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
Reading, Writing and Robots
At the grand opening of the Echo Park Time Travel Mart on Dec. 15, the Robot Emotions were going like hot cakes (happiness and schadenfreude were the top sellers). The mystery product Chubble, on the other hand, available in more than 50 different varieties, wasn’t really moving. A worker dressed like a cowboy shrugged. “It’s... 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
Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairey is sitting at a long table in the offices of Studio Number One, his L.A. graphic design firm, with a sharpened No. 2 pencil in hand and stately, baroque portraits of Bobby Seale, Joe Strummer and Noam Chomsky – part of his Hero Stamp series – looming above him. Dressed in his standard... 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
The Return of Elaine Dundy (and Sally Jay Gorce)
“I’ll tell you how it feels to be an overnight success at 86,” said the author Elaine Dundy over the telephone, laughing. She was inviting me to visit her at her Park La Brea home to talk about the recent New York Review Books reissue of her beloved 1958 proto-chick-lit novel, “The Dud Avocado.” Told... 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
Witness to the Wit of An Arch and Fiery Spirit
Theresa Duncan worked hard to get out of Lapeer, Mich., where she was born in 1966, and where, last month, she was buried. On her blog, the Wit of the Staircase, the writer and filmmaker compared Lapeer to the small Texas town in Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show.” “You would think it was 1951,”... More
Rebirth of the Cool
In the spring of 2006, the Centre Pompidou in Paris launched the splashiest exhibition of L.A. modern art the world has seen to date, “Los Angeles 1955-1985: Birth of an Artistic Capital,” featuring 350 works by 85 artists. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa flew in for the opening, as did the collector and philanthropist Eli Broad,... More
Audrey Bernstein’s Kooky Brand of Chic
You could smell the onions from the driveway. Audrey Bernstein, standing in the kitchen of her cozy 1920s house in Silver Lake, was preparing for a French-themed soiree, and the menu included onion tarts, French onion soup and brioche pockets stuffed with asparagus, goat cheese and more onions. There was a lot of chopping to... More
Making Waves with West Coast Style
“OOHHH! Aahhh!” went the chorus round the P.S.1 meeting room when Ball-Nogues Studio unveiled the model of “Liquid Sky,” its winning entry in this year’s Young Architects Program competition at the Museum of Modern Art affiliate in Queens, N.Y. With showmanship befitting a project inspired by spectacle, psychedelia and the circus, Echo Park architects Benjamin... More