Sylvestre Huerta, a designer with Jamie Bush & Co. He told me the place “found him.” “I was at one of those random, design-related events and ran into Frank Pennino,” Kolanowski said. “I told him I was looking for studio space, and he said ‘you HAVE to come up to Holloway Plaza Drive’. When I saw it the next day, I knew it was perfect. Frank and Tim Morrison, one of the best architects around, had been the early entries there, and I was so happy to find a place to be around other creative people.” When I repeated the anecdote about Mark’s Uber experience he laughed conspiratorially. “That’s true, but did he tell you that he broke it showing his daughter how to boogey board?” Few things go unnoticed on Holloway Plaza Drive.

Inside the studio of Kevin Kolanowski and Sylvester Huerta.

Kolanowski’s studio/lab/workshop has been there ever since and he and Sylvestre set up house in the last unit on the drive. His walk to work is now less than a block. You enter their space through a gate and walk down a brick-lined path that has been meticulously yet naturalistically-landscaped to a cozy patio with a bar-height dining table. Double-glazed doors framed with a trellis invite you into the small, meticulously arranged space that perfectly reflects this pair of design-savvy men. Layered vignettes of collected and found objects abound, mixed in with Fuse classics and prototypes. The best interiors reflect who we are, and theirs speaks of warmth, connoisseurship and a sense of humor.

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Johnson got his foot in the door by renting a room in a bungalow occupied by a draftsman, and when he outgrew the space he went door to door until he found someone who was leaving and leapt on it. He now has two bungalows, one serving as his office, the other as a living/showroom space with a private entry and a perfect pocket garden in the back that he uses for business luncheons and entertaining. It’s filled with his pieces, which look as if they’ve been collected over the years and not like some rote iteration of a “style.” It perfectly reflects his warm personality.

“It’s a design neighborhood unlike any place I have ever been,” Johnson said. “Throughout the day you see your neighbors chatting on the street, clutching their coffee, talking shop, sharing gossip, and the occasional lost model wanders by looking for Greg Chait’s showroom. And there are friends on the block I can always go to with a design dilemma and get great feedback.” Is it in our DNA to gather together with those like ourselves? The sense of comfort and familiarity that flows from associating with people who think similarly to us seems essential. The intimacy of Holloway Plaza Drive, the small scale of the cottages and, dare we say it, the coziness of the place, combine to create an ethos we might all envy. An enclave, in the best sense of the word.

Showroom and office of Rich Johnson.

Rich Johnson, the brilliant designer and CEO of Aesthetic greets me at the door with his wildly enthusiastic (read, humping my leg) Boxer, Lilly Belle. He’s fresh out of the shower and a bundle of energy, not unlike his companion.

6 nc e 19 8 6 M a stMasterful e r f u l designs d e sisince gns19 8si

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words OF women QUOTES SELECTED BY STEVEN REIGNS, WEST HOLLYWOOD’S CITY POET

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NATE JENSEN AT INN8 CREATIVE HAIR BY JOSE CANTU / MAKEUP BY JENN HANCHING / Model Katie Rees FOR Click Models

“ Zippers fell away like rose petals. Underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. Tongues intertwined and turned liquid.” – Erica Jong

skirt AND top by dominic louis

“ What, what am I to do with all of this life?” — Gwendolyn Brooks

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“ There is something in me maybe someday to be written; now it is folded, and folded, and folded, like a note in school.” – Sharon Olds

“ My first vision of earth was water veiled. I am of the race of men and women who see all things through this curtain of sea, and my eyes are the color of water.” – Anaïs Nin

skirt by dominic louis sheer t-shirt BY dorian raygosa

“ Goodbye is the waving map of your palm, is a stone on my tongue.” – Natasha Trethewey

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tuxedo dress BY ann demeulemeester shoes BY goran horal

THE COURTYARD AT LA BREA, WEST HOLLYWOOD MONTEE KARP RESIDENCE

Patrick Tighe I n s e r t i n g B i g D e s i g n I n t o S m a l l S pa c e s by gus heulley In Beverly Hills, it’s about the glamour. Buy five acres. Tear down the 15,000 square foot house and give free reign to your imagination and taste, such as it is, in building a new one.

“ Do a good job, insist on design, and people who want and expect that will seek you out.”

NURIZZO, WEST HOLLYWOOD

In West Hollywood, it’s not that easy. Here the majority of the city’s residential lots are like pocket parks, with houses wedged in between those of neighbors who could look into your bedroom window if you don’t keep the curtains closed. It’s the rare house that tops two stories. And virtually everything nearby looks as if it was designed and built between 1920 and 1950.

Those are some of the challenges an architect like Patrick Tighe has faced when trying to create an architectural gem that will move design forward while being compatible with the houses that surround it. It’s a challenge he has met numerous times in West Hollywood with eye catching, forward-looking and thoughtfully designed houses and apartment buildings that have put the city on a national architecture map. One of those is a house known as the Collins Gallery that is on Dorrington Avenue in West Hollywood West, just west of Robertson Boulevard. To say the project was a challenge is an understatement. Tighe had to work within the existing footprint of the 1,500 square foot building so as not to make it subject to different building code requirements. And he had to figure out how to construct an art gallery space in what also would serve as a home.

Tighe’s solution won the National American Institute of Architects 2003 Interior Architecture Award and the AIA’s National Award for the same year. Tighe began his career in the offices of two of the world’s most famous architects, first with Frank Gehry, next with Thom Mayne. After nearly a decade working with these giants, Tighe started his own office in 2002, and has developed a significant practice in his own right—becoming one of the youngest architects to be elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects.

His first project was here in West Hollywood. It was a small residential addition, and his satisfied client spread the word. One project became two, became three, and more. Today, while his office has recently finished the design of a pair of skyscrapers in China, submitted an entry in the competition to design the new Guggenheim in Helsinki and designed shops in London and Milan for fashion designer Rick Owens, the focus of his work is still very much local. Tighe clearly enjoys working in West Hollywood, and describes it as a place that is “very open to design, good design, both the people and the city.” In the twelve years that his Santa Monicabased office has been growing, this openness to design has kept Tighe busy in West Hollywood. He has always had an active project in the city where he got his start.

MONTEE KARP RESIDENCE, PACIFIC PALISADES

“ ...good design can enhance people’s lives…”

One of his most recently completed projects, a home addition for a family of four in the middle of the city, is representative of the core of Tigheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s practiceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;projects that demand good design, on a challenging site, with a modest budget. Hired by a family that owned a small cottage, Tighe was asked to add the space they needed to accommodate their growing kids. The design had to intelligently meet the challenges posed by the tight site and had to be of the high quality expected in the neighborhood. Tighe kept the footprint of the existing house and placed a crisp, white, faceted form on top. This opaque prism, overhanging the edges of the existing structure, its geometry sheering in response to the forms of the adjacent buildings and context, added two bedrooms and a bathroom. The clients got the space that they needed, and the result is beautiful, contextual and contemporary.

While Tighe says that he always wants residential work to be part of his practice, he enjoys the challenge of stepping outside that realm to face the creative challenges that other types of buildings present. This can be seen in his work with the West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, an organization that develops housing for people living in challenging situations, such as with very limited incomes, with disabilities or HIV/AIDS, or as seniors, or young people transitioning out of homelessness.

COLLINS GALLERY, WEST HOLLYWOOD 49

Tighe’s point of view mirrors that of the West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, which looks for architects known for their design excellence, and the city of West Hollywood, which generally advocates for high design quality regardless of a project’s budget or tenants. This match up of philosophies is likely a big part of Tighe’s success in West Hollywood, and beyond. In Tighe’s designs the focus is always, regardless of the budget, on creating spaces that create experiences. Experiences that address the contemporary lives, rituals and habits of the building’s occupants. One way he attempts to realize this goal is by constantly exploring new and innovative materials and methods of building construction. This can be seen in everything he does, from the robotically carved surfaces in his newly designed Rick Owens stores, to the Courtyard at La Brea low-income apartment building, whose wrapping white bands were made possible by digital technologies and close collaboration with local fabricators. All of that reinforces the idea that creative contemporary architecture can be developed no matter the budget.

Tighe continues today to work in West Hollywood on a wide variety of projects, and asserts that one must “always push the design, when you do, projects that expect that will come to you in the future. Do a good job, insist on design, and people who want and expect that will seek you out.” And sought out he has been, his hand can be seen all over the city, with its bold, faceted and sinuous geometries. These forms are often rendered in crisp white or deep metal tones, and accompanied by a counterpoint of texture or pattern, naturalistic, typically in metal. His architecture is clean but with edge, practical yet expressive, and his work in West Hollywood has proven that everyone can have access to, and benefit from, top-notch design.

KANGDE CENTER Chongqing, China

“ ...always push the design, when you do, projects that expect that will come to you in the future.”

SIERRA BONITA APARTMENTS, WEST HOLLYWOOD

Designers of projects such as those often cut quality because of limited budgets. The typical result is a drab and uninspired building that tenants despise and neighborhoods often resent. But Tighe’s office devotes a large amount of design time to these projects. This comes from his deeply held belief that, “good design can enhance people’s lives, be they in the one percent or those who live in challenging circumstances.”

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Reflective jacket by AXS Folk Technology Sweater by Robert Geller Pants by AXS Folk Technology opposite page perforated jacket by helmut lang t-shirt by leviâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vintage clothing black coated jeans by naked and famous

Sweater by Henrik Vibskov Black coated jeans by Naked and Famous OPPOSITE PAGE Perforated vest by Helmut Lang Long t-shirt by Skingraft

Suit by Helmut Lang Giant Mirrored Aviators by Thom Browne Eyewear

Sweater by Chapter Shorts by Onia shoes by common projects

Striped tunic and pants by Robert Geller Sneakers by Puma

Original Artwork by Rachel Brown 3.1 PHILLIP LIM BOUTIQUE

North Robertson WHERE Fashion, Design and Celebrity converge

China has Hong Kong and Macao. West Hollywood has North Robertson Boulevard. Just as Macao and Hong Kong glitter with a vibe and style that make their neighboring countries seem drab by comparison, so this block of North Robertson, which runs from Santa Monica Boulevard on the north to Melrose Avenue on the south sparkles with a concentration of upscale shops, restaurants and bars. A walk down Robertson, particularly on a weekend night, could leave the average West Hollywood resident thinking that, like Dorothy falling into Oz, he has crossed the rainbow-flag-bedecked border into a world whose main street is paved with the gold of fashion, design, celebrity and glamour. 63

Basic Burgers and Glittery Gays

poodle Pamela. Today Phyllis Morris is one of Southern California’s best-known purveyors of interior design services and home furnishings. Morris, who had the courage and aesthetic sense to blend different styles of furniture to create imaginative decors, counted among her clients such celebrities as Gladys Knight, Allan Carr, Keith Moon and Joan Crawford. She died in 1988, and the business now is run by her daughter, Jamie Adler. Adler has added a shop called Circa just a doorway away, which offers a collection of contemporary furniture. The window displays, invariably stylish and often amusing, are worth a look.

The transition from that stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard known as Boystown isn’t immediate. First, one has to cross a border marked on one side by Hamburger Haven, a restaurant where a burger or kraut dog can be had for under five dollars and on the other by P.U.M.P., home to gay celebs such as Lance Bass and Andy Cohen and young women with reality TV ambitions. P.U.M.P. restaurant and lounge is owned by Lisa Vanderpump (of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” fame) and her husband, Ken Todd. Vanderpump herself curated the elaborate interior design and also designed the patio outside, which manages to give most diners a glimpse of the street life along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood’s Boystown while shielding them from passersby.

Interrupting your passage from Phyllis Morris to Circa is one of two Christian Louboutin boutiques, which face one another from opposite sides of the street. Festooned with the French designer’s iconic red canopies, these stores shout Beverly Hills. Louboutin sells luxury handbags and shoes to women at one store and men’s shoes and accessories at the other.

Tucked behind P.U.M.P. on the southeast corner of Santa Monica and Robertson is Here Lounge, your next-to-last real gay experience as you leave Boystown. Here is owned by Pat Rogers, who opened G Lounge, celebrated as New York City’s most stylish gay bar when it opened in 1997, and the equally famous FoodBar nearby on Eighth Ave. Here offers both dancing and drinking.

On the opposite side of the street from Phyllis Morris is Kinara, a multi-level spa that is another sign that Beverly Hills has a foothold in West Hollywood. The Kinara folks say the name is Hindi for “on the edge,” which undoubtedly is how the beauty-obsessed feel until they’ve finished their manicures, pedicures, hair cuts, massages and facials. This design and fashion tour is interrupted by a monument to celebrity in the form of a 1940s building with an Elizabethan halftimbered facade that houses the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, one of the “industry’s” most obvious outposts in West Hollywood. The association is known for its Golden Globe Awards, which get enough TV viewers to convince NBC to pay a rumored $6 million for broadcast rights. Just past the HFPA headquarters we wander back into a part of North Robertson colonized by Beverly Hills. First is Lily Lodge, Ariana Lambert Smeraldo’s flower shop with an 11-by-16-foot wall of flowers behind glass that resembles a museum exhibit.

Just south is The Abbey, which David Cooley has grown in a little more than 15 years from a small coffeehouse into one of West Hollywood’s (and arguably the country’s) best known gay restaurants and bars. It’s where you’ll find the three “D’s” of Boystown life: Dining, Drinking and Dancing. Today it attracts a crowd beyond its gay core audience and has developed a reputation for its celebrity patrons (the late Elizabeth Taylor used to drop by, unannounced, for a drink). It even draws a few straight guys who say it’s a great place to meet a girl without the competition you’ll find around the bar at Laurel Hardware. While there’s a large dance floor and two bars, the Abbey attracts a substantial crowd for weekend brunch and weekday lunches and dinners. You should note that the Abbey is the last truly gay refuge on your trip down the southwest side of Robertson.

Beauty and Style from Israel and Vermont

That’s all likely to disappear when Jason Illoulian tears down The Factory and begins construction of Robertson Lane, a stunningly designed hotel with small shops that will feature a wide passageway connecting Robertson with La Peer Drive. Illoulian is partnering on the project with the Goller family, which shares with the Illoulians a long history in West Hollywood. Nate Goller, an attorney, is the husband of Phyllis Morris, the founder of Phyllis Morris Originals.

Miki Sharon, a salon founded in 1992 in Ashdod, Israel, is run by brothers Miki and Sharon Slama with a collection of stylists from the United States, France and Spain. Its next door neighbor is Duroque, which offers home furnishings and design services for homes, stores and yachts. West Hollywood’s canine-crazy population may find Duroque’s pet furniture interesting, especially the “Antoinette coach” dog bed. Take Fido shopping Tuesday through Sundays.

The Business that Pink Poodle Pamela Built

Next to Duroque is Anawalt Lumber, a dramatic interruption to the flow of beauty and glamour along Robertson. Anawalt, which opened in 1948 and is the city’s largest building supply store (and a vendor of plants), is one of Los Angeles County’s last family-owned lumber companies.

Adjacent to The Factory building, Phyllis Morris Originals was launched by its eponymous founder, who began her career in 1953 with the invention of the “poodle lamp,” modeled after her pink-dyed

HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION

THE ABBEY FOOD AND BAR

Sophistication, Sunshine and Sobriety nondescript building that houses another refuge from addiction, the West Hollywood Recovery Center, which offers a full menu of 12 Step meetings. It shares the building with two institutions that evoke West Hollywood’s gay and lesbian history. ONE Gallery and Museum hosts exhibits about LGBT history, and the June Mazer Lesbian Archives is a repository of the history of lesbian life and culture. Entrances to both are on El Tovar Place, an alley that runs into and around the West Hollywood library parking garage.

Next door, and in striking contrast to Anawalt, is 3.1 Phillip Lim, a men’s and womens’s apparel shop worth a visit by anyone with a passion for contemporary design. The 5,000-square-foot store, a former auto body shop, is buffered from the street by a sculpted wall and a field of blocks rimmed by grass. Inside is an amoeba-like space, whose walls are lined with acoustic foam pyramids. The sophisticated design of Philip Lim is dramatically contradicted by the splash next door of the At The Beach tanning salon, a two-story, glass-fronted monument to vanity that wouldn’t look out of place in Miami Beach. All this glamour and style now are interrupted by a couple of civic institutions. Most visually fascinating is the West Hollywood Lion’s Club, housed in a log cabin next to At The Beach. The building is better known for its frequent 12 Step addiction recovery meetings, attended by a number of movie stars. Across from the Lion’s Club is a

Crossing El Tovar takes one to Tortilla Republic, which bills itself as a “modern Mexican grill and tequileria”. Its interior is dominated by a treelike sculpture and a patio whose canvas ceiling and draping ropes suggest the desert redoubt of a Saudi billionaire. The bar is a popular after work hangout.

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN BOUTIQUE

A Reality TV Restaurant On the east side, the block comes to an end at Melrose with Chrome Hearts, a store that retails Richard Stark’s biker/goth jewelry and apparel to the likes of Lou Reed, Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Elton John, Ashlee Simpson and Lenny Kravitz. But it’s the next stop, Lisa Vanderpump’s Sur Restaurant and Bar, arguably the most Beverly Hillian place on this block of North Robertson, that gets the most attention. Walled off from the street by lush greenery and a large antique door, Sur boasts a large garden for outdoor dining. The lounge is a mix of old railway sleepers, modern glass tile, chandeliers in cages and antique leather Chesterfields. Kabul, Israel, Vermont, Beverly Hills. French fashion and a Mexican grill. Lumber and the Golden Globes. Could there be a block anywhere in Los Angeles as exotic and cosmopolitan? Welcome to West Hollywood’s Oz.

Pump Lounge 8948 Santa Monica Boulevard (310) 657-7867

3.1 Phillip Lim 631 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 358-1988

Phyllis Morris 655 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 289-6868

Tortilla Republic 616 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 657-9888

Hollywood Foreign Press Association 646 N Robertson Boulevard (424) 230-4370

Sur Restaurant and Bar 606 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 289-2824

Miki Sharon 642 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 855-1105

Chrome Hearts 600 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 854-9800

Duroque 634 N Robertson Boulevard (310) 854-4401

VIRTUA LLY

PAUL NORTON

AARADHNA PATEL

Paul Norton (@paulnortonhair, with 53,600 Twitter followers) is a Georgia boy who discovered at the age of 13 that he had a thing for hair. Now he works in West Hollywood at the Sally Hershberger Salon, when he isn’t helping Randy Fenoli (of TLC’s “Randy to the Rescue”) groom nervous brides-to-be for their weddings. Norton also is a regular on “Access Hollywood.” His clients have included Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Brooke Shields, Robin Wright, Jason Bateman, Stacey Keibler, Emily Rossum, Adrien Brody, Sylvester Stallone, Katie Cassidy, Jordan Sparks and Alison Sweeney.

Aaradhna Patel (@aaradhnapatel, 22,900 followers on Twitter, and 30,586 followers as Aaradhna on Instagram) is a neighbor you might be more likely to run into in New Zealand than at Koontz Hardware. A singer born to a Samoan mother and Indian father in Wellington, New Zealand, Aaradhna lives with her partner, Leon Pavihi Henry, in an apartment in West Hollywood. That’s when she’s not on tour or following Henry, who plays for the Townsville Crocodiles of the Australian National Basketball League. Henry (@LH141085 with 1,847 Twitter followers) keeps a low social media profile. If you want to see this neighbor perform, she’s scheduled to appear at the Mint in Los Angeles on October 4.

A Quick Look at Four of 68

FAMOUS

SUTAN AMRULL

ALISON MARTINO

Sutan Amrull (@sutanamrull, with 85,300 Twitter followers) is a makeup artist and singer best known for his drag performances as Raja. He won Season 3 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and was crowned “America’s Next Drag Superstar,” not an insignificant honor in a city whose gay population seems equally fascinated by drag queens and go go boys. Raja performs regularly in West Hollywood and around the country. When Sutan is home, he spends much of his time hanging with the neighbors around the pool at his West Hollywood apartment building.

Alison Martino (Vintage Los Angeles, with 165,000 Facebook “likes”) chronicles the history of Los Angeles, with a distinct focus on West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip, on her Facebook page. Martino, who lives in the West Hollywood West neighborhood, constantly uncovers unusual photos of long lost buildings and long gone celebrities, many dating back before West Hollywood was officially incorporated thirty years ago. She’s a regular writer for Los Angeles Magazine and the go-to source for Fifties, Sixties and Seventies history and memorabilia.

West Hollywood’s Digerati 69

We Are More Than 100 Top-Producing Realtors We are a collaborative team with a wide array of experiences. In past lives we were Talent Agents, Producers, entertainment attorneys, architectural specialists and more. Many of us are LA natives. Many were born and lived abroad. It’s all a reservoir of additional expertise that every client benefits from. And, along with our culture of collaboration, it’s a big reason why The Agency has become one of the top luxury brokerages in the world.

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WOODS COVE, LAGUNA BEACH

Behind the Orange Curtain A Weekend Getaway

By Joshua Stuart Photographs by Nikko Quinones

SKIMBOARDER AT WOODS COVE

ake a short drive fifty-five miles south and you’ll find yourself in one of the most scenic parts of Southern California with a coastline whose beauty rivals that of Spain’s Costa Blanca. Coastal Orange County is home to two cities in particular—Newport Beach and Laguna Beach—that serve up beach lifestyle at its finest. When Hollywood put these cities in the limelight—Newport Beach with the hit TV series “The OC” and Laguna Beach with reality television’s “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County”—it was a game changer for two small communities that had proudly hid behind the “orange curtain.” Within a year tourism exploded, and one could buy everything from coffee mugs to sweatshirts with the letters ‘OC’ plastered all over them. Time passed, the media storm settled, and these neighboring but very different cities regained their footing. Today they continue to offer travelers from all over the world incredible experiences, be it soaking up the sun at a hidden Laguna Beach cove or sweating it out with world-class hiking at El Morro Canyon. Fortunately, those of us who live in West Hollywood can enjoy this region without a long and painful drive. And a great time to do that is in October or November, when the weather in coastal Orange County is still temperate while the crowds are not as difficult to navigate as in the summer. The best time to drive down is mid-day on a Friday. While that may mean leaving work early, you will save yourself the hassle of sitting in traffic come 3 p.m. In Orange County you’ll be able to sample the posh and kitschy, the dressy and divey. As someone who once lived behind that orange curtain, I’m happy to offer some thoughts as to how. In Newport Beach, where you’ll see the water everywhere you look, start out with the posh by checking into the Balboa Bay Resort, right on the water of Newport Harbor. Imagine staring from the Hotel Monte Carlo at mega yachts— this resort is a micro version of that, but just as sexy. There is a private beach club where hotel guests can enjoy the water by renting a Duffy electric boat and cruising the harbor at sunset with a bottle of wine, by doing some stand up paddling on the bay or by kayaking. Consider Balboa Bay Resort your home base while you explore some of the more than four hundred restaurants that call Newport Beach home.

One of the best of those restaurants is The Cannery. Its name pays homage to its founding in 1934 in a building that was home to the Western Canners Company, a large fish packing plant. In 2000 the restaurant was taken over by Ron Salisbury, whose family might be better known for founding Los Angeles’ El Cholo restaurant. The Cannery is on two levels, with the downstairs reflecting a more traditional dining experience and the upstairs offering a more cosmopolitan, loungey atmosphere. Reservations are strongly recommended. After dinner, head down to Balboa Island, a manmade island that is home to around three thousand people on just two-tenths of a square mile. Those with a sweet tooth should stop at Dad’s Donuts, the “Home of the Original Frozen Banana,” on Marine Avenue, which was famously portrayed in “Arrested Development” as “Bluth’s Original Frozen Banana.” Grab your frozen banana and walk around the island’s boardwalk to admire the award-winning architecture and smell the salty ocean air. If you’re feeling a bit restless, the Village Inn is the local dive bar where good live music and stiff drinks converge.

After sleeping off Friday night, it’s time to head a bit farther south. While driving down Pacific Coast Highway on your way to Laguna Beach you will enter Crystal Cove State Park, home to more than three miles of protected coastline and El Morro Canyon hiking trails. The hike is a perfect way to start your day, taking in stunning views of the California Riviera just before entering Laguna Beach. There is free public parking or, for a fee, you may park inside the El Morro campground closer to the trail’s entrance. A must for lunch after working up an appetite on the hike is 230 Forest in downtown Laguna Beach. Chef and owner Marc Cohen serves up what is described as “innovative California cuisine” just steps from Laguna’s main beach, where you’re hard pressed to not see top current and former professional volleyball players such as Karch Kiraly pick up a game from time to time. From there, take a five-minute drive south to Cress Street, where you’ll check in at the charming and historic La Casa del Camino. This hotel is situated right above Woods Cove, a well-known skimboarding mecca for locals. A personal favorite are the surf suites, each designed by well-known surf brands like Lost and Billabong. My pick is the Moroccanthemed Lost surf suite, white-washed and with unobstructed ocean views. At this point it’s all about walking. The hotel is a step away from the beach, unique boutiques and a variety of dining options.

As the afternoon fades, the best place in Southern California to take in the sunset is upstairs at the Rooftop Lounge. Mojitos are its specialty, and the crowd is full of both visitors and locals. If you turn around, the view of the hills and the architecture perched along them brings to mind Santorini or Positano with a California flair. For dinner, simply stroll across the street and find yourself at Sapphire Grill. “When you dine at my restaurants you are traveling through the world’s markets with your palate, and you don’t even need a passport,” says chef Azmin Ghahreman. Caddy corner to Sapphire is the Sandpiper Lounge (known locally as ‘the dirty bird’), Laguna’s local dive bar where you are guaranteed to have an authentic Laguna Beach experience. The drinks are strong, and the crowd gets rowdy. But if your thing is a cover band and or playing darts, you’re in the right place.

1) Balboa Bay Resort 1221 West Coast Highway Newport Beach, Ca 92663 (888) 894-2788 balboabayresort.com 2) The Cannery 3010 Lafayette Road Newport Beach, CA 92663 (949) 566-0060 cannerynewport.com 3) Dadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Original Donuts 318 Marine AveNUE Newport Beach, CA 92662 (949) 673-8686 4) The Village Inn 127 Marine AveNUE Newport Beach, CA 92662 (949) 675-8300 vibalboaisland.com 5) El Morro Canyon Loop Trail 8471 North Coast HIGHwAy Laguna Beach, CA 92651 (949) 494-3539 crystalcovestate park.com 6) 230 Forest Avenue 230 Forest Avenue Laguna Beach, CA 92651 (949) 494-2545 230forestavenue.com

7) La Casa del Camino 1289 SOUTH Coast HIGHwAy Laguna Beach, CA 92651 (949) 497-2446 lacasadelcamino.com 8) Sapphire Grill 1200 South Coast Highway Laguna Beach, CA 92651 (949) 715-9888 sapphirellc.com 9) Sandpiper Lounge 1183 South Coast Highway Laguna Beach, CA 92651 (949) 494-4694

Sunday is all about relaxing. The majority of the beaches in Laguna are packed with visitors drawn by their cleanliness and beauty. Two of the more isolated and spectacular beaches—Victoria Beach and Thousand Steps—are worth the extra few minutes it takes to reach them. Both are in South Laguna, a perfect place to unwind and take in the ocean air. They tend to be less touristy and maintain a local vibe. I recommend waking up early and putting together a picnic to take to the beach because parking is somewhat scarce, and you won’t want to leave once you’re set up. Uber, with a strong presence in Orange County, is a good way to get to and from the beach, letting you relax while heading back to the hotel and checking out. On the Sunday afternoon drive home, as the Orange County coastline fades into the distance and West Hollywood draws near, you may find yourself fantasizing that you’re returning from Positano or Capri or Ischia. But a quick look at the odometer will remind you that one of the wonderful things about Southern California is that a beautiful coastline, luxurious hotels, sophisticated cuisine and a night in a bar with a hilariously wacky crowd is only a short drive away.

VICTORIA BEACH

Photo by Brett White. Empyrean Passage, West Hollywood.

Photo by rcrex, Flickr. Formosa Cafe, West Hollywood.

EAST SIDE WEST SIDE

Photographs by James Perry Styling by William Clark, Jr. / Model Stasia at Photogenics LA

Cherokee knit sweater by Cynthia Vincent. Fitted boyfriend jean by Joe’s Jeans. Clutch by Joe’s Jeans.

A ll A round the T own

Photo by Tony Coelho. Three Horned Beast (and Baby Beast), Plummer Park.

Dress by Johanne Beck. Shoes by Ruthie Davis.

Grey tiered bustle skirt by Coco Johnsen. Scarf by Anicy Manuguian. Saint Valentine hat by Gladys Tamez Millinery.

Photo courtesy of The Lot, West Hollywood.

Photo by Joshua Barash. Shepard Fairey Mural, West Hollywood Library.

Floral moto jacket is GlamRock by Marla Guloien. White top by Rebecca Vallance.

Black linen cropped trench coat by Genevieve Clifford. Saint Anthony hat by Gladys Tamez Millinery. Checkered flannel by All Saints.

Photo by Joseph Voves. James Blake at The Troubador.

the

perfect line TODD WILLIAMSON

Cullman, a farm town in North Alabama known for its annual Oktoberfest and as the birthplace of “Big Jim” Folsom, the populist governor of Alabama known for his early embrace of civil rights for African-Americans, is 1,800 miles from West Hollywood. In many ways, Todd Williamson, who grew up in Cullman with a passion for music and theatre, has made a much longer journey from that small Southern town. Even as a young man he dabbled in the arts, but it wasn’t until around 1990, after he had moved to Los Angeles, that he embarked on a serious and successful career as a painter whose work has been on show in Japan, China, Italy, Germany, Korea and Spain as well as the United States. Williamson now works from a studio behind his house on West Hollywood’s West Knoll Drive. He recalled that when he first moved here he lived in a studio apartment on Larrabee Street above Sunset Boulevard. It would have been easy to decorate the space with posters, but Williamson wanted to do something more creative. So he decided to paint. Eventually friends would bring him paintings they no longer liked, and Williamson would paint over them, saving the money he otherwise would have had to spend on canvas. At that point his art wasn’t his career. In his first few years in Los Angeles, Williamson worked with handicapped children. He also began working with his then-boyfriend to build custom furniture. Williamson got really involved in painting around 1990 with work that was very figurative, evolving in the next decade to more monochromatic work. Most of his contemporary work is characterized by lines, usually horizontal but sometimes vertical, sometimes waving and sometimes straight. “The lines control the emotion of the work, and they give it a framework,” Williamson said. “Because of my musical background, it’s like a staff of music, and I just put my notes on it.”

Indeed, a review notes the musical allusions in Williamson’s art. “At the epicenter of Todd Williamson’s canvas there is an unmentioned but imagined ‘perfect’ line, representing the similarity, the human-ness in us all, from which a kinetic, emotional pulse resonates,” wrote Ken General of Houston’s Wade Wilson Art. “This musical pulse, created from Williamson’s use of color, texture, line, and space, appeals to and resonates with the reflective viewer, demanding a unique emotional response, just as music would to the ear.” Early on, Williamson accomplished the difficult task of finding a gallery owner who would represent him. That was Don O’Melveny, whose eponymous gallery on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood’s Design District focused on abstract art. With the O’Melveny Gallery now closed, Williamson is represented in Los Angeles and New York City by George Billis Gallery, by other galleries in Berlin and Shanghai and by dealers in other cities around the world. In addition to having his work in private collections, Williamson has received a number of commissions for public installations. One of the largest was commissioned by EOP/Blackstone for installation in Sun America building in Century City. A public art project at the Nashville Airport is being installed this month. In addition to creating art, Williamson promotes it in his role as an arts commissioner for the city of West Hollywood and as a member of the board of directors for the National Aids Monument to be erected in West Hollywood Park in 2016.

While his creativity has taken him around the world, Williamson seems most at home in his bungalow on West Knoll Drive and in the small studio in the back yard, where he had to rip a large opening into the wall to extract some of his more monumental work. in the That’s where he works from morning studio until late afternoon, letting the creative spirit nurtured in his Cullman childhood loose on a canvas that is likely to find its way around the world.

Photographs byNaomi Yamada

â&#x20AC;&#x153; The lines control the emotion of the work, and they give it a framework...â&#x20AC;? 95

BEDTIME STORIES CHRISTOPHER RICE

Q. What are you reading now, and what do you think of it? A. I am

working my way through an ever-growing pile of erotic romance novels, to be frank. What’s happening in the romance genre right now is incredibly diverse and exciting, featuring all kinds of configurations. I’ll be publishing my first erotic romances at the end of this year and the beginning of the next.

Q. Do you typically read in bed? What is that experience like for you?

A. I’m a compulsive reader, so I’ve got my e-reader with me

practically everywhere I go. Any idle moment, except for those behind the wheel of a car, I spend reading. But late at night, I usually get into bed so late, by the time I pop open the Kindle I’m out like a light in a few minutes.

Q. So

you’re the sort who falls asleep with a book (or Kindle) in hand?

A. I usually have two to three nod-outs before I close the Kindle and turn out the light.

Q. So the Kindle is your favorite?

e was born into writing (his mother is Anne Rice, best known for “The Vampire Chronicles,” and his late father, Stan Rice, was a poet). He himself is the author of five New York Times best-sellers, the most recent of which is “The Heavens Rise,” which was published in 2013.

A. I’m

a slave to my e-reader. Ultimately it was the portability that got me, the idea that I was carrying around hundreds and hundreds of reading experiences in the palm of my hand.

What better West Hollywood resident to quiz about his bedtime reading habits than Christopher Rice?

PhotO by Alanna You / Grooming by Erin Walters