Double Vision
A Couple Puts Down Roots With a Modern Residence Overlooking a Classic Western-Style Winery
Written by Kelsey McKinnon | Styled by Pearson McGee | Photographs by Dewey Nicks
“Coming here is about being in touch with nature and just living life. That’s the goal.”
Paula Tabalipa hops into her vintage Ford F-150 and revs the engine a few times before putting it in gear and bounding down the mountainside to visit her winery. Whizzing past fruit stands and vineyards, she explains how, when she was growing up on a cattle ranch in Brazil, she always dreamed of living in California. She moved to San Diego and studied fashion merchandising before landing a position with Saks Fifth Avenue in Los Angeles doing visual displays. She spent time in Germany, Italy (she also speaks Italian), and New York, where she studied at the International Culinary Center. At one point she even became a sous-chef at her friend’s pop-up restaurant in downtown L.A. and sold a TV pilot about farming to Amazon, all while building a successful career as a wardrobe stylist and costume designer. “Curiosity is the spice of life,” she says, pulling into the driveway. “You have to be curious about things.”
The way Tabalipa and her husband, Michael Greenberg, president and cofounder of Skechers, ended up in Santa Ynez seems like a natural progression in their story. After the couple started dating in 2019, they took their first trip together to the valley. While spending the pandemic at their primary residence in Manhattan Beach, they began to crave more space and decided to return to Santa Ynez. “The day I saw this house, I made an offer,” says Greenberg. “We do a lot of things like that.”
The dining room features a custom-made table, Stahl+Band Loc chairs, a chandelier by Paul Matter from Garde, and a painting
by Markus Palu.
The home is perched at the end of a ridgeline in one of the most coveted corridors in the valley. (Coincidentally, the plot next door belongs to their neighbors in Manhattan Beach; the one beyond that is the Jenni Kayne Ranch, which was listed last fall for $6 million.) Tabalipa undertook the interior design of the home herself. “I wanted it to be elegant, modern, yet down to earth,” she says. On the drives up from Manhattan Beach, she would pull over in Summerland, where she selected a number of sculptural pieces for the living room from Garde, including a Paul Matter brass chandelier and Pierre Augustin Rose coffee tables, which complement nearby table lamps from her design crush Athena Calderone.
Three months after the pair closed on the house, serendipitously one of the valley’s most iconic vineyards, just down the hill, came on the market. The original owner was viticulture pioneer Dale Hampton, who was one of the first people to plant grapes in the region and helped others establish their vineyards. “I really want to carry on the legacy,” says Tabalipa.
While she set about learning the ins and outs of making wine, Tabalipa asked Pearson McGee, the proprietor of local home shop Santa Ynez General, to spearhead the design of the winery’s interior. “I gave him a mood board—a mix of Amber Interiors and Ralph Lauren—and said we needed it done in six weeks,” she says. McGee headed straight for Round Top, Texas, an antique furniture mecca, and returned with a 28-foot trailer loaded with farm tables, hair-on-hide ottomans, and cozy bouclé armchairs.
This spring Tabalipa bottles her first vintage harvested from the 18 acres of prime Syrah vines—a light Provençal-style rosé that will be ready to drink by summer. The couple decided to call the property Living Life Vineyards. Greenberg, who has been a boater for 25 years, always names his boats Living Life, a reminder to enjoy it while you can.
“We kept thinking about names, and I just thought it was perfect,” says Tabalipa. “Coming here is about being in touch with nature and just living life. That’s the goal.”