Mind of an Architect
A new book reveals WILLIAM HEFNER’s talent for tailoring homes to fit his clients
A new book reveals WILLIAM HEFNER’s talent for tailoring homes to fit his clients
Architect William Hefner in the Montecito office of Studio William Hefner. He has an enviable roster of pending and completed residential projects throughout California, the U.S., and internationally.
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter
Portraits by Dewey Nicks
“I just never thought of being anything else,” says William Hefner about his decision to become an architect at the tender age of four. Enraptured by trace-paper sketches created by an architect hired by his parents to enlarge the family home, young Hefner was out the door every morning, watching the renovation’s progress. He even joined the construction workers for lunch.
His attraction to architecture continued unabated through high school and college, and he was inspired by visits to a friend whose parents owned a home in Sea Ranch, a planned community in Sonoma County with distinctive wood-sided homes. It was no coincidence he ended up attending UCLA’s graduate architecture program; its dean at the time was Charles W. Moore, a founding architect of Sea Ranch.
A dramatic home in Los Angeles features pitched rooflines with clerestory windows. The art studio, which is clad in metal, acts as a sculptural feature at the entry.
After graduation, Hefner signed on with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architectural powerhouse known for its highest-in-the-world skyscraper designs. At 28, Hefner was responsible for planning 50-story buildings.
“I just love houses,” Hefner says. “I just like the whole level of personal interaction and customization.”
“It was really fun,” he says. It was also a lot of work—especially because he had side gigs designing house additions for friends: “At one point, I had two or three people coming to my apartment when I would leave for work; they would work there because I didn’t have an office. I’d get home at night from work and I’d mark up drawings and go to sleep.” Eventually he realized he preferred doing residential work and left Skidmore.
“I just love houses,” Hefner says. “I just like the whole level of personal interaction and the customization. I like trying to figure out the lifestyle, how they live, what their priorities are. And I like the personal challenges of trying to figure it out.”
Some three decades later, Studio William Hefner has more than 40 employees and two locations—in Los Angeles and Montecito—and an enviable roster of pending and completed residential projects throughout California, the United States, and internationally. It’s clear that Hefner has an innate ability to tailor architectural styles to suit his clients’ needs and is equally fluent in classical, modern, and contemporary design.
The architect’s third book (Images Publishing, $75) includes a selection of residential projects spanning the design spectrum from traditional to contemporary.
His third book, Studio William Hefner: California Homes II, featuring a selection of residential projects that span the design spectrum from traditional to contemporary, has just been published. The following three homes are among those showcased in the book.
A Grown-Up House: One of the most dramatic homes in the book was designed for a couple in Los Angeles who were ready to move on from their 1920s Spanish colonial home to a modern open-plan residence with plenty of light and low maintenance. “They said, ‘We’re done with that phase; the kids are gone,’” Hefner remembers. The wife, an artist, needed a studio, which Hefner designed as a metal-sided sculpture attached to the house and surrounded by a Zen garden. Local zoning requirements mandated a pitched roofline, which might have daunted other architects designing in a modern idiom. But according to Hefner, “it created opportunities for clerestory windows” that flood the house with light. At the entryway, an impressive staircase—with glass guardrails anchored by a three-dimensional oak wall with embedded lighting—is a sculpture in itself.
A French Retreat in Montecito: A home Hefner designed for himself in Montecito prompted a couple with a neighboring property to commission a similar design. “They liked the materials,” says Hefner. “We decided to make it a little more traditional than my house and less rustic.” The concept was a compound with an assembly of buildings. A glass breezeway separates the primary bedroom suite from the main house, enabling glimpses of the garden when traversing from the public to the private realm. As a nod to the couple’s home in France, several structures are clad in stone, including a separate painting studio inspired by Cézanne’s atelier in Aix-en-Provence. The landscape was designed around a very old California oak tree that shelters an outdoor dining area.
“I just never thought of being anything else,” Hefner says about his decision to become an architect at the age of four.
A House for Art: An art collector who wanted one of the midcentury Case Study houses in Los Angeles came to Hefner after realizing his art collection would never fit inside a diminutive vintage home. Hefner designed an entirely new residence on a larger scale “as a love letter to Case Study houses.” Situated in the hillside above Beverly Hills, the home’s stunning entry, with its white terrazzo floors and white walls, serves as the perfect art gallery. The main body of the house opens up to the panoramic view, and the minimalist walnut cabinetry and vintage furniture perfectly evoke the Case Study ethos.
A contemporary home in Los Angeles is the perfect container for an extensive art collection. The vintage Italian rosewood table and chairs provide a midcentury modern vibe.
Since the pandemic, Hefner has seen a change in residential commissions. Originally his work in Santa Barbara focused on designing homes for retirees from the East Coast or Midwest who wanted homes for entertaining with space for visiting family. Now he’s designing homes for families.
“It’s been an interesting dynamic,” he says. “They’re full-time residence houses, rather than third or fourth homes.” This trend mirrors the type of homes he’s designed for years in Los Angeles, but because Santa Barbara has less density, Hefner has been able to expand his landscape practice here.
“Landscape is such a big part of what we do,” he notes. “It’s been so amazing to have all this extra land and design some real gardens.”
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In Bloom
At a fundraising event, everything was coming up roses—and hydrangeas, dahlias, and more
At a fundraising event, everything was COMING UP ROSES—and hydrangeas, dahlias, and more
Written by Joan Tapper
Photographs by Sara Prince
With a jaw-dropping abundance of flowers and design imagination, the Rose Story Farm showcase event last November—a fundraiser for Casa del Herrero—was a huge, sold-out success. But it all started out far more modestly, says Danielle Dall’Armi Hahn, who owns the farm with her family. The author of The Color of Roses (Ten Speed Press, $35), Hahn has found myriad ways to promote the beauty and variety of the signature blooms, but this event offered something new.
“The designers installed flowers everywhere, from the entrance into living and dining rooms, into bathrooms and bedrooms, upstairs and down.”
“The original idea was to do it for fun for [floral design] clients and provide photography for them. It was just going to be for local florists, but as others heard about it, they wanted to join in. And once we got started, it was too big not to invite the public.” As a longtime admirer of the Casa and its board, she decided to turn the showcase into a benefit. “They are supportive of my business,” she adds. “We have a historic home as well, so I felt it would be a good match.”
The venue would be the 19th-century residence on the Rose Story Farm property. “The house was built in 1890 by a Boston sea captain, and it’s reminiscent of a ship,” Hahn says. “There’s a central staircase, which provides interior light and windows all around. We lived in it for 20 years, and no one has remodeled it.” When her kids left for college, the family moved to a smaller home, but they still return for the holidays. The Victorian architecture provided an apt backdrop for the wide-ranging over-the-top floral installations.
“You hear about design houses,” says Hahn, “but that can be an expensive way to do PR. We didn’t want this to cost anybody anything but time.” After her sister, Nina Dall’Armi, and staffer Alex Ivory came up with the idea, they put virtually no restrictions on the designers, who were free to use anything on the property—roses, of course, dahlias, hydrangeas, hellebores, lots of greens, persimmons and lemons, vegetables, and fruit. They could take as many roses as they wanted and use any props they found on the farm. Otto and Sons Nursery and Florabundance also contributed blooms. “No one had to buy anything,” Hahn notes. “They could do as little or as much as they wanted. They just had to come up with a design.”
Eventually 17 teams—from Santa Barbara, Ojai, and Los Angeles—participated, and although some planned to do modest arrangements, “when people saw what the others were doing, they got inspired.”
The Santa Barbara Garden Club and Casa del Herrero both took part, and Rose Story Farm’s designer, Claudio Cervantes, worked on the outdoor table arrangements and the large urns. Inside, at the top of the stairs, was a photo booth where guests could pose among prolific blooms. The visitors were entertained by opera singers Dorothy Gall and Geoff Hahn in the music room. The results tickled the senses with visual beauty, fragrances wafting through the house, and the sounds of music.
Toast Santa Barbara drew on a dream narrative for the fanciful branch-hung bower on a sleeping porch.
The designers installed flowers everywhere, from the entrance into living and dining rooms, into bathrooms and bedrooms, upstairs and down. Two designers shared the kitchen, with Your Creative Light Designs even filling the dishwasher and oven with flowers, as well as setting them on tables, while Pacwest Blooms placed their arrangements in the dining half of the room.
SR Hogue took over the bay window sitting room and created a tea setting there. Teresa Strong installed a tribute to Wendy Foster using dress forms and clothing in the dressing room.
Jenn Sanchez of Jenn Sanchez Designs incorporated rare plantings and red roses in her creation in the library. She says, “Rather than a formal arrangement, I opted for a large central tower to live at the center of the room, experiential in that visitors can walk around and interact with it.”
Kim Curtis of Toast envisioned a boy spending the night at his grandmother’s house and imagined a scenario for one of the bedrooms and an adjoining sleeping porch: “When she tucks him into bed for the night, she places armfuls of roses from her garden on his nightstand and around the room.”
For the master bath, Ashley Morgan of Ojala Floral had a vision. “I was inspired by the painting of what I imagined to be the Italian countryside hanging above the clawfoot tub,” she says. “I selected large and round antique hydrangeas from the garden as the focal flower accented with waist-high, blushy Princess Charlene de Monaco roses from the farm.”
One of the designers summed up her enthusiasm: “We never get to design what we want. We’re always led by clients. I was incredibly thrilled to design with no budget, no design constraints, no color demands.”
Says Hahn, “It was so surprising to see what people could do. People were blown away. You see how creative everyone is.”
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The Villa Among the Vines
La Tarantella adds old-world glamour to the wine country
LA TARANTELLA adds old-world glamour to the wine country
The approach to La Tarantella and a French limestone birdbath that provides just a preview of the treasures that inhabit The Villa.
Written by Anna Ferguson-Sparks
Photographs by Nicole Franzen
Once upon a time, a globe-trotting entertainment attorney fell in love with the Santa Ynez Valley. He and his wife decided to construct a dream home, La Tarantella, in what is now the Happy Canyon AVA of Santa Barbara County.
Grassini Family Vineyards’ Happy Canyon vines hug La Tarantella, which boasts bucolic vistas.
The couple, who had a passion for travel, filled their 6,000-square-foot manse with historic treasures collected on their worldly adventures, including an early 18th-century limestone fireplace from a French château, meticulously reconstructed on-site. The showpiece hearth was followed by a second imported limestone fireplace. To frame the entrance to the living room, the couple added walnut columns from a 19th-century French crypt, complete with their original, intricately carved stone bases. That same room received cedar beams for the ceiling, hand-assembled 21 feet above the ground by a local building crew. Douglas fir and cedar beams also graced the ceiling of the lounge, which is paved with the Mexican Saltillo floor tiles that are underfoot throughout La Tarantella.
The home’s construction was completed and celebrated in the early 1990s, with the help of famous family friends like Frank Ostini of Hitching Post 2, who purportedly rotisseried meats in the kitchen’s cavernous fireplace.
“The Villa blends beautifully with the Family’s own European heritage and love of entertaining.”
Over the next two decades, the adjacent property was acquired by the Grassini family, who opened a winery at Grassini Family Vineyards in 2010. The Grassinis befriended their neighbors, whose Mediterranean-style villa sat in the midst of the new vineyards. In time, the owners of La Tarantella and their residence began to show signs of graceful aging. The Grassini family stepped in to preserve the property and carry it forward.
In early 2022 the Grassini family acquired La Tarantella and immediately set to work breathing new life into all the glorious elements that make the property unique. They opted to keep the estate private, renting it only for select events. The deadline for the first of those was already looming when the Grassinis enlisted Santa Barbara–based designer Corinne Mathern, who worked with a variety of local artisans and tradespeople to restore the interior and exterior spaces of the stately residence, which they called The Villa.
The grand entrance to The Villa’s inner Fountain Courtyard.
With only five months until a high-profile wedding took place, the design team rearranged some of the venerable furnishings and introduced several elegant new pieces. The living room’s grand piano, which had a wooden frame that had been gorgeously burnished by decades of sunlight, was joined by a new coffee table, situated in front of the centuries-old fireplace that’s now topped with hand-painted tiles reclaimed from the elder Grassini’s Montecito home. Olive trees, uprooted from other spots on the property, were replanted along the pool lawn.
With the opening of La Tarantella in the fall of 2022, Grassini Family Vineyards, now encompassing 104 acres, was ready to serve as an ornate-yet-blank canvas for private events.
The Villa’s living room, with an early 18th-century limestone fireplace from a French château nestled below hand-assembled cedar trusses above the original Mexican Saltillo-tiled floor.
“The focal point of La Tarantella is the main house, which has stood for over three decades.”
The focal point of La Tarantella is still the main house, which has stood for more than three decades on the property, encircled by Grassini vineyards. With its original mix of Italian, French, and Spanish architectural elements, The Villa blends beautifully with the Grassini family’s own European heritage and love of entertaining.
La Tarantella’s six different outdoor event spaces accommodate as many as 250 guests. The Meadow, centered on a 300-year-old oak tree, sits near the Vineyard Oak Courtyard, a well-manicured grassy area shaded by two ancient oaks. The Poolside Lawn boasts views of Sauvignon Blanc vines, which extend 15 acres into the distance—and, as the name suggests, lead onto a vibrant green lawn and an inviting plunge pool. Another Saltillo-tile-lined patio leads into the house through three sets of French doors.
Olive and cypress trees line the entrance to The Villa, leading to The Piazza, an outer courtyard lush with foliage. Mission wood doors open to an inner Fountain Courtyard, similarly paved with sunset-hued Saltillo tiles, a trickling fountain at its center. The Olive Grove setting is distinguished by its namesake olive trees and dotted with oaks.
A restored tapestry of unknown origins befits the scene in one of The Villa’s previous bedroom suites, now used as a VIP wine-tasting area.
An additional rental fee grants use of The Villa’s interior, which features a chef’s exhibition kitchen. Two refurbished bedrooms and bathrooms are also available for bridal preparations, and a third bedroom suite has been transformed into a VIP wine-tasting area with a fully restored wall tapestry that depicts the gracious hospitality at La Tarantella.
Above the lounge, a spiral staircase leads to a custom-fitted library that rewards visitors with 180-degree views of the vineyards and the valley that attracted the home’s original owners.
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The Great Estate
Fashion-industry mogul Jeff Abrams invigorates El Mirador
Fashion-Industry Mogul JEFF ABRAMS Invigorates El Mirador
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter
Photographs by Dewey Nicks
Jeff Abrams is a very busy man. In addition to helming his global fashion brand, Rails, with 200 employees and 15 retail stores across the United States and Europe, heʼs a passionate preserver of El Mirador, the historic Montecito estate formerly owned by Chicagoʼs meatpacking Armour family.
“Once the house was revealed to me, I had this emotional, visceral response. It reminded me of being in Europe.”
In the early 20th century, El Mirador was a sprawling 70-acre estate, replete with Italian and Japanese gardens, an outdoor theater, and a private zoo. Over time, as with many grand estates, the land was subdivided and sold to separate owners. In 2018, Abrams fell in love with a 1990s Mediterranean-style mansion built on one of the property’s parcels. Created by local designer Michael DeRose, it was commissioned by legendary art dealer Stephen Hahn, beloved benefactor of the Music Academyʼs Hahn Hall. “Once the house was revealed to me, I had this emotional, visceral reaction to it,” Abrams told one interviewer. “It reminded me of being in Europe.” The property also includes a magnificent old adobe structure flanked by a pool and a tennis court.
With the advice of local interiors doyenne Elizabeth Vallino, Abrams has been gradually furnishing the 12,000-square-foot residence. “I just want it to be a comfortable place to live,” he says. “Even though the spaces are grand, I want them to feel cozy and at home.” Abrams has acquired several adjacent properties that also formed part of the Armour estate, including the original gatehouse, the farmhouse with horse stables, the Japanese garden, and the stone grotto. He now owns 30 acres, nearly half of the original El Mirador estate. “I actually bought a couple of golf carts,” Abrams admits, “because if you’re really spending time walking around here, it could take a fair amount of time.”
“Every time I come here, I feel thankful and want to show respect for the fact that I have access to this.”
In addition to golf carts, Abrams acquired a tractor and other industrial equipment to grapple with maintaining the extensive grounds. Fortunately, the property has its own well to provide water for the extraordinary plantings that continues to thrive under Abrams’ watchful eye, aided by DeRose, who also does landscape design.
Abrams has also grown accustomed to sharing the property with local wildlife. “There are definitely predators and prey,” he says. “Coyotes and foxes and bobcats and bears and mountain lions; and then you have all these animals that are trying to survive. This is a glamorous setting, but you also have to respect that you’re in nature.”
All this may seem grandiose, but Abrams has earned it fair and square, having launched his business in 2008 with a $5,000 investment and no fashion background; today Rails generates more than $750 million in retail sales.
“Iʼm approaching this property with a sense of humbleness,” he says. “Every time I come here, I feel thankful and want to show respect for the fact that I have access to this. That’s also what drives me to maintain it and be a caretaker; I know how long it’s taken to get here, and how much hard work it takes.”
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Lights,Camera ... Home!
JORDANA BREWSTER renovated a 100-year-old house as a weekend getaway for her newly blended family, then realized she never wanted to leave
JORDANA BREWSTER renovated a 100-year-old house as a weekend getaway for her newly blended family, then realized she never wanted to leave
Alberta Ferretti dress, earrings and rings from Roseark. Opie Tete A Tete chaise, vintage Swedish floor lamp. Hair by Clariss Rubenstein at A-Frame Agency. Makeup by Lilly Keys at A-Frame Agency.
Written by Elizabeth Varnell
Photographs by Sami Drasin
Styling by Katie Bofshever
Says Jordana Brewster of her first forays to Montecito, “I started coming here to escape. There was no one around, and I’d read and write, and there was a level of peace. It felt very rooted.” Those initial visits led Brewster and her husband, Mason Morfit, to a century-old Winsor Soule–designed house that they renovated in time to stage their rehearsal dinner underneath the venerable oak tree out front. Now the couple, who recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary, have taken up permanent residency in the labyrinthine space. “We had been here all summer,” says Brewster. “And I thought, ‘Why should we leave?’”
The Yale-educated actress began her career at 15 and made her feature film debut three years later in a Robert Rodriguez sci-fi mystery before being cast in The Fast and the Furious, the street-racing film that begot a lengthy action franchise. Her work brought her to the West Coast, but a feeling of connectedness and contentment remained elusive during the two decades she lived in Los Angeles.
“In a way, moving has allowed me to get far more focused on what I want to do.”
Brewster, who was born in Panama, moved around as a kid, relocating to London and Rio de Janeiro before landing in New York for her formative years. She says she felt at home in all those places, yet Los Angeles always felt transient. “That’s the piece I found in Montecito—that sense of home and groundedness. Nothing really gets me off balance here,” says Brewster, sitting in her sun-filled dining room, where antique-mirrored walls reflect elegant glass doors leading to a back porch. In the yard beyond, Zelda, her Spanish poodle, and Endicott, her Portuguese water dog, are sprawled in the sun.
The house was designed in 1917 by Soule, an East Coast–raised architect who studied at Harvard and MIT. It sits on almost an acre of land planted with the arching oak plus palms and citrus. “We were lucky enough to inherit original drawings,” says architect Marc Appleton, whose firm helped the couple update the property, taking cues from Soule’s initial designs. “What’s unique about this house is that it’s built in more of a French Riviera, Mediterranean style than the typical Spanish Colonial Revival approach,” he adds, noting Soule relocated to Santa Barbara in 1911, making this an early project in his decades-long career. “Jordana and Mason were enamored of and attracted to the history of the old house. We worked to refresh it and bring it up to date but at the same time respect it architecturally.”
“There was a lovely awareness of making smart changes, rather than throwing out the DNA of the house,” agrees Chloe Warner, founder of Oakland-based Redmond Aldrich Design. Although Brewster and Morfit, who is the head of a San Francisco activist investment fund, aimed to preserve the character of the rooms, they relied on a vibrant palette devised with Warner to update the interiors. For example, bold blue Portuguese tiles line the kitchen. “I love the color and how happy it is,” says Brewster, whose mother is from Portugal.
“We all worked to refresh it and bring it up to date but respect it architecturally”
The dining room is painted in a dusty blue hue, and the game room’s terra-cotta walls complement the family’s Ping-Pong table and a Fast and Furious arcade game in one corner. “What they saw is what we truly believe, that color can be uplifting, calming,” says Warner. By necessity the space is a stomping ground of sorts, where Brewster’s two young boys and Morfit’s four children can gather. “They’re blending their families, starting this new chapter together. They wanted this serene home base for their families to merge,” she adds.
Tucked away from the large common rooms, the upstairs primary bedroom includes a century-old essential: an airy sleeping porch. A double-sided chaise lounge, bathed in sunlight coming through the surrounding windows, is a favorite spot. “They’re readers, and they wanted a place where they could sit together and read,” says Warner.
Lanvin dress, Mach & Mach sandals, Carolina Herrera earrings. Formations’ Market dining table, Nicky Kehoe dining chairs, and a BDDW Captain’s mid credenza.
Brewster also records auditions in a guest room, allowing her to remain in town rather than travel. Cellar Door—a thriller with Brewster, Scott Speedman, and Laurence Fishburne—will be out later this year, and the actress is producing a film this summer. “I’m also working on writing something with my husband,” she says. “In a way, moving has allowed me to get far more focused on what I want to do.”
In all, the house offers a very personal snapshot of the couple. “Jordana brought us a wallpaper she found while shooting in Rome,” says Warner. The Tree of Life design by Arjumand’s World, the creation of Milan-based textile designer Idarica Gazzoni, adorns a lady’s lounge adjoining a powder room. A Harlan Miller painting above one of the house’s cascading staircases came from London, acquired during a Fast production. The work depicts a fictional play with the title Wherever You Are Whatever You’re Doing This One’s For You. “I love the quote there, it makes me think of Paul,” Brewster says, referring to her late Fast co-star Paul Walker. She also has an eye on works by New York painter Karyn Lyons, who portrays the heightened emotions and dreamy haze of adolescence. The canvases remind the actress of her girlhood in Manhattan. “We want things around us that mean something,” she says.
Carolina Herrera dress from Wunderkind Montecito.
Morfit found original Dr. Seuss drawings from books he’s read to his children, and those now line the living room mantel. Above the stairs is a photograph of Joatinga beach in Rio de Janeiro. “I can almost see the place where I lived,” says Brewster. Her Montecito house’s yellow front door is also an homage to Brazil. “That culture of going to the beach after school, you didn’t need the demarcation of being inside or being out in nature—you were constantly out. That’s what we have here.”
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California Spirits
On a former avocado ranch, Rancho Del Sol is the beginning of a Montecito agave legacy
On a former avocado ranch, RANCHO DEL SOL is the beginning of a Montecito agave legacy
Written by Caitlin White | Photographs by Michael Haber
“We grow in an unconventional way. We don’t have regular irrigation. After the plants are established, we simply let them be.”
Rancho del Sol, the 11-acre agave ranch in Montecito where husband-and-wife duo Ane Diaz and Mark Peterson live and work, wasn’t always home to the spiky plants that are the source of distilled spirits like mezcal and tequila. Formerly the place was an avocado ranch, until fires and mudslides got the couple thinking about alternative crops. “It was Mark’s father, Dave Peterson, who shared an article about growing agaves in California,” Diaz explains. “The article mentioned that agaves need little water and can help slow down and, in some cases, even stop fires. We were hooked. Even though we don’t have a background in spirits, both of us have been bartenders.”
The couple “met cute” in Minneapolis, where Peterson was working as the manager of the iconic Loring Bar. Diaz happened to be in the Twin Cities for a conference, and a friend suggested visiting the Loring. The pair quickly hit it off. A few days later Peterson became Diaz’s tour guide around the city, and the rest is history. These days they work as partners farming agave, with each playing to their strengths.
“Our approach is divide and conquer,” says Peterson. “Ane likes to research and study, and she is involved with the younger plants. I tend to learn from experimentation. I work with the larger plants and the layout of the property. We have a family joke: I’m ‘nature,’ and Ane is ‘nurture.’”
“In Rancho del Sol we grow in an untraditional way,” says Diaz. “We call it semi-salvaje—semi-wild. That means we don’t have regular irrigation. After the plants are established, we simply let them be. Even though the agave plant has been growing in California for a very long time, the challenge in this area is growing plants to mature size. Gophers and ground squirrels can decimate a mature crop, and for the very young plants we’ve found deer and snails like to nibble on them. Also, the cold winters can kill or at least slow down the growth.”
Growing their agave crop led the couple to appreciate the plant for all its by-products and to dream of eventually distilling it, an idea that seemed far-fetched until another chance meeting—this time with Patricia Swenson, the executive chairman of Shelter Distilling—led to a partnership between neighbors.
“My husband and I walk in our neighborhood every morning,” Swenson says, “and over a period of months in 2019 we watched Mark Peterson move earth, rocks, and hundreds of agave plants around his property, driving the heavy equipment himself. One day we asked him about his passion for agave, and he shared his dream. We informed him that we had a distillery in Mammoth Lakes, and that was the beginning of our creative partnership.”
“The distillate from agaves made in the U.S. can’t be called mezcal because of its protected designation under the denomination of origin,” Diaz says. “Mezcal can only be made in eight Mexican states, tequila in five Mexican states, so we’re calling our output agave spirits. The distilling process has been at the hands of Jason Senior and Marcos Magdalano at Shelter Distilling. We couldn’t be happier with their results.”
Diaz and Peterson choose the different agave varietals that will go into an ensemble, or mix, selecting agave species based on the potential sugars needed to make the spirits. “Every spring and fall we choose which plants will be distilled,” adds Diaz. “As the agaves start to bloom, we either allow them to flower to seeds or bulbils [secondary plants]. Or, if we decide to make the spirit, the flower will be cut to quiote [stalks] and left in the ground for six to ten months before harvesting for Shelter Distilling to process.”
Agave farms like Rancho del Sol require very little water, and the plants are able to slow and sometimes even stop the spread of wildfire, an environmental boon for California landowners.
To describe their sold-out batch of Rancho del Sol Agave Spirit, which was distilled from a blend of five varietals—Agave americana, A. potatorum (tobala), A. salmiana, A. parryi, and A. tequilana—Shelter notes “stone fruit, floral, and peppery smoke.” Plans are currently in the works for a third batch of agave spirits from Rancho del Sol, which recently completed its fall harvest. Says Diaz, “This time we’re doing americana, salmiana, tobala, mapisaga, tequilana, and desmetiana—and we’re very excited.”
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Sculpting the Future
Goleta’s clay studio Reaches Beyond Southern California
Goleta’s Clay Studio reaches beyond Southern California
Various 3D-printed ceramic objects. All by Lynda Weinman.
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter | Photographs by Bruce Heavin
“We’ve been really focused on local all this time. We can still serve our community, but we also believe it would be a really amazing experience to come from far away and be able to study here.”
For the past three years, the nonprofit Clay Studio in Goleta has been a local community hub for creatives who love the ceramic arts. The 24,000-square-foot facility boasts a state-of-the art ceramics studio, a 3D clay printer, potter’s wheels, kilns, and plenty of room to work. Current programming includes weekly classes, workshops, artist’s talks, and gallery exhibitions.
But there’s more. Clay Studio is getting ready for the future, with a new executive director and gallery coordinator, Matt Mitros. An artist in his own right, Mitros spent the past 16 years in academia, teaching ceramics at the university level. His decision to relocate to California from Illinois to lead Clay Studio was initiated and encouraged by philanthropist Lynda Weinman, who had attended a 3D clay-printing workshop taught by Mitros.
3D-printed ceramic vase. 3D-printed kinetic totem. All by Lynda Weinman.
Weinman, who cofounded the online learning platform Lynda.com, helped launch Clay Studio in 2020 and sensed from the start that it could become a global resource for creative exploration and design.
Meta flower vase with various glazes
3D-printed brick designed to deflect heat on the outside and retain heat on the inside. Created by M.I.T. students at Clay Studio.
“We’ve been really focused on local all this time,” Weinman says. “We can still serve our community, but we also believe it would be a really amazing experience to come from far away and be able to study here.”
To that end, Mitros plans to feature intensive workshops lasting several days, taught by renowned experts from all over the world and open to local as well as national and international participants. New equipment will be added—3D printers for clay and plastic—and the curriculum will be expanded to include emerging fabrication technologies.
“We want to be a place where we can say, ‘What do you want to do? We have a solution for you, and we welcome your ideas,’” says Mitros.
Cactus vase with various glazes and luster. 3D-printed weavzy object. All by Lynda Weinman.
In reality, some of this vision has already been happening in the Clay Studio’s warehouse-like space, where students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have spent the past two summers working on-site. Their doctoral program, called Programmable Mud, resulted in fabrication of a brick that can deflect heat on the outside and retain heat on the inside, potentially a huge game changer for the global construction industry. “It could become the Central Coast Bauhaus,” Mitros concludes, referring to the Clay Studio, “with people sharing ideas.”
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The Shape of Surf
A pioneer in our midst: the legendary RENNY YATER and board members of the Hope Ranch Surf Club
A pioneer in our midst: the legendary RENNY YATER and board members of the Hope Ranch Surf Club
Reynolds Yater tamed and documented this wave, the largest ever ridden at Rincon, December 1969.
Archival Photos Courtesy of Hope Ranch Surf Club Yater Portraits by Dewey Nicks
Personal Accounts by James O’Mahoney and Andy Neumann
JAMES O’MAHONEY
In 1959 Santa Barbara was graced with the addition of the Yaters. Reynolds (“Renny”) and Sally pulled up stakes in Laguna Beach and replanted here. Both surf culture pioneers got right to work. Renny, a commercial fisherman and surfboard builder, opened his first shop on Anacapa Street. Sally fired up her sewing machine and opened “The Bikini Factory” at 310 Chapala. She immediately started f illing orders for the outlaw swimwear.
That same year brought one of the significant events that helped shape the surf culture phenomena: Gidget, the true story of Kathy Kohner and her initiation into California surf culture. The best-selling book became a movie and a television series, and it spawned the beach party f ilm genre. The real stories of surf culture—documentaries by Bruce Brown, Bud Brown, and more—brought even more attention to the sport.
Yater surrounded by examples of 70 years of shaping, including Gidget’s (Kathy Kohner) 1958 balsa board.
In 1962 the United States Surf ing Association posted 93 registered surf clubs in the United States, 87 of which were in California. There were even landlocked clubs on the East Coast: The Downtown Surf Club of Philadelphia and The Potomac River Ripple Riders of McClean, Virginia—210 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
One of the California clubs was the Santa Barbara County Surf Club, which a group of locals formed in 1960. Renny Yater was the first president of the club, which also included Arlen Knight, Tim Knight, Bob and John Perko, Stu Fredricks, Ken Kesson, Jerry Shalhoob, John Bradbury, George Greenough, Don Bittleston, Willy Norland, Andy Neumann, Alan Hazard, Michael Cundith, and Shaun Claffey. The club formed an informal partnership with Clinton Hollister of Hollister Ranch. The club could surf the Ranch but would be expected to police themselves, limit their membership to 60, monitor out-of-town surfers, and follow the rules and regulations of the Ranch.
In the 1990s the longboard revolution ignited the competition bug. There were two big competitions: The Malibu Team Invitational and the Santa Cruz Log Jam (the riders had to use only ’60s longboards).
In 1997 past president John Bradbury passed me the torch. Hope Ranch Surf Club changed again. The main emphasis was competition: no meetings, just surf and compete. Competition director Andrew Buck has successfully molded our team into a top placing club.
ANDY NEUMANN
It was early 1963 when I received a phone call from my surfing buddy Jim Hansen. “The Malibu Surfing Association is having an invitational surf contest this summer,” he said. “I just met with Dave Rochlen, who is in charge of the contest. I told him we had a great surf club with surfers, such as John Peck and Renny Yater. He was impressed.” John Peck had just graced the pages of Surfer Magazine with spectacular photos of him surfing the Banzai Pipeline on the famed North Shore of Oahu . Jim asked if I wanted to join. “Of course!” I said. “That would be fantastic!”
“It is still going strong today. Coming full circle, in 2021 I won the 70 and over Legends division at the annual MSA Malibu Invitational.”
Hope Ranch has a private stretch of sandy beach, and the local junior high and high school kids had formed a little surf club. Their president was leaving to attend Annapolis, so there was an opportunity to take the club in a different direction. Jim used the club as a platform for recruiting the best local surfers to compete in the Malibu Contest. We basically commandeered their club.
Renny Yater, Jeff “White Owl” White, John Eichert, and Doctor Bittleston were our first sponsors and mentors. I was 16, one of the oldest, and was elected president. Our first meetings were held upstairs in the East Beach Pavilion, about 30 raucous teenagers. Being a surfer in Santa Barbara in the early 1960s felt like being out of the loop. Most of the surf stars featured in the magazines and movies were from down south. Being invited to surf in the exclusive Malibu Invitational Surf Contest was like being asked to join the Major Leagues.
The winning club that first year was Windansea Surf Club from La Jolla. Like us, they had also formed to surf in the contest. Rather than rounding up the local high school talent, they recruited many of the top surfers from up and down the coast—and even a few from Hawaii.
The day of the contest was gorgeous and sunny, with perfect glassy waves peeling around Malibu Point. Most of us had never surfed in a contest. We were awed to be in the company of our surf heroes. Joey Cabell, who started the Chart House restaurants, won first place, and our ringer John Peck came through for us, placing second. Somehow we held our own and were invited back every subsequent year. The Hope Ranch Surf Club had arrived!
Wheelhouse of the Alta Verde: Captain Yater steers a straight course with a Cuban Montecristo as his
first mate.
That was the beginning of the second phase of the Hope Ranch Surf Club. I did not have a letterman’s sweater, but I proudly wore my pewter Hope Ranch Surf Club jacket while walking through the halls of Santa Barbara High. In the early ’60s, surfers did not have the best reputation, so we made a point of doing public service. We had cards made up that said, “You have been assisted by a member of the Hope Ranch Surf Club. Our aim is to better the name of Surfing and Surfers.” We began to compete in contests up and down the coast.
Original logos for the SBCSC featuring club President Reynolds Yater on the nose and turning.
I graduated from SBHS in 1964 and went off to study at Berkeley on a surfing scholarship from the United States Surfing Association. John Bradbury, local surfing and shaping legend, took over as president. With his leadership and guidance, Hope Ranch won the prestigious West Coast Club Championship in 1965. He organized an invitational club contest at Rincon in 1966 with a similar format as the Malibu Contest. The Who’s Who of the surfing world showed up from as far as Hawaii and Florida. Unfortunately, the surf did not show up, and the contest had to be canceled.
Things started to change. The short board revolution began in 1968, and with it came the decline of surf club contests. Noncompetitive “soul” surfing became the focus and soon the Hope Ranch Surf Club went dormant. Fortunately, it was revived in 1996 by a group including James O’Mahoney, Andrew Buck, Franky Morales, and Wayne Rich. It is still going strong today. Coming full circle, once again competing with my teammates for the Hope Ranch Surf Club, in 2021 I won the 70 and over Legends division at the annual MSA Malibu Invitational.
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Local Motion
Designer Doni Nahmias returns to his roots, rolling through bowl corners at Carpinteria’s new skate park.
Designer Doni Nahmias returns to his roots, rolling through bowl corners at Carpinteria’s new skate park
Doni Nahmias (bottom) and a cohort of creatives sprawl across new concrete in current and archival designs from the Santa Barbara native’s influential menswear label.
Photography by We Are the Rhoads | Fashion Direction by Doni Nahmias | Written by Elizabeth Varnell
Nahmias, who often logged after-school hours at a friend’s house in Summerland, has emblazoned the place-name on a host of his designs, including intarsia-knit sweaters.
The low hum of wheels on concrete and the occasional scrape of a deck against the lip of a ramp or the top of a rail are the only audible sounds at Carpinteria’s new 30,000-square-foot skate park as Doni Nahmias rides over. The founder and creative director of the influential Nahmias menswear brand grew up in Santa Barbara and remembers when that city’s skate park opened. He calls this a “full circle moment.” The 30-year-old—who shows his designed-in-Los Angeles collections in Paris and dresses NBA stars, including some of the reigning champion Denver Nuggets—is getting a look at the new spot, which was built after years of grassroots fundraising by a core group of friends who formed the Carpinteria Skate Foundation and developed the city-owned space with community support.
FROM LEFT: Nahmias double-breasted blazer and denim cargo shorts; Nahmias silk shirt with a Rincon-inspired watercolor and worker pants. Boards courtesy of Carpinteria Skate Foundation.
Fashion frequently nods to this midcentury pastime with California roots, and the sport even had its Olympic debut in 2021. “Skateboarding popularity ebbs and flows,” says CSF’s Peter Bonning, who helped spearhead the skate-park campaign over the past 14 years.
Right now, the sport is clearly on an upswing. Miu Miu and a host of European houses are again mining low-slung skate silhouettes for inspiration, and the Design Museum in London just opened a Skateboard exhibition chronicling the sport’s backstory and evolution over the past three-quarters of a century.
Nahmias, who grew up playing basketball and skating, finds that labels often follow skaters, not vice versa. “Skaters aren’t wearing designer. Honestly, designers look at what skaters wear. They’re so effortless; they have their own natural swagger,” he says. And while many brands make skate shoes, few fashion designers can ollie the way Nahmias does.
“Skaters aren’t wearing designer. Designers look at what skaters wear; they’re so effortless, they have their own natural swagger.”
The self-taught designer—whose collections are often inspired by the places where he grew up, from the San Roque neighborhood to the porch of a friend’s Summerland house—initially worked in L.A. at the Four Seasons and Chateau Marmont. He also put in weekends at Esau’s Cafe in Carpinteria to scrape together cash for fabrics and samples. After a slow grind and advice from established designers such as Mike Amiri and Greg Lauren, Nahmias’s authentic looks began to turn heads. So did a hat with the word “Miracle” on it, worn by Justin Bieber. “Everything I was doing was feeling so special. I put that on a hat,” says Nahmias, adding, “That hat almost self-funded the company.”
Catching air in Nahmias Poppy worker pants and red Five-O sneakers at the Carpinteria Skate Park.
“Falling in love with fashion and being able to move to L.A.—every day I’m doing what I love,” says Nahmias. The city provides access to stores stocking luxury brands and to the garment district, where some collection pieces are manufactured. Santa Barbara and L.A. are complete opposites, he notes, “but having the two to pull from is a special combination.” So Nahmias often finds himself returning to the natural beauty up the coast for inspiration. His silk shirts are emblazoned with watercolor paintings of Butterfly Beach, and the forthcoming spring collection, Queen of the Coast, is awash in Rincon-inspired images of mermaids, mushrooms, and hearts. “It’s my favorite wave,” says the designer.
“Everything I was doing was feeling so special. I put that on a hat”
Despite selling at retailers from Maxfield to Hirshleifers, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, the designer—who has “Summerland” tattooed across his lower back—is ever mindful of the neighborhoods he came from. “There was a shop, Church of Skatan on Gutierrez Street, I’m so devastated it closed down,” says Nahmias of a favored haunt in Santa Barbara. His early approach to apparel acquisition and some of the silhouettes of his youth continue to inform his work. “I wore Etnies and Dickies. I had an era of shoplifting; I would steal jeans. Hopefully kids aren’t trying to steal mine, but if they are, I’m forgiving.” His worker pants are ideal for skating, as are his Five-O canvas sneakers.
Next up Nahmias is finishing a collection with a western theme inspired by Hope Ranch. Expanded retailing abroad is also in the works. “It takes a lot for the line to go across the ocean and be loved,” he notes. But he doesn’t seem concerned: On this afternoon at the skate park, Nahmias is just another guy landing tricks before the sun goes down and the lights come up.
Hair by Andre Gunn at Art Department. Makeup by Gina Brooke. Models Chris Chann @chrischann, Destiny Niemeier @desniemeier, Donovan Wildfong at Storm Management @donovanwildfong, Swap at Nomad Management @swapecito. Photographed on location at Carpinteria Skate Park.
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Ranch Redux
Reviving a California Classic
Reviving a CALIFORNIA CLASSIC
A stone fountain welcomes visitors to a perfect example of California ranch architecture in Hope Ranch.
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter | Photographs by Mellon Studio
California has more than its share of architectural styles, but the ultimate expression of the West Coast is undoubtedly the ranch house, with its single-storied terrain-hugging sprawl, open floor plan, and generous embrace of the outdoors. The idea of living life inside this kind of breezy setup is irresistible to many—including, most recently, a young couple from Canada who fell in love with an iconic example in Hope Ranch. They decided to purchase the house and move to Santa Barbara for good.
This pandemic story has a happy ending, thanks to the couple’s passion for architecture and their decision to select House of Honey (HOH), a full-service interior design firm, to put the finishing touches on their newly acquired dream home. They were drawn to the unique and eclectic spaces featured in HOH’s website portfolio—and the fact its founder, Tamara Kaye-Honey, is a fellow Canadian might have helped move the needle as well.
According to Kaye-Honey, what sets HOH apart from other design firms is “we really don’t prescribe to one style. We tailor it to the location and the clients. It’s about respecting what’s there and being able to do something unexpected that will stand the test of time.” In other words, for HOH, “style” results from a close collaboration with the client; there’s no signature look to be imposed by the designer.
“Silver-green olive trees were placed around the 2.5-acre site to provide shade for several outdoor dining areas.”
Kaye-Honey’s design skills are part nature and part nurture: Her mother flipped homes and her aunts helmed an antique shop, and she studied at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and started her design business after furnishing her own home in Pasadena. She also has a knack for retail and was one of the earliest vendors on the 1stDibs e-commerce site that styles itself as an online version of a Parisian flea market. With studios in Montecito and Pasadena, Kaye-Honey now leads a collective of 14 creative women who work with her under the HOH umbrella.
In the living room, a monumental sculpture by Canadian artist Martha Sturdy floats above the fireplace. Sofas by Lawson Fenning flank a coffee table from Crate & Barrel. The side chairs are by Menu and the side table is from Garde. The rug is from Blue Parakeet.
As for the Hope Ranch project, it posed several challenges. First, nearly all meetings between HOH and the clients were virtual because of the pandemic. Second, the house had to be completed in four months so the couple could relocate from Canada and enroll their young son in school. “It was one of our fastest-moving projects,” Kaye-Honey admits. “It was kind of a Mission Impossible–type of task,” adds the client, “but HOH found a way to make magic happen.”
Several things conspired to make the endeavor a success. The house itself, which dates to the 1960s, already possessed the qualities of iconic ranch architecture, including a glass-enclosed atrium at its center—an element that was retained during the extensive remodel expertly completed by Arnold Brothers Construction, Inc. Silver-green olive trees were strategically placed around the 2.5-acre site by Chris Gilliland’s CommonGround Landscape Architecture to provide shade for several outdoor dining areas. And because HOH is known for its close relationships with local artisans, many unique furniture pieces—including the minimalist metal “ribbon” benches lining the veranda—were quickly sourced and installed. The design firm avoided kitschy design clichés and obvious midcentury references entirely; instead, several rooms were adorned with graphic wallpapers that highlight the home’s overall eclectic vibe.
“House of Honey has that incredible ability to manage competing interests with respect to what we want, what the house wants, or the space needs, and come up with these gorgeous spaces,” says the client. “They know about all of these amazing California designers. They came in with incredible expertise.” HOH even managed to include work by Canadian artist Martha Sturdy, whose monumental metal sculpture floats majestically above the fireplace. “Bringing a little bit of Canada to California,” Kaye-Honey says.
Like a conductor leading an orchestra to a symphony’s finale, HOH deftly coordinated the ultimate reveal, and the couple arrived in person to see their new home completely finished after just four months.
“What a special moment,” recalls the client, “To open the doors and say, ‘It looks even better than we thought it would.’” There’s hardly a more welcome accolade for a design professional and her team.
Table and benches are by Gloster; dining chairs are from Gubi.
“A lot of my new friendships have come from clients in Santa Barbara, which is really fun,” says Kaye-Honey. In fact, HOH’s Montecito studio, which was established nearly nine years ago, is as busy as the Pasadena location.
The final result is a stunning testament to a creative collaboration that’s embodied in an iconic ranch house a family can now call home. As the satisfied client says, “There’s something really special about the house, and I think that’s what caused us to uproot our lives.” •
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Open Range
Sibling Synergy Behind the Dierberg and Star Lane Vineyards
Sibling Synergy Behind the Dierberg and Star Lane Vineyards
Star Lane Winery sits on an 8,000-acre estate in the Happy Canyon AVA.
Written by Gabe Saglie | Photographs by Blake Bronstad
On aesthetics alone, Star Lane Vineyard wows. The 8,000-acre estate straddles a canyon at the easternmost edges of the Santa Ynez Valley, right up against the Los Padres National Forest, with rolling terrain that stretches as far as the eye can see. In its 200-year history, the property has drawn horse ranchers and Hollywood titans. Today, thanks to the stewardship of siblings Ellen and Michael Dierberg, it’s become known as one of the great Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards in the world.
“The caves on the property are the biggest on the Central Coast and among the biggest in all of California,” says Ellen. “And the views are majestic. People who visit it are floored.”
The siblings say that when their parents, Jim and Mary Dierberg, bought the land in the mid-’90s, it was a risk, a leap of faith. It was a very thoughtful move, though, based on decades of patiently waiting for the perfect opportunity.
“The 8,000-acre estate straddles a canyon at the easternmost edges of the Santa Ynez Valley, right up against the Los Padres National Forest.”
“My parents got started in the wine business in 1970 in our home state of Missouri,” recalls Michael. Indeed, the Show Me State stands out in America’s history of viticulture, which dates back to before Prohibition, before other winegrowing discoveries were made as pioneers pushed west. “Hills were covered with vines,” Michael recalls of his Missouri youth. He’s the middle child; his sister, Ellen, is the youngest. Their older brother opted to bow out of the family’s wine business.
For the family, a decades-long search ensued, as the Dierberg patriarch traveled from France to California and back again, looking for a perfect piece of land for wine, specifically Cabernet Sauvignon.
“When we were in the kitchen one day, and he told us he’d finally found it, we said, ‘Come on, Dad, give it up!” says Ellen. “‘You’ve been talking about this for years!’”
Jim Dierberg, however, would be proven right. He bought Star Lane in 1996, 11 years before the Santa Barbara County pocket in which it sits was recognized officially as the Happy Canyon AVA and touted as a unique location for growing world-class Bordeaux grapes. “Focus and determination and patience finally paid off,” says his daughter.
“Flanking both ends of Santa Barbara’s wine region gives the Dierbergs a unique vantage point.”
Today, about 120 acres are planted to grapes like Merlot and Malbec and with a square focus on Cabernet. These grow on the top two thirds of the vineyard, where calcium-carbonate soils prevail. The lower third, replete with serpentine, allows Sauvignon Blanc to flourish. And the wines they create, with winemaker phenom Tyler Thomas at the helm, garner top-tier scores and widespread international acclaim, especially the Cabernet.
“Star Lane Cabernet Sauvignon is world class, so yes, it is in the major leagues and on the playing field,” says Tyler. “I’ve tasted our wines with potential European importers as recently as this year, who find the characteristics of our Cabernet Sauvignon offer a fresh lens on what California Cabernet is. They are compelled by its lithe qualities that don’t seem to compromise Californian fruit—or its ‘sunshine,’ as one taster noted—and power.”
Already “half of our Cab goes to Japan, and our wine is in the best restaurants there,” says Michael. He loves the work trips there. “You eat so well!”
Star Lane features a state-of-the-art gravity-flow winery, and the Dierberg family’s library of wines stretches back more than two decades.
The Dierbergs acquired Drum Canyon Vineyard in 2008, an estate in the coveted Sta. Rita Hills AVA, where cool temperatures and ancient seabed soils offer prime conditions for premium Burgundian grapes. Sixty-seven acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are planted here, in the westernmost stretches of the Santa Ynez Valley. These wines also wow critics and oenophiles, and yet the push to elevate their caliber continues.
“After 18 years of growing Pinot across several different soil types present at the vineyard, we have learned where Pinot Noir is excelling and where Chardonnay deserves a look it never received,” says Tyler. “There is, therefore, opportunity for both to thrive as we discover these nuances.”
Flanking both ends of Santa Barbara’s wine region—warm Happy Canyon and cool Sta. Rita Hills—gives the Dierbergs a unique vantage point for the region’s rich and diverse winegrowing potential.
Star Lane’s subterranean caves are the largest on the Central Coast.
“The area’s reputation continues to grow,” says Michael, who also admits that the ability to grow a wide range of varietals “can make getting the message out a challenge.” He adds, “We need to get [consumers] out to the properties.”
To that end, the Dierberg Drum Canyon Vineyard is open to the public, with tastings by appointment and with a $35-per-person tasting menu that features both labels. Star Lane, however, has just opened to guests for the first time, through a more private and curated series of experiences.
“We want to bring serious people who are really interested in wine and especially in Cabernet,” says Ellen. Aimed at creating a bespoke moment for serious drinkers, the private tours include visits to the subterranean caves and guided tastings from the family’s private library.
Tyler Thomas is winemaker at both Star Lane and Dierberg Wineries. This year marks his 10th anniversary working with the Dierberg family.
And just as the bookend vineyards create equilibrium for the Dierberg enterprise, so does the sibling dynamic that has Ellen and Michael sharing duties across both brands.
“We balance each other out,” she says. “My instinct is more, ‘just do it, and do it now.’ Mike thinks things through, takes his time, analyzes things a bit closer.”
Her brother concurs. “We get along well, and we complement each other.” He’s based in Missouri, while she splits her time between Jackson Hole and Santa Barbara, “so, many times, we’re not in the same place,” says Michael. “Running the business helps build our relationship and helps bring us closer together.”
The siblings are raising kids of their own—he has two teenage boys, and she has five children, ranging in age from seven to 23. Some are already expressing interest in the wine business, especially when it comes to “learning how to be stewards of the land,” says Ellen.
This involvement across the family fits nicely into a 250-year plan that Jim Dierberg drafted early on to manage the vineyards and produce premium wines. “He’s happy that so many of us are following through with it,” adds his daughter. And it ensures that Star Lane and Drum Canyon build on their iconic status for generations to come.
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Cover Me in Sunshine
Achok MaJak embodies the Santa Barbara dream.
Achok MaJak embodies the Santa Barbara dream
Photographs by Lauren Ross | Styling by Meredith Markworth-Pollack
Hair by Erik Hernandez | Makeup by Gina Brooke at The Wall Group
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Unfinished Business
What if we told you that two young Santa Barbara girls formed a friendship that has lasted well into their adulthood—growing, thriving, regressing, rebounding, and ahhhh…expanding and exhaling into an extraordinary collaboration of the heart and mind. Meet best friends Achok Majak and Isabelle Bridges.
Photographs by Dewey Nicks | Interview by Isabelle Bridges
What if we told you that two young Santa Barbara girls formed a friendship that has lasted well into their adulthood—growing, thriving, regressing, rebounding, and ahhhh…expanding and exhaling into an extraordinary collaboration of the heart and mind. Meet best friends Achok Majak and Isabelle Bridges. Majak is our homegrown global face of Gucci, Tiffany, Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, and many more fashion powerhouses, as well as a yogi, a real estate agent, and a community ambassador. Bridges is an empowerment coach for moms, a best-selling author, a mother of two, and the daughter of Jeff Bridges, Oscar-winning actor and coolest dude dad-granddad ever. Majak was embraced into the Bridges family after losing her own father, and the friends have been joined in their family values, spirit, and soul ever since. They dive into a little childhood 805 history, dig deeper into diversity and acceptance, and connect with a whole lot of gratitude and love.
Isabelle Bridges: Is there anything you want to say before we dive in?
Achok Majak: First and foremost, thank you so much for interviewing me. I love Santa Barbara Magazine so much, and I feel honored and blessed to be on the cover. It’s a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl, being born and raised here, and the timing couldn’t be better.
IB: Why is it so important to you and to Santa Barbara as a community?
AM: The first word that comes to mind is community and the connection of this community. I feel so grateful to represent my own uniqueness. The world is changing, and Santa Barbara is a beautiful community to anchor and cast light on that change. There’s so much beauty, from the land to the people to how connected the community is all over the world. This place is where everything started for me, and I was surrounded by so much love.
IB: Do you represent the diversity that Santa Barbara exhibits?
AM: When I was growing up, there weren’t many Black people in town. But today more and more creative people are being drawn here, which I find so beautiful. This cover lets people know we are a community of one; we acknowledge and love diversity.
“There’s nothing like these mountains, the ocean, the food to make people feel the presence of ultimate beauty.”
IB: When did you know you wanted to be a model? How did you get where you are today?
AM: My family is from South Sudan; I’m the only one who was born in the U.S. My father got a scholarship to get his Ph.D. He wanted a warm climate, so he ended up at UC Santa Barbara and later was a professor at Loyola Marymount. When my mom arrived, she had a third-grade-level education. She went to school and got her high school equivalency the day before my oldest brother graduated high school. My father died when I was nine years old, and his last words were, “Make sure my kids get a good education.” I ended up at Santa Barbara Middle School, and it changed my whole perspective on life. I felt safe, loved, supported. I lost my father, but incredible people came into my life, including your family. I was taught it’s okay to grieve, and it’s also okay to be a kid. I knew I was going to be a model from about age seven. But I had a lot of fear about going into the public eye and getting into an industry where there isn’t a union and you’re not really looked after. A lot of toxic people can influence your career, whether it’s a photographer or a casting director or an agent, so you have to be very careful. Eventually I decided to take the leap and I moved to Oakland. When I moved, the first thing I had to do was learn who I was. After growing up in a community where no one looked like me, it was amazing to be in Berkeley, to go to San Francisco, to see different cultures represented. I met people with different financial backgrounds, physical sizes, orientations. I also got to spend a lot of time with you and your family, which was like having a piece of Santa Barbara with me. I spent a lot of time with your daughter, Grace, which was such a blessing. I got to see the world from her perspective, and she mirrored the different ways I was growing and realizing how I could do better. I was really committed to spiritual work: I asked you questions, I read books from your shelves, I was able to get grounded. As I was getting more grounded, modeling started to become clearer. I signed with an agent in San Francisco with the intention of getting to New York. On St. Patrick’s Day in 2015 I packed my bags, stopped through Santa Barbara, and flew out to New York with just two suitcases.
“I want people to be inspired to have conversations regarding race diversity, even if it’s uncomfortable. Reach out to each other, start to open up your spaces, lend each other a hand.”
IB: I love that you honor the people who have supported you along the way. Other people will see you or see themselves through you, and it has a beautiful ripple effect.
AM: I want people to be inspired to have conversations regarding race diversity, even if it’s uncomfortable. I was at Savoy the other day, sitting alone at the table, and this woman said, “Excuse me, I don’t want to offend you, but I want to tell you that you have really beautiful skin.” And I said, “Thank you for being so brave to tell me how you feel about my skin.” And that’s the love, that’s what’s stronger than any of these other bad feelings. It just opened up the doors for a really great conversation.
IB: If you were to invite our readers to take a specific action, what would it be?
AM: Be open, reach out to each other, start to open up your spaces, lend each other a hand. Bring people together to sit down, to have conversations, to meet at the park, to join in a sound bath. Put together an intention of growing, being more inclusive, waking up to how you may be contributing to some of the issues. Awareness sparks change. If we start putting on events and making it known that we are an inclusive community, people will come and other communities will be inspired to do the same. If you go anywhere in this world and mention Santa Barbara, people know it and they love it. It’s a very rare, unique place. There’s nothing like these blessed mountains, the ocean, the food at our farmers’ markets to make people feel the presence of ultimate beauty.
IB: Don’t just wait for someone to invite you in—invite yourself.
AM: Here’s a great example of how little actions can create big change. Meredith from PALMA Colectiva invited me to a beautiful cacao ceremony as her guest with the intention of connecting me to two other sisters she knows within the healing community. There were three Black women in a group of 17 total. I felt so strong and empowered to have women with similar skin color to mine within the community. Something lit up within me. Those little actions will last a lifetime. During the pandemic, I had different interactions with people and dealt with racism like I’ve never felt before—even in Santa Barbara, where I didn’t have these experiences growing up. I thought, “Okay, a lot of people who are locals aren’t that way. Some people have moved here; some people are just coming through. That’s not how we treat each other in this community.” If you’re here, you’re welcome. We treat people with love, kindness, and compassion. The same day Meredith invited me to the cacao ceremony, I dealt with a racist situation. Racism has nothing to do with words. It’s a feeling, and it doesn’t change. I’ve reached a point where I decided I’m not going to let this person ruin any more of my day—not another minute. I decided to meditate, which I learned from you and your family. I was able to send positive vibes for this person, to seek out forgiveness, to pray for this individual to find their own sense of happiness, their own sense of peace, to really find out who they are. Once you know who you are, you’re not going to lash out at people or project on them. Human beings can vibrate at a much higher level, but we need to do the work.
IB: Who else helped you get to where you are today?
AM: Santa Barbara Middle School is the gift that keeps on giving and will be with me forever. I’ve also had amazing experiences with your family. They have taught me so much about meditation and spirituality. Having a spiritual practice allows me to evolve. I’m able to seek out how to be better each day. Your family believed in me and supported my aspirations. When I went to New York, I knew I had a whole tribe back home supporting me and sending love. When I was 15, I got my first job at The Palace Grill, and those friendships have lasted for years and years. I was just there a few days ago for a meeting. The owners, Michael and Sandy DeRousse, have always been a big part of my life. John Thyne has always given me great legal advice, and he’s big in philanthropy and has opened up my eyes to being involved in that. I’m also grateful to CorePower. We did a module on racial justice and inclusivity at their 300-hour teacher training. How do we open doors to the yoga space for everyone? What kind of words do we bring in? What do we eliminate? What can we do to bring in more color? How do we reach within out to the community? I was able to have conversations with management in CorePower and be heard and received. The owners have been very supportive. That’s how I’m finding my ways to be involved within the community and see how we can bridge the gap, bring more color within our community, awaken those of color already within our community.
IB: How does your work in real estate fit in to your modeling career?
AM: It’s been fun to shift from being a model on set to the real estate mindset. There are a lot of young kids in the community with very bright futures. I’d love to see us all doing our part through real estate. I love learning. I love all the insightful, incredible people in the real estate industry in this town. The portfolios are unreal. Each home I walk into is so unique. The buildings here are so sacred. Regarding modeling, after taking a break I just did my first major shoot back in New York. It was great to be back on set. I feel more driven, more energized, and like I have even more of a clear vision, which is to advocate in the modeling space. Models go through a lot, and we need a union. We need the community to wake up to what’s going on in the industry. Change is going to happen; it’s just a matter of when. I’m looking forward to creating more love, more support, more community, more change. ●
Isabelle Bridges is founder and CEO of The Mother’s Empowerment Membership™ blog, book, and podcast. @isabellebridgesboesch. Look for Achok Majak’s return to the fashion world starting with New York Fashion Week in September. Follow her journey with us @santabarbaramag.
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Perfect Pairing
Designer and Vintner Caren Rideau Adds a Colorful Palette to Wine-Country Entertaining
Designer and Vintner Caren Rideau Adds a Colorful Palette to
Wine-Country Entertaining
A pale early morning light suffuses the La Presa vineyard, where the vines are netted to protect the fruit just before harvest.
Text and images excerpted from Caren Rideau: Kitchen Designer, Vintner, Entertaining at Home (Pointed Leaf Press) | Photography by Meghan Beierle-O’Brien
People often ask me what it’s like to be a vintner and I say, it’s a lifestyle—and a beautiful one!
When I look out onto the majestic rows at the La Presa Vineyard in Solvang, California, I never know whether to pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming or just bow my head in thanks for being part of what I see in front of me.
Grateful is an understatement of how I feel to live what I feel passionate about, especially alongside my winemaker life-partner, Andrés Ibarra. If not for the industry that I’m in, I’m not sure I would have met him and found another art form in the making of wine.
[This has been a] sacred place in which to break bread with friends or enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day. I’m grateful to be part of this kinship that harvests our vineyard–designated wines. Whether taking refuge from the city chaos of Los Angeles, or going on a morning stroll, or even checking the brix—the sugar level on an annual harvest—this place represents life in all its forms.
La Presa’s 45-acre vineyard and farmhouse are nestled alongside the Santa Ynez Mountain range. Andrés and Eric [Caldwell] planted the majority of the vineyard in 1985, which Andrés still continues to farm today.
Many of my favorite memories over the years have originated on this tierra, or land. Wine is the commonality that has brought together our fellow winemakers, friends, and family—creating a connected community centered on tasting some exceptional wines.
Launching a boutique wine label with Andrés, coupled with my design expertise, is an ideal combination for entertaining at home. Through these two arts, our personal and professional lives intertwine with our social ones. Understanding these dynamics is a gift that I have always yearned to share.
There is no doubt that a glass of wine with food elevates the experience. Both need to be in harmony, neither overpowering the other’s taste, to create a perfect pairing. Finding the right match is overwhelming sometimes, considering how vast the world of viticulture can seem, but wine is still simply a pure pleasure, especially with the right bite.
“When I look out onto the majestic rows, I never know whether to pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming or bow my head in thanks.”
An easy way to begin the pairing process is to start with the most prominent ingredient of the dish and even out the flavor profiles. In a white wine, I’m seeking a balance of fruit and acid, which creates a lasting finish that is great with light seafood, shellfish, and even spicy Asian dishes. Acidity cleanses the palate and makes heavier, robust meals more enjoyable.
When it comes to red wine, I’m looking for tannins. They create a dry sensation in the back of the throat that clings, sometimes making me want to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Tannins exist naturally in plants, and those found in the skins of grapes for wine are more apparent in red grapes than in white. Tannins in the seeds of the grapes create bitterness, and those in the skins, along with acid, help make the wine age-worthy.
A Santa Ynez vista at the vineyard.
Matching food and wine becomes second nature if done enough times, and I’ve refined my palate simply by trusting myself. I have fun with the process and do not let the sophisticated jargon become too much. I take a bite, close my eyes, and, by recalling flavors, can think of which wine to pair it with depending on the food’s fat, salt, and acid contents. ●
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Barrel Fever
Artist John Baran pursues the perfect wave
Artist John Baran pursues the perfect wave
Dance of Sky and Water (Gaviota Coast, 2022) captures one of the artist’s favorite moments, when the sky is full of light that complements the crashing waves.
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter | Photographs by John Baran
Human beings have a strong emotional connection with the ocean, a fact that Santa Barbara–based artist John Baran is reminded of daily via his social media feed, where he posts photographs of ocean waves. “I get messages from people who don’t even buy my work saying, ‘Thank you for posting these photos. It makes me so happy.’” But heartfelt reactions to his pieces are not surprising, given Baran’s talent for capturing a wave at the moment it crests. With the tube like a telescope offering a glimpse of the shore, this is an intimate view only a surfer could ever hope to see in real life.
An artist for nearly two decades, Baran exhibited his creative inclinations at an early age. Growing up in Santa Cruz, his mother, a graphic designer, “fostered art with us constantly,” he says. “There were crayons and pens, and I drew a dinosaur on the wall one time, and she didn't even get mad at me. She just traced it and recreated it, framed it, and then painted the wall.” But his artistic career did not emerge until he attended graduate school at Cornell University to study landscape architecture; encouraged by a professor, he started making abstract paintings based on aerial views of landscapes. Eventually Baran embraced art full-time and began exhibiting his work in New York, Europe, and Asia.
Several years ago, as a gift to his daughter, Jade, Baran painted a few animals and incorporated them into one of his abstract pieces. After posting the image on social media, he was inundated with requests for animal paintings. “And that’s where the photography came from,” he says, “because I didn’t want to use other people’s images for my animal reference materials.” That led to snorkeling trips to Hawaii with a GoPro camera and to underwater photography of marine life. “I swam with orcas and tiger sharks and manatees and giant manta rays,” he notes. He’s also snapped grizzly bears, wolves, lions, and giraffes in action during sojourns in Yellowstone National Park, Africa, French Polynesia, and Alaska. And he routinely visits his mother’s native Hawaii, often with Jade and son Austin.
“Santa Barbara waves are his specialty, and collectors react strongly to images of specific locations”
Baran’s wave series is fairly recent, a natural extension of his ocean wildlife photography. “I became obsessed with it,” he says. “I was out in the water every day, morning and night.” Santa Barbara waves are his specialty, and collectors connect strongly to images of specific locations. Recently a man who had proposed to his wife on Butterfly Beach years earlier was thrilled to acquire a wave photograph Baran shot there. “It really meant something to him,” Baran recalls, adding that “getting a really good photograph that people want to buy is rewarding, because everyone has a camera now on their phone and everyone can take photos.” Baran’s wave series is available only on his website (johnbaranphoto.com) for the moment, but his paintings and wildlife photographs can be obtained through galleries in Carmel, Santa Cruz, Palm Springs, and Hawaii.
When he’s not capturing waves or sea creatures with his camera, Baran volunteers with Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute (CIMWI), helping rescue and rehabilitate seals back into the wild. And he’s always got trash bags and plastic gloves in his car, ready to clean up the beach a bit after a photo session. ●
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The Sound of Music
The Music Academy sets a new tone for the future
The Music Academy sets a new tone for the future
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer | Photographs by Stewart Shining
When Michelle Bradley came to the Music Academy of the West in 2014, she considered herself a late bloomer. At 32, she had been studying vocals in Texas, and her teacher suggested she apply to the renowned summer institute set on a romantic garden estate in Montecito. Little did she know how pivotal her time there would be. Upon winning the grand prize for the Marilyn Horne Song Competition (named for the famed mezzo-soprano she auditioned for), Bradley embarked on her own successful soprano career, kicking it off in New York and going on to star in Aida during the Metropolitan Opera’s 2022–23 season.
“That summer was life changing—doors just started flying open,” Bradley recalls about her time in Santa Barbara. Amid all those doors cracking, she made sure to leave wide open the entryway to the Music Academy, which she revisits frequently to sing with young children or perform for sold-out audiences. It was at one such concert in December, when Bradley sang an aria from Tosca followed by a “mind-blowing medley” of Whitney Houston songs, that she brought three particular women to tears.
Sisters Belle and Lily Hahn sat alongside a wistful Mindy Budgor in what was arguably the beginning of a full-circle moment. The three had met as girls when their parents—legacy sponsor families the Luria-Budgors (donors behind the Luria Education Center) and Hahns (Hahn Hall)—brought them there every summer of their childhood. Reunited on-site that evening, they gazed with disbelief, nostalgia, and hope at the talent this venue could produce.
“Michelle had a voice that not only had I never heard, but the way that she used it was like a communion with God—so deep and powerful,” Belle recalls. “She sang ’He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’ along with Whitney Houston pieces, and she breathed a new life force into the room. Mindy had told me it wouldn’t be another classical concert, and I had goosebumps and tears.”
Alum Michelle Bradley returns frequently to the place that launched her career—and every performance brings the house down. Flowers by EmmaRose Floral.
“We want to support the emerging-artists program, which is exactly what our ancestors did.”
Greatly moved, the three women were inspired to help move the venue forward. On the heels of its 75th anniversary, the Music Academy debuted changes big and small. For visual rebranding, it dropped “of the West” in the name and designed a new logo reflective of the bright California sun, illuminating art and creativity. Realizing that classical music is at a crossroads, president and CEO Scott Reed vowed to keep looking ahead and creating changes that propel classically trained musicians boldly forward.
“We want to be a springboard for what comes next,” Reed says. To kick things off, the Music Academy is hosting a gala on June 3, which he says “will be like no other, for where the Music Academy is and where we want it to be.” The event will be cochaired by none other than Belle, Lily, and Mindy. “They’re icons because of their philanthropic status,” Reed says. “Now they’re carrying the banner for their families to further make the Music Academy accessible, engaging, and inclusive.”
“We want to support the emerging-artists program, which is exactly what our ancestors did,” Belle says, recalling those summer days when her father, Stephen Hahn, was always bringing musicians—who often had nothing
in their pockets—home for dinner. Belle and Lily would listen to them sing or play instruments, help pick out their outfits, and then watch as they went on have huge careers. “We’re honoring what has been and paving a new path for what can be, to be a bridge to relate to many others. When we can harmonize together, magic happens.”
As for guest performer Michelle Bradley, Reed says, “She breaks down some of the walls that some people put up on what opera or classical music is. The Music Academy is a transformative experience. She worked so hard, and this is an organization that rewards hard work.”
In addition to Bradley, many other alumni have launched successful careers with the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and other performing arts organizations. Partnerships are always evolving and currently include the London Symphony Orchestra and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. More programing is being rolled out, including the Innovation Institute for alums and fellows, plus wellness offerings such as yoga, performance-anxiety coaching, and free counseling sessions for fellows with an on-site psychologist. And of course, the ever-popular SING! program continues, offering free after-school choral classes for Santa Barbara County students in first through sixth grades and nurturing future voices.
“I never thought I’d go as far as I have,” Bradley says. “I just knew I wanted to sing.”●
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Passion for the Planet
Nathalie Kelley is an actor on a mission
Nathalie Kelley is an actor on a mission
Nathalie Kelley, styled by Laura Sophie Cox, in a Savannah Morrow dress from Wendy Foster Clothing Stores. Hair by Andre Gunn at Art Department, makeup by Gina Brooke. Shot on location at Twin Peaks Ranch/Turtle Conservancy in Ojai.
Written by Kelsey Mckinnon | Photographs by Sami Drasin
A few months ago actor Nathalie Kelley attended New York Fashion Week, but not to watch the latest collections go down the runway. Instead she went to ask stylish partygoers—tongue in cheek—what they will be wearing to the planet’s sixth mass extinction event (like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, except this one will have been caused by humans instead of an asteroid). “I’ve always been a provocative little shit-stirrer,” says Kelley, who turned the Q and A into an Instagram video for her 1.5 million followers. “I love creating tension. I live for discomfort.” Kelley’s mission isn’t just to raise awareness for environmental causes; it’s nothing short of changing the world. “I’m trying to take down the whole global capitalist system, baby,” she says. “Gonna set it on fire.”
Kelley attributes her passion for justice to her own origin story. She was born in Peru, where she and her mother, who is of Indigenous heritage, faced discrimination. “Even from birth, I was [aware of] a great injustice done against me and my mother. So I’ve been programmed against it and to sniff it out very quickly,” says Kelley, whose biological father, Leon Walger, the now-deceased Formula 1 race-car driver and “ladies’ man,” was not involved in her upbringing.
Kelley and her mother emigrated to Australia, where the actor was raised and attended the North Sydney School for Girls (Nicole Kidman’s alma mater). In 2005 she moved to Los Angeles for a role in an Aaron Spelling–backed pilot that never got picked up. But Kelley didn’t have to wait long for her big break, which came the following year, when she was cast as Neela in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Film and television roles ensued, with credits that include Cruel Intentions, The Vampire Diaries, Dynasty, and The Baker and the Beauty, which was the number-one show on Netflix when it was released in 2020.
“Kelley’s mission isn’t just to raise awareness for environmental causes; it’s nothing short of changing the world.”
Despite all this success, Kelley, now 38, says she’s “deeply depressed” about the kind of roles and stories coming out of Hollywood. In Dynasty, for example, she played Cristal Flores Carrington, a public-relations exec at an oil company who was engaged to her 50-something billionaire boss. “I’ve told my agents already, if [a script] serves the patriarchy and the current militarized globalized system, then just don’t send it my way,” she says.
Kelley’s work now is decidedly more purpose driven. She sits on the board of directors for both Kiss the Ground and the Fungi Foundation. She recently appeared in a parody show entitled Big Oil for Australian commerce and content company Riise, and she regularly collaborates with media company Earthrise on Instagram segments about everything from the hypocrisy of corporate greenwashing to global supply chains.
Kelley was eager to put some physical distance between herself and Hollywood, too. Drawn by the prospect of being surrounded by farmland, the legacy of the Chumash people, and likeminded friends and neighbors—like Eric Goode’s Twin Peaks ranch and Turtle Conservancy—Kelley decided to move to Ojai during the pandemic after visiting a friend in the area. The best part has been engaging in the local food movement. “My kitchen is my temple. I'll go to the farmers’ market and say hello to all the fruit and vegetables before I buy them. Then, when they get home, I welcome them with this yummy cleansing bath,” she says. “I’m really learning to build up a reverence with the food I eat.”
“I have the opposite trajectory of success of most people,” she says of her constant efforts to downsize.”
Kelley’s mindfulness practice begins the moment she wakes up. “You are going to laugh, but I pray to my water every morning and ask it to hydrate me. I bless all the water over the world, asking for it to be purified and free from contamination,” she says. To that end, Kelley has stopped dyeing her hair and opts for product-free beauty treatments, such as microblading. In 2020, alarmed at the pollution statistics from the fashion industry, she went a year without buying a new article of clothing, and now she only purchases items secondhand or from brands with highly transparent supply chains. “I have the opposite trajectory of success of most people,” she says of her constant efforts
to downsize.
This summer she plans to decamp to Mexico to join an agroforestry team aimed at rescuing an ancient crop-growing system developed by the Maya. “I’m ready to live it. I want to wake up every day and put in two good hours with a machete and go to bed with soil in my fingernails, exhausted from a hard, glorious day building forests,” says Kelley. She plans to use the opportunity to film a documentary called The Future Is a Forest to show how lessons from indigenous people are vital to human survival.
To honor her own indigenous heritage, Kelley recently changed her legal name to Iya Mallqui. Iya means “sky” in Ecuador’s Sapara language. (She was given the name on a trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon years ago.) Mallqui is her grandmother’s surname, which in Quechua, the indigenous Peruvian language, is the word for both “seedling” and “ancestor.” It refers to the way the Incas buried their ancestors like precious seeds that would be nourished by the ground and be reborn as a tree, shrub—or, perhaps in Kelley’s case, an entire forest. ●
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Ranch Hands
Ojai jeweler JES MAHARRY finds inspiration for her ethically made baubles in the flora and fauna of her valley compound
MaHarry gathers with her husband and three children (Koda, Liv, and Zel) for an alfresco meal around handcrafted furniture, made by Henderson and collected from fallen trees at the ranch.
Ojai jeweler JES MAHARRY finds inspiration for her ethically made baubles in the flora and fauna of her valley compound
Written by Elizabeth Varnell | Photographs by Sam Frost
Jewelry designer Jes MaHarry sculpts her handcrafted collections on Sun Horse Ranch, a sprawling Ojai Valley property she initially sought out to house horses and foster dogs. The New York native, whose eponymous line has been worn by the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Lena Dunham, and Hillary Clinton, has lived with her husband, Patrick Henderson, at the foot of the Los Padres mountains for the past two decades. Now donkeys, goats, sheep, rabbits, tortoises, cats, dogs, and the occasional cow—almost all rescues—also make their homes here and have the run of the place. “Our house has been a work in progress,” says MaHarry, whose fine jewelry designs have topped the Sundance Catalog’s jewelry offerings for nearly as long as she’s been at work on the property.
Sun Horse Ranch includes a barn, the family house, and MaHarry’s design studio, where she and her team solder and shape recycled gold and silver and ethically sourced gems and diamonds into meaningful baubles, which are showcased in her downtown Ojai boutique. Doors and windows are almost always open, allowing the animals to roam free throughout.
“We’ve had diamond setters stop working to help with the sheep,” says MaHarry, adding that everyone on the ranch has to be versatile enough to accommodate the four-legged creatures. “I’ve always rescued animals,” she says. “They always seem to find me; I don’t search them out.” Indeed, a pair of rescued feral dogs named Bodhi and Chitta (after the Sanskrit word for awakened minds) led to MaHarry’s and her husband’s acquisition of the Ojai property. After completing her degree at Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio (where she met Henderson) and working a series of odd jobs as she honed her artistic practice, her sister got her a ticket to California and encouraged her to visit Ojai. As the youngest in a family of artists, MaHarry fell in love with the scenic town and ultimately found a rental that would accept her rescue dogs, which sealed the deal. The dogs quickly outgrew the house’s small backyard, however, and she needed more space for the animals to roam.
MaHarry’s friend Jean Marie-Webster of Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center (SPARC), who also cofounded Wild Horses in Need (WIN), discovered the almost 6-acre plot in town; it had been vacant for years and was littered with potholes, weeds, trash, and a shanty with its windows blown out. With a serendipitous bequest from a great-uncle and a loan from a friend who also supported rescues, the couple secured a down payment and set to work “like crazy fanatics,” filling jewelry orders so they could revitalize the grounds and begin building an artist’s compound. “My vision was to have a house to fix up and off to the right a design studio, while to the left there would be a barn,” recalls MaHarry.
In addition to expanding the house to hold their three children, the couple added large decks leading to fire pits to enlarge its footprint. “We live mostly outside,” says MaHarry, noting that the house and studio have deep green exteriors designed to blend with the vegetation around the property, which includes oak, eucalyptus, and pepper trees, and a little orchard of apples for the horses. Purple trim adds a playful bohemian touch to the structures and blends with the brightly colored wildflowers dotting the property each spring. MaHarry credits landscaper Emigdio Villanueva with helping design and cultivate the lush greenery and flora around the house.
The kitchen features an artisan steel wall hanging above the door, a wooden dining table, and steel stools, all crafted by MaHarry and Henderson. The crow print above the shelf is composed by Jennifer. Steel candlesticks and ceramics are made by MaHarry, while the tile backsplash is a family effort. The textile bench is from Sundance Catalog.
“I have to have things that are built really well,” says MaHarry, noting the intense wear and tear caused by the animals. Henderson, who built much of the home’s furniture by hand, planed down reclaimed wood from fencing broken by Jane, the couple’s cow, to make cupboards. “We do everything ourselves, whether it’s plaster or whatever,” she says. A barn for surfboards is the property’s newest addition.
Learning the techniques required to create everything she dreams up also fuels MaHarry’s jewelry practice. Everything is made by hand, just as it was from the beginning, when she bought files at garage sales and found metal scraps on roadsides. She still works antique beads and ethically sourced gems into necklaces, carves waxes, and hammers metals daily, remembering the moment that sparked her interest in a jewelry line. “My mom gave me a soldering class to learn how to solder silver. It was as if fireworks went off in my mind. I thought, ‘I can draw into silver, into metal, and make jewelry as a talisman.’ That was very profound,” says MaHarry. Her grandmother’s rose gold jewelry inspired the first ring she sent to Sundance (in a FedEx box hand painted with galloping wild horses), launching her multidecade relationship with the catalog, which focuses on items created by American craftspeople.
MaHarry’s pieces continue to reflect the natural world around her, as well as her life on the ranch. Inspiration comes from travels and “my children and rescue animals that have brought big energy with healing, training, and helping,” she says, adding, “I thrive off of empathy.” Her ranch is filled with family art, handmade furniture, tiles, and ceramics. And the animals are always everywhere. “We’re incredibly selective of what we bring in here; we have to resonate with everything,” says MaHarry. “It’s such a healing property. It’s very free.”
MaHarry and her daughter Zel with their gypsy horse, Zephyr.
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Something to Crow About
The owners of villA Corbeau get their hands dirty while creating a breathtaking, regenerative garden
The owners of Villa Corbeau get their hands dirty while creating a breathtaking, regenerative garden
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter | Photography by Michael Haber
“We drove up here and walked into this house, and both of us started crying.”
“My husband keeps telling me, ‘You spend so much time with dirt!’” says Ashley Adelson, “but I tell him that our dirt is the best dirt.” That is no exaggeration. Ashley is the proud owner of six compost bins, in addition to a commercial-size worm bin. “We take the green waste and the chicken guano, and we do runs to the polo field and get horse manure, and we get kelp from the ocean to make this concoction—it usually takes four weeks—and then we feed it into the soil.” She smiles contentedly and adds, “Composting is my favorite thing ever.”
With her Grace Kelly features and fluency in French, one might not expect Ashley Adelson to enjoy getting her hands dirty, but she’s become a passionate gardener since relocating to Montecito from Los Angeles with her husband, Scott Adelson, in 2020. The pair fell in love with a property designed and formerly owned by renowned architect Marc Appleton. “We drove up here and walked into this house, and both of us started crying,” Ashley recalls. “We realized it was the dream home we always wanted.”
A view of the garden and the pool casita, which Ashley converted into a 12-person dining room.
It’s easy to understand why. As Appleton described in View magazine in 2019, “The architecture is quietly classical with stone and plaster walls, salvaged European clay-tile roofs, stained wood doors and windows manufactured in Italy, and distressed French oak and limestone floors.” His creation bears the name Villa Corbeau (“crow” in French) “in jest, after the resident crows that are prevalent in the neighborhood,” he said.
The Adelsons acquired and moved into Villa Corbeau just as the pandemic took hold. With lockdown in effect, Ashley began decorating the interiors herself, sourcing European furniture online. She converted the pool casita into a 12-person dining room, expanded the wine cellar (the couple owns two wineries in Oregon), and managed to get the overhead electrical power lines buried underground (no small feat). And then the gardening bug hit.
“We recycle everything back into the soil.”
“I’m a lifelong learner, and I really get into things,” Ashley says modestly, before divulging that she took no fewer than 30 online classes from the New York Botanical Garden, as well as landscape and horticultural classes at UCLA. She then began consulting local experts, like the Santa Barbara Beekeepers Guild (Villa Corbeau has four beehives) and permaculture guru David White of Ojai’s Center for Regenerative Agriculture. There was more. “We brought in 35 new roses and planted 108 dahlias. I developed a fern gully—that’s where the bees live. We expanded the chicken coop and put in a chicken run, so the chickens can leave the coop and run in a circle. And we recycle everything back into the soil.” And while it’s hard to imagine she has any free time, Ashley is also on the Board of Trustees at Ganna Walska Lotusland.
Originally from Huntington Beach, Ashley graduated from Chapman University and moved to Europe for nine years, attending graduate school at the Sorbonne University in Paris. She worked for an active travel company and did stints in England, Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, and Vietnam. She and Scott met on one of her work trips in 2012 and remained in touch. Over time, their friendship turned to romance and the couple married seven years later. Scott grew up in Los Angeles and, after graduating from USC, attended the University of Chicago for his MBA. He is co-president of Houlihan Lokey, an international investment bank. A dedicated philanthropist, Scott established the Adelson Foundation to help preserve art and culture throughout the world.
The couple travels extensively—23 countries in 2022 alone—and entertains frequently. As Ashley says, “I feel that Montecito is a magical little place, where you meet the most interesting, fascinating, lovely, genuine, real people.”
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Collective Soul
PALMA COLECTIVA brings a new pathway of healing
PALMA COLECTIVA Brings a New Pathway of Healing
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer | Photographs by Julie Pointer Adams
“Never say never.” That’s something Meredith Markworth-Pollack has gotten used to repeating when asked if she’ll ever return to Hollywood. The former costume designer spent her career working tirelessly for shows such as The Afterparty, Impeachment, and Dynasty, often relocating her family for months on end with no time for herself. When the pandemic offered a moment to stay in one place and reevaluate things, she felt a pull away from the industry and toward something she never could’ve imagined—leaving Los Angeles and her warp-speed job to launch a center for healing arts. And so, out of burnout, Palma Colectiva was born.
A tea ceremony held in the Japanese Pavilion at Lotusland.
“It took lockdown for me, and so many others, to pause,” she says. “It was the first time I’d had more than two weeks off in my entire career.”
Craving a slower pace and sense of community, she began hosting mindfulness gatherings, sound baths, and breathing circles. At the time, her husband, Daniel Pozas, an intuitive healer from Mexico, was deepening his own practice, and they decided to collaborate. The couple also felt a pull to Santa Barbara, where they met and to which they felt a deep connection—and where they envisioned raising their family and debuting Palma (named after their daughters, Paz and Alma).
“Men need healing just as much as women do to talk about feelings and emotions.”
“I saw a void here in the wellness community,” Markworth-Pollack says. “Although we have yoga, beautiful spas, and sound baths, there was still space for community events and retail with ethically sourced brands. I felt that this was my path, so we made the leap.”
Palma’s Victoria Court studio offers daily mindfulness practices, including Kundalini yoga, breath work, tea and cacao ceremonies, group Reiki, women’s and men’s circles, a clean beauty apothecary, and sustainable clothing. Walk-ins are welcome, and memberships allow for first access to specialty workshops, energy treatments (think chi machines, biomat, and infrared light), and retreats, where Palma’s presence may expand infinitely.
The first retreat was held at Lotusland, where guests experienced Kundalini yoga in the theater garden and a tea ceremony in the Japanese garden, along with inspirational speakers and a chef-driven organic lunch in a safe, intimate setting for women as well as men, who “need healing just as much as women do to talk about feelings and emotions and maybe even shed a tear,” Markworth-Pollack says.
More specialized retreats include a “female founders” getaway in Mexico for established entrepreneurs to meld their work and soul purposes, as well as wellness weekends for women in film and TV—a full-circle moment where Markworth-Pollack encourages her former community to be vulnerable and open up on everything from mental health to pay disparity.
The first retreat was held at Lotusland, where guests experienced Kundalini yoga in the theater garden and a tea ceremony in the Japanese garden.
“There’s a lot of trauma in film and TV with high stress, high stakes, and long hours—it’s a demanding industry,” she says. “Although I’ve loved being a costume designer, and it’s brought me and my family all over the world, it took its toll on my mental and physical self.”
So will she ever return to Hollywood? “For now, this is my purpose. For so many years I was gone 14 hours a day on set. But now my husband and I are putting down roots. And we want to help people find their path.”