This Side of Paradise
A secluded hillside haven just above Sunset Boulevard, Bel Air is one of the world’s most prestigious – and private – communities. It’s a place populated by movie moguls and former presidents, where property values only go up, never down. Like its namesake, the iconic Hotel Bel-Air also wears its luster more discreetly than its... More
At Home With Joachim Splichal
Joachim Splichal’s home is decorated with sleek furniture and modern art by the likes of Robert Rauschenberg and Pasadena local Steve Roden, but walk through the kitchen, out the back door and past the azure blue pool, and suddenly you’re transported to a farmhouse in the south of France. On a recent warm fall afternoon,... More
Just Don’t Call Them Communes
Today we’ve got reality TV stars and struggling actors in superhero costumes, but in the early ‘70s even stranger, more exotic creatures roamed the boulevards of Hollywood: the 100+ members of The Source Family, a spiritual commune led by a man named Father Yod, that made its home in a mansion in the Hills. Dressed... More
It Happened One Night
“I think part of the purpose of museums is to serve friction,” said the artist Doug Aitken. “Things that make you wake up, that make you think.” Museum fund-raising galas, however, are better known for serving bland cuisine and excess, so when Jeffrey Deitch, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s new director, invited Aitken... More
Fruit Force
On a breezy Sunday afternoon, families, artists and gardeners roam the grounds at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where a different sort of art has cropped up altogether: A potato field grows between two buildings; ailing strawberries are nourished through an elaborate system of IV bags near the main entrance; and a soil-... More
“Electric Car” Director Greens Events
“The greenest event is no event at all; just everybody stay at home,” says “Who Killed the Electric Car?” director Chris Paine. “But,” he adds, “I’m not a purist like that.” Paine, in fact, is a regular fixture on Hollywood’s green social scene, often pulling up to premieres and parties in his show-stopping Tesla, but... More
Urban Healers
California’s spiritual tradition is deeply ingrained. The Golden State has long been a magnet for seers and seekers, from yoga swamis to esoteric scholars to psychedelic cult leaders. But if some of those past figures could be considered “out there,” today’s healers are very much right here, addressing the needs of the modern, urban world... More
The Om Factor
There may be 2,500 square feet of Ray Kappe-designed sleekness in Steve Glenn’s Santa Monica home, but just before festivities started on a fall evening, the chief executive of eco-friendly developer LivingHomes was still worrying about where to put his guests . . . and their yoga mats. This was the third time Glenn had... More
A Handcrafted Life
On the wall of Adam Silverman’s 5-year-old Atwater Pottery studio in Atwater Village–hanging beside Magic Marker drawings by his daughters and maps of Ibiza and Block Island–is a silver Mexican milagro in the shape of a hand. The talisman is just one of many hand-themed gifts from his wife, Louise Bonnet, which remind him of... More
Blast Off!
“Where should I put the test tubes?” asked one confused chef’s assistant. It’s not a question normally heard at a dinner party, but then again, Materials & Applications—the landscape/architecture research center in Silver Lake where the bash was being held—doesn’t do “normal.” And that includes this retro-futuristic-themed dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Russian... More
Natural Order: Restoring John Lautner’s Harpel House
Mark Haddawy wasn’t born a stylish man about town, zipping through the Hollywood Hills in the 1964 Ferrari Steve McQueen used to drive, his rocker-skinny frame clad, more often than not, in Dior Homme and limited edition Nikes. Through the second grade, Haddawy’s German-born mother dressed him in lederhosen — “you know, those leather shorts... More
A Home Unlike All Others
Earlier this summer, almost 100 psychedelic music fans, subculture aficionados, students of the occult and local literati climbed the flower-petal-strewn steps of publisher couple Jodi Wille and Adam Parfrey’s Silver Lake home for a salon celebrating the upcoming publication of “The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWa 13 and the Source Family” (Process),... More