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.”
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Double Vision
A couple puts down roots with a modern residence overlooking a classic western-style winery
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.”
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Floristry for the Future
Reimagining the art of arrangements and installations
Transplants from Louesa Roebuck’s old northern Ohio home, Currier and Ives prints hang on red-flocked wallpaper in her Ojai cottage. “In this setting, all of a sudden, they achieved high camp,” she says
Reimagining the art of arrangements and installations
Text and images excerpted from Punk Ikebana (Cameron Books) by Louesa Roebuck with photographs by Ian Hughes
Ojai-based floral designer Louesa Roebuck, author of Foraged Flora, is known for her ability to interpret the traditional “way of the flowers” from her own unique perspective, creating stunning installations with seasonally gleaned and foraged materials from California. Her artistry celebrates the natural world just outside our doors. Here, Roebuck shares with us a slice of her lush, enchanting world—and a few musings on the powerful meaning of "punk ikebana."
I Silence. In ikebana, this particularly refers to a quiet appreciation of nature, free of noise or idle talk. I agree that to hear more clearly, to see more deeply, we need to learn to quiet the easily distracted “monkey brain,” the self—although I do reject the idea of humans as somehow separate from “nature.” And sometimes it’s fun to gossip while working!
“Local fruit is a new love, its offerings changing monthly, even weekly: pineapple guava, persimmons, citrus galore, passion fruit, cherimoya, and our own pomegranates.”
II Minimalism. Here’s where my punk aesthetic comes in. I’m a bit of a rebel and a maximalist more often than not. I do strive for harmony and balance in my compositions always, but I also love the glam, the sexy, the louche, even. All of that said, the use of negative space is intrinsic to this practice, and often a foreign aesthetic concept to Westerners. I lean into both vibes.
“You ask, “How long will floral creatures, these ‘arrangements,’ last?” I answer
every time, “I don’t care; beauty is not about duration.””
III Harmonious Form and Line. When you gather and glean seasonal and local flora and compose naturally, you will find that harmony comes effortlessly. The longer, deeper, more studied, or more expansive your search becomes, the more treasures you find just outside your doors. Mother Earth contains all of the multitudes where they need to be; there’s no need to fly flora in from anywhere else.
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Bellosguardo
Heiress Huguette Clark’s extraordinary mansion is poised to welcome visitors
Formal gardens in front of the 18th-century French-style mansion await replanting.
Heiress Huguette Clark’s extraordinary mansion is poised to welcome visitors
Written by Joan Tapper | Photographs by Dewey Nicks
Bellosguardo. The name means “beautiful lookout,” but that doesn’t begin to describe just how breathtaking the property actually is, let alone convey the astonishing level of popular fascination with the estate and the story of the last owner.
Perched on a cliff at the east edge of Santa Barbara, Bellosguardo commands a 360-degree view of the Pacific, the city, and the mountains. The mansion at the center of the 23-plus acres was built in 1936 by Anna Clark—widow of W. A. Clark, who had amassed a fortune in the copper industry—to replace an earlier home. This was no modest getaway. For herself and her daughter Huguette, Anna commissioned a formal U-shaped 18th-century French-style structure of more than 23,000 square feet and 27 rooms from architect Reginald Johnson, who had also designed the Santa Barbara Biltmore not far away. The interiors were grand, with ornate flourishes like wood paneling, detailed cornices, and elaborate chandeliers. There were six suites, a music room, a library, and an artist’s studio where Huguette could paint or pursue photography.
The grounds were similarly magnificent, from the floral-design stone court in front of the mansion to sweeping lawns and a gorgeous rose garden.
Anna and Huguette kept their main residence in New York City but made Santa Barbara a regular getaway until around 1953, enjoying the house, welcoming friends and guests, and participating in the town’s social life. After that, caretakers lived on the estate and kept it up for owners who never came again. Even after Anna died in 1963, and Huguette inherited Bellosguardo, the instructions were to keep everything as it always had been. And so it was. Though the furniture was covered, and the rugs were wrapped, nothing inside was altered, and the Chrysler convertible and Cadillac limousine remained parked in the garage. The house was largely unseen for the next nearly 70 years, tantalizing Santa Barbara residents who wondered what it was like inside the walls of the estate.
“After a long road of preparation, Bellosguardo will open its doors to small public docent-led tours.”
Huguette died on May 24, 2011, having spent her last two decades living in hospital rooms in Manhattan. But she kept up ties and correspondence and although her bequests and the terms of her will became embroiled in legal wrangling, she left the Santa Barbara property to the Bellosguardo Foundation. Their vision, says Sandi Nicholson, who’s been on the board since its inception, is to “open it as a dynamic venue for cultural and artistic events, while showcasing the unique history of the Clarks and specifically Huguette Clark’s contribution to the arts.”
And now, at last, that’s about to happen. After a long road of preparation Bellosguardo will open its doors to small public docent-led tours in the next couple of months. Visitors will be able to see original furnishings, objets d’art, and paintings. Walking through the high-ceilinged foyer, they’ll enter the main hall, which stretches toward each of the wings and reveals views of the reflecting pool in back, flanked by 80-year-old orange trees. Family portraits line the walls here, not only of W. A. Clark, his wife Anna, and Huguette but also Huguette’s sister, Andrée, who died young.
To the left lie two rooms crafted in Europe and installed here from another Clark property in New York: the reception room, with its exquisite paneling and painted muslin ceiling, and the imposing dining room with antique chairs arrayed around the table.
In the other direction lies the elegant music room, dominated by two Steinways and two
of Anna’s harps. The library is next, with bound volumes filling the elaborate shelves and a portrait of Andrée over the fireplace. Then there’s the bureau room, Anna’s office. European in origin, it’s even more intricately carved than the others and includes large cartouches with French-inspired pastoral scenes.
The highlight of the tour, though, is certainly the studio/gallery, in which the foundation has hung some 50 of Huguette’s own paintings brought back from New York and recently displayed at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum—images of models in elaborate dress, self-portraits, still lifes, even pieces depicting a New York cityscape. Painted over several decades, they reveal Huguette’s accomplished hand and her attention to her art.
Notes Nicholson, “The foundation will build upon the tours and gradually increase public access, not only to the house but also to the grounds, so that people can enjoy this momentous gift that the Clarks and Huguette gave to the community.” bellosguardo.org.
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Bohemian Rhapsody
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum takes a nostalgic look back at the infamous enclave once thriving on Mountain Drive
The annual Grape Stomp festivities in the Mountain Drive community was a communal ritual for the collective of residents. Here, the festivities begin with the entrance of “Wine Queen” Rehlen Benedict, before naked grape-stompers press their way into the vat.
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum takes a nostalgic look back at the infamous enclave once thriving on Mountain Drive
Written by Josef Woodard
Photographs: Chiacos (Elias) Mountain Drive Papers, Gledhill Library, Martin (Ed) Photograph Collection, Neely Family Photograph Collection, Peake (Michael) Mountain Drive Photograph Collection, Santa Barbara Historical Museum,
Tooling along Mountain Drive, by car or bicycle, is a classic Santa Barbara ritual. The ribbon of road connecting Mission Canyon with Montecito is speckled with varied architecture—including houses rebuilt after the 2008 Tea Fire—and offers a stunning panoramic view of ocean and city.
Mountain Drive’s legacy included ritualistic parades, flags—celebrating both real and imaginary places—music, and the occasional ceremonial roasted pig. This shot was taken in 1965, staged for a scene in the John Frankenheimer-directed film Seconds starring Rock Hudson.
“Mountain Drive was known as a haven for artists, societal rebels, revelers, and general free-thinkers.”
But the 21st-century Mountain Drive barely hints at this area’s yesteryear, when it was home to a thriving bohemian enclave. Between the late 1940s and late ’60s, spanning such movements as the Beat era and hippiedom, Mountain Drive was known as a haven for artists, societal rebels, revelers, and general free-thinkers seeking to create a community beyond the borders of conventional society. The range of festivities and rites up on the Drive featured a raucous, clothing-optional grape-stomping event (its product destined for the Pagan Brothers label), the “Pot Wars” ceramic festival and competition, variations on Maypole ceremonies, and even a celebration of Scottish poet Robert Burns’s birthday. Music of all types provided a ragged, constant serenading presence in those hills.
To get a taste of Mountain Drive’s mythic, maverick past, proceed to the Santa Barbara Historical Museum’s fascinating archival exhibition Memories of Mountain Drive. If the museum has generally leaned into the milder side of Santa Barbara history, this show surprises us with its wilder slice of local lore. Organized by Chris Ervin, head archivist of the museum’s Gledhill Library, and on view through February 28, the exhibit draws on the ample photo archives of Elias Chiacos (author of 1994’s Mountain Drive: Santa Barbara’s Pioneer Bohemian Community) as well as the museum’s extensive oral-history project. In all, the show takes us back and drops us into the intoxicating—and intoxicated—inner life of Mountain Drive in its storied heyday.
Here, the Grape Stomp is fully in motion—a free-form dance with a purpose, and usually with stompers wearing nothing but vegetation crowns and giddy grins.
Sensory input in the museum gallery includes a folksy soundtrack by the Scragg Family, led by influential bluegrass/folk musician Peter Feldmann, and a looping clip from the quirky John Frankenheimer–directed sci-fi film, Seconds, from 1966, which put Mountain Drive on a broader map of public awareness (although the film, with James Wong Howe’s Oscar-nominated cinematography, achieved only cult-film status). In Seconds Rock Hudson appears as a reborn manifestation of a midlife-crisis-afflicted East Coast banker. He falls in with a free-spirited woman (Salome Jens) who lures him up to Santa Barbara for the bacchanalian revelry of the grape stomp. They end up naked and stomping in lockstep with a vast vat of unclad, unrepressed humanity, high up in the 805. Ironically, the film’s ultimate Faustian message negates the societal escapism represented by the hardcore Mountain Drivers.
“The range of festivities and rites up on the Drive included the raucous, clothing-optional grape-stomping event.”
One defining aspect of the Mountain Drive story relates directly to the tragic legacy and recurring fear of fire in the area. Mountain Drive’s founder and culture shaper, Bobby (Robert McKee) Hyde, acquired 50 acres of fire-scorched land for a relative pittance in 1940 and sold parcels to like-minded free spirits and bohemians-in-training. They built humble houses, mostly of adobe (“unencumbered by building codes,” according to the show’s wall text) and, with 40 families involved by the early ’60s, established a communal enclave of societal outliers.
Fast-forward to the calamitous 1964 Coyote Fire, when many homes were destroyed--including Hyde’s abode. Fire paved the way for the Mountain Drive experiment and fueled the beginning of its end.
Scenes of Mountain Drive, as seen here, included vintage costumes and traditions, humble home-building (usually with adobe) with help from neighbors, and downtown appearances on floats in the Fiesta parade. Elias Chiacos’ 1994 book Mountain Drive: Santa Barbara’s Pioneer Bohemian Community is the most thorough chronicle of the community and history to date.
We gain insights about life on Mountain Drive through black-and-white images on one wall and from a large touch-sensitive screen on which we can scroll through issues of the humble but informative Mountain Drive News and the Grapevine. Less savory aspects of community life include a strong strain of prefeminist sexism, as detailed in Susan Sisson’s oral history.
Another key charismatic Mountain Drive figure was Bill Neely—potter, musician, magnetic mischief-maker, and organizer. According to local resident Dick Johnston, Neely was “about half good and half evil.” One Sandy Hill spoke about a friendly argument in design between Bill’s peasant pottery and the more refined work of Ed Schertz. For his part, Schertz spoke more generally about the Mountain Drive philosophical m.o.: “It was so open…if you weren’t (of) a mass-society orientation, if you were interested in freedom and the exchange of ideas.”
Bobby Hyde’s son Gavin touched on another truth about the place/experiment, commenting that “dad said that people don’t choose the land. The place chooses the people.”
That was then. This is the real estate–booming now. But memories of Mountain Drive, personal and archival, titillate the imagination about another life, time, and place in Santa Barbara. www.sbhistorical.org
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Eclectic Perfection
A restored Montecito villa reflects its owners’ worldly taste
A glimpse of the entry foyer is visible from the spacious living room of the Hughes villa, which is packed with art and antiques culled from the owners’ pilgrimages to flea markets and auction houses around the world.
A restored Montecito villa reflects its owners’ worldly taste
Text and Images Excerpted From Montecito Style: Paradise on California's Gold Coast (The Monacelli Press)
Written by Lorie DewHirst Porter with Photographs by Firooz Zahedi
Montecito Style: Paradise on California’s Gold Coast (The Monacelli Press, $60) by Firooz Zahedi and Lorie Dewhirst Porter, available in November at Lost Horizon Bookstore (losthorizonbooks.com).
This sleek modernist—designed by an unknown architect—was surprisingly once a Victorian-style home, completely transformed in the early 1900s after its owners returned from an inspiring European jaunt. The long-ago renovation also featured an elegant garden (likely designed by renowned local landscape architect Lockwood de Forest Jr.) and an outdoor theater replete with a below-ground orchestra pit. By the time its current owners, Tammy and Kim Hughes, acquired it in 2016, the property had been unoccupied for years. “We didn’t quite realize how many potential purchasers were advised not to take it on,” Kim admits. Thankfully, the two recognized the building’s potential. As Tammy says, “It was love at first sight.”
Even so, the restoration process was arduous. “It didn’t seem like that big of a deal,” Tammy acknowledges, “until they started pulling off the roof and pulling the walls apart and lifting up the house to do a new foundation.” The original floor plan was left largely intact but for a kitchen expansion and an added powder room on the main floor. Tammy still marvels at the building’s design—especially the four lightwells that effectively illuminate the lower floors during the day, deeming them “so smart and so thoughtful.” Fortunately, she insisted on retaining and refinishing nearly all the villa’s original doors and windows, a decision that ensured the building’s modernist design retained its authenticity.
As an interior designer and owner of Emerald Eye Designs, Tammy was unfazed at the prospect of furnishing a residence exceeding eleven thousand square feet. Kim was also undeterred by the project’s size, having summered in England as a child at his grandparents’ stately home, Barton Abbey, with his famous uncle, Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond novels). In fact, the gray antique settle in the kitchen “is very close to what is at Barton,” according to Kim. The kitchen’s centerpiece, a cobalt-blue Aga stove, is set against the brick backside of the dining room fireplace (one of seven in the villa).
“The home’s wonderfully eclectic interiors are the result of the couple’s frequent pilgrimages to flea markets and auction houses of the world.”
The home’s wonderfully eclectic interiors are also the result of the couple’s frequent pilgrimages to flea markets and auction houses of the world. A massive silver, faux-taxidermy rhino head presides over the dining room table, a whimsical trophy offset by a large nude portrait by contemporary artist Lu Cong. In the living room, a large narrative painting from 1915 contrasts with a carved wood saint from the 1800s. An intricate antique mirror tops the minimalist living room fireplace, which is flanked by two salmon-hued velvet couches favored by the family canines.
The entry foyer, displaying furnishings and art from a variety of eras, beckons visitors toward a cozy fireplace at the far end of the space. A large painting of a diaphanous nude acquired from renowned Belgian antique dealer Axel Vervoordt is paired with a 19th-century Italian inlaid wood console. The alabaster light fixture is original to the villa.
In the end, according to Tammy, “there was a lot of serendipity” to the project. “The goal was to honor what was here,” she says. “We don’t live in a minimalist style, but if you strip all of our personal items away, you’ll see the house hasn’t changed.” Bravo!
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Ranch Dressing
Melissa and Paul Kanarek’s fabulous prefab in Santa Ynez
A panoramic view of Melissa and Paul Kanarek’s five-acre Santa Ynez ranch. The prefab buildings designed by Hygge Supply are surrounded by a native landscape designed by Terremoto.
Melissa and Paul Kanarek’s fabulous prefab in Santa Ynez
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter | Photographs by Mellon Studio
When you see the words “Ranchy McRanch” in white neon script hovering above a hat rack made of antlers, you can take it as a literal sign that this is not your ordinary ranch. It’s a place where the animals have names like Tom Ford (a cow), Uma (a piglet), Arlo (a rescue horse), and Bart (a llama). None of these animals participate in “normal” ranch activities—they’re basically the most pampered pets imaginable. Except for Bart, whose job is to guard the goats and who recently fended off the deadly advances of a ravenous bobcat.
Welcome to the world of Melissa and Paul Kanarek, whose five-acre Santa Ynez Valley ranch also boasts a stunning prefabricated home, a sleek swimming pool fashioned from a shipping container, a boulder-bordered power circle, and a boatload of style. Paul, a bearded Brit with a biting wit, insists Melissa alone is responsible for their eye-popping environment: “Every creature, every tree, every plant, every stick of furniture is just part of her fecund imagination on glorious display,” he says with bemused pride. In truth, Melissa, a silver-haired self-described California girl is a true creative. The couple’s recent move to Ranchy McRanch—a name coined by Paul—was prompted when the two became empty nesters and grew restless with their life in Laguna Beach.
“And so we drove up [to Santa Ynez] for breakfast, and we were in escrow by lunch,” Paul remembers. “We didn’t really know what function it was going to have,” Melissa admits. “We just knew we wanted it.”
Their animal collection started about the same time. “We’re Noah’s Ark over here,” says Paul. “Before we even moved here, we had two crotchety, unrideable angry horses that hate us. Then we found out about these baby goats we could bottle feed, and they loved us. So then we have two goats and two horses, and then someone hears about it, and we get a third goat. And then we get goats four or five, and we stopped at goat nine. But we have a coyote den. And we hear there’s a thing called a ‘guard llama,’ which is a gelded male llama, so we put
it in with the goats.”
“We drove up [to Santa Ynez] for breakfast, and we were in escrow by lunch,” Paul remembers. “We didn’t really know what function it was going to have,” Melissa admits. “We just knew we wanted it.”
“But we didn’t know we were getting the George Clooney of the llama world,” adds Melissa. “He is so suave, so sophisticated. Nothing about his body or face makes sense,
but he pulls it off. Talk about style.”
As for the rest of the creatures, on a trip to Texas the couple fell in love with Scottish Highland mini cows (they have three). Melissa believes the two Kunekune piglets were always part of the plan, while Nova, the beautiful Doberman Pinscher, was adopted from a rapper who left on tour with Machine Gun Kelly. The total currently stands at two ducks, five dogs, two pigs, three cows, two horses, nine goats, and one llama. “What we’re really talking about,” Melissa says, only half seriously, “is the amount of poop we have to deal with.” (A tractor tiller has been ordered.)
Ultimately the pair decided to build a ranch—their style of ranch—on the land. “We wanted it to be eco, low carbon, and architecturally interesting,” says Melissa, “and fast.” A bit of internet sleuthing turned up Hygge Supply, a prefabricated home company whose minimalist design appealed to Melissa. After visiting the company’s headquarters in Michigan and staying in one of the homes, they were convinced.
“We were super busy, and I didn’t want to deal with decisions,” Melissa says. Paul jokes that “they actually take a lot of the decisions away from you. ‘Do you want black?’” But he concedes that, given Melissa’s exacting taste, the fact that “someone had gone inside her brain and plucked it out” was truly surprising.
“The company is fantastic,” says Melissa, noting that the homes are modular, “so you can connect them like Legos.” They settled on a one-bedroom module with a separate guest house, both clad in dark-stained cedar, and opted to add a shipping container swimming pool from Modpools. But the building process, originally estimated to take four months, dragged on for two years.
“It wasn’t mechanically difficult,” explains Paul, “it was just logistically hard. The workers would get Covid, and the whole schedule would go off.” In the meantime, the pandemic lockdown was in effect, so the pair moved to Africa for a month, during which time their Laguna Beach house was sold.
“By the time we got back from Africa,” says Melissa, “we had two days to pack.” And the status of the ranch house? “Not done” she says firmly.”
Define ‘done,’” Paul adds mischievously. They moved in anyway.
Evidence of the couple’s far-flung travels is a key part of the home’s understated yet undeniably chic interior. “I can look around our home, and every piece is a story that’s part of our life,” explains Paul. “The piece behind me we found in a warehouse in Tunisia, and there’s a fertility piece from Turkey. There’s pieces from Morocco, and the mirror outside is from a market in Nice.” Added to this eclectic mix is an elegant travertine dining table surrounded by chairs purchased from Ikea. “Only she could pull that off,” Paul says of his wife.
Outside, a glorious mix of native trees and shrubs surround the two main buildings, which are linked by a power circle comprised of five large boulders, all planned and designed by Terremoto, an adventurous landscape architecture design studio that Melissa discovered online: “I said, ‘Here’s a bunch of dirt. Make it cool.’”
But according to Paul, “Terremoto doesn’t take many jobs. It’s sort of like getting the best-looking person at school to take you to the prom. I have no idea how [Melissa] pulled it off, but she did.”
In reality, Melissa has always tinkered with her surroundings. Growing up in Orange County, her habit of constantly rearranging her bedroom ultimately morphed into a life in the design world. She studied traditional upholstery in London, ran a furniture factory in Downtown L.A., and owned the now-shuttered Brass Tack in Laguna Beach, which was originally intended as an upholstery studio but turned into a boutique. She married Paul in 2014, and the two became stepparents to each other’s children—Melissa’s daughter, Macy, and son, Cricket, and Paul’s son, Jordan.
As for Paul, he was raised in London before moving stateside, where “my parents were able to find the only all-boys school in the area,” now the coed Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. He subsequently attended UCLA. “Going from a single-sex school to a coed school led to a scintillating 0.86 GPA,” he says with a wry smile. But a chance encounter with the founder of the Princeton Review, a tutoring and college-admission test-services company, led to Paul’s opening its West Coast office, where Paul worked for 30 years before purchasing Collegewise, a college-counseling business.
The Kanareks survey their property from the edge of their swimming pool made from a repurposed shipping container.
As if they didn’t have enough to occupy themselves, Melissa just opened her Brass Tack boutique in Santa Ynez, which carries hard-to-find brands like KYUCA bags, B Sides Jeans, and Mexicana boots. Still to come is her “Born in the Barn” collection of dead-stock urban-cowgirl apparel. Paul’s next adventure, what he calls his “final tilt at the professional windmill,” is teaching social studies at a local high school. With the Kanareks, anything is possible. Stay tuned.
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Graze Anatomy
How one family is breaking away from the herd to embrace regenerative agriculture and give new life to Las Cumbres Ranch
Stefan Selbert watches over a herd of Bonsmara cattle at Las Cumbres Ranch.
How one family is breaking away from the herd to embrace regenerative agriculture and give new life to Las Cumbres Ranch
Written by Wade Graham | Photography by Dewey Nicks
The landscape of the Santa Ynez Valley is as iconic as any in California: dark, chaparral-clad mountains enclose a tapestry of oak-dotted hills and grassy vales segmented by creeks.
“We have three main goals for the ranch,” says Stefan. “Raising healthy cattle, regenerating the land, and sharing what we’re learning,” through education and training events sponsored by the Selberts’ Las Cumbres Ranch Foundation.
Its seasons are marked by changing colors on the grasslands: the bright Irish green of new winter growth, splashes of colored wildflowers in spring, then summer’s mellow gold, fading to gray in the fall, before rains begin the cycle anew.
The landscape is capacious, generously accommodating the activities of its human inhabitants—vineyards stretch away here, cattle graze there, occasional, tidy towns announce themselves to travelers with horses in white-fenced pastures. There seems to be a permanent state of harmony between nature and people. But, in fact, this is a place held together by a complex and fragile balance.
When Jim and Patricia Selbert bought Las Cumbres Ranch in 2017, they were looking for a beautiful and tranquil place to retire. A perfect distillation of the Valley, perched on a range of hills overlooking a fertile, bucolic landscape, the ranch covers about 1,000 acres of a former Mexican land grant, about 6 miles west of Los Alamos and 12 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Little did they expect that their retirement would prove to be a hardworking one.
The ranch had some cattle on it—also some exotic animals, such as African antelope—but the land was conventionally managed and not healing or regenerating. When the Selberts had the animals removed, a friend told them: “No, you have to graze it,” remembers their son Stefan, who, after years of working as an audio engineer in Los Angeles for artists including Kanye West, is now the ranch’s operations manager.
Animals that graze, it turns out, are important to this ecosystem.
The ranch currently has 110 Bonsmara cows, a breed developed in South Africa that combines the toughness and heat tolerance of African cattle with the milk and meat characteristics of British cows.
The landscape of the Valley, indeed of most of California, evolved for hundreds of thousands of years along with grazing animals: deer, elk, and pronghorn. Tightly bunched in herds and continuously moving to avoid predators, they browsed the shrubs and grasses, breaking up the soil with their hooves, then quickly moving on. Their passage renewed and regenerated soil and plants by encouraging nutrients, water, and seeds to cycle and kept vegetation low, which, in turn, kept seasonal fires from climbing into the tree canopy and destroying it. Native Americans—in this area, the Chumash people—also used low-intensity burning to manage the landscape, maintaining a mosaic of grassland, trees, and brush.
When the Spanish came, they all but eliminated the Indians, as well as the wild herds and their predators, which they replaced with wandering cattle that performed similar work, though sometimes too much and sometimes too little, often tipping nature’s intricate arrangements out of balance. Too much grazing denudes the land, causing desertification. Without enough grazing, the grass dies, turns gray, and oxidizes, blocking sunlight from seeds below and interrupting the flow of nutrients. A hard crust forms over the soil; rain runs off without absorbing, and the land itself begins to die.
Before permanently relocating to the ranch in 2020, Stefan worked in Los Angeles as an audio engineer for clients including Kanye West.
“It is a bucolic image, straight out of the Old West—cowboys on horseback moving the herd on the range. But unlike in the movies, there is no whooping and hollering, no stampeding, no dust. Instead, there is a purposeful pace and an amiable conversation.”
The key to turning the degraded land around is the right kind of grazing. The Selbert family, Stefan explains, learned in a hurry about techniques that allowed them “to make a positive difference environmentally while benefitting ourselves and our community both socially and economically, all through choices we make on the ranch.” Generally referred to as regenerative holistic management—a term coined by grassland ecosystem pioneer Allan Savory, whose son, Rodger Savory, is a consultant for Las Cumbres—these techniques turn degraded landscapes, even near-deserts, back into productive ecosystems, through a series of steps. First is “animal impact”: putting closely bunched cattle on a restricted area for a limited time to reduce the vegetation and break up crusts with their hooves. The cows’ urine and dung stimulate funguses and other microorganisms that make up healthy soil. “Poop, pee, and hooves” in combination, according to Stefan, do the hard work. When the animals are removed, the land is allowed to rest and regenerate.
After much experimentation, the Selberts found the perfect breed of cattle for the Valley’s conditions: Bonsmara, a strain developed by Professor Jan Bosma in South Africa beginning in the 1930s by crossing African cattle, adapted to the hot dry season, with European cows bred for meat and milk. Medium size, with short, red-brown coats, Bonsmara have the best qualities of both: “It has the tenderness of a European cow, but the strength of an African cow. It not only feeds on grass but eats brush, too,” says Stefan. And “the breed has a really strong herd instinct. They like to move together, which makes my life easier.”
“There seems to be a permanent state of harmony between nature and people. But, in fact, this is a place held together by a complex and fragile balance.”
The results at Las Cumbres have been astonishing. The ranch had “a lot of dense, half-dead brush, suffering from not being grazed,” says Stefan. On a small plot of brush, 100 or so cows are brought to the edge and a bale of hay is thrown into the center to excite the cattle and cause them to trample, mulch, and fertilize the area. “We keep the cows in a tight area on the brush for a few days, and they eat it down and break it down,” pushing stalks and seeds deep into the soil while fertilizing it. This “crush” treatment reboots the land’s fertility: A couple of months after the crushing—even after more than 120 days without rain—shoots of native perennial grasses appear among the resprouting shrubs. It seems miraculous, but the cows are nature’s gardeners: trimming, composting, and fertilizing. Using a rough formula of grazing one-third of the ranch, trampling a third, and resting a third, the landscape is steadily returning to health, and the herd of Bonsmaras is growing.
The red cattle move deliberately across the grassy slopes of the ranch, munching and walking. Among them are seven wild mustangs that were rescued from the Bureau of Land Management by Return to Freedom, as well as one retired horse and Stefan’s working horse. The animals are believed to have less stress in this mixed company, and the cows put on more weight when grazing with horses.
It is a bucolic image, straight out of the Old West—cowboys on horseback moving the herd on the range. But unlike in the movies, there is no whooping and hollering, no stampeding, no dust. Instead, there is a purposeful pace and an amiable conversation. Stefan explains that he and the other hands talk to the cattle: “We have cows from South Africa that speak Spanish.” To his call of “Toma!”—“Take” in Spanish—the cows answer back, mooing in a chorus.
Las Cumbres Ranch is conserved through The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County. The Las Cumbres Ranch Foundation is dedicated to sharing the knowledge of experts in holistic, regenerative, and sustainable practices to the central coast community.
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Game Changer
Having broken into polo’s illustrious boys’ club, Sarah Siegel-Magness has her sights set on revolutionizing the sport for a new generation.
Left to right: Cacu Marcos, Geronimo Obregon, Mariano Fassetta, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Robert Zedda, and Cable Magness at Cancha de Estrellas Polo Club in Carpinteria.
Styling by Daniella Clarke, makeup by Caroline Hernandez, and hair by Johnny Stuntz.
Having broken into polo’s illustrious boys’ club, Sarah Siegel-Magness has her sights set on revolutionizing the sport for a new generation.
Written by Kelsey McKinnon
Photography by Dewey Nicks
Siegel-Magness is in the saddle six days a week either practicing or playing matches. In addition to cardio workouts and time spent in the hitting cage, she must also make room in her schedule for regular rehab sessions in a hyperbaric chamber when she’s injured, which happens frequently for all elite polo players.
When Sarah Siegel-Magness takes the polo field on one of her pedigreed Argentinian ponies, the petite powerhouse prefers an all-black uniform to traditional white riding pants. The bold sartorial statement is just one of the many ways that Siegel-Magness, who is usually the only woman on the field, is rewriting the rules of the game. “Polo in America is set in tradition, and in many ways I love the consistency,” says Siegel-Magness. “[But] this is 2022, we must make changes in order to progress.”
“Polo in America is set in tradition, and in many ways I love the consistency. says Siegel-Magness. “[But] this is 2022, we must make changes in order to progress.”
Since Siegel-Magness first picked up a mallet five years ago, she has dedicated her life to the sport—playing six days a week at the highest levels of the game. She and her husband, Gary, who both have roots in from Colorado, have purchased polo estates around the world. That includes one in Mexico and a 65-acre property in Santa Barbara, where she regularly plays with the likes of Adolfo Cambiaso, Prince Harry, and Nacho Figueras. Siegel-Magness counts Cambiaso as a close friend—they are neighbors at Cambiaso’s elite polo club in Argentina, La Dolfina—and she also turns to him for horsepower; the Argentinian superstar was a pioneer in horse cloning and now breeds some of the world’s most coveted ponies. “It was like I had been driving a Mazda all my life and then getting to drive a Ferrari,” she says of switching to one of Cambiaso’s ponies.
“We share a lot on the field but off the field as well,” says Cambiaso, who is grateful for the direction Siegel-Magness is steering the game. “It is really impressive to see how many female players are starting to take part,” he says.
Siegel-Magness takes a break to say hello to a zebra named Marty, one of her many rescue animals. When she first rescued the week-old zebra, she camped out at the barn and took turns with other polo pros feeding him.
“It was like I had been driving a Mazda all my life and then getting to drive a Ferrari,” she says of switching to one of Cambiaso’s ponies.”
During the season Siegel-Magness competes with her team, which is sponsored by Dundas. Siegel-Magness and her husband are business partners of the Dundas fashion brand, and Siegel-Magness sits on the board. In the past, Siegel-Magness was also a successful film director and producer with credits including Precious and Crazy Kind of Love.
Now that she’s traded movie sets for horse stables, Siegel-Magness intends to climb to the top of this male-dominated field as well. “Of course, I could say I want to win every important tournament,” she says, “but at the end of the day the experience is not the win, it’s the stuff along the way.”
The traditional open-fire barbecue usually occurs over the weekends during polo season.