Waves - Season Two

Season Two

Tidings from ETC Hotels

“Spring and summer are absolutely my favorite times of the year as they are the best seasons for dining al fresco.

Thanks to our Santa Monica microclimate we can enjoy eating outdoors almost all year long.”

—f r a n ck savoy co rp or ate di rector of food a nd bever age etc hotels

i m ag e by

Cody James

F R A N C K S A V O Y, C O R P O R AT E D I R E C T O R O F F O O D A N D B E V E R AG E E TC H OT E L S :

Nothing beats an ocean breeze on your skin when the sun is shining and the thermometer heads above 80 degrees.

Last fall, nearly all of the restaurants in the Los Angeles area went above and beyond to create welcoming outdoor venues. At Shutters on the Beach and Hotel Casa del Mar, we expanded into beachside dining along the boardwalk, and even converted our entrance roundabout at Shutters into a charming al fresco addition to 1 Pico called The Courtyard. Each is a natural extension to our coveted location and our guests are truly enjoying these new additions.

Day trips are another favorite family activity and over the weekends we often find ourselves driving to Malibu.

The view along the Pacific Coast Highway north from Santa Monica is simply breathtaking.

A I L E E N C A R R EO N , V P O F S A L E S A N D M A R K E T I N G E TC H OT E L S :

Growing up, my summer vacations were always planned around beaches or some serene body of water. At a young age, I was often on a boat as my father loved taking me deep sea fishing. Luckily, I never got seasick. There are photos of me as a child, smiling widely next to a giant Marlin (bigger than me!) that my father single-handedly reeled in.

With such an aquatic upbringing, it is only natural that I would feel so at home working next to the ocean.

It really is true that summery weather is possible any month of the year in Southern California. As a result, I always recommend being prepared for that impromptu day trip to the ocean or pool, a bike ride along the strand or a leisurely brunch at a favorite spot. On the rare occasion that I have the luxury of time to enjoy my cerulean blue surroundings, I always keep a fashionable and smartly stocked beach bag packed with sunscreen, skin mist, a refillable water bottle, and a beach towel. Clearly my parents’ seafaring sensibility shines through in my choices. Thank goodness I am in the hotel business and there are chefs to filet the marlin.

See you at the beach!

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Table of Contents

i m ag e by

Sam Muller

R E G E N E R AT I O N

M O T I V AT I O N

18

90

Turning the Tide

International by Design

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96

Growing Together

34 Sailing the L.A. Coast

WELLSPRING

At the Crossroads

102 Healing Properties

F RO M

ABOUT THE COVER

E TC H OT E L S

44 An Ambitious Beekeeper

A moment in the L.A.

118

sun by photographer

Picture Perfect Picnics

56 Walking on Water

P EO P L E

Sam Muller. Read more about how

124

Southern California’s

Staycation

climate inf luenced its

at Shutters and Casa

architecture on page 102.

70 Man About Town

76 Into the Light

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Table of Contents Online

WAV E S T V: E L I ’ S B E E S

Follow beekeeper Eli Lichter-Marck as he tends to more than 400 hives scattered across the Santa Monica Mountains.

Watch every episode of Waves, catch up on original stories, and encounter new seasonal content online.

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Waves assumes no liability for products or services advertised herein. Waves is a semiannual lifestyle publication of ETC Hotels.

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i m ag e by Sam Muller

R E G E N E R AT I O N

As you look back onto the Pacific, the

wind in your hair, you’ll relish the moments it seemed you had the whole ocean to yourself.

—Paul Feinstein

Turning the Tide

t e x t by

i m ag e s by

Jessica Ritz

Vivian Kim

Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau thrive in Southern California while carrying on a family legacy.

“To really care about something and protect it, you have to understand it,” says Ashlan Cousteau. “That’s what we try to do—from television to the documentaries to the books—is make the ocean more accessible and show people how amazing it is.”

Ashland and her husband, Philippe Cousteau, share the ocean and their taste for adventure with the public via media including television shows such as Caribbean Pirate Treasure, which they co-host on the Travel Channel, and Xploration Awesome Planet, hosted

by Philippe and airing on FOX. They also co-authored Oceans for Dummies, which hit shelves February 2021, and in fall 2020, Harper Collins published The Endangereds, the first of a middle-grade fictional series Philippe co-wrote about four animals who set out to save endangered species from the effects of climate change.

Philippe was profoundly influenced by his grandfather and oceanography icon Jacques Cousteau, as well as by an expedition with pioneering marine biologist Eugenie Clark he joined when he was a teenager. “She invited me to join her for two weeks filming and

researching in Papua New Guinea on a research vessel,” he recalls. “It was about as remote as you can get.”

In 2005, Philippe and his sister, Alexandra, founded the nonprofit EarthEcho International, which partners with schools and on-the-ground community groups to develop classroom education curricula and hands-on outdoor experiences. “We’re always looking at ways to merge the media work we do with education in the classrooms and really get young people engaged and fired up about these issues,” says Philippe.

He points out that even in Los Angeles, “there are kids who have never been to the beach.”

Ashlan’s accomplishments as an entertainment journalist and documentary producer—along with her passion for the environment and travel—merge seamlessly with Philippe’s calling. The two met in L.A. in 2010 after a conference which Philippe presented at and Ashlan attended, both noticing each other in the crowd. Though he was based in Washington D.C. at the time, “I’m a California boy at heart,” he says.

Born in Santa Monica, he lived his first few

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Husband-wife duo Philippe and Ashlan Couseau have a mission to raise awareness about the plight of the world’s oceans.

years in the area before moving to Paris and around the East Coast. Eventually, he relocated to L.A. to join Ashlan, who grew up in North Carolina.

countries and supported educational initiatives in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Almost 2 million participants in more than 140 countries have joined the EarthEcho Water Challenge to monitor water quality. These programs have impacted locales ranging from the lakes of Nagpur, India, to the famed cenotes of the Yucatan in Mexico.

Philippe is also at home in France and typically spends much of the year on the road, and Ashlan’s work has brought her to all seven continents. But being based in Southern California, with its diverse climate and population and its own pressing The Cousteaus are inspired by youth activists environmental issues, helps keep Philippe they’ve met, such as an 8-year-old girl in and Ashlan rooted in their mission. They find Plymouth, England, who, upon noticing litter pathways to empower communities with the in her coastal town’s estuary from an annual tools to advance environmental stewardship, water balloon fight, successfully campaigned whether it’s along the banks of the Los to cancel the event and recruited local Angeles River or by a body of water in another businesses to ban single-use plastics. hemisphere. Ashlan describes the satisfaction “When we think about these amazing kids and of leading a group of middle schoolers on a all the work they’re doing, that helps us sleep water-quality testing mission to the L.A. River, at night,” Ashlan says. during which they saw a live fish jump out of “the middle of a river that runs through While the Cousteau name is most closely this big, busy city. The kids thought it was the associated with the ocean, the couple is coolest thing they had ever seen!” committed to protecting all elements of the natural world, because everything leads In August 2020, EarthEcho International to the ocean and vice versa. “Our work hosted a digital conference that attracted always focuses on the connectivity of it all,” more than 400 youth leaders from 33 Ashlan says.

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Philippe was profoundly influenced by his grandfather and oceanography icon Jacques Cousteau, as well as by pioneering marine biologist Eugenie Clark.

Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau’s Santa Monica picks:

for beach access, the paid civic parking lots

“When we need an escape, in between the Santa Monica Pier and Will Rogers State Beach on PCH, the paid lots are often empty,” Ashlan says. “If you don’t mind spending the money, there’s usually no one there. That’s our little beach hack.”

for pampering, one spa at shutters on the beach

“One of the best treatments I ever got was at the spa at Shutters,” Ashlan says. for a local feel, the santa monica farmers markets

“There’s so much good produce, and it makes a big city feel very quaint,” Ashlan says. “It’s about community and it’s good for the environment to buy local, and better for you since micronutrients in food degrade over time,” Philippe adds.

to experience the personalities of the coastal neighborhoods, renting a bike

“I’ve ridden to Manhattan Beach,” Ashlan says. “You can go from the southern tip of Malibu.”

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Growing Together

t e x t by

i m ag e s c o u rt e sy o f

Anna Harmon

Yoshihiro Makino

Through a community of farmers, local businesses, and hopeful gardeners, Edible Gardens LA founder Lauri Kranz finds ways to bring fresh food home.

When a farmer friend asked Lauri Kranz what they were growing at the Edible Gardens LA plot in East Los Angeles, she answered, “Whatever the birds don’t eat.”

This means flowers, a range of hearty seasonal crops, and berries climbing the fences. It does not include carrots, since birds devoured all the carrot seeds sown by Lauri and her husband and business partner, writer Dean Kuipers.

Making use of the formerly fallow farmland, which is less than an acre, took time and perseverance. First, Kranz and Kuipers had to rebuild the irrigation, and then they had to overcome the weeds. Next was restoring the soil’s nutrients, but they couldn’t afford to have compost delivered. A friend at T and D Farms saved the day, ordering extra organic compost for them and loading it into the bed of their truck.

For Kranz, farmers have served as inspiration, resource, and community since she was merely a curious parent wondering how to best grow a garden at her son’s school more than a decade ago. She began quizzing farmers over handfuls of produce at Santa

Monica and Hollywood farmers markets, and then eventually at farms and over dinners.

She tested their advice and knowledge at her Hollywood home and at the garden she established for her son’s school. “They taught me how to grow well, how to grow organically, how to grow sustainably,” she says, “and I carried their lessons with me for all these years in all the gardens I’ve ever done.”

Her business, Edible Gardens LA, sprouted from her school volunteer work. “Once I started my younger son’s school’s garden, parents would say, ‘Would you help me with a garden?’” Planting a garden with one family led to inquiries from friends of the family about starting one of their own.

Kranz is known for cultivating gardens with a wild aesthetic. “I don’t like everything in perfect rows,” she says. Between the broccoli you might find borage flowers, and she purposefully lets plants like cilantro and fennel go to seed. There are wildflowers and poppies amid herbs and vegetables.

“Flowers are grown in the gardens I create because they’re so important for the overall health of the garden,” she explains.

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When it comes to creating gardens, Lauri Kranz has a wild aesthetic that exudes romance.

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Her client list has included celebrities Katy Perry and Maya Rudolph and chefs Suzanne Goin and David Lentz.

But when the pandemic began, Kranz was keenly aware of the hits taken by local restaurants, and in turn, by the farmers who supplied the restaurants and farmers markets. Overnight, she pivoted from planting and maintaining landscapes and gardens to figuring out how to get food to people at home.

“We called farmers and said, How are you?

What’s happening with the food?” she says.

In some cases, they were planning on turning crops back into the soil. She offered to buy their produce with the intent to start an organic produce delivery service. The first Edible Gardens LA farm box delivery went out in March 2020 and was fewer than 10 orders. By January 2021, more than 3,500 people had signed up.

A few farms she sources from consistently are Schaner Farms, Flora Bella Farms, and Weiser Family Farms, all operated by farmers whom Kranz has learned from over the years. Box offerings have expanded to include an optional weekly book recommended by the cookbook and culinary shop Now Serving, recipes from chefs like Goin and Lentz, and products from local businesses like Wild Terra.

After the pandemic clears in L.A., Kranz expects to resume her garden work while also continuing the farm boxes with her husband.

Already, the typical workday for Kranz and Kuipers spans 4 a.m. to 7 p.m., after which they have family dinner. Their meals, of course, often feature locally grown produce.

One even included a carrot—the only one that survived the bird feast at their farm, which they harvested and washed “like it was the most special carrot on earth,” she remembers.

“It was very sweet and wonderful.”

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When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Kranz and her husband launched a farm box delivery to support local farmers she had come to know through learning to garden.

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Lauri Kranz’s Tips for Establishing and Encouraging a Home Garden “Take inventory environmentally about what’s going on,” Kranz says. “Whether you’re a beginner gardener or more advanced gardener, it all starts with the place.”

Sun

Water

In L.A. at least, you’ll want to locate your garden wherever receives the most hours of light per day. “Sometimes it’s not what you imagine,” she says. To determine if the area you have in mind is the right one, you can do a sun study, taking pictures of the spot every two hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. A sun study can also help you figure out why a formerly flourishing garden is struggling— for instance, revealing that a tree has begun to block the sun.

“Just like how we’re going to decide how to dress for the weather,” Kranz says, “we have to think about the garden.” If it was a hot day, plants may need more water.

Soil “Compost is all our best friends,” Kranz says.

Even if you start a container garden with rich soil and compost, it will require additional nutrients the next season.

Season Understand what grows in what season.

“It’s hard to grow leafy greens in hot summer, and it won’t taste like it does in the winter,” Kranz says. Summer is a time for beans (other than fava), tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers, okra, and corn.

Pollinate Grow flowers with your vegetables, especially pollinator-friendly plants like poppies and cosmos. (But don’t forget that flowers are seasonal too.) Learn more in Kranz’s 2019 book, A Garden Can Be Anywhere.

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Sailing the L.A. Coast

t e x t by

i m ag e s by

Paul Feinstein

AJ Feducia and Anna Harmon

A day on the Pacific Ocean mere miles from Santa Monica reveals a wonder of sights and sensations.

The sprawling city of Los Angeles is known for many things: the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown, the sun-soaked beaches of the West Side, and the enticing array of worldclass dining. Less often conjured, however, is the serenity of its stunning coastline.

Understandably, sailing aficionados lust over the dazzling inlets of Positano, the vintage marine docks of Monaco, or the classic beauty of the Greek Isles, and why not? But eschewing the white-sand beaches, surf-worthy waves, and variety of marine life in L.A. would be a mistake for anyone looking for an all-day jaunt in the Pacific.

When planning a storybook sailing trip off the sunny California coast, there is a bevy of options. You can make a multi-day excursion to the Channel Islands to spy unique flora and fauna and dock to hike among the beaches and cliffs. You could also overnight it to Catalina Island, which was once frequented by classic Hollywood celebrities like Clark Gable, James Cagney, and Charlie Chaplin.

The perfect L.A. sailing story, however, can be one “Long Day’s Journey into Night”— though unlike the tragedy of Eugene O’Neill’s

play, this adventure will have a happy ending.

Such a trip will likely begin in Marina del Rey, where clusters of colossal yachts and shining schooners await in the lapping waves and blinding morning sun. Entering the Santa Monica Bay with the arrival of daylight, you can catch sight of playful dolphins and voracious sea lions hunting for their breakfasts. Looking to the shore will reveal shadows cast by beachfront properties and the looming Santa Monica Mountains.

Meandering up the coast towards Venice Beach will reveal the famous boardwalk, with skaters arriving at the beach’s concrete bowls, gym rats pumping iron on Muscle Beach, and early morning basketball games.

Venturing north, the glittering sand of Santa Monica beach is the next to come into view, as well as the landmark Santa Monica Pier, where tourists come to ride the solarpowered Ferris wheel and imagine a time when the famed Route 66 ended with the promise of the Pacific.

Further up the coast are the hilly confines of Malibu. Here you’ll get reacquainted with your sea lion companions basking in warm, sunny rays, this time in front of multimillion-dollar

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As you circle back south, the setting sun will cast the coastline of Los Angeles in its best light.

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mansions and majestic seaside cliffs. If you’re adventurous (and don’t mind cold water), you can don a wetsuit and snorkel or dive in the Malibu kelp forests alongside curious harbor seals, California king crabs, and squat lobsters. This is also prime territory to reel in some giant sea bass for dinner.

There is a bevy of options when planning a storybook sailing trip off the California coast.

Whale watchers will also find a lot to love, as groups of gray, humpback, minke, fin, and even killer whales have been known to migrate off the shores of Malibu and beyond.

The best whale spotting typically runs from December to May, but don’t be surprised if you see one of these majestic creatures any time of year.

As you circle back south, the setting sun will cast the coastline of L.A. in its best light.

Rolling hills, massive mansions, beachside bistros, and sandy strips come into view as you sit back and enjoy the quiet of the ocean.

The final chapter of your odyssey could include grilling the day’s catch and popping bottles of champagne, or simply soaking in the sight of celestial bodies filling the night sky, shining companions of the lights of the city.

Arriving back at the docks, furled sails are like curtains that have closed on a unique vantage point to L.A. As you look back onto the Pacific, the wind in your hair, you’ll relish the moments it seemed you had the whole ocean to yourself.

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i m ag e by Cody James

WELLSPRING

You do what you can to keep the bees happy and healthy. But

the bees are living in their own universe.

—Eli Lichter-Marck

An Ambitious Beekeeper

t e x t by

i m ag e s by

Alex Schechter

Cody James

Eli Lichter-Marck tends to more than 400 hives scattered across the Santa Monica Mountains, where the flowers and rain determine the flavor of his harvested honey.

It’s an unusually warm, sunny day in early January, and beekeeper Eli Lichter-Marck is squatting under a canopy of oaks in his Topanga Canyon backyard. He carefully removes the lid from one of his hives. Inside, bees are crawling over the narrow wooden frames, tending their honeycomb. They seem fat and happy, but he is cautious.

“This is just a very sensitive time of year,” explains Lichter-Marck, who maintains more than 400 hives dotted around Topanga and Malibu. “Kind of make-or-break for the bees.”

It’s a pivotal moment, as the bees emerge from the dormant autumn months and the queen begins laying enormous quantities of eggs to grow the hive. And there’s another thing to keep in mind: Los Angeles hasn’t

received much rain. This can mean a scarcity of plant nectar in the months ahead, which doesn’t bode well for honey production.

“It forces you to approach nature in an analytical way,” Lichter-Marck says.

Keeping bees in Southern California is different than, say, Minnesota, where a fourseason cycle yields predictably long, wet summers. In L.A., moisture is not guaranteed, and an extended spring, typically spanning January to May, accounts for almost all of the year’s rainfall. Depending on how much water comes, the bees will have either a prolific summer or a meager one. On average, LichterMark harvests between 1,800 and 3,000 pounds of honey annually for his company, Eli’s Bees; in a good year, a single hive can yield up to 60 pounds of the golden stuff.

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According to local beekepeeper Eli Lichter-Marck, the quantity and nuances of honey vary year to year.

Just as the quantity of honey varies year to year, so, too, do its nuances. To illustrate this point, he sets out three jars of Eli’s Bees’ signature West Malibu honey, all sourced from the hills where the Woolsey Fire burned in 2018. While two are the color of pale lager and have a bright, candied flavor, the one in the middle is several shades darker and tastes like pine sap with a hint of cinnamon.

The honey is different because the flowers were different, Lichter-Marck explains. As L.A.’s rainy season changes year to year, the environment reacts accordingly. “A drought honey has a whole different set of flowers, textures, and colors,” he explains, handing me a wooden spoon so I can taste the difference myself. “Rainy-season honey will be lighter and subtly sweet. You can see the transition in the landscape through the honey.”

With challenges like drought and wildfire, the landscape here is particularly resilient; honeybees, brought over by Europeans in the mid-1800s, are vulnerable to such harsh conditions. But over time, as naturalized

inhabitants of the Santa Monica mountains, they have proved their worth. “Honeybees add an additional ecological service,” Lichter-Marck explains. “They enhance pollination.” Not to mention their enticingly bold, complex honey, the kind that Eli’s Bees is known for.

Lichter-Marck’s honey production has increased steadily since 2015, when Greg Blanc, head baker at Gjusta in Venice, invited him to keep bees on Blanc’s property. The resulting honey was sold alongside loaves of sourdough and ciabatta and became an instant hit. Soon, LichterMarck was supplying bulk honey to restaurants like Farmshop in Brentwood, which used his product to make honey biscuits that accompanied the restaurant’s weekly family-style chicken dinners. In 2018, Lichter-Marck also started offering private honey tastings, which proved equally popular. (He has put a pause on tastings due to the pandemic, but has begun hosting virtual honey tastings over Zoom; he admits the operation is “really ambitious.”)

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Unlike other regions, Southern California’s four-season cycle yields predictably long, wet summers for keeping bees.

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After sending bees to the Central Valley for almond pollination, it is crunch time for Lichter-Marck. April is when honey production is in full swing, and he typically makes biweekly visits to each of the 20 locations where his hives are located.

The chore list is long. “It’s really hard to just keep the bees alive,” he admits, especially considering a parasite known as the Varroa mite, which has decimated bee populations in North America since the late 1980s.

Despite the odds stacked against him, Lichter-Marck remains charmingly optimistic.

He boils down his success as a beekeeper to two factors: rain and stewardship of the hive. The idea is to disrupt the hive as little as possible. “As a beekeeper, you’re like a train conductor,” he says. “The train drives itself— you just keep it on the tracks.”

Before beekeeping, Lichter-Marck was a medical student at Columbia University, and he approaches his work with the cleareyed discipline of a scientist: Namely, he’s motivated by a desire to learn what it takes to keep the beehive healthy. “Honeybees [represent] a part of nature we don’t really understand,” he says. “They’re one of the only domesticated animals who retain their wildness and their mystery. You do what you can to keep the bees happy and healthy.

But the bees are living in their own universe.”

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Walking on Water

t e x t by

i m ag e s by

Christine Hitt

Tatsuo Takei

More than a century after the debut of longboard surfing off Southern California shores, surfers continue to ride the waves with style and grace.

A surfer casually glides his 11-foot longboard on a perfect 1- to 3-foot wave wrapping around Malibu Point. Cross-stepping to the nose, he slices through the glassy water.

Dozens paddle behind him, readying for the next set. It’s difficult to imagine Southern California’s beaches without surfers dotting its shores, but at the turn of the 20th century, that was the case.

Los Angeles’ center was built 15 miles inland near the Los Angeles River. Getting to the ocean was a journey for the wealthy that required transportation by horse-drawn buggies in the 1800s until the debut of the railway toward the end of the century, around the same time that beach cities, including those at Santa Monica Bay, began

popping up. Soon, the formerly isolated beaches were connected to the downtown L.A. population by railroad lines.

Henry Huntington, owner of Pacific Electric Railway, knew that the location of rail lines would affect the value of land.

Having bought 90 percent of Redondo Beach in 1905—and ensured railroad track was laid to it—Huntington promoted the beach as a destination, hiring surfer George Freeth, who was Native Hawaiian, to work for him in 1907 as an attraction after seeing him surfing on O‘ahu. “A megaphonewielding announcer introduced George Freeth as ‘the Hawaiian wonder’ who could ‘walk on water,’” describes Matt Warshaw in The History of Surfing.

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Photographer Tatsuo Takei chronicled two decades of longboard surfing in Southern California, from 1997 to 2017.

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Freeth was the first surfer to introduce the sport to Southern California, regularly holding surf demonstrations five years prior to worldfamous Duke Kahanamoku’s first visit to the area. Freeth would go on to teach surfing, swimming, and water polo there. He created Redondo Beach’s first lifeguard corps and was credited with single-handedly saving many lives at sea before his untimely death from the Spanish Flu at the age of 35 in 1919.

Though Hawai‘i was the originator of surfing, California saw great innovations in the sport.

“They used super heavy redwood planks,” says Tatsuo Takei, photographer and author of Authentic Wave: Surf Photography by Tatsuo Takei. The 8- to 10-foot-long wooden boards resembled the traditional Hawaiian alaia surfboard and could weigh up to 120 pounds.

“Then people started riding lighter boards.”

Born in Japan, Takei began surfing at 18 and chose to move to Southern California in the ’90s for its small waves that are perfect for longboarding. Cherry-picking a school near the beach, he took photography classes part time and surfed the rest of the day. Inspired by vintage surf photography of the 1960s, Takei began taking analog film photos of single-fin longboarding, which became a passion. Authentic Wave chronicles 20 years of longboard surfing in Southern California, from 1997 to 2017, at surf spots from Malibu to San Diego.

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Though Hawai‘i was the originator of surfing, California made great leaps in the sport by innovating the industry. In the 1920s and ’30s, Tom Blake produced a much lighter, hollow wooden surfboard that gained popularity. He also introduced the stabilizing fin in 1935. In the ’30s and ’40s, Bob Simmons used hydrodynamics to improve design and experimented with lighter materials, introducing fiberglass and foam boards. By the 1930s, the popularity of surfing exploded as the region established surf clubs, held championships, and created its own surf culture.

Born in Japan, Takei began surfing at 18 and moved to Southern California in the ’90s.

“Longboarders today, the middle-aged guys, they’re so relaxed and they’re easy to talk to,” Takei says. He follows the 1960s model of photographing in black and white and likes overexposing images to create silhouettes. It takes skill and a lot of patience to produce surf photographs using film, and so he waits for a defined, glassy wave and an experienced surfer to glide into his frame before taking a shot.

“It’s challenging but it’s worth it, and I really love every single result,” he says.

More than 100 years since Freeth introduced surfing to Southern California, surfers have become a natural part of the landscape—all while photographers like Takei document the spirit of the sport through its passage in time.

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P E O P L E i m ag e by Sam Muller

P EO P L E

I was looking to

latch into something other than earthly things.

—Joe Ray

Man About Town

t e x t by

i m ag e s by

Maggie Lange

Cody James

Sam Lansky’s debut novel is driven by an endless fascination with Los Angeles that can only come from sincere love.

There’s an impeccable scene in Sam Lansky’s satirical novel about Los Angeles, Broken People, in which two men prepare to meet a shaman who has promised to transform their lives in three days. They are set-dressing their environment: They’ve acquired a gorgeous yurt (“ranch-hand glamour”) with Pendleton blankets (“masc seeking masc”), some medium-sized House of Intuition crystals, and Candle Delirium lighting. They debate which store will carry “the best selection of stylish buckets that will fit our aesthetic.” The buckets are, of course, to vomit into when the ayahuasca takes hold.

and seem vibe-y, the very impulse to heal everything away, is exactly what Broken People wants to address. The book holds a mirror to this wellness-chic impulse, cracking the mirror in the process.

There’s no better place than Los Angeles, Lansky’s novel posits, for the most fashionable trappings of healing. Broken People shows a city caught in the “crosshairs of materialism and mysticism,” as Lansky describes over the phone from his West Hollywood home on a sunny day in early January. In the book, the men beautifying their spiritual yurt are scolded by the shaman for “trying to produce the experience.” They’re taking an almost competitive approach to healing. The very impulse to make everything look gorgeous

In the novel, a magazine editor named Sam (who wrote a memoir about his years of addiction) is at the center of the story.

This personal tether is potent throughout Broken People; while it is ultimately a juicy satire full of fun, absurd characters, the book also has a strong, pumping, very real heart at the center of it. Lansky jabs at L.A.’s hypocrisies and contradictions, but he never forgets that there’s an earnest impulse in this relentless self-improvement. In its cracked mirror, it also reflects the author’s fascination with and love for the city.

When Lansky, a magazine editor and journalist, was in his early 20s, he wrote a memoir about his teen years in New York.

Published in 2016, The Gilded Razor details the trajectory and fallout of Lansky’s drug addiction. A few years later, Lansky published Broken People, his first novel, which, to an extent, picks up where the memoir left off.

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With his book’s portrayal of L.A., Sam Lansky addresses the cultural moment perfectly.

“I have become, for better or worse, a very L.A. person,” Lansky says, “and this is a very L.A. book.” When I ask Lansky what he means by “very L.A.,” he answers snappily, “I have an Erewhon sweatshirt.” At first, he says, he was entirely bemused by the famous grocery store, with its “$22 yogurts” and clientele that’s “either rich or famous or both.” Quickly, bewilderment shifted to genuine affection.

Now, Erewhon is his favorite place, he says, and he’s completely lost track of when ironic participation turned to earnest devotion.

“A place where anyone could be their best self for a price is so compelling to me,” he says with a laugh. For example, he was amused to find himself suddenly interested in Los Angeles’ footwear culture. “In New York, I did not have a single pair of bougie sneakers,” he says. “I’m not a sneakerhead wandering Fairfax, but I do have a number of sneakers that cost more than anything else I’m wearing. I still feel cool with some very chunky, very ugly Balenciagas.”

In a place famously obsessed with outer beauty, he loves when the worship of beauty is whole-heartedly rejected in a flash of independence. “I have so much respect for fashion-y ugliness,” he says. “You see it architecturally too, with this horrible, squat Brutalist architecture.”

While L.A. denizens may instinctually make everything into a gorgeous production, may stylize a yurt for their spiritual improvement, Lansky also sees some radical selfacceptance in their moments of free, fun, fashionable ugliness.

This perspective positions Lansky to address the cultural moment perfectly. Perhaps the most moving moments in Broken People are when Sam Lansky the writer shows you exactly how absurd something can be, but Sam the character falls for it anyway, because, in Los Angeles, it’s also totally irresistible.

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When Lansky was in his early 20s, he wrote a memoir about his teen years in New York City.

Into the Light

t e x t by

Catherine Wagley

Shining a light on the lesser recognized elements of the Los Angeles-born Light and Space art movement reveals beacons of past and present, including Mary Corse, Joe Ray, and EJ Hill.

I didn’t climb onto the ceiling-mounted swing in artist EJ Hill’s 2017 installation The Necessary Reconditioning of the Highly Deserving. But if I had, I would have swung toward a loosely painted mountain range, past sky-blue brush strokes that covered one full wall. On another wall, soft blue neon flickered: “We deserve to see ourselves elevated,” it read. Hill invited viewers to literally feel high and low as they swung from one end to another—or, like me, took it all in more quietly, as a kind of proposition for how a body can take up space. The show went up at Commonwealth and Council in Koreatown in early spring, when afternoon sunlight in Los Angeles can be particularly fierce. Sun poured in though the gallery’s skylight and large windows. Light defined this installation crafted by a young artist who often speaks about his connection to this city, home for most of his life.

There’s no need to saddle Hill with the legacy of Light and Space. His work lives, breathes, and thrives in a different context, and he never treats light, space, or perception as ideas. Rather, his work

engages with tangible realities grounded in specific geography. Hill wrote, in letters published in the art journal X-TRA in 2018, about the “idyllic lawnsprawled territories” of South Central Los Angeles and his love of specific streets (“Manchester Ave. is my main vein”), as well as what it is like to be a queer body and a Black body moving in and out of public spaces in this city. Yet even with this contrast, and even though Hill was born in the 1980s, his work conjures a salient connection to the Light and Space movement associated with the L.A. art scene of the 1960s and 1970s—especially if we look beyond the movement’s bestknown highlights.

The most familiar, heroic version of the West Coast Light and Space movement took center stage recently by way of Kanye West.

When the rapper met artist James Turrell, he felt a kinship: both men were “ just stars,” he told GQ in May 2020. Soon, West was modeling plans for his Wyoming compound after Turrell’s skyspaces, site-specific ascetic sculptures with open ceilings calibrated

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Artists associated with the movement—many of whom are still living and working—have long complicated the idea of Light and Space.

Right, artist Joe Ray. Portrait by Sam Muller.

to emphasize the sky’s changing colors.

West even shot the video for his 2019 album Jesus Is King in Turrell’s Roden Crater, a cavernous installation in Arizona’s Painted Desert with cathedral-like light chambers that has been half a century in the making.

In 2008, when artist Evan Holloway made his polka-dot room at the Pomona College Museum of Art, he was in part reacting against what he perceived as the heroic purity of Light and Space. Turrell, one of the artists most prominently and consistently hailed as a Light and Space innovator, had recently debuted a plaza-sized skyspace on Pomona’s campus, and Holloway took the opportunity to create a less pristine but equally immersive perception-shifting room, with polka-dot newsprint covering the walls and a metal grate covering the polka dots. “It was quite irritating to me that Turrell is often framed within a soft-core, new-age belief system,” Holloway explained in an interview published in the exhibition pamphlet. He disliked the notion of an artist who projects genius or claims to offer a transcendent experience. “I’m always in a fight with this idea,” he said, “so I publicly show doubt and contradiction and ignorance.

And then, again contradicting myself, I’m so proud of myself for opposing the big boys with my humility.”

Artists associated with the movement—many of whom are still living and working—have

long complicated the idea of Light and Space, a term critic Philip Leider coined in 1966 in an attempt to describe what it felt like to experience artist Robert Irwin’s curved, iridescent white canvases. As Irwin and his L.A. peers expanded into working with plastics and resin and incorporating natural and artificial light into sitespecific installations, the term expanded too—though as with most art historical designations, few of the artists associated with Light and Space liked it much.

Maria Nordman, for instance, has refused to participate in Light and Space exhibitions.

Historians, critics, and scholars have also long disagreed about the term’s boundaries.

Historian Melinda Wortz called Light and Space artists “architects of nothingness,” prioritizing the ineffable and minimal qualities of the work. The 2007 documentary The Cool School advanced the long-held notion that artists’ obsession with plastics and light stemmed from the region’s sunniness and surf and car culture. Indeed, Nordman described her material as “the light of the sun,” though she had little interest in cars. *** Curator Hal Glicksman thought that, in addition to perceptual science and aerospace technology, Light and Space artists were increasingly interested in Asian mysticism.

Artist Joe Ray also observed a turn toward

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The Los Angeles art scene the artists belonged to then was largely undefined.

Right, “Lesson #2,” 2019, by EJ Hill.

Photo courtesy of Ruben Diaz.

“A Monumental Offering of Potential Energy,” 2016, by EJ Hill. Photo by Adam Reich.

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“Red Yellow Black White and Burnt Sienna,” 2020, by Joe Ray. Photo courtesy of Diane Rosenstein Gallery.

mysticism among his peers, but he associated it more with an interest in hallucinogens and the cosmos. “The whole community was into the mystical aspects of making art, the alchemy,” Ray said, looking back at the 1960s in a 2011 interview with curator-critic Ed Schad. Ray, a Louisiana native who was drafted into the U.S. Army not long after arriving in Los Angeles in 1963, returned in 1967 after a year in Vietnam to find his peers preoccupied with plastics. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, he began working on a series of cast-resin and Plexiglas rings, stacking the rings on top of each other and placing a perfect round orb inside of them. “I was thinking of the circulatory system as equally vast as the celestial,” he recalled. “I was looking to latch into something other than earthly things.”

According to Ray, the Los Angeles scene he belonged to then was largely undefined.

“It was in its infancy, but it was more personal than a movement,” he told Schad.

The lives and work of the artists associated with Light and Space overlapped; they used similar material and even helped each other acquire it. Yet they were, on the whole, a wildly disparate group.

Ray, who still lives and works in Los Angeles, has rarely been included in survey exhibitions or catalogues chronicling Light and Space, likely because he never committed exclusively to his cast-

resin experiments. Instead, he made documentary photographs of the Black Southern community in which he grew up, made paintings that straddle abstraction and figuration, and staged humorous performances, like a human car wash, for which he and his friends dressed up as the big, floppy brushes and covered themselves in white foam. His 2017 survey exhibition at Diane Rosenstein Gallery felt like glimpsing inside the mind of an artist far more committed to understanding all kinds of light and space (cosmic, psychic, spiritual, and geographical) than to any specific material or strategy: pristine plastic spheres coexisted with colorful, gestural paintings of constellations, grainy videos and snapshots of exuberant performances across Los Angeles, and a diagram of art’s relationship to energy carefully drawn in ink. *** In 1993, when critic Jan Butterfield wrote her survey The Art of Light + Space, she made some notable omissions. In the afterword, she explained she had left out Mary Corse, whom she called “an enigma,” in part because Corse made so many paintings. Corse herself, who had her first major museum survey in 2018, has never identified with Light and Space as a movement either, in part because she didn’t feel embraced by her mostly male peers in 1960s and 1970s Los Angeles. Helen Pashgian—who, along with Maria Nordman,

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Many of the Light and Space artists were increasingly interested in Asian mysticism.

Right, “Untitled (Black Earth Series),” 1981,

by Mary Corse. Photo courtesy the artist and Kayne Griffin.

is among the only women associated with the movement, and whose work has recently begun appearing in more major museum shows—similarly recalls feeling isolated, though she attributes it partly to the fact that she worked in Pasadena, while Turrell, Irwin, and others were neighbors in Venice.

Corse’s ongoing medium of choice is painting on canvas, which she returned to in 1968 after years of making acrylic boxes containing argon tubes. She did so because she wanted to further simplify the experience of her work. With the light boxes, she had been looking “for an outdoor reality,” she told me when I visited her Topanga Canyon studio in 2017. But she realized this reality was “not out there.”

Even her dimensional experiments with light were intuitive gestures shaped by her own subjectivity, she thought, so she went back to painting.

Since the late 1960s, Corse has mixed tiny glass microspheres into her paint, the same microspheres that make divider lines on highways glow at night. The spheres announce themselves differently depending

on how you approach a painting or where the light is coming from. The microspheres paintings are an ongoing, exceptionally focused undertaking: She has done variations of white-on-white (White Light) and black-onblack (Black Light) paintings for decades. She occasionally ventures into other palettes and materials (her Black Earth series of ceramic tiles, made outside her Topanga studio using molds taken from the surrounding landscape, for instance), but primarily works in monochrome, mostly because she is still so deeply involved in exploring how slight variations in light change a viewer’s experience that she is not yet ready for more color.

Corse has also been a mentor to younger artists, such as sculptor Gisela Colon and painter Kelly Brumfield-Woods, whose own shimmering canvases take a more hallucinogenic, colorful approach to exploring perception. For Brumfield-Woods, who is Corse’s former studio assistant, Corse is an influence not just because of her art, “but the way she works with such focus and how she sets boundaries so her energy goes to her work.”

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Historians, critics, and scholars have long disagreed about the boundaries of the term Light and Space.

Right, “New Eye,” 1969, by Joe Ray. Photo courtesy of Beth Rudin DeWoody.

*** So often, conversations about historical movements pivot around influence: How has an earlier generation shaped those who came after them? But it can be equally beneficial to ask: How do artists working now shift our understanding of what came before? This is especially relevant with a movement so grounded in a place that has changed drastically yet is still defined by sprawling space and intense sun. EJ Hill’s recent installation Excellentia, Mollitia, Victoria, which translates to “excellence, resilience, victory,” part of the Hammer Museum’s 2018 Made in L.A. biennial, proposed a body-conscious, durational, and intensely personal approach to light and space. Once again, walls were painted sky blue. Astroturf covered the gallery’s floor, and photos hanging around the oval room, made in collaboration with photographer Texas Isaiah, depicted Hill running laps on tracks at the Los Angeles schools he attended—capturing the hot

sun, broken sidewalks, and artificially green grass. Vibrating neon script installed on the farthest wall from the door asked, “Where on earth, in which soils and under what conditions will we bloom brilliantly and violently?” For 78 days, Hill stood on a bare-bones wooden podium during the museum’s open hours, the bluish light of this text around him, questioning how we fundamentally position ourselves in relation to our environment. The white stripes along the track reminded me of Corse’s White Light paintings and the way their shimmer contrasts the darker density of her Black Earth installations, inspired and made with the soil surrounding her Topanga studio.

The installation also recalled Joe Ray’s more physical performances—like when he and two collaborators descended from a ceiling trap door during a concert, the stage lights making their shadows huge against the wall as they shimmied down a thick rope. There are so many ways to use light in space, and a looser definition makes for livelier dialogue between past and present.

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Historian Melinda Wortz called Light and Space artists “architects of nothingness,” prioritizing the ineffable and minimal qualities of the work.

i m ag e by Sam Muller

M O T I V AT I O N

I’ve experienced the strength of the afternoon sun, imagining the optimism and fervor of a distant time.

—Lyra Kilston

International

by Design

t e x t by

i m ag e s c o u rt e s y o f

Alex Schechter

Tortoise General Store and Justin Chung

A retail-savvy Japanese couple made L.A. their home, and along the way, introduced a new audience to the wonders of minimalist pottery and colorful hand towels.

When husband and wife Taku and Keiko Shinomoto made a stopover in Los Angeles in fall 2002, it was at the tail end of an East Coast trip. They had won green cards in the lottery and were planning to move to New York after quitting their jobs at Tokyo-based furniture company Idée (he as designer, she as store manager). But L.A.’s sunny, laid-back feel proved irresistible. “All the flowers were in bloom, the sky was blue, and dolphins were jumping at Hermosa Beach,” Keiko recalls. “It was a great first impression.”

Abbot Kinney Boulevard, where they ended up, was still in its punk phase.

Designerbrands hadn’t taken over and dining options were few. They found an 800-squarefoot bungalow with a loft, and in that intimate live-work space, Tortoise General Store was born. Part novelty, part cultural immersion, the shop was tiny and extremely curated, with an alluring mix of contemporary furniture and utility items like tawashi scrubbing brushes, Kimura glass tumblers, and bamboo slippers. The concept was a hit with shoppers, but it was the Shinomotos’ discerning taste that kept people coming

back—if Keiko and Taku weren’t in love with an item, it never made it into the shop.

Many of Tortoise’s early adopters were Venice-based architects who had spent time working on large-scale projects in Japan. “They said Tortoise reminded them of walking into a store in Tokyo,” Keiko notes proudly. Of course, catering to customers in a new country didn’t come without a learning curve. During their first holiday rush, the Shinomotos discovered many items had value as stocking stuffers. “That’s the word I learned,” Keiko says with a laugh. “Next year, of course, we had lots of small items for stocking stuffers.”

Over the years, Tortoise General Store has expanded to include art shows and cooking and woodcarving workshops, and it relocated to Mar Vista in 2018. Yet the owners’ commitment to durable, wellsourced homeware has remained intact.

Hasami, the sought-after ceramics line Taku started in 2012, closely parallels the shop’s ethos and is available at Tortoise.

(Today, he serves as the brand’s creative

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Tortoise General Store was started by wife and husband Keiko and Taku Shinomoto.

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director.) Produced in the town of Hasami, whose pottery tradition dates to the 1600s, all Hasami plates, bowls, and mugs have an intentionally raw, slightly coarse texture.

With time and wear, the material becomes smoother, giving customers an incentive to keep using the ceramics long after purchase.

The shop specializes in chic homeware made by Japanese artists, plus books and cards.

As Tortoise’s main buyer, Taku frequently travels to Japan to hunt for new artists and manufacturers. Keiko credits his instinct for quality with keeping the inventory fresh. “He doesn’t follow brands,” she says.

“He trusts his sixth sense.” Typically, Taku attends regional gift shows, and once he finds something he likes, he’ll ask to meet the artist. But lately, it’s been through word of mouth. “Our friends in Tokyo recognized exactly what we’re looking for,” says Keiko.

“They introduced their network to us.”

Of all the fine and distinct objects decorating the shelves at Tortoise, the shop’s bestselling item is also its most mundane: dish towels.

Tenugui, an all-purpose cloth found in nearly every Japanese home, has captivated the imaginations of L.A. customers. At Tortoise, the handy, quick-drying cloth comes in a variety of decorative prints that resemble small watercolor paintings. “People buy six at a time,” Keiko says. “They cut it in half and use it as a table napkin.” When the Shinomotos relayed this to the manufacturer in Japan, the company was pleasantly surprised. “They love that our customers have created a whole culture around it,” Keiko says.

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At the Crossroads

t e x t by

i m ag e s c o u rt e sy o f

Nicole Ziza Bauer

Ellison Institute

The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC is part laboratory, part wellness clinic, and part think tank.

“Our role here is not just to be a facilitator, but to create the future,” says Dr. David Agus, founding director and CEO of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of the University of Southern California. “We’re obligated to start doing things differently.”

At the institute, a novel collaboration of medical professionals, researchers, and technologists work to neutralize the inherent panic triggered by a cancer diagnosis.

The result is a state-of-the-art location that’s part laboratory, part wellness clinic, and part think tank, building upon the oncology field to address the full spectrum of health, all at one innovative Santa Monica hub.

Named after Larry Ellison, founder of the software developer and database company Oracle, the institute resulted from what Agus describes as “many long and exciting conversations” sparked by Ellison’s interest in science and medicine. The two met when Agus began treating Ellison’s nephew for cancer. They later grew close after Steve Jobs, a friend of Ellison, was also diagnosed

with the disease and Agus was involved with his treatment.

Today Agus and his team are reimagining the patient experience, shifting the narrative from This is how cancer is treated to Let’s see how else we could approach this.

A visit extends beyond a discussion about treatment options—it places a patient amid the latest advances in medical care, including a museum chronicling the history of cancer research, to grasp the encouraging momentum of the field. “In our first week, I had a patient come in, someone who I had taken care of for a long time, and he was in tears,” Agus recalls, speaking of the building’s impact. “He said, ‘It’s just amazing that I am able to experience this.’”

At every touchpoint, the institute has been designed to empower and educate.

Glass walls bring research teams out into the open where patients are invited on laboratory tours to interact with the scientists working on their disease.

That work could involve the use of Oraclefacilitated artificial intelligence to analyze

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The Institute combines interdisciplinary research with the prevention and treatment of cancer.

thousands of patient slides, predicting through morphology which cancer genes are turned on or off and enabling more personalized treatment. Or, it could be utilizing biomimetic “organ chips” to study metastasis in the body. These fluid models offer a better understanding of the cancer environment than could previously be gained from individual cells or animal studies.

“When [patients] see those labs, that’s hope personified,” Agus says, noting how important it is for researchers to hear about a patient’s experience firsthand.

“The interaction of our researchers and patients is powerful. Researchers are so motivated to do something for that patient they just met, they work harder in the lab.”

The institute’s Santa Monica location, a fiveminute walk from the Expo/Bundy metro stop, heightens its potential for collaboration.

Not only can students and scientists from USC’s downtown campus easily access the facility sans rush-hour traffic, but the city itself naturally woos out-of-state clinicians for research stints during the chill of winter.

“We’re all in this together across the country fighting disease,” Agus stresses. “We have to think of ourselves as one team.”

For its part, the institute offers out-of-the box thinking characteristic of greater Los Angeles—a place fueled by imaginative, artistic expression. Take, for instance, the 12-foot elephant sculpture by Jeff Koons on the patio, which visually reflects the role of pattern recognition within medicine and a need to view and interpret data creatively.

(Elephants, Agus explains, have a particular gene that corrects damaged DNA so they don’t develop cancer.) Part of the institute’s edge is its guiding philosophy that the answer to cancer won’t arrive squarely from biologists. It’ll likewise require a neighbor in Silicon Beach—a coder, an engineer, a thinker. Fortunately, L.A. is a place where right and left brain collide.

The institute’s other arm is its wellness clinic, which shares the ambition of easing access to cancer awareness, treatment, and prevention.

Here, both patients undergoing treatment and those proactive about their health can

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Under Dr. Agus’s guidance, the Institute draws collaborators from across conventional health and wellness fields.

benefit from the institute’s synergy. Great care is taken to ensure that health appointments aren’t something to dread, from the clinic’s warm lighting and decor to reclining chairs that turn into exam tables.

The Institute complements and integrates cancer research being conducted by faculty physicians and scientists across the world.

“We’re not always the best at making sure we’re seeing physicians at regular intervals and making sure everything is fine-tuned,” says physician assistant Kelly Santoro, the institute’s clinical director. To help every patient lead a healthy, fulfilling life—the clinic’s primary goal—it offers genetic screening, nutritional counseling, lifestyle recommendations, and even opportunities to join clinical trials.

It’s all part of extending health education to the greater community, Santoro says, another pillar of the institute’s mission. “We want to be open about everything and get information out there,” she says, elaborating on post-pandemic plans to bring in guest lecturers, increased tours of the institute’s History of Medicine gallery, and fellowships for high school students.

“We always say, ‘Knowledge is power.’

We want people to be creative, to brainstorm and be collaborative,” Santoro says. “At the end of the day, it all comes down to making a difference in patients’ lives.”

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Healing Properties

t e x t by

i m ag e s by

Lyra Kilston

Sam Muller

a rc h i va l i m ag e s c o u rt e s y o f

Atelier Editions

Faith in the outdoors and sun as health curealls inspired the signature aesthetic of Southern California’s midcentury modern homes, with their flat roofs, glass walls, and poolside living.

Falling asleep while lying in the sun’s warmth is a simple but rare pleasure in the churn of a busy life. It is an unmooring from your endless list of tasks, a pause from worries, a luxurious surrender to repose in the middle of the day.

Years ago, I spent a winter with my grandmother in Los Angeles to escape the gloomy drizzle of Washington state. I worked at night, so I slept late every morning and then had breakfast outside, where I lay on a striped blanket and read a Henry James novel. Her backyard was typical for Southern California—tough grass, the drone of leaf blowers, and the sweet-tart scent of citrus trees. Day after day, I’d read until I felt like laying my head down on my arms to drift off.

I recall the prickly blades of grass beneath me, the rich reds and golds across my eyelids, the steady heat on my back. The feeling of coming up to consciousness incrementally, layer by layer. I may have forgotten those

eventless mornings, except they came to represent an unusual period of calm and wellbeing, a wealth of time and warmth.

Lying in the sun was once considered medicinal. Sun cures, or heliotherapy, were used to treat a variety of illnesses and strengthen the bodies of those who were at higher risk of contracting diseases like tuberculosis or cholera. In the late 19th century, doctors began prescribing sun exposure in measured doses. If there wasn’t enough strong sun and fresh air where you lived, they would suggest traveling elsewhere to pursue a “medico-geographic” cure. To the sanatoriums of the Swiss Alps, perhaps, or to the American Southwest. Thousands of health seekers also flocked to Southern California to partake in the benefits of its celebrated climate. Many stayed permanently, shaping the region’s health-oriented culture—an eccentric history I explore in my book Sun Seekers: The Cure of California.

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In the early 20th century, Southern California’s sunshine and climate drew health seekers and doctors of all stripes.

Climate and location mattered greatly, but so did architecture. Doctors and public health officials in the late 19th century noticed that rates of fatal illness were far worse in urban areas where people lived crowded together in dim, damp housing and worked in unventilated factories. These buildings, with their meager windows and poor air circulation, were deemed a public health crisis, and medical professionals worked closely with architects and urban planners to implement more salubrious designs that invited “Dr. Sun” inside.

At the same time, the sanatorium movement was spreading from the mountains of Europe to the United States. A cross between a hospital and a resort, sanitoriums were located in pristine rural settings, offering true retreat from the strains of city life. Some of the earliest were designed to resemble grand hotels, with towers and turrets, opulent curtains and rugs, and walls of thick stone.

But as belief in the healing properties of sunlight and fresh air gained popularity in the early 20th century, the design of such

buildings began to change. It wasn’t enough to seek health outdoors; the outdoors also had to be brought inside. In Davos, for example, new sanatoriums were built facing the sun, with large windows intended to stay open day and night. Rooms were fitted with French doors leading to balconies and terraces so patients could be rolled outside in their beds to take their sun and air cures beneath heavy fur blankets. When the German novelist Thomas Mann wrote about a Swiss sanatorium in his book The Magic Mountain, he described the many-balconied buildings as being “so porous as to resemble a sponge.”

House design followed suit. Sleeping porches were added to bedrooms for outdoor rest, and large uncovered windows, balconies, and terraces brought the cures of nature to domestic spaces. Interiors became more health oriented as well. The dark and stuffy Victorian-era parlor gave way to a clean, modern style. It wasn’t just aesthetic—white walls were considered more sanitary, and easily washable surfaces were preferred.

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Still today, the sunny days and healthy lifestyles of L.A. attract visitors and new residents.

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In Southern California, the health seekers and doctors of all stripes who came to treat them forged a famed lifestyle that transformed diet, exercise, and living space.

While the constant sunshine and mild weather were considered healthful on their own, they also enabled evolving architectural styles to further blur the line between indoors and outdoors.

I’ve visited the sleeping porches of Pasadena Craftsman houses, where turn-of-thecentury residents set up their beds outside to imbibe the night air. And I’ve sat in dappled shade by a hearth in an outdoor living room of the pioneering Schindler House in West Hollywood. When the house was completed in 1922, a year before the Hollywoodland sign was mounted, its bohemian residents slept under the stars on the house’s flat roofs.

The idea of a health-giving house reached its apex with the Lovell Health House, completed in 1929 in the Hollywood Hills. Built for Philip Lovell, a vegetarian naturopathic doctor and health evangelist, the house stands as a monument to the benefits of living among the natural elements. Designed by Austrian

émigré architect Richard Neutra, who helped import European modernism to the West Coast, the sleek home of seemingly floating white planes features huge walls of glass facing the sun. Each bedroom opens to a private sleeping porch for nighttime slumber and therapeutic nude sunbathing, while a pool, exercise equipment, and an outdoor classroom in the yard were part of the daily regimen of the Lovells’ three sons. Lovell boasted that no one in his family ever needed conventional medical care—their permeable, sun-drenched house and outdoor lifestyle were treatment enough.

The Health House still stands, about 20 minutes away from where my grandmother lived. I’ve experienced the strength of the afternoon sun as it pours in through its tall windows, gazed at the hills from its porches, and walked around its now-empty pool, imagining the optimism and fervor of a distant time. It was a startlingly radical house when it was completed, but its design strongly influenced the look of California’s midcentury modern homes, with their flat roofs, glass walls, and poolside living.

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As belief in the healing properties of sunlight and fresh air gained popularity in the early 20th century, the design of such buildings began to change.

During that youthful winter at my grandmother’s house, I didn’t know any of this history. I just knew that taking a sun bath felt incredibly restorative. Now, when I drive by glassy modern houses in the hills or bicycle by their descendants on the beach path, I like to think of Southern California’s early days as a beacon of healthful outdoor living. And on the occasions that I can steal a bit of time to recline in the afternoon light, I recall those health seekers, faithfully taking their daily doses of healing sun.

The writer Lyra Kilston is the author of the book Sun Seekers: The Cure of California.

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Picture yourself surrounded by your closest friends or family. You are all lounging on a sandy beach, steps away from an azure sea with nothing except blue horizon beyond.

The sun is shining, it’s a warm day, but the cool breeze makes it the perfect temperature.

You are gathered around a low chic table that contains a feast for the senses. A veritable cornucopia of your culinary favorites from land and sea awaits your first taste.

Al fresco everything is the rage these days, so the hotels’ culinary teams, inspired by Shutters Executive Chef Vittorio Lucariello, decided to make it their quest to create the pinnacle of picnics for their guests. With miles of expansive shoreline literally outside their backdoors, the possibilities for fun and flavor are endless.

Chef Vittorio’s picnic is not predictable fare.

Expect an international selection on the menu including Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Mediterranean Platters and Charcuterie with Cheese. Of course, you’ll find some classic American favorites as well…did someone say Mini Lobster Rolls?

The upscale picnic’s coastal décor is a stylish collaboration between Fragments Identity, an interior design firm in Malibu, Santa Monica Picnic Company, and ETC Hotels.

“We really enjoyed working closely with the team at ETC,” says Tammy Price, owner of Fragments Identity. “Our goal was to bring the casual elegance of these gorgeous luxury destinations out onto the beach. I think we have created the quintessential Southern California beach picnic!”

Picnics start at $395* for two people and each requires a minimum 48-hour advance notice.

Reservations may be made for any times between sunrise to sunset seven days a week, based on availability. Parties over six people require at least one-week advance notice.

“Our new picnics are the perfect complement to the services we offer. Our guests love to be outside, and our picnics are going to be very popular this year,” predicts Charlie Lopez-Quintana, General Manager of Shutters on the Beach. “I cannot think of a better way to celebrate being together again with friends and family in 2021, than with a stay at one of our hotels and a leisurely brunch on the beach. It is the perfect way to reconnect.” *Pricing varies based on food and beverage selection and a wide variety of addons that are available ranging from floral bouquets to beach games to DJs. For more information, contact the concierge.

You are not dreaming … you are picnicking at Shutters on the Beach and Hotel Casa del Mar, Santa Monica.

Picture Perfect Picnics

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t e x t by

i m ag e s c o u rt e sy o f

Armella Stepan

Frank Lee

Find serenity at the beach fronting Shutters on the Beach and Hotel Casa del Mar.

MENU vegetar ian

Pasta Salad, Spring Vegetable Farmer’s Market Mini Sandwiches Avocado Toast, Watermelon Radishes Mediterranean Platter: Marinated Cerignola Olives, Hummus, Feta Cheese, Grilled Curry Pita Couscous Salad and Tuna Homemade Potato Chips Ham and Cheese Baguette Sandwich Charcuterie and Local Cheese Selection, Pickled Vegetable Mini Lobster Brioche Roll Smoked Salmon, Caviar, Blinis, Crème Fraîche Crab Bruschetta Thai Chicken Lettuce Wrap

swe ets

Selection of Macarons Amalfi Limoncello Crostata Maldon Salt Manjari Chocolate Tart

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I’d be excited about sneaking off to a beautiful beachfront hotel any time, but after months of a forced hiatus from travel, sitting on the balcony of my swanky seventh-floor room at Shutters on the Beach, peering down at the pool, sandy stretch of beach, and endless Pacific Ocean beyond feels downright dreamy.

My goal is to spend the next couple of days focused on self-care. And while that may mean different things to different people, to me it’s about striking the perfect balance of all my favorite feel-good things: daily strolls along the Santa Monica shoreline, plenty of poolside reading, a few energy-boosting Peloton rides at the temporary outdoor gym, some seriously stellar food and wine, and a little luxuriating in the room for good measure.

There’s no duo of hotels better suited to set you up for just such a soothing self-care staycation than Shutters on the Beach and sister property Casa del Mar. You can do, taste, and experience anything you want here without ever leaving the premises: a hot stone massage followed by a mani-pedi at the spa, morning yoga at the water’s edge, a leisurely

bike ride along the beach, or cocktails and caviar in bed. Luxury is king here, and guests can feel it in each and every detail.

The star treatment begins as soon as you arrive, and the staff all know your name and make it clear that they are eager to make your stay special. Forgot what time yoga starts?

Just shoot the front desk a text and they’ll be happy to remind you when and where to meet your instructor. Looking for your slippers?

Housekeeping will leave a pair beside your bed in the evenings so you can slip into them before your feet ever touch the floor in the morning. Trying to choose between two different wines? Your server will bring you a taste of each to help you decide.

When dinner rolls around, enjoy the expanded al fresco dining options with outdoor heated spaces at either Shutters or Casa. One of the most stunning eating experiences can be found at 1 Pico Courtyard, which has transformed Shutters’ entry courtyard into a romantic patio restaurant anchored by a grand leafy tree strung with bistro lights and hanging lanterns. The menu here blends California coastal and farm-to-

The Ultimate Staycation at Shutters and Casa

Staycation at Shutters and Casa

t e x t by

Lizbeth Scordo

i m ag e s c o u rt e sy o f

Shutters and Casa Del Mar

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Enjoy outdoor dining at Hotel Casa del Mar.

table fare with dishes like a local lettuce, pear, and persimmon salad, linguine laced with velvety Santa Barbara sea urchin, and grilled blue prawns plated with wilted Bloomsdale spinach.

Relax by the pool at Hotel Casa del Mar.

Lunch at Coast is a must for prime peoplewatching (and that fabled lobster roll), with tables lining the beach and bike path. And for a wow-worthy oceanfront dinner, head to Casa’s tented Terrazza Beachside Patio, where you can feast on a Mediterraneanmeets-SoCal meal of icy oyster platters, a decadent Wagyu burger, or an inventive sea bass entrée layered with smoked asparagus sauce and fresh clams.

Of course, the one thing that will make or break a self-care staycation is where you’ll get your rest. Casa and Shutters have bathed their luxuriously appointed rooms in breezy blues and whites, transforming the experience to feel like you’re staying at the well-appointed beach home of a friend (albeit a friend with exquisite taste and interiordesign talent). There are hardwood floors and hand-knotted rugs, original watercolors by local artists, California-inspired coffee table books and novels lining the shelves— even a few unexpected items placed around the room, such as a wooden yo-yo or scubamasked rubber duckie next to the tub.

Speaking of bath time, even that comes equipped with views: Just swing open the shutters that separate the bathroom from the bedroom to stare at the sea while you soak, and enjoy yet another of the perfect touches you never knew you needed until you got here. Consider yourself officially spoiled in self-care.

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