Band of Brothers
Getting down and dirty with the all-American trio The Brothers Gerhardt, who are bringing folk-country rock music to the Central Coast
Left to right: Nels Gerhardt on upright bass, Jacob Gerhardt on the fiddle, and Peter Gerhardt on vocals and guitar.
Getting down and dirty with the all-American trio The Brothers Gerhardt, who are bringing folk-country rock music to the Central Coast
Written by Claudia Pardo | Photographs by Courtney Ellzey
Influenced by music legends such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and John Prine, and the sounds of newcomer roots country singer Tyler Childers—along with sundry genres from indie/pop to rock and roll—The Brothers Gerhardt is establishing a growing popularity for themselves in Santa Barbara County.
This is most certainly because they are great musicians. Their music is hardy, with unhurried melodies, evocative of the craggy coastline and vastness of the area where they grew up. It’s also the result of being classically trained at an early age in music theory and composition—invaluable skills inculcated in them by countless hours of practice.
But there is something more—something special about them.
The Brothers Gerhardt have set off to ride across the wide expanses of Santa Barbara County, selectively playing gigs in local venues. For more information on upcoming shows, visit thebrothersgerhardt.com.
Jacob, Nels, and Peter Gerhardt epitomize brotherly love on and off stage. The singer/songwriting trio has a tight-knit relationship that many siblings aspire to have (and some may even envy). People love them. Their commitment to one another and their dedication to family tradition is inherent in their music. Their onstage performances for fans, friends, family, and new audiences transmit a candor that is impossible to ignore.
Born and raised in San Luis Obispo County, the Gerhardt boys grew up on a small farm, delighting in the freedom that their mother, Pam, and father, Jim—a private school teacher and a research engineer, respectively—granted them. Jacob recalls riding bikes on dirt roads, taking late-night walks to the river, photographing wildlife, playing with snakes, and engaging in all sorts of daring and exciting activities with his brothers. “The river behind our house was an extension of our backyard,” recalls Peter, a furniture builder and the principal song writer of the group. “We had the freedom to explore and use our imagination.”
Jacob on the family's farm in San Luis Obispo.
“Whether we’re in the backcountry or on stage, it’s all based on the trust and support that we built growing up”
Television was a rare and special treat. Although they did get to watch the Olympics and movies from time to time, their limited exposure to television gave them the opportunity to spend their time outdoors, adventuring. They worked hard and played harder—outside. “We may have had more scrapes and bruises than kids today, but we turned out all right,” jokes Jacob.
Inspired by the Olympics motor bike racing they watched, the boys took on mountain road biking. The Central Coast proved to be idyllic for this diversion. Not surprisingly, recreation became an occupation for Jacob, who currently rides professionally as a cyclist for Clif Bar.
Growing up in the country also gave them permission to learn new skills. Their natural
knack for building things stemmed from their father’s side. Their great-grandfather was a furniture maker in Sweden and passed on the skill through generations. Jacob still uses the same welder that his grandfather used to build Indie 500 cars in the 1970s.
Nels has been married to Katherine Gerhardt, an avid surfer and bronze sculptor from San Diego for two years. Their toddler son, Nelson Ford, attends every one of dad’s shows. “Playing music is the framework that brings us together,” says Nels, “it’s the unspoken nuances on and off stage that keep us together.”
Peter’s wife, Jess, an environmental scientist from Santa Barbara, is also consistently supportive of the musicians. “Our relationship and this music would not be possible without this foundation,” says Peter. “Whether we’re in the backcountry or on stage, it’s all based on the trust and support that we built growing up.”
“Playing music is the framework that brings us together, and it’s the unspoken nuances on and off stage that keep us together.”
With an unassuming demeanor and rough-hewn good looks, The Brothers Gerhardt’s tunes pay tribute to tradition—a time when drinking from the garden hose, spitting scrapes clean, and cultivating good relationships at home were the norm. It’s Americana at its best, and it’s what makes them special.
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A Lucky Horseshoe
Memo and Meghan Gracida see polo in the future of the Santa Ynez Valley
Memo and Meghan Gracida see polo in the future of the Santa Ynez Valley
Ready for polo action, Meghan Gracida practices a mallet move alongside Memo on the field.
Written by Joan Tapper
Photographs by Dewey Nicks
He named the property La Herradura—meaning “horseshoe”—and used the symbol as an emblem for the ranch.
You can’t miss the gleaming silver. Sit down to chat with Guillermo “Memo” Gracida and his wife, Meghan, in their Santa Ynez ranch house, and your eye inevitably turns to the shelves of shining trophies and statues that honor his achievements as a top world polo player. There’s a replica of the U.S. Polo Open cup, which Memo has won 16 times in his career. There’s the coveted fluted bowl from the Argentine Open, the Gold Cup of the Americas trophy, and the British Queen’s Cup, which Elizabeth II presented to Memo twice. The hardware is impressive, but what Memo really wants to talk about is why he and Meghan have now relocated to this area and his vision for the property they call La Herradura.
The word means “horseshoe,” he says, and it hearkens back to the name of the Mexican polo team Memo’s father fielded with his siblings. “They were the only set of four brothers to win the U.S. Open,” he says proudly. “That was in 1946. Father was a great mentor. He taught me to play and gave me a love of the sport.”
And that’s what Memo is now hoping to pass on to others at La Herradura by teaching and coaching both people and horses. “We came to the New World of the West Coast with energy to create a polo center. This place is a dream for a horse lover,” he says. “It’s the ultimate horse property.”
“La Herradura means “horseshoe,” and it hearkens back to the name of the Mexican polo team Memo’s father fielded with his siblings. “They were the only set of four brothers to win the U.S. Open,” Memo says proudly”
Memo has been coming to this part of California for the last 30 years, usually just for three or four weeks at a time as part of the professional circuit that moves from Palm Beach to England, Santa Barbara, Texas, New York, and Argentina. He happened to be here in September 2012, waiting out a hurricane in Florida, when he met Meghan, whose roots are in Santa Ynez and San Luis Obispo. When she began working in West Palm Beach a few months later, they reconnected and, after a whirlwind courtship, married almost five years ago. They bought the 45-acre ranch—a onetime Arabian horse farm—in December 2017.
The 3,800-square-foot house on the property, built in 1973, needed more than a little work. Walls were removed, the kitchen and master suite renovated, and the exterior totally redesigned, with other changes still to come. But the equestrian facilities—including barns, 60 stalls, fences, and paddocks—were all horse ready.
“We came to the New World of the West Coast with energy to create a polo center. This place is a dream for a horse lover. It’s the ultimate horse property.”
There are three large barns, including one with living quarters for half a dozen grooms, and 13 big pastures. “We have 100 horses, both ours and other people’s,” says Memo, “and our days are spent looking after them—working them, resting them, training them every day. We also run clinics and matches. It’s a three-ring circus!”
“People come for clinics and lessons from all over the world,” he continues. “There aren’t so many polo schools on the West Coast. My goal is to get new blood in the game and teach all different levels. We have ideal beginners’ horses—responsive and well-trained—and a safe environment with a staff dedicated to producing the best service.”
And the polo players—newbies and veterans alike—are learning from one of the best. Memo held a 10 handicap—the highest rating—consecutively for 21 years, and though he doesn’t play competitively as often now, he enjoys teaching others. That includes Meghan, who had never ridden before but now holds a 3 woman’s handicap and plays regularly on La Herradura’s women’s team. “She’s a great athlete,” Memo says. “She can ride any horse.”
“I get great satisfaction from seeing a person learn to make a great play,” he continues, “and seeing young horses and young players do something new.”
“When you’re on the field, you’re not thinking about anything else. The connection of horse and person is epic”
Until recently, weekend matches as well as riding lessons and stick-and-ball sessions have taken place at Piocho ranch, five minutes away. But as of September, there’s a new polo field at La Herradura. Creating the venue has been a huge project. “It was a horse pasture,” says Memo, “and to grow grass for a polo field, you have to do a lot of prep. We were lucky to get a lot of fill from the mudslides to even it out. Then we seeded it. You have to let the weeds grow out, then you can kill them. It’s taken a year and a half start to finish.”
The Gracidas hope to develop other fields in the future, with the goal of building a club with 150 members. Polo is “great for people who have been successful in life and are looking for a challenge,” says Memo. “But there haven’t been a lot of opportunities to learn, or a place nearby where people can try the game and see if they like it.” In fact, even though people may think of the Santa Ynez Valley as horse country, the number of animals has dwindled as ranch land has been converted to vineyards.
Riding his pony Muñeco, Memo conducts a polo lesson with Meghan on Patito Feo, a gift from her husband. Filling out the foursome are students Joshua Dubarry and Memo’s nephew, Alejandro Gonzalez Gracida.
Meghan points out that for Memo, the important things are his family, horses, and polo, and indeed he’s a superb advocate for the sport. “When you’re on the field,” he says, “you’re not thinking about anything else. The connection of horse and person is epic.” •
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California Spirit + Southern Charm
Author Frances Schultz invites us into Rancho La Zaca where good food and a harmonious setting feed both the body and the soul
Author Frances Schultz invites us into Rancho La Zaca where good food and a harmonious setting feed both the body and the soul
Written by Sally Daye
The Southern Style of the title is epitomized by Frances herself and what she brings to her brand of hospitality, which she sees as a calling. “Hospitality—if we allow it, if we intend it—connects us to one another and to community.”
“How we do love our Santa Ynez Valley. Which, by the way, I did not know before coming to it. Somehow I’d missed this gorgeous enclave a stone’s throw from Santa Barbara. It was worth the wait.”
And so begins the latest book by lifestyle maven and transplanted insouciant Southerner Frances Schultz—California Cooking and Southern Style: 100 Classic Recipes, Inspired Menus, and Gorgeous Table Settings. How she got here from her native North Carolina is another story, but suffice to say, “Years ago on a road trip, my husband Tom [Dittmer] stopped by here and thought it was the prettiest ranch country he had ever seen. He knew then he wanted to have a ranch here one day, and here we are. And we love nothing better than sharing it with family and friends.” In fact she loves it so much she had to share it with the world. “Seemed like there was all this goodness and beauty here bustin’ to get out. I just wanted to help it along.”
Frances Schultz at her ranch; like many houses in California, Rancho La Zaca is all about outdoor living. “The porch at left is where we have dinner most nights,” she says, “the vine-covered porch at the right is our weekend lunchtime spot.”
Also “helping along” is Santa Ynez resident and chef Stephanie Valentine, who wrote and tested the book’s recipes. Trained at The Culinary Institute of America in New York and a star protégée of legendary Chicago restaurateur Charlie Trotter, Valentine also served as executive chef at Roxanne’s, a premier raw food restaurant in San Francisco. Says Frances in her book’s Cook Notes, “While I appreciate the many beneficial qualities of raw food-ism, Stephanie no longer subscribes. Nothing against raw food-ists, but thank goodness.” She continues, “The California Cooking in the title is as much about place as it is about food. Our Central Coast is blessed with a year-round growing season and some of the best farmers and winemakers in the country. We created recipes for what we love to eat ourselves. Our aim is not to be startlingly original, and the recipes aren’t complicated. Some do take time. It’s a labor of love. No one says it’s a ‘nothing-to-it’ of love. Isn’t the creating half the fun? This is tried, true, doable, and delicious home cooking of the kind that makes us feel warm and welcome, with a fresh California spirit and a spirited Southern charm. Like a good old friend we haven’t seen in a while, familiar but with new tales to tell.”
“Our Central Coast is blessed with a year-round growing season and some of the best farmers and winemakers in the country. We created recipes for what we love to eat ourselves.”
“Good food and a harmonious setting feed both the body and the soul,” she says. Fortunately, the setting was already there. “Occasionally I dress it up with flowers and such, but the backdrop of our Rancho La Zaca is inspiration in itself.”
Situated along the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail, Rancho La Zaca is part of an original Mexican land grant comprising vineyards, oak savannas, valleys, and mountains as far as the eye can see. The setting no doubt appealed as well to previous owner and actor James Garner, who built the current Hugh Newell Jacobsen-designed, contemporary-style house Schultz and Dittmer live in today. Writes Schultz, “Mr. Jacobsen was a favorite of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who had him design her house in Martha’s Vineyard. Funnily enough, the Garners bought the property from actor-director Herbert Ross, then married to Jackie’s sister, Lee Radziwill.” Today’s guests, admits Schultz, “are mostly unfamous but ever-cordial family, friends, and those who might become friends.” As long as they do not use their cell phones at the table, she adds. “I cannot believe there are people who still do that.”
With her Southern manners intact, spirited humor, stylish grace, and some 100 recipes and as many photos, Schultz’s book also marks the chapter following her popular The Bee Cottage Story: How I Made a Muddle of Things and Decorated My Way Back to Happiness. A memoir cum decorating chronicle set in The Hamptons, this poignant and funny tale ends in California with a question mark. The question for now seems well answered in California Cooking and Southern Style. With typical irreverence Schultz notes, “I should have made the new book’s subtitle How I Went from Down in the Dumps to One Dinner Party After Another.”
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In Elaine's Lane
Since moving to California six years ago, iconic model and mom of three Elaine Irwin has made Santa Barbara—now including the Rosewood Miramar Beach—one of her favorite getaways
Since moving to California six years ago, iconic model and mom of three Elaine Irwin has made Santa Barbara—now including the Rosewood Miramar Beach—one of her favorite getaways
Photography by Mark Champion | Styled by Alison Edmond | Written by Degen Pener
Elaine Irwin first visited Santa Barbara in the 1990s. This was back in the day, the superstar model recalls, “when we did these long photo shoots. I stayed here for about three weeks, and since then, I’ve always had a great place in my heart for Santa Barbara.” That was also in the era when models—as opposed to celebrities—still regularly graced the cover of Vogue magazine. In 1989 and 1990, Irwin garnered three solo covers, her first one shot by the legendary Irving Penn, proclaiming the then-19-year-old Pennsylvania-born beauty “All-American!” Within three years, the 5’11” model, who went on to become the face of Almay and Ralph Lauren, married singer John Mellencamp and moved to the heartland, living in Bloomington, Indiana, for more than a decade and a half.
Today, she’s a Californian through and through. “I’m the biggest fan of California,” says Irwin, who lives in Venice with her husband of seven years, media entrepreneur Jay Penske (owner of Variety, WWD, and Rolling Stone) and their 6-year-old daughter. “The quality of life is so good,” she says, adding, “I do not miss scraping ice from my windows—just to think of it makes me shudder.”
Among her favorite places to visit is Santa Barbara. “It’s such a beautiful town,” says Irwin, who recently celebrated Mother’s Day with her mother and her daughter at the Rosewood Miramar Beach. Her daughter loves exploring the children’s science discovery center MOXI, visiting the zoo, and walking on the pier. “Santa Barbara is just far enough away from Los Angeles that you feel you’ve really gotten away.”
Her local friend circle includes jewelry designer Sheryl Lowe, who recently shot Irwin for a fall ad for her collection. Why she chose her for her Santa Barbara-based line? “Elaine is the epitome of a timeless beauty in every way. She is a role-model mother, wife, and friend,” Lowe says. Her biggest focus is striking the right balance as a mother. Taking a break from social media since last December has helped immensely. “I have so much more time with my day. It’s very liberating,” says Irwin, who has two sons from her first marriage—25-year-old Hud Mellencamp lives in L.A. and works for a video technology company; 24-year-old Speck just graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. Meanwhile, her daughter just graduated from kindergarten. “I had no idea how much fun it would be to have a girl,” says Irwin. “It’s good to have things that you do outside of your home, and it’s good to have a lot of investment in how you raise your kids. I’m really trying to spend time and enjoy my little one. I love that part of my life.” •
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Point Break
Landscape Designer Scott Shrader's Ode to Rincon and Outdoor Living
Landscape Designer Scott Shrader's Ode to Rincon and Outdoor Living
Alexandra Vorbeck with landscape designer Scott Shrader and guests often take advantage of the local logs and other items washed up to the beach to create perfect backrests for seating.
Photography by Lisa Romerein
Shrader's The Art of Outdoor Living (Rizzoli, 2019
Alexandra Vorbeck loves transforming properties as much as—maybe even more than—I do. She is always looking for another challenge. When she found this beach house property north of Los Angeles, she could not resist. The entire property was in very sad shape. The county had recently condemned the house—relocated from Carpinteria in the 1960s—which had been built on sand without any footings or foundations and added on to haphazardly over the years. The existing gardens included only one semi-functional outdoor space, a pagoda. A sunken pond occupied the actual sweet spot for commanding the view, a long vista to one of California’s great surf breaks. But the location—just a short walk from the beachfront, and next to a tidal lagoon—was perfection. Vorbeck imagined turning it into her own private Idaho of a retreat to share with family and friends: the ultimate, California-casual getaway, suited to a dress code of T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
To be here is to want to interact with the water, air, and views, day and night, from all points on the property. To make that possible we used materials that bring the feeling of the shore right up to the threshold of the house and visually extend the experience of the living spaces to the beach and water beyond.
“Beyond the walls, we casually integrated environments conducive to lounging, casual dining, conversation, and just hanging out.”
In order to give direction to the large gestures and small details of our redesign, I developed a story of a tsunami landing on the house. When it passed, it left the house engulfed in an almost accidental landscape of randomly scattered boulders (in a practical touch, these serve as impromptu seating), drifts of sand, and an assemblage of boardwalks that tie the house and gardens together. Working with architect CJ Poane, we opened up the interior of the house with axial views, focal points, and moments that reflect the ocean, and we planked the walls and ceilings (picking up the boardwalk theme) to create easy, breezy, light-filled rooms visibly in synch with the surroundings. Beyond the walls, we casually integrated environments conducive to lounging, casual dining, conversation, and just hanging out—a fire pit, an easy area for four to six to share a meal, play cards, or shuck oysters; a larger lounge area for bigger groups, plus, of course, the numerous boulders that offer incidental places to sit or put down a drink.
Since we wanted a random effect, it did not make sense to plot every single plant and every single position obsessively. We knew the plant palette had to consist of drought-tolerant salt-lovers native to California. We knew we would create an arbor of fig trees off Vorbeck's master bedroom and find a worthy specimen—which turned out to be a strawberry guava—to commemorate the birth of her first granddaughter. I sketched in the boardwalks with a can of spray paint. We figured out the basic structure for the landscape. With four large trees—including a spectacular, mature Monterey cypress—still standing proud, we began to shape our vision with the understory, arranging Metrosideros to grow into a hand-clipped screen around the property’s perimeter. Interspersed are 15 additional Monterey cypress trees intended to add, eventually, impressive tall shafts of green.
While the house and garden were still in construction, Vorbeck held a “naming” party to select a moniker for the house. The unanimous favorite? The Sandbox. We have now guided The Sandbox through the process of becoming for more than five years. As it continues to mature over the next 30 or 40 years, my hope is that it will be demonstrated that we’ve planned well for its future—and that, with care, it will only continue to grow more and more into its best self.
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Power of the Pony
Investing in polo horses is crucial to getting into the game
Investing in polo horses is crucial to getting into the game
Left to right: Gitana, Kiwi, Dolca, and Floppy photographed on location at Sarah Siegel-Magness’s ranch, Cancha de Estrella.
Written by Megan Kozminski
Photographs by Courtney Ellzey
Some people jump in and purchase a string of half a dozen ponies straight away; others buy just one to start, testing out their new passion (and pocketbook). Shopping for that perfect first pony can be complicated. Polo horses have personalities, habits, strengths, and weaknesses, just like people. There’s also a lot to learn about the sport of polo, the horse industry, and even basic equine science.
Groom Juan Cruz with (left to right) Pistera, Crota, Plumita, and Duraznito.
Find people in the industry who you trust. Determine your budget and gather information from seasoned coaches, players, or professionals who can help you navigate.
Next comes the fun part: Ride as many polo ponies as possible. Try a pony at least twice—a stick and ball session, and if that goes well, a practice or game chukker. If you are trying dozens of horses, keep notes on the age, conformation, and under-saddle details for each, and always have a reputable veterinarian conduct a prepurchase equine health exam.
The most important advice to any polo shopper is buy the pony that makes you a better player based on your current skill and handicap. You want to feel like a million bucks every time you walk onto the field. Always keep in mind that after the purchase, it costs the same to feed a mediocre horse as it does to feed your perfect equine partner.
“This year, I realized the power of the pony. It took me four years to understand exactly what that means. For me, upgrading to the first-class breeding program of La Dolfina Valiente and purchasing the next-level string will give me the tools to take my game to the next level. This means compact, speedy, handy horses that stop and turn on a dime. When you’re really new to the game, you don’t realize how important that is. Then one day you do! Polo is 70 percent horse, 30 percent rider.”
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Double Vision
Polo player, professional model, and Instagram It girl Zinta Braukis strikes a pose at Cancha de Estrellas
Polo player, professional model, and Instagram It girl Zinta Braukis
strikes a pose at Cancha de Estrellas
Photographs by Courtney Ellzey
Hair and Makeup by Tomiko Taft
WHO Zinta Braukis, often called “Z” by family and friends.
“There is a fantastic, relaxed pace to life in Santa Barbara—it’s a great balance to my career and the adrenaline rush of racing down the fields on a galloping horse.”
WHAT Working as a professional model by day with such brands as Ralph Lauren and Lucchese, Braukis—who has been playing polo since the age of 14—is at her happiest in the saddle with her horses in Los Angeles and Indio.
DOUBLE DUTY Dubbed the equine Instagram It girl, @zintapolo has more than 80,000 followers and is in demand for her lifestyle posts of horses and polo.
TRIPLE THREAT Athletic, adventurous, and adrenaline seeking, Z recently earned her helicopter pilot license.
PASSION PROJECT “As with people, each horse’s personality is unique. It is truly a special relationship that develops. I teach them to trust me and that mutual respect is possible. It is an immense joy to see them flourish as a result—both in their personality and as an athlete.”
WORDS TO PLAY BY “To paraphrase Alexander the Great (one of the first polo players in history), ‘The world is the ball, I am the mallet!’”
Throughout: Tops, Rocio G., rociog.com; boots, Lucchese, lucchese.com; hats, Vanner, vannerhats.com. Special thanks to Sarah Siegel-Magness and Joe Henderson of Cancha de Estrellas for use of horses and location.
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Out Of The Weeds
After legalization, Santa Barbara is poised to become the epicenter of cannabis farming
Sara Rotman at her Buellton property
After legalization, Santa Barbara is poised to become the epicenter of cannabis farming
Written by Maxwell Williams | Photographs by Brian Bins, Curtis Peterson, York Shackleton
Up in Los Alamos, surrounded by greenery and lush farmland in every direction, York Shackleton kicks at a pile of horse dung. He looks and talks like any young farmer, wiry and rugged and proud of his crops. Except there aren’t any crops yet, not until the cannabis growing season begins in June. Still, mature plants in planters are lined up in a row on the seat of a picnic table by the farmhouse. “I have a lot of rare genetics that only I possess,” says Shackleton, as excited by plant propagation as any grad-school horticulturist. “We’re going to cut those down now and clone them.”
“Most of the farms are geared toward high-yield production, with an eventual eye toward the sort of cannatourism that will turn the Central Coast from wine country to weed country.”
Shackleton’s High Star Farms is one of an estimated 100-plus cannabis farms operating legally under more than 1,000 licenses in Santa Barbara County. It’s the most by county in the state, recently passing longtime cannabis stronghold Humboldt County, since the state shifted from medical to recreational cannabis at the beginning of the year. Most of the farms are geared toward high-yield production, with an eventual eye toward the sort of cannatourism that will turn the Central Coast from wine country to weed country.
All of the other farms are working under temporary permits, Shackleton says, but because he had been running large-scale grows in Monterey for years before buying the Los Alamos property—which features a hotel he plans to get online as soon as he can, and enough fields to grow thousands of pounds of cannabis—he didn’t qualify for the grandfathered temporary permit.
Sara Rotman and her husband, Nate Ryan, have converted the property— originally meant to be a polo horse farm—into a legal cannabis farm
And because he was compelled to apply as soon as he could, he says that High Star has felt an urgency to pass through all the notoriously difficult, but necessary, hoops to get a business license, and they stand to be the first such farm in Santa Barbara County with one. No easy task, says the farmer/filmmaker (he’s directed movies starring Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce) from Calabasas, who employed his mother to do the permitting. “They chose us as a guinea pig,” Shackleton says. “It’s a huge milestone. We’re in an area that’s premier land. It’s wine country. It’s very prestigious.”
Just a few miles down the 101 in the farmland outside of Buellton, Sara Rotman is also on prime land. A goat chews at her boot through a fence as she gestures to the area where her polo grounds were supposed to be. She’s an equestrienne, having played top-level polo for years, and her savvy is readily apparent, coming from the world of high-end fashion branding, where her clients were the likes of Michael Kors and Goop.
Adrian Sedlin of Canndescent, one of the nation’s biggest cannabis brands.
“Most of the farms are geared toward high-yield production, with an eventual eye toward the sort of cannatourism that will turn the Central Coast from wine country to weed country.”
But in 2014, after she closed on the property in Buellton, a life-or-death fight against Crohn’s disease debilitated her. Doctors put her on high doses of morphine, prednisone, and Remicade, a strong immunosuppressive that left her susceptible to, and nearly dead from, tetanus. After doing some research, her husband, Nate Ryan, convinced Rotman—who describes herself as a caffeinated, type-A personality—to try CBD, the nonpsychoactive version of cannabis. “Lo and behold, it worked,” she says with a laugh. “It was better for my pain, and it worked on my inflammation.”
Soon, the couple rejiggered the plans for the farm. And as with all Rotman endeavors, the plans turned into a full-fledged business. They produce a crop of organic outdoor-grown cannabis flower for other manufacturers like Select, a fast-growing company specializing in CBD vaping products. Rotman says she is looking to expand her own brands, Bluebird805 and the newly launched Busy Bee’s Farm Flavors, which focuses on vaping products with farm flavors like rosemary, honey, and pomegranate.
York Shackleton looks out over his Los Alamos farm
Rotman feels that the explosion of farming in Santa Barbara boils down to the growing conditions—the cool breeze and the fertile soil—which have long made the region a prime spot for Pinot Noir grapes and other produce. Still, Rotman says there are myriad challenges to running a successful cannabis business, not the least of which is pushback from already established farmers in the area, who believe the smell of cannabis will impact their wine, a concern that remains unproven.
“We share a lot of the same values,” says Rotman. “We have a product that is style and taste oriented—olfactory requirements are just as important for cannabis as wine. We have an aesthetic appreciation for this specific plant that we grow and its intricacies and its idiosyncrasies and how do we express that plant. Our terroir impacts the plant, so we have very sympathetic business and farming practices.”
High Star Farms is one of an estimated 100-plus cannabis farms operating legally under more than 1,000 licenses in Santa Barbara County.
Adrian Sedlin, whose brand Canndescent is one of the biggest cannabis companies in America, believes that Santa Barbara County is great for outdoor grows, but the financial ceiling of the cannabis farms is much lower than that of the vintners. Canndescent’s headquarters are in Santa Barbara, though their grow operates in Desert Hot Springs, three and a half hours south, because the Inland Empire town was the first to offer licenses to cannabis cultivators who wanted to get in on the ground floor in 2014.
“We have a lot of visitors coming through to look at wine country, so why not cultivate cannabis country as well?” Sedlin says. “I fully believe some will make that successful. Where the analogy breaks down is that you’re not supposed to sell product across state lines. So understand that the opportunity that’s available for California wine growers is conceivably the seven billion population of planet Earth; the [cannabis] growers can service the 39 million people in California.”
A Cannabis Flower Blooming in Buelton
The retail end is one of the sectors that has growth potential, says Coastal CEO Malante Hayworth and CFO Julian Michalowski. Coastal won a highly coveted license to be downtown Santa Barbara’s only dispensary, and their beautifully designed high-end 6,300-sqare-foot dispensary experience one block over from State Street on Chapala, is opening in June. They’ve also opened a 10,000-square-foot headquarters where they will run a delivery service, a distribution company, and a lab where they’ll make their own products and develop new ones.
“Most of the farms are geared toward high-yield production, with an eventual eye toward the sort of cannatourism that will turn the Central Coast from wine country to weed country.”
“It’s a very competitive process to have a dispensary,” says Michalowski, who says Coastal will employ 50 people by opening day. “There were hundreds of pages of applications, and it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to apply. But everybody has been great to work with; it’s as new an experience for them as it is for us, so everybody’s cautious. Everybody wants to make sure it’s good for the community.”
The fact that the city is playing it safe could pay off in the long run. Rotman says that making sure things are organized will benefit everyone in the end, from the cannabis growers to the vintners. “Some of our lawmakers understand that we have the opportunity to be the Napa of weed,” she says, “and that there is going to be extraordinary benefit to the community from a health and wellness perspective, from a financial perspective, from a tourism perspective, from a farming perspective.”
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In Living Color
Art and antiques brought Kelley and Malcolm McDowell together and set the tone for their Ojai home
Art and antiques brought Kelley and Malcolm McDowell together and set the tone for their Ojai home
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer
Photographs by Victoria Pearson
Designer Kelley McDowell has a thing for Austen Pierpont houses. The architect is an Ojai legend who worked on the Ojai Valley Inn and the famed ranch that belonged to both Reese Witherspoon and Kathryn Ireland. In 2000, Kelley bought her third Pierpont home, though this one—built in 1928—was worn down and desolate. “It was a bare house in the middle of a field,” she recalls. With four-inch “cabin curtain green” shag carpet, a 1960s kitchen, and knob and tube electrical, it was primed for her hands-on, revival design instincts.
“I bought it as a project, but then I fell in love with it,” she admits. “I put it on ice for 10 years because I thought if I finished it, my husband would make me sell it.” That husband of course is actor Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Entourage) to whom she’s been married for 27 years. Their mutual love of collecting was one thing that pulled them together.
“When we first met, we strangely liked all the same things,” she recalls. An antique ice-fishing lure was the first item the pair bought together—fittingly so, as Kelley’s home state is Minnesota where ice-fishing houses are winter institutions. Over the years, Malcolm would travel on location and while he was on set, she’d go antiquing. As their collection of early American and English primitive antiques grew (along with their family, which now includes three sons together) and their homes changed, one thing remained constant: a white-washed backdrop. “It suits collecting,” she says. Various white walls from Los Angeles to Ojai have displayed their colorful collections of flags, pottery, masks, quilts, advertising signs, and more. Kelley admits it’s all gone a little “ballistic,” which created a challenge in moving from a 10,000-square-foot house into this 2,800-square-foot one.
A skull and crossbones embedded in the cement kitchen island was inspired by the cemetery walls at the Old Mission Santa Barbara.
But once they agreed to make this labor of love their home base, Kelley went all in, bringing it back to its original Pierpont perfection and glory. Outside, damaged stucco was painstakingly redone while the interior walls were hand-plastered and beams sandblasted. New hardwood floors went in and a midcentury roof was replaced by a 200-year-old tiled one from France for instant patina. Initially there was not one stone on the property, but a single mason created stonework that looked appropriately aged while Kelley brought in 50 mature olive trees from her secret source in Agoura Hills, Charme d’Antan, which helped locate key pieces here and abroad—from the trees to on-tone tiles. Then came the hard part.
Given the significant downsize, the couple had to edit their collections down to the best of the best, showcasing favorites at home and storing the rest. Among the favorites are a Cole Bros. Circus flag from Vancouver that hangs in the hall to the boys’ room—which is decorated camp-style down to the vintage Boy Scout flag. A gold gorilla that once lived at Coney Island now hangs above the master bath’s claw-foot tub. The couple spotted it in a design book, fell for the animal instantly, and later met the dealer by chance in San Francisco—and he was willing to sell. “It was complete serendipity,” she says. “We manifested that monkey.”
A lion and unicorn shield from 1780 hails from Kelley’s favorite shop in London, The Lacquer Chest.
Invisible shelves hold 40 lucha libre Mexican wrestler masks lined up neatly to look like a painting.
Outside the kitchen, a rustic dining table is topped with old incense burners as makeshift candle holders while chairs are draped with Mexican serapes for the occasional chill.
“I’m a collector of everything. If you point to something, I probably have 100 more nearby. Sometimes a collection becomes opportunistic.”
While space may be tighter, the whimsical, colorful collections continue. Locally, the couple frequents Early California Antiques on State Street and Revival Antiques in Pasadena, where they scored the living room’s series of Ranchero chandeliers. Believing more is more, multiple paintings line the walls and heaps of bright Navajo and Moroccan rugs get layered (never cut) beautifully, but casually on nearly every floor. The textiles, the art, the pottery stacked in the kitchen is all intentionally abundant and “really looks like this all the time,” lending an entirely original feel.
“I’m a collector of everything. If you point to something, I probably have 100 more nearby,” Kelley says. “Sometimes a collection becomes opportunistic. You start and keep finding something you didn’t know you loved.” ●
An above-ground pool was modeled after antique cisterns in Europe, adorned with a stone coyote, bobcat, and bear—a local animal riff off an exhibit at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
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Design Genius
Paul Tuttle’s Prolific Legacy
Paul Tuttle’s Prolific Legacy
Tuttle’s residence in Toro Canyon (built from 1961 to 1962). Tuttle designed it with architect Robert Garland.
Written by l.D. Porter
Photographs by Farshid Assassi
Paul Tuttle in Switzerland (1998) with one of his dynamic tubular sculptures.
Designers are defined by the objects they create. For Paul Tuttle (1918-2002), those objects include homes, interiors, furniture, and art. At the height of his career, the multitalented Tuttle shuttled between Switzerland—where his furniture designs were mass-produced—and his abode in Santa Barbara, where he received commissions to design houses, interiors, and custom furniture. Nearly two decades after his death, his iconic Nonna rocking chair is still in production, his vintage furniture commands impressive sums on auction sites like 1stdibs, and longtime local collectors cherish his creations as visual reminders of the man himself, who by all accounts was a delightful human being.
A native of Springfield, Missouri, Tuttle experienced hardship at an early age, watching his young mother juggle several jobs to support the family following his father’s untimely death from Parkinson’s disease. Following World War II (in which he served as a cartographer), Tuttle came to Los Angeles to study at what is now Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design under influential designer/professor Alvin Lustig, who promptly hired young Tuttle to work in his design office. “[Lustig] taught me that if you analyzed a problem thoroughly enough, there is nothing you can’t do,” Tuttle once said. (Taking his professor’s teaching to heart, Tuttle frequently revisited his furniture designs, patiently refining them in an effort to reach the essence of the design idea itself.)
After his stint with Lustig, Tuttle apprenticed with several notable architects, including Welton Becket & Associates in Los Angeles and Thorton Ladd in Pasadena. Along the way, he received important awards for his handmade wood furniture, which clearly reflected his talent as a natural engineer. As Tuttle later told an interviewer, “There is something so rewarding and pleasing about designing a chair that is both comfortable and beautiful to look at, and at the same time is also an engineering feat; that is the challenge.” During his lifetime, Tuttle would design more than 200 chairs.
“There is something so rewarding and pleasing about designing a chair that is both comfortable and beautiful to look at, and at the same time is also an engineering feat; that is the challenge. ”
Tuttle’s 1956 move to Santa Barbara was a turning point; he began experimenting with materials such as metal and glass to construct tables and chairs, notably the iconic wood and stainless steel “Z” chair that was exhibited at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1965. (San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art owns one.) He became known for his innovative furniture designs, and began working as a designer for European furniture powerhouse Strässle International, spending part of each year in Switzerland. He also completed a total of six architectural projects in Santa Barbara, including designing his own home in Toro Canyon. “His work was very unique and often had a real humor about it, but there was always lots of thinking behind it—functional thinking,” says architect Andy Neumann, who collaborated with Tuttle on several office interiors and home design projects, and who fondly recalls the designer’s ability to transform difficult spaces through the use of distinctive sculptural elements.
Dining Table, 1996, plywood, walnut, Formica, powder-coated steel, and glass, produced by Bud Tullis in Solvang.
“A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.”
As the years progressed, Tuttle’s Santa Barbara following increased. According to Marla C. Berns, former director of UCSB’s University Art Museum (now the Art, Design & Architecture Museum where Tuttle’s archive is maintained), by the late 1990s, many homes of Santa Barbara’s prominent art collectors, artists, and design aficionados were filled with Tuttle’s work. In 2001, Berns oversaw “Paul Tuttle Designs,” a major retrospective exhibition of the designer’s work at UCSB’s museum sponsored by roughly 70 families or individuals. Tuttle was also the subject of earlier solo exhibitions at MCA Santa Barbara, formerly the Contemporary Arts Forum, in 1995, and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1978.
Above all, Tuttle was a beloved figure about town. He was, for much of his adult life, surrounded by people from every walk of life who sought him out for his easygoing personality and prodigious, but quiet, talent. As Neumann notes, “Obviously he was a wonderful designer, but I think what really stands out is what a generous, kind person he was.” Berns echoes this sentiment: “He was a remarkable person in every way, and a designer possessing phenomenal imagination, energy, and integrity. I still miss him.”
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Wine Country Oasis
Designer Hélène Aumont conjures a new-world marriage of stone and steel in Santa Ynez
Designer Hélène Aumont conjures a new-world marriage of stone and steel in Santa Ynez
“Surrounded by vineyards, the Santa Ynez hillsides, and facing the pond, it was imperative to make the most of the views,” says Polly Firestone Walker. Native and drought-tolerant plants curated by Céladon Designs’ Hope Noël Fidziura.
Written by Dawn Moore
Photographs by Dominique Vorillon
Design and Interiors by Hélène Aumont
Unwinding with a glass of wine or beer is a pretty classic way to destress. But when you’re Polly Firestone Walker and David Walker, your choices are exponentially greater and, honestly, substantially more enticing. “We grow grapes for winemakers and brew beer for a living; we needed a bar that was part of the house but separate enough to create a publike nook,” says Polly. But that’s not how this project started. Let’s back up.
“Imagine an 1800s stone house on the island of Corsica, that with the ensuing generations, had a contemporary wing added.”
Sited on a soft knoll with a view of a pond, the 3,900-square-foot home has been the full-time residence to the Walkers since 1995. Their daughters Ella, Georgina, and Tamsyn experienced most of their “firsts” there, and the ever-growing menagerie that now includes four dogs, four horses, two barn cats, and another cross-eyed cat have room to roam. But the house was ready for an update. “It was time to have a more grown-up bathroom,” notes Polly. Then there was talk of adding a long-desired entry. Then a more functional kitchen. At this point, David lobbied to bulldoze the whole thing, but the memories of family moments and sentimental touchstones prevailed, so compromise was struck with a down-to-the-studs remodel, positive vibes still intact. “One of the most important—if not the most important—points for me was to maintain the sense of warmth and welcome the house always had,” adds Polly.
So they turned to their longtime collaborator, Santa Ynez-based interior designer Hélène Aumont. Aumont had worked with the Walkers on a refresh of the girls’ bathroom 10 years ago and then again six years ago, expanding the property’s footprint with an additional living room, bar area, and library. “David wanted something with integrity,” says Aumont, “and the house—over the course of 23 years and several remodels—had become a bit of a mongrel.” But Aumont knew it could be extraordinary and proposed they scrap the architect’s first plans and bring it down to the bones.
How to turn a beloved duckling into a welcoming but elegant swan? “Imagine an 1800s stone house on the island of Corsica, that with the ensuing generations had a contemporary wing added,” says Aumont of her vision of hand-rubbed plaster walls, Santa Barbara stone, and two-story steel-and-glass windows—initially met with a raised eyebrow or two. But, the designer’s skills as a sketch artist won her clients over with romantic watercolor renderings detailing every nuance.
However romantic the vision, the couple’s one non-negotiable caveat was “ease.” With muddy boots and paws part of daily life, indestructibility was key: the terra-cotta and reclaimed walnut floors welcome trampling, the chairs around the outdoor firepit easily coddle the athletic 6’3” David, and even the walls are a more modest yet sensuous version of Venetian plaster. “All you want to do is touch the walls!” says Aumont.
“I have no desire for an haute couture home for my clients. I want what they want, so I become them and reflect back their lives in a beautiful setting.”
For this gregarious family, spontaneous dinners for 20 or more are a regular event, so the kitchen became a major focus with its funky ceiling that shifts from eight and a half feet to 16 feet. Aumont embraced the asymmetry by adding beams, custom Greek fisherman pendant lights, and clerestory windows that flood the room with sun. Then, in a nod to the family legacy, custom islands were crafted from an old oak wine fermenter from Firestone Vineyard.
“One of the most important—if not the most important—points for me was to maintain the sense of warmth and welcome the house always had.”
“I have no desire for an haute couture home for my clients,” says Aumont, whose signature use of family heirlooms proves the point. English Victorian hall chairs stand alongside antique Windsor chairs in the dining room, midcentury high-back upholstery flanks an Irish pine console in the living space, and Polly’s grandmother’s ball-and-claw foot piano stool is tucked under the vanity in the master bath. “I want what they want so I become them and reflect back their lives in a beautiful setting.”
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The Provocateur
Emerging polo patron and movie producer Sarah Siegel-Magness leads a passionate life on and off the field
Emerging polo patron and movie producer Sarah Siegel-Magness leads a passionate life on and off the field
Sarah Siegel-Magness—with her horse Winter—wears Gucci with a Dior hat and veil.
Written by Katherine Stewart | Photographs by Tasya Van Ree
If you hit the polo fields around 8 am, you might see her streaking by on her polo pony, mallet raised. Or astride one of her thoroughbreds, upright in the saddle. Four days a week, Sarah Siegel-Magness plays matches, either at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club or on the 65-acre estate adjacent to the club that she and her husband purchased last year. The property features three polo fields and a jumping arena with a view of the ocean. On other days she’s training with her coaches, polo legends Joe Henderson and Memo Gracida.
“We came to Santa Barbara initially to play polo but fell in love with the community.”
“I am a woman in a sea of men, and I’m also quite petite,” Siegel-Magness says. “This is rather unusual but not a disadvantage at all. Polo is a game of the mind. Strength is important, but to power the ball, it’s all about technique.” On the field, she rides like one of the guys, and that’s how she expects to be treated. “I want to be as good as everyone else,” she says, “and play a well-rounded defensive and offensive competitive game.”
Siegel-Magness certainly has a more varied résumé than most polo players. She is an Oscar-nominated film producer and director whose projects include the award-winning Lionsgate film Precious. She is the cofounder, along with husband Gary Magness, of Smokewood Entertainment, which is committed to the creation of thought-provoking and social justice-minded films. The pair is also active in a range of philanthropic activities, having cofounded the Fresh Air Fund’s Precious Center for Teen Leadership, among other youth-focused organizations and initiatives. “My goal is to create an environment for inner-city kids of Los Angeles to learn polo,” Siegel-Magness says. “That would be a dream.”
Her interest in polo was sparked 17 years ago, when she and Gary wed at Costa Careyes, Mexico, which has an avid polo community. “When I watched my first match, I thought it was the most amazing game I’d ever seen,” she says. “I couldn’t get it out of my brain, but we had no place to play! I literally dreamed of playing polo for years.” Then, three and a half years ago, the Magness family bought a place in Costa Careyes, built a capacious barn, and became benefactors of the polo club, and her devotion to the sport blossomed into a full-time passion.
It was this passion—and her determination to grow as a player—that drew her to Santa Barbara last summer. “From the moment we set foot on this magical property, we fell in love,” she says. “We came to Santa Barbara initially to play polo but fell in love with the community.”
“For any person who has ever thought about learning to play a sport later in life…don’t be afraid.”
Her husband and son Cable, the youngest of the couple’s three children, are active players too, and the family enjoys riding together and even competing against one another. Siegel-Magness says polo is a great way to spend time with family, enjoy nature, and collaborate with men and women of all ages and backgrounds. But she is not the type of person to coast. “The minute you get complacent about the game, you will stop growing,” she says. “I am humbled every day being around the pros.”
She is presently focusing her creative passions on expanding polo opportunities in Santa Barbara. The Magness family is working with the polo club to create an 8-goal Rincon League that will be played from June through October. It is absorbing work, but there’s nothing else she’d rather do. “I compare everything I do to polo,” she says. “If it is not more fun or more interesting than polo, I don’t have time to do it!”●
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Rustic Romance
Daniel and Elena De Meyer put love into the game and their home
Daniel and Elena De Meyer put love into the game and their home
A family that plays together— Elena, Olivia, and Daniel De Meyer raise their mallets on the field.
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer
Photographs by Megan Sorel
“It’s hard if you don’t both play, the other partner has to be so tolerant,” Elena says. “It’s great we can be together.”
For Daniel and Elena De Meyer, their love story started on polo fields. The pair—she’s an actress, he’s in finance—met at the Will Rogers Polo Club in Los Angeles in 2002 and soon started dating. The fact that they both loved the horses, the tournaments, the wins, and the losses made it much easier to spend a lot of time with one another. “It’s hard if you don’t both play, the other partner has to be so tolerant,” Elena says. “It’s great we can be together.”
That passion for polo continues to fuel their marriage—and even real estate decisions. Five years ago, they moved from the Mission Rose Garden area to be closer to the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club, looking for a place where their school-age daughter, Olivia, could grow up around horses, farmers, and nature. Since the couple has European roots—she’s from Romania and he has family in Belgium—they wanted a home base in California that felt like the best of both worlds. They found a cottage-style home not far from the polo field that looks as if it’s been plucked from the English countryside and dropped right in Carpinteria.
“They found a cottage-style home not far from the polo field that looks as if it’s been plucked from the English countryside and dropped right in Carpinteria.”
“With timbered homes and horse country, it reminded me a lot of the Normandy coastline…all rolled up into a California scene,” says Daniel. That European romance is apparent at first glance with rounded rooflines, vaulted ceilings, wood beams, and warm sconces, which lend a cozy feel throughout the library and kitchen, where copper pots hang overhead.
To enhance the rustic feel, they painted the walls in a soft custom blend of Flemish gray that Daniel calls the color of parchment and then layered on Belgian linen drapery. “The French are masters at shades of gray,” says Daniel, who did most of the home improvements himself. “We wanted to make it cozy, not grand, and give it that aged look.”
French doors lead to various outdoor nooks—from a kitchen cutting garden that they keep full of seasonal veggies, flowers, and herbs, to a fragrant lemon garden to a tiered lawn with trellised walkways weaving through the one-acre property. In the summer, they picnic by the garden with friends before matches; in the fall, they throw a big autumn harvest party; during the holidays, all the old oaks are lit up when relatives come to visit. When not entertaining or playing low-goal polo together, the family of three heads overseas, which is always a source of design inspiration.
“When you visit family as much as we do, you see how they do things—that blend of old and new,” Daniel says. “We come back with ideas every time.”
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The Grande Dame
Celebrating the life and legacy of Elizabeth Skene
Celebrating the life and legacy of Elizabeth Skene
Polo great Robert Skene and his wife, Elizabeth, arrive in Los Angeles after a match in Argentina in 1949.
Written by Joan Tapper
When Elizabeth Skene passed away on January 16 at the age of 104, it marked the end of an era at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club. She was a familiar figure at Sunday games throughout the season—lovely, gracious, and ever attentive to the action on the field. And as the widow of famed polo player Robert Skene, she was a link to the club’s history—to some of its darkest, most precarious days and also to many instances of world-class games and glittering renown.
Skene and teammates get the winners’ trophy after a tournament in 1959.
Born in Australia, Elizabeth was the daughter of a sheep and cattle rancher. She met Robert—son of an 8-goal polo player and horse breeder—at a country dance when they were both 16. One circuit on the dance floor led to a lifelong romance that spanned four continents and nearly seven decades.
Robert’s talent as a polo player took him to India and then to England in 1937, where Elizabeth soon joined him. They had a fashionable wedding there in 1938 and got their first glimpse of Santa Barbara the following year, when “Hurricane Bob,” as he was known, had a practice match here as a member of the English team bound for a tournament on the East Coast.
“Elizabeth and Bob Skene brought even more fame to the Santa Barbara Polo Club than the club’s recognition as having arguably the best playing fields in the world.”
Glen Holden, SBPRC trustee of distinction
Difficult days were ahead, however. Robert enlisted in India’s Gurkha cavalry, was posted to Singapore, and after that city fell to the Japanese, was incarcerated in the notorious Changi prison. A single postcard was the only word Elizabeth had of him for three and a half years.
They were reunited in 1945 and eventually moved to California, where Robert took over as manager of the Santa Barbara Polo Club in 1960. He won the Argentine Open twice in 1954 and 1956 with team El Tebol and was on the Santa Barbara team that won the U.S. Open in 1962. These were just some of many trophies and honors for a player who held a 10-goal handicap for 17 years. He left for several seasons but returned in 1969 as changes in ownership and dwindling memberships made the club’s future uncertain. Robert’s determination and tireless hard work—with Elizabeth’s help and that of three generous and visionary trustees—saved the club. When Robert died in 1997, SBPRC’s future was secure.
: Robert Skene and a British team vied against the American Texas Rangers at the Santa Barbara Polo Club in March 1939.
Elizabeth continued to attend games and hand out trophies for the tournament that bore her husband’s name. “She lived for the polo season,” says Paige Beard, a friend and longtime polo player. “It was a highlight of her year.”
“She had a remarkable life,” adds her son, Curtis. “She had kept a diary through various periods of her life and had intended to publish it.” She became increasingly frail, however. After being safely evacuated during the Thomas Fire, she moved to Serenity House on January 8 and was unaware that the house she had lived in for decades was inundated by the subsequent mudslide. She passed on as gracefully as she led her life, in her sleep, a week later.
The Skenes in 1985.
Says Curtis, “She would want to be remembered for three things: First, she lived life to the best of her ability, always guided by her spiritual beliefs. Second, she was a steadfast partner in life to my father. And third, the tremendous efforts she and my father made to save the Santa Barbara Polo Club.”
“Elizabeth and Bob Skene brought even more fame to the Santa Barbara Polo Club than the club’s recognition as having arguably the best playing fields in the world,” says Glen Holden, an SBPRC trustee of distinction. “As a polo couple, they were invited to England by Queen Elizabeth for special recognition in 1992. And when I invited Prince William and Kate for the club’s 100th anniversary, Prince William asked to meet Elizabeth. She looked beautiful that day. She was elegant. She was a wonderful lady, and we’ll miss her.”
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Stealing Beauty
Photographer Beau Grealy’s Vista series captures the raw beauty of the Ventura and Santa Barbara area—from the scarred hills of the Thomas Fire to the remnants of the Montecito mudslides—leading us ultimately to our own rejuvenation.
Photographs by Beau Grealy
Photographer Beau Grealy’s Vista series captures the raw beauty of the Ventura and Santa Barbara area—from the scarred hills of the Thomas Fire to the remnants of the Montecito mudslides—leading us ultimately to our own rejuvenation
“The feeling of awe of nature was overwhelming—not only in its beauty but also the power of its natural phases.”
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Polo Pioneers
The evolution of women players in Santa Barbara.
The Evolution of Women Players in Santa Barbara
Elaine McInerney started playing polo at age 9 in Los Angeles and was called in to play practice rounds with Walt Disney and Spencer Tracy, who admired her ability so much he loaned her some of his horses from his string.
Compiled and Written by Nigel Gallimore
Inside the 1937-built vintage cottage-style Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club clubhouse, the hunter-green walls are lined with decades’ worth of photos of teams accepting the silver cups, bowls, and trophies locked in glass-fronted cases. The beginning of the club’s story, however, predates that building, the trophies, and even the adjacent fields.
From the start of polo in Santa Barbara, the sport was peripatetic from 1899 until it found a permanent home in 1926 at the current location in Carpinteria. Polo in Santa Barbara has a long heritage starting on April 27, 1894, when an exhibition match was played at the Agricultural Park’s Flower Festival (now the location of the Lower East side between the freeway and East Beach). This match encouraged sufficient local interest in the sport, and the first organized polo game in Santa Barbara was played on May 19, 1899, by a team formed of members of the Santa Barbara Country Club. By 1902, the fledgling polo club boasted a 40-member roster and interest in the sport had increased tremendously.
The first purpose-built skin (dirt) polo field was in 1901 on the Westside at the foot of the Mesa, where the players leased 22 acres. It was not until 1916 that the first grass field was built on Middle Road in Montecito and where, on April 1, four women made their first appearance in a mixed polo period. The red team: Dorothy Tweedy, Ruth Peabody, Charles Dabney, and Elmer Boeseke Jr. played against the blue team: Katherine Harvey, Lorna Tweedy, Graham Miles, and Frederick Leadbetter. This is also where local estate owner and socialite Esther Fiske Hammond was among the women players.
On March 27, 1931, the Girls’ Championship of Santa Barbara was played on Fleischmann Field. It is significant that this particular game was included in the United States Polo Association’s yearbook, as this mention is perhaps the first acknowledgment by the USPA that women played polo in the United States. By 1932, many women in California were forming their own polo teams. Local player Ann Gavit Jackson (of the Palmer Jackson family) had a team in Santa Barbara. Dorothy Wheeler of Santa Cruz wrote to the USPA in New York for some help in organization, and secretary/treasurer Mr. F.S. O’Reiley replied that the general opinion was that “polo is not a women’s game!” The women in California knew this was nonsense and successfully formed their own organization with the help of the male players in the state.
In June 1934, the first tournament of the Pacific Coast Women’s Polo Association was held. Two years later, it became the United States Women’s Polo Association. At one time there were 130 women players up and down the California coast.
In late summer 1937, club owners Ann Jackson—with husband Charles “Pete”—took a women’s Santa Barbara polo team to play in Long Island. Unfortunately, the association came to an end at the start of World War II. In the same year, Ann Jackson went on to build the cottage-style polo clubhouse still standing to date. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were married in Santa Barbara in 1927 and lived in Montecito until their deaths (“Pete” in 1978, Ann in 1990). The Jackson family eventually sold the polo club in 1963 to Rudy Tongg of Hawaii.
Today, along with the many other decades of contemporary women players who have closed the gender gap on the field, there are two women patrons (Leigh Brecheen and Dawn Jones) on the club’s board of directors, and nationwide, women’s polo is the fastest-growing sector in the game. ●
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Heading for the Hills
If the Busch name reminds you of a certain beverage, it’s time to think again, as polo patron Andy Busch debuts Folded Hills wines
If the Busch name reminds you of a certain beverage, it’s time to think again, as polo patron Andy Busch debuts Folded Hills wines
Andy Busch walks his horses—including those iconic Clydesdales—around his 600-acre Folded Hills ranch.
Written by Joan Tapper
Photographs by Erin Feinblatt, Edward Clynes
Tucked between Santa Barbara’s mountains and the Santa Ynez Valley, Folded Hills is a postcard of ranch life. White fences edge sprawling lawns and a plantation-style estate house is outfitted with a long deck and rocking chairs. Heritage pigs play near the chicken coop—where fresh eggs are gathered each morning—and those iconic Clydesdales roam the fields.
Riding on the ranch.
Owner Andy Busch—who, as a 5-goal player, served as captain for the U.S. World Cup team for the Federation of International Polo—retired from professional-level polo after 28 years and loves his horses. Looking forward to the high-goal games this season, he says, “I plan to be there watching friends compete. I love to see the professional players and the incredible horses perform on the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club fields—there’s nothing like it.”
The table is set for dinner alfresco with wildflowers and wineglasses.
Now, the patron of Grant’s Farm polo team is devoted to life on the farm. He and his wife, Kim, have poured love into every inch of their property (which a few lucky guests get to visit each year), and a vineyard seemed like a natural extension of the land. “When we started working on wine five years ago, we put together a team of professionals to assess the soils and ocean-influenced microclimate,” he says. The environment proved to be well suited to Rhône varietals, which was “a perfect fit” for Angela Osborne, the New Zealand-born winemaker and general manager who is known as a “guru of Grenache.” The grapes are grown with a common interest in sustainability, adds Busch, who has planted the vineyard organically, just like his row crops.
Busch’s organic vineyards.
“Angela Osborne, the New Zealand-born winemaker and general manager is known as a “guru of Grenache.””
A winery and tasting room are envisioned for 2018, set near the Farmstead, an idyllic produce stand that sells organic crops grown on the ranch along with baked goods. In the meantime, the first vintages include Lilly Rosé, an estate rosé that’s an homage to Busch’s great-grandmother, Lilly Anheuser Busch and six generations of family women down to his granddaughter Lilly; Grant Grenache, which recalls President Ulysses S. Grant, previous owner of the ancestral home, Grant’s Farm, where Andy grew up and was manager for two decades; and August Red, a blend of Grenache and Syrah, named for his father and grandfather. Ballard Canyon Grenache and Syrah are following in late summer with more estate wines planned for 2018. Each bottle is a true reflection of the ranch and a tribute to the family and the legacy.
Close friends gather for dinner among the grapevines.
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Great Shot
Polo—in one form or another—has historically been what I do when I am not shooting or making art.
Photographer Catherine Erb’s eye on the ball
“Polo—in one form or another—has historically been what I do when I am not shooting or making art. For years, the polo photos I took were for fun, family, and friends. I didn’t realize I was capturing that much information. One day I realized I had a decade of polo photography that told countless stories.”
“The summer of 2017 will mark the 15th I have spent in Santa Barbara. They’ve become special markers by which I measure my own and my children’s growth both physically and spiritually,” says Erb. “I use my time in Santa Barbara to reconnect and center, and more often than not I leave with a wave of new ideas, with new work already started, or ready to begin as soon as I get to the studio.” Michalita #1, mixed-media photo encaustic, 36 x 48 in. Opposite: Untitled polo #15, photo encaustic, 48 x 36 in.
“I began experimenting and replaced my sharp Nikon lens with homemade lenses that allowed me to capture the sport in an ethereal, layered, painterly manner. Some of the photos have made it to the studio, where I print them on watercolor paper, attach them to birch panels, and then apply layers of oil pigments and encaustic wax. Each finished panel represents a memory or dream of Santa Barbara, polo, and our special summers spent here.”
Clockwise from top: Untitled polo #18, mixed-media photo encaustic, 24 x 24 in.; Untitled polo #17, mixed-media photo encaustic, 36 x 36 in.; Untitled polo #20, mixed-media photo encaustic, 40 x 40 in.; Untitled polo #16, mixed-media photo encaustic, 24 x 24 in.
Untitled horse study, black-and-white pigment print, 17 x 22 in.
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Young Americans
Old school meets new school with Jake and Luke Klentner teaming up with Kasimira Miller
Old school meets new school
with Jake and Luke Klentner teaming up with Kasimira Miller
Photographs by Michael Haber
Styled by Shadi Beccai
Elisabeth Franchi jumpsuit, $735, Allora by Laura. Closed belt, $125, Whistle Club. Boots, $295, ROMP. Hoops, from $70, silk ribbon, $8, bracelet, $225, bangle, $200, and rings, from $60, Kendall Conrad.
Luke Klentner, 16, attends Bishop Garcia Diego High School and is a 0-goal on grass and a 1-goal in the arena. Luke balances playing high school football, volleyball, and polo with his family—his father is Justin Klentner, a 1.5-goal player and patron of the Klentner Ranch team.
Model: Kasimira Miller, Next LA. Makeup by Geoffrey Rodriguez using Chanel Beaute. Hair by Dritan vushaj. Interns: emily Calkins and Meghan Campbell
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Divine Discontent
Annette Bening is an earthy, funny, and wise 21st-century woman. A four-time Academy Award nominee, she stars in the upcoming 20th Century Women—a multifaceted, heartwarming love letter to the complexities of women, family, time, and the connections we look for our entire lives. Set in Santa Barbara and written and directed by Mike Mills…
Annette Bening at a private George Washington Smith estate.
Annette Bening is an earthy, funny, and wise 21st-century woman. A four-time Academy Award nominee, she stars in the upcoming 20th Century Women—a multifaceted, heartwarming love letter to the complexities of women, family, time, and the connections we look for our entire lives. Set in Santa Barbara and written and directed by Mike Mills—who was raised here—the film follows Dorothea Fields (Bening), a single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son during a turning point in California marked by cultural, political change and rebellion
Photographs by J.R. Mankoff | Styled by Linda Medvene | Interviewed by Roger Durling
What ultimately attracted you to the character of Dorothea?
I’m 58, so I’m the same age as the young girl in the story would be. That’s how I was at the time, and so for me it resonated and told me things about my life and the context of my life in a way that I had never really understood.
Dorothea is so full of contradictions—she’s open and guarded at the same time. What was it like inhabiting her?
You’ve put your finger on the very thing that was so tricky, difficult, fascinating, and exhilarating about playing her. I guess this is true when you’re probing into something and you find you get far enough in where there are contradictions to things that absolutely deny the other. You’re getting to something true. The problem—of course the dramatic problem, the creative problem—is to get that across without being unclear. And that’s often always the knife’s edge because you don’t want to be too literal and you don’t want to be fuzzy. You want to be somewhere in the middle—like life is. Mike Mills was very cognizant of that. I was very cognizant of that. And of course, Dorothea is based on his mom, so we talked a lot about her. I found myself endlessly asking him questions. That’s why so many characters in films can come across as not being multidimensional because it’s very tricky to get those kinds of layers. Movies come down to moment-to-moment interaction. I trusted him, and he was honest with me. It was that kind of day-to-day probing. In writing, and certainly in acting, you are constantly in a place where you’re slightly uncomfortable.
Can you elaborate on that notion of being uncomfortable as a performer?
First of all, it’s hard to describe, and number two, part of me is trying to protect what I do because I need to keep some of it private. When I go and speak to students I really get into the nitty-gritty of it all and what the process is like because when I was a student that was very valuable to me. But all I can tell you is that I don’t know anybody that is a performing artist who doesn’t have fear and insecurity. So you have to live with that feeling.
“All I can tell you is that I don’t know anybody that is a performing artist who doesn’t have fear and insecurity. So you have to live with that feeling.”
I had a professor who said it’s okay to have those butterflies in your stomach as long as they fly in formation.
I knew an English actress—Fabia Drake, she was in her 80s—on my first movie, Valmont, and she was a real character. I was completely terrified, and I felt like a stage actress just doing a movie—I didn’t know what I was doing. I must have been talking to her about how nervous I was, and she said, “Darling, divine discontent. Divine discontent.” It is divine, and you need it. It may take you somewhere that is outside of what you’re imagining in the moment, but that’s where you need to go. You want to get to a place where you don’t know what you’re doing, you want to get to a place where it’s just coming out and you’re not monitoring it. But of course, the psyche is organized to protect the self. So the psyche doesn’t want to do that, the psyche says, “Wait, you know you’re Annette, you’re not this other person. Just pretend.”
You were raised in California in the 1970s. Did it help you understand Dorothea’s world—caught somewhat off-guard at a turning point in our history?
My parents are from the Midwest and I’m the youngest of four. We moved to San Diego when I was 7, so I think that was helpful to me. Dorothea is my parent’s generation, although she’s in a very different world than my parents inhabited. Nonetheless, it’s in the same ballpark, and I think that was of value. I can remember having a conversation with my mom when I was a teenager and sort of discovering the feminist movement. That topic was hot and heavy at the time and we started to have an argument. I was talking about feminism in some sense, and she said, “Well I just want you to know if I were your age I would be exactly like you.” And I thought that was so interesting, having been raised in the Midwest, getting married in 1950, having four children pretty quickly all before she was 30.… She was someone who very much embraced being a homemaker and doing everything and living that busy life. And of course, not all women were. So that’s kind of more where Dorothea landed for me.
“You want to get to a place where you don’t know what you’re doing, you want to get to a place where it’s just coming out and you’re not monitoring it.”
How did it feel to shoot in Santa Barbara?
Oh, it was great! We had taken a trip up to see all the specific places that are referred to in the script. So when we were actually there, it was extraordinary, heavenly—such a beautiful place. We felt like we were in the real spot, so it was extremely helpful, and we were immersed.
You’re also ending the year by starring in Rules Don’t Apply, produced and directed by your husband, Warren Beatty. What was it like working with him again?
I’ve been in movies with him but never been directed by him. It was exciting on so many levels, because I was so glad he was making the film. I didn’t know if he was going to end up actually doing it—he worked on it for so long, and so I loved it. He’s a very enthusiastic director. Loves actors. He makes you feel like you can do anything, and it was really a joy. Also, the days that I was working on the film, he was not acting, so it was easier for him. So, yeah, it was very, very special for us. ●
Hair by Philip Carreon. Makeup by Carissa Ferreri. Photo Assistants: Jason Cook and Brian Bree. Digital tech: Paul Carter. stylist’s assistant: Sapreet Gill.