Ojai Quarterly - Summer 2025

Ghost Herd of the Sespe

Brothers Koren Take the Long Way Home

‘Finding Famiglia’Finding Ojai Fine Art of Fibbery

OJAI SERENITY

Tucked at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac with sweeping mountain views, this light-filled ranch-style home pairs comfort with convenience just minutes from downtown Ojai. Hardwood floors welcome you into an open living and dining area, perfect for family gatherings or easy entertaining, with a large slider opening to a sunny patio and backyard. The kitchen, with brand-new appliances, invites your culinary creativity. Three bright bedrooms, two updated baths, and a flexible office space offer room to live, work, and recharge. Outside, a charming gazebo beckons for alfresco dining or peaceful mornings. With low-maintenance ease and quick access to hiking trails and town, this turnkey gem is Ojai living at its best.

OAK HAVEN RETREAT

Sitting perfectly on more than an acre of land, nestled among the majestic Oak trees, you will find a lovely Craftsman-style home which has been tastefully remodeled. The large picture windows showcase the great room with vaulted ceilings, large fireplace, and amazing views. The kitchen opens to the den and also to the dining room for ease of entertaining with top-ofthe-line appliances. There is a screened-in porch off the dining room which looks out onto the oak-studded backyard and pool. Your family and friends will enjoy their stay in the spacious, private guest house which overlooks the pool and views. Majestic oaks add to the privacy and serenity. If you have horses, this property has a barn and arena, and is close to surrounding hiking trails. There is an oversized three-car garage, solar, and a large workshop. You will love the understated elegance.

IS IN THE AIR ON HAPPY LANE

This enchanting East End mini-compound spans a full acre, offering a main house (3BR+office / 2BA), art studio, writer’s office, cozy chill cabin, outdoor showers, and an infinity cedar tub. Entertain around the fire pit, yoga platform, and a chic Airstream guest retreat. Rustic yet refined, this blissful property embodies Ojai’s creative spirit, surrounded by nature and just minutes to top schools, hiking trails, and adventures.

SUMMER 2025

40 YEARS OF SUSTAINABLE BUILDING 100% EMPLOYEE OWNED

12710 Ojai Santa Paula Rd OJAI, CA FARMHOUSE

3 BED 2 BATH 1,476 SQ. FT.

2 BED 1

31’ X

An Ojai Country Compound for Fun and Profit

Whether you're looking for an Ojai getaway to enjoy or a terrific real estate investment without restrictions on short term rentals, this is your ideal buy. More than just a home, this lovingly remodeled property comprises a 2BR/2BA, 1,476 sq. ft. farmhouse, 2BR/1BA, 816 sq. ft. Sunflower Cottage, 2BR/1BA, 726 sq. ft. Country Cabin and a party barn just for fun. All sitting pretty on 0.52 acres with stunning Topa Topa views! You'll love the rustic touches like beamed ceilings, wood floors, barn doors, and eat-in kitchens. All newer appliances, laundry rooms, skylights, newer windows and doors, and natural gas fireplace. Two newer hot tubs bubble softly under the stars, and each home has covered outdoor dining.

You could live in the Farmhouse and lease out the two cottages, or lease all of them out when you're not there and invite your family and friends to join you when you want to visit. Or keep all three units generating income every day of the year. You won't find a more flexible real estate investment. The compound is conveniently located at the summit between Ojai and Santa Paula, making the drive from LA easier and trips into Ojai village a breeze.

Call today for an appointment. Offered at $2,100,000.

a n y m o r e . B u t n o w w e d i s c o v e r e d t h e m a g i c a l t o w n o f O j a i

a n d t h o u g h t t h a t t h i s w o u l d b e t h e p e r f e c t p l a c e f o r T h e

I v y t o r e - o p e n . O u r w i d e r a n g e o f i t e m s i n c l u d e s a n t i q u e s ,

n e e s t a t e j e w e l r y, s t e r l i n g s i l v e r, E u r o p e a n p o r c e l a i n s a n d

p o t t e r y, l i n e n s , a n d e x c e p t i o n a l a n t i q u e f u r n i t u r e f r o m

a r o u n d t h e w o r l d . A s a l w a y s a t T h e I v y, t a b l e t o p

a c c e s s o r i e s a b o u n d i n n e d i s h w a r e , c r y s t a l , a n d s i l v e r t o

n i s h o ff y o u r t a b l e i n s t y l e . C o m e s e e o u r n e w l y

e x p a n d e d s h o w r o o m f e a t u r i n g e x c l u s i v e , v e r y m o d e r n ,

a n d u n u s u a l f u r n i t u r e , a r t , r u g s , a n d a c c e s s o r i e s . I f y o u

n e e d t o n d t h e e l u s i v e " p e r f e c t " g i f t , T h e I v y i n O j a i i s t h e

o n e - s t o p - s h o p f o r a l l y o u r n e e d s

C o m e j o i n u s , a f t e r a l l : ' E v e r y o n e s h o p s a t T h e I v y.' t h e i v y i n c . c o m 8 0 5 . 2 7 2 . 8 9 1 2

OJAI QUARTERLY

p.28

FINE ART OF FIBBERY

Ojai Author’s Lies, Whimsy & Truthiness

Story By Kit Stolz

p.34

LONG WAY HOME

Brothers Koren On Their

Chorus-Fueled Soul Quest

Story By Brendan Willing

James

p.19

Editor’s Note

p.20

Contributors

p.21

Ojai Podcasts & 2 Degrees

p.25

Arts Section

p.62

Artists & Galleries

p.67

Food & Drink Section

p.79

Yesterday & Today Section

p.87

Healers of Ojai

p. 88 Hiking Map

p.109

Calendar of Events

p.54

COVER STORY

LIFE IN FULL COLOR

Ojai Artist Exhibits “My Last Hurrah”

Story by Ilona Saari & Richard Camp

Trading Hollywood Hustle for Small-Town Harmony Story by Devo Cutler

FEATURES & departments

GHOST HERD OF THE SESPE

Once Thought Vanished, Local Bighorn Sheep on the Rebound Story and Photos by Chuck Graham

TRUE CONCESSIONS

Playhouse Brings Back

Flavors of Nostalgia

by

NOCTURNAL SUBMISSIONS

Mad Queen’s Cousin

Canceling Reign of Error

Story by Sami Zahringer

Story

Ilona Saari

OJAI QUARTERLY

Living the Ojai Life

SUMMER 2025

Editor & Publisher

Bret Bradigan

Director of Publications

Bret Bradigan

Creative Director

Uta Ritke

Ojai Vortex/Hub Administrator

Julia S. Weissman

Contributing Editors

Mark Lewis

Jerry Camarillo Dunn Jr.

Jesse Phelps

Columnists

Chuck Graham

Ilona Saari

Kit Stolz

Sami Zahringer

Interns

Alex Gutierrez

Emilie Harris

Circulation

John Nelson

The contents of the Ojai Quarterly may not be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

To subscribe to the OQ, visit ojaiquarterly.com or write to 1129 Maricopa Highway, B186 Ojai, CA 93023. Subscriptions are $32.95 per year.

You can also e-mail us at editor@ojaiquarterly.com. Please recycle this magazine when you are finished.

THE SHAPE OF BELONGING

“Humility is the ladder through which we grasp every good thing.” — Joshua Harrison

There’s something astonishing about a place like Ojai — how, in this small valley tucked between mountains and sea, the local and the universal intermingle so seamlessly. Maybe it’s the intimacy of a town where everyone’s stories overlap like old vines in a well-tended orchard. Maybe it’s the way the landscape presses in, inviting contemplation. Or maybe it’s simply this: in Ojai, we’re reminded daily that we are part of something larger than ourselves.

That’s the undercurrent flowing through this Summer issue of Ojai Quarterly — the idea that community, art, memory, and even wilderness thrive not in isolation but in relationship. And that humility — not as self-effacement or self-denial, but being aware of our place in the wider web — is necessary to receive the full beauty of it all.

Our cover story on Karen Lewis offers a vivid testament to that idea. Her work — spanning nine decades and countless personal upheavals, including her early childhood in a Japanese internment camp in the Philippines — reminds us how creativity can transmute pain into something luminous. Karen has always painted not just what she sees, but what she remembers — the weight of experience, the shape of survival, the light that filters through after all. Her retrospective is not merely a celebration of one artist’s long and remarkable career; it is a mirror held up to the endurance of the human spirit, shaped in community, drawn from deep wells of connection.

That spirit runs wild — literally — in our feature on the bighorn sheep of the Los Padres backcountry. Once presumed extinct, they have returned in numbers that astonish even seasoned biologists. Their resurgence is a reminder that nature, too, responds to care and kinship. The sheep are not just a species rebounding; they are a symbol of what becomes possible when we pay attention, when we listen to the land and step back long enough for it to heal.

The same could be said of the Grant Ranch, another story in this issue. Had it gone the way of many flat, buildable acres in California, Ojai might now be home to a regional shopping center instead of oak groves and open sky. It took vision, and not a little humility, to preserve it — to see that the greatest value of the land was not in what could be built on top of it, but in what had already taken root beneath it.

Stories like these are not rare here. They bloom like wildflowers after the rains. Consider “Mi Famiglia,” a full-length feature film shot in Ojai, styled as Italy, and populated by local talent. Or the Koren Brothers, whose new album charts the path from hardship to harmony, a story not just of music, but of friendship, persistence and place. Ojai Quarterly was built to hold space for those kinds of stories — and more importantly, for the people who tell them.

Our regular columnists — Ilona Saari on the Playhouse Theater’s concession stand, or Sami Zahringer’s amazingly antic and deceptively powerful commentary on our society through a 16th century lens — also remind us that we are nested within a larger world of connection and humor.

If humility is indeed the ladder through which we grasp every good thing, then Ojai might be the house built around it. We are held up by one another here in the Little Orange — by old friends, neighbors, patrons, students, mentors. We nod to each other on trails, in checkout lines, at concerts in the bowl or farmer’s market. We remember. We notice. And in doing so, we affirm a sense of place that feels increasingly rare in a noisy, distracted world.

Summer in Ojai slows things down just enough to make space for reflection. In these pages, we invite you to consider not only what is beautiful, but what connects us — to each other, to the past, to the wild and to the possibilities ahead.

OQ | C ONTRIBUTORS

ROBIN GERBER

is the author of four books and a playwright. Check her out at RobinGerber. com

CHUCK GRAHAM

His work has appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Canoe & Kayak, Trail Runner, Men’s Journal, The Surfer’s Journal and Backpacker.

MARK LEWIS

is a writer and editor based in Ojai. He can be contacted at mark lewis1898@gmail.com.

DEVO

CUTLER

is a poet, photographer, and recovering exec, Devo mentors artists and writes on healing through art. Her Peabody-nominated doc “Not Afraid to Laugh” celebrates humor’s power.

BRENDAN WILLING JAMES

is an aspiring playwright and would-be top chef, but sticks mostly to singing, writing and taking photographs.

RYAN SCHUDE

is a photographer & educator from Oak View. You can find his most recent photos in the book “Also On View: Unique and Unexpected Museums of Greater Los Angeles” by Todd Lerew.

ILONA SAARI

is a writer who’s worked in TV/film, rock’n’roll and political press, and as an op-ed columnist, mystery novelist and consultant for HGTV. She blogs for food: mydinnerswithrichard. blogspot.com.

KIT

STOLZ

is an award-winning journalist who has written for newspapers, magazines, literary journals, and online sites. He lives in Upper Ojai and blogs at achangeinthewind.com

is an Ojai writer and award-winning breeder of domestic American long-haired children. She has more forcedmeat recipes than you.

SAMI ZAHRINGER

Ojai’s signature Arcade, which gives the town its Spanishstyle charm, was built after a disastrous fire swept through downtown in 1917. Wealthy philanthropist Edward Drummond Libbey funded the rebuild, inspired by the Pan-American Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The Arcade, Post Office Tower, and pergola he commissioned not only gave Ojai its distinctive look but helped transform it into a destination for artists, seekers, and health-minded visitors.

IN BRIEF: OJAI TALK OF THE TOWN PODCASTS

ABIGAIL CARTRIGHT’S MUSICAL ODYSSEY

On the release of her latest album, “Miracle Year,” the painter and singer-songwriter talks about the extraordinary changes that have happened in her life the past five-and-ahalf years. “My whole life has been a cascade of events, and one thing just keeps happening happening after the next.” (Ep. 232)

OQ | ojai podcast

MICHAELA WATKINS: ‘SUZE,” SINCERITY & OJAI

Actor and SNL alum Michaela Watkins discusses her latest film, “Suze,” and a significant change she’s recently seen in popular culture. “I do a lot of improv ... what I started to see is that if you went to the really scary place where you said something incredibly authentic and truthful and your reactions were 100 percent utterly organic and fresh, the audiences responded in a huge way ... everybody can now smell out inauthenticity very quickly.” (Ep. 227)

GAY HENDRICKS’ ‘BIG LEAP’ AND LIVING THE ‘GENIUS ZONE’ LIFE

In this episode, psychologist and author Dr. Gay Hendricks discusses the concept of the “Upper Limit Problem” and how individuals can overcome self-imposed limitations to achieve their full potential. “There are two big themes that I’m really after; one is helping people get past their upper limit problem, and the second thing is organizing your life so you’re getting more access to what I call your ‘Genius Zone.’” (Ep. 224)

RAUL ALVARADO: BILLION-DOLLAR DEALS & THE POWER OF LISTENING

Raúl Alvarado, for 33 years an Accenture veteran and its former Chief Operating Officer and head of Global Operations, discusses his experiences in corporate transformation and the importance of active listening.

JOHN LENNON’S SECRET CONNECTION TO OJAI

ONE: John Lennon once seriously considered moving to Ojai, according to his personal assistant Fred Seaman, who revealed that the former Beatle was drawn to the quiet, bohemian charm of the valley not long before his tragic assassination in December 1980. Seaman said Lennon envisioned a simpler life, away from the relentless pace of New York City — possibly as a retreat for writing, painting and raising his son, Sean. Paul McCartney and others close to Lennon also remembered his fondness for the American West and its open spaces.

“To me, it’s never the money ... the partners that do worse are the partners that are focused on making a certain target. The focus is to do the best for your client and treat them with the best solutions and most compre-

hensive projects.” Now leading Alvarado Advisory Group, LLC, and the nonprofit A Thousand Joys, he brings his decades of accumulated business wisdom to coaching, as well as supporting victims of trauma. (Ep. 228)

2 of OJAI

SEPARATION

TWO DEGREES BETWEEN

JOHN & YOKO, CIRCA

THEIR OJAI SOJOURN

TWO: That fascination may have taken root during a fraught, weeks-long visit in 1972, when Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed in a house on Ojai’s East End. The couple were engaged in a frantic search for Yoko’s daughter, Kyoko, who had been taken by her ex-husband, Tony Cox. During their stay, Lennon reportedly kept a polite, low profile presence around town. He was seen walking in the orange groves and sketching in notebooks. For more on Lennon’s visit, check out Mark Lewis’ deep-dive cover story in the Ojai Quarterly Summer 2015 issue.

A Catholic school rooted in the values of Unity, Truth, and Love, offering an excellent education to students in grades 6 - 12

Limited spaces remain for the 2025-26 school year!

Bus transportation available for all students from surrounding communities.

For more information or to apply, visit villanovaprep.org/admission

| arts & literature

28 fine art of Fibbery

Ojai Author Seeks Truth Through Whimsy & Fantasy

40 Flutes, forests & Futurism

Claire Chase Blends Myth & Modernity At 2025 Ojai Music Festival

34

34 long way home

Brothers Koren Reclaim Music As a Sacred Act

54

‘My last hurrah’ Karen Lewis’s Vivid Life Unfolds in a Joyful Flourish

48 ‘Finding Famiglia’ in OJai Trading Hollywood Hustle for Small-Town Harmony

62 artists & galleries The People, Places That Make Ojai an Arts Destination

SEVEN DECADES

THE ART OF KAREN K. LEWIS

A retrospective of her celebrated career

Ojai Valley Museum

June 19 – August 3

Opening Reception: June 20, 5–7 PM

‘Tuscan Pots’ by Karen K. Lewis

OFF THE SHELF

A. Kendra Greene’s Curiosity & The Inflatable Dress

STORY BY KIT STOLZ

In her most recent book — “No Less Strange or Wonderful: essays in curiosity” — Ojai-raised author A. Kendra Greene admits to being something of a liar. Or, more accurately, as she admits to her six-year-old niece Alice, she’s “a fibber.”

Greene adores the nutty details of life, the often-wacky natural world and the odd humans — especially collectors and museum curators — who can’t get enough of such curiosities. One such

curiosity was a celebrity giraffe at the Santa Barbara Zoo, named Gemina, known far and wide for its permanently bent neck. As she recounts in “No Less Strange or Wonderful,” one day while talking in the car to young Alice about Gemina, Greene found herself transformed…into a giraffe.

As the giraffe, her arms forming a bent neck, she mock calls her young friend on a Giraffone, and plays her a mock hit

song among Giraffes called “Pots and Pans,” with lots of banging, and boundless enthusiasm. “You’re a talking giraffe!” Alice says to her. “That’s funny!”

To young Alice, Greene is not pretending. She’s not imagining anything. She is a giraffe. You can imagines Greene smiling in agreement.

“I am very conscious that I do not want to lie to Alice,” she writes in the essay that concludes the book, “but I am happy to fib. I will offer up every species of joy and jostle and illumination and curious possibility that I know. I will try to connect. And if she needs more than patent absurdity or sheer unlikeliness, more than my wink or my tone or my eyebrows raised just so, if she needs my worldly experience to supplement hers and has to ask, “‘Are you fibbing?’” I am delighted to confirm that I am.”

This is the line that Greene walks in her whimsical way for readers too; delighting in play, but not forgetting the facts of the matter either. Her extraordinarily original first collection of essays, called “A Museum of Whales You Will Never See,” published in 2020 by Penguin Books, was one of the best books of the year according to the Financial Times, Slate, and the Smithsonian magazine, despite — or perhaps because of — its quirkiness. And while teaching (for the University of Texas in Dallas) and curating she continues to win grants and fellowships from prestigious institutions, all while pursuing curiosity and delight in her life.

Renaming bits and pieces of the world for her own purposes is a big part of Greene’s way. It’s almost as if she prefers oddities over the conventional, because they give her a chance to show off her wit. This came up when her

sister’s partner, living near the beach in Venice, brought home a curious bigheaded dog with a muscular body and tiny legs.

“Imagine a claw-foot dog,” writes Greene. “Imagine a dog as if on cinder blocks, her proper legs stolen.” She and her sister and friends would walk the dog along the promenade in Venice, and perfect strangers in the crowd of passers-by would, irritatingly, again and again feel compelled to tell them that it was a “funny-looking dog.”

Greene and company suspected that the dog, named Chloe, was the product of a union between a Shar Pei and a basset hound. One night after a few glasses of wine Greene’s brother declared it a rare breed and gave the breed a name — a “bashei.”

“It changed everything to have a name,”

writes Greene. “The posture of the stranger would improve. The tone of their voice would lift and soften. They might bring one hand to their chest in a modest gesture of surprise. “Oh,” the stranger would say. “I’ve never seen a bashei.”

“My brother would then magnanimously offer the stranger an excuse, a fig leaf to cover their ignorance,” she writes. “They’re better known on the Continent.’” For Greene, there’s an “alchemy” to finding the right word for a phenomenon, be it as humble as an unusual dog, or as unsettling as a mysterious presence inhabiting her childhood room.

“It’s one of the fundamental ways of knowing, of making sense,” she said in a telephone interview. “And I think it’s directly related to how much we adore taxonomy, that reaching for a system, for there to be order, for the possibility that things really do make sense.”

Taxonomy probably appeals more to Greene, who has worked behind the scenes in museums and collections and galleries, than to most Ojaians, but making sense of the world by naming it anew works in all sorts of contexts with all sorts of people and even creatures, she finds.

While visiting her childhood home in Ojai, Greene on visits became aware of a presence lurking in her room, a rank smell, and occasional sounds of scraping in the space above the ceiling. It bothered her, until impulsively in conversation she gave the presence a name — Mortimer.

The name seemed to help quell her fears, although they never completely went away.

“There was a certain scrim of terror to it all,” she writes. “I could not determine the structural stability overhead, the tensile strength of a substance possibly gnawed away. And so I lived with the possibility that Mortimer might breach, bust in, crash through the ceiling and into my life, wildness itself, all shock and claws and thrashing fury.”

And yet when her parents set a trap for Mortimer — a raccoon trap — Greene had feelings.

“I have named the unknown Mortimer,” she writes. “And suddenly I feel tenderly about it.”

Greene expanded on the point in an interview. “Having given it a name, it became approachable,” Greene said. “I didn’t have to be afraid of it, and that made just enough room to pay more attention. And my goodness, the more I paid attention, the more it revealed itself.”

After Greene left, she heard from her mother that they had found Mortimer’s egress from the house, and called an exterminator.

“I thought, you don’t understand my relationship with Mortimer at all,” Greene said, looking back at the moment wryly.

“We can’t exterminate Mortimer. Mortimer will continue to live in our hearts.”

This looks to be central to Greene’s method — using imagination to transform a subject, or even a problem — such that you can look closer, see more. Seeing more doesn’t always bring satisfaction, she knows, a fact she ruminates on without final conclusion

in an essay on how the hazy images drawn from mammograms, to a writer and artist such as herself, resemble something else entirely.

“...in the sonogram, my breast looks like the moon,” Greene writes. “It is luminous. A perfect circle. Full and gray and pocked with a complicated landscape of rings and loops, as if my body were celestial and there had never

been an atmosphere to blunt its history of meteor impacts, recorded in overlay, like a palimpsest.”

At the same time, she knows that to her doctor the image of her breast is not poetic, not a metaphor, not pretty. The doctor calls it “a sack of gravel,” and shows Greene how to examine herself, and instructs her to call if any of the lumps in the breast show signs of change.

Greene can’t help but notice that to the doctor, the sonogram had no trace

of femininity, of beauty, or even of life itself. Yet she likes the doctor and respects her factuality, well aware that overlooking the facts of the matter could be fatal. It’s an ambiguity she will have to live with.

Similarly, as much as Greene adores the transformational flight of imagination, she still begins with the world as it is. She has an MFA from the prestigious writer’s program at the University of Iowa, but it’s in non-fiction, not fiction, and for a good reason.

She recalls a question from a personality assessment given in ninth-grade at Nordhoff High School, in which the students were asked if a story is better if it’s true. Greene knew instantly her answer.

“It was so clear to me that yes, all things being equal, if you could have all the deliciousness of a good story and know something more about the world, then that’s all you could want [from a piece of writing],” she said.

It’s this transformational process of “knowing something more” that entrances her.

“Imagination is one of the facts of the world,” she points out. “It’s not a departure, or a negation, or an alternative reality is part of the fabric. It is part of the construction of meaning. It is one of the things that exists.”

In her first book, about Iceland’s hundreds of tiny museums, she found that much of their reality could not be found in any sort of record, but in the stories told about each museum among the people who launched it and

supported it.

“What mattered more than whether or not a story was true was the fact that it was a story that was told about it, that this was the way we decided to shape the narrative,” she said. “These were the things that were worth remembering and passing along. This sets up this increasingly expansive anthropology, of what exists and how we understand it.” Greene loves telling personal stories, and revels in her own transformation into a wildly exotic creature. In the longest essay in the book, “Until It Pops,” she writes about her chance encounter at an Ojai wedding with a legendary balloon artist named Laura.

Laura strolls over as the wedding party is beginning to break up and asks: “May I take a picture of your dress? Because I’d like to make it out of balloons.”

A more flattering offer Greene could not imagine. A bit later at a balloonartist convention (called “Twist and Shout”) that they attended in Chicago, Laura — who turns out to be a celebrity “twister” — sets out in an all-day effort to make an inflatable dress for Greene. It’s modeled loosely on the iconic scene in which Marilyn Monroe, in the movie “The Seven-Year Itch,” walked over a subway grate and the dress flew up scandalously high.

After hours of inflating balloons, Greene at last is outfitted in the creation.

“I thought the balloon dress would be clever and charming,” she writes. “I mean, how right to reinterpret an object made an icon entirely because of the way it was animated with air! How funny to freeze a famously fluid dress into a static, squeaky form! But now that I am in the dress and not the abstract, it feels like I have called

forth something I did not know would be bidden, channeled a force too great for one person to wield.”

She recalls that thousands of people showed up to watch the filming of the iconic scene. Knowing what would happen in the scene, Monroe made certain to wear two pairs of underwear, so nothing too much would be revealed. (Greene wears opaque tights for the same reason, but still feels uncomfortable.)

For Greene, wearing the dress was like being “a lightning rod.” Men leered at her. A comedian half-heartedly pretended to lift up her dress. It’s a weak joke: no one laughed, least of all Greene. Another man pretended to put a hand on her balloon “breast.”

As much as Greene adores lightness, whimsy, and laughter, she still can’t quite believe what this dress has unleashed. For her, it’s a lesson in the limits of whimsy.

“Whimsy is one of those words that has been coming up a lot since this book began entering the world, and I’ve been really considering my relationship to it,” she said. “I think it’s one of a group of ideas, along with “eccentric” and “weird” and “playful” and “quirky,” words that I totally identify with and cherish, and yet when people use them, I have to suss out whether they mean them with as much reverence and appreciation as I do.”

Greene pauses for a minute, seemingly mulling the thought.

“I don’t go in search of whimsy,” she said. “I think it’s a byproduct of trying to really attend to the world as it is, to be open to it, and its surprises. You gotta take in everything. And part of that is whimsy. I think that openness allows for novelty and invention and discovery. It’s lightness, right?”

On a book tour of 15 cities around the country, Greene stopped in at Bart’s on April 22, and wore a new inflatable dress for the occasion — lightness personified — greatly enjoying the enthralled reaction of the crowd, without the edgy sexuality of the Marilyn Monroe white dress.

“It’s sort of like becoming a bouquet,” she said. “An object of celebration. And I think we all know what to do with that, OK? We know how to join in joy.”

A. KENDRA GREENE

Hours: Monday ~ Friday 10 - 5 Saturday 11 - 3, or by appointment. (805)640-3601 236 w. ojai ave, #203, ojai, ca 93023 frameworksofojai@gmailcom 3 rd FRIDAYS 5–7 pm join

M-Th 11–5 | F 10–8 | Sat-Sun 10–6 238 East Ojai Ave Ojai, CA | 805–646–5682 follow us @ ovaartsgallery.com

“Imagine if we just made the most unapologetic, anthemic music about life possible. Can we do that?” - Thorald Koren

Isaac and Thorald have shared stages with the world’s biggest acts and lived through the turbulence of rock-and-roll’s wildest dreams. They know the power an audience tens of thousands deep can hold. But the music they’ve made in the last year, recorded quietly over just two days in Santa Barbara, wields a different kind of power. With a new band, 21-person choir and hearts wide open, they’ve reclaimed what truly matters: A return to the truth of their voices.

STORY & PHOTOS BY BRENDAN WILLING JAMES

THORALD & ISAAC KOREN OF THE KIN

Back when they were first performing as The Kin, the brothers were all in. At one point in the year 2000 they hitchhiked from Boston to Miami, carrying little more than guitars, rucksacks from Chinatown, and an unwavering belief in fate. Somewhere in Virginia they stopped at a fried chicken joint that was definitely not a KFC (or maybe it was) and flipped open a Australian calligraphy book they’d found to an auspicious page: “Love is letting go of fear.” Floored by the mystery of the universe, they each got it tattooed soon after and the phrase became part of their mission statement.

What Isaac didn’t know at the time was this wasn’t the wild mission to explore America and spread music that he’d been sold. Thorald didn’t reveal until they were already deep into North Carolina that it was also a low-key love quest. He had to go see about a girl in Miami. That girl, Ashley, would later become his wife. “Thank God he married her,” Isaac grinned, “or I’d still be mad about it.”

The

tattoos remain, and so does the belief. Even after the bone-crushing cold of the industry seeped in,

the very idea of LOVE

OVER FEAR remains the steady compass.

The brothers would put the core of that idea into practice when they decided to step away from the dream of The Kin. The brothers opened for Coldplay on their only Australian arena date in 2015. This after touring with Pink and playing 60 U.S. arenas in support of a record that ultimately couldn’t bear the weight of its own promise. Slowly, and then all at once, the path was unclear. Deep in the crescendo, something fundamental had shifted from within.

“We thought we were chasing our dream,”

THORALD KOREN IN STUDIO WITH THE SONGWRITER’S JOURNEY GRADUATES

THORALD AND ISAAC AT SANTA BARBARA SOUND DESIGN

Isaac says, “but we started to realize it wasn’t our dream anymore. It belonged to someone else. To the machine.”

The clarity was slow to come, like a dense fog finally lifting. After finishing an album in 2015 and sitting on it for two years they ultimately decided the right move was to put it out.

“Retiring The Kin was about honoring it,” Thorald explains. “We didn’t want it to fade away in silence. We gave it a sendoff.”

The sendoff coincided with a sea change in their career. It wasn’t a turn away from music, it was a move into something more elemental. Inspired by an internal “aha moment,” they launched The Songwriter’s Journey — a coaching program that helps people excavate their life stories and give voice to them, regardless of musical background.

“It’s not about making great singers,” Isaac says.

“It’s about helping people reclaim their voice as a human birthright.”

Hundreds of people have taken the journey, reconnecting with their own voices in a deeply vulnerable, often life-altering way. It’s the kind of work that has a way of stripping you down and rebuilding you. It changes the way you listen. And in the brothers’ case, it taught them to create differently too.

The new album is called “Long Way Home” and it began with a song of the same name. It wasn’t any grand concept at first, just a sticky melody that kept gently returning like a tide. The title track took a full year to write. “It just kept nudging at us,” Thorald says. “And when we finally played it live, we saw what it did to the room. It landed.” They were soon convinced it was a song that needed an album to hold it.

The rest came in scraps — late nights, kids asleep in the next room, demo sessions snuck between coaching clients and carpools. Eventually, the whole album was recorded over two inspired, all-in days at Santa Barbara Sound Design — a studio with high ceilings, wood beams, and a kind of sacred hush that lingers between takes.

I first met the brothers in 2019, sharing a makeshift stage at a house concert in Ojai. To abuse the phrase a little for the sake of this article — we felt a kinship right off. Afterwards, we talked often about doing more shows together and held onto the idea of one day recording together. Five years later they reached out with an invitation and what unfolded in that room was powerful to witness and an honor to contribute to.

The session had an intensity to it, but not the pressured kind. It was honestly kind of a masterclass in flow. The brothers can sing at a top level for hours on end, day after day, with each take matching the previous in passion and precision. It’s rare to see that feat of endurance paired with that level of soul and precision of direction Recording with them felt like stepping into a wild current that had been running long before I arrived.

In the room, the music came alive with help from a few trusted hands: drummer Syd Sidney gave the grooves their heartbeat. Guitarist Chris Sholar, whose credits range from Beyoncé to D’Angelo, shared his unique sonic wisdom. I contributed bass, vocals, and synth/string arrangements.

But the signature feel of the record came from the choir.

Made up of 21 graduates of The Songwriter’s Journey, they weren’t there to polish or perfect. They were there to practice all they’d learned and to sing out like their very lives depended on it.

“It became a family thing,” Thorald says. “Blood family, chosen family, song family.” Their own mother (also part of the choir) contributed lyrics to multiple tracks, as she often does now. It felt like everything they’d built over the years — every tour, every retreat, every intimate songwriting circle — had finally braided into one clear, cohesive thread.

“We didn’t do this album as a strategy,” Isaac told me. “We did it to reclaim the energy that’s always been there because what’s better than music?

What’s better than bringing voices together?”

The idea for a choir-driven sound came after a classic moment of unexpected inspiration. One day, a Maverick City Music song came on while Thorald was driving. Though he doesn’t typically listen to worship music and doesn’t identify as religious, he felt something undeniable in the song. “I had to pull over,” he recalled. “It was like Peter Gabriel and church and soul — all in one. And it just got me.” What moved him wasn’t just the song itself, but the scene: a diverse group of people singing together unapologetically, not trying to be cool — just being. “Imagine that same passion,” he said, “not for or about God, but just about celebrating life.” That feeling planted the seed for Long Way Home — music as collective uplift, without pretense or division, unapologetically human.

The genre is hard to pin down, and that’s the point. There are echoes of Peter Gabriel’s mysticism, the grandeur of Coldplay, the melodic ache of soul and folk … but mostly, there’s truth.

These songs were never built for business, they were built for resonance.

The title track opens with a meditative piano line that feels like a breath drawn in. It builds patiently until the voices arrive. The choir doesn’t back the song so much as lift it. By the time the final chorus lands, it feels less like a performance and more like a reckoning. The lyric “the journey back to yourself is never a straight line” pulses at the center of the record’s message: real healing is meandering, and music is one way to trace the route.

“One Voice” follows suit. Its epic emotional peak doubles as a wide-open invitation. I wouldn’t describe it as a ballad or a hymn or a chant, but it somehow touches all three. The voices swell into a declaration, an insistence that we are not separate, that harmony isn’t just musical — it’s spiritual.

Together, these tracks form the emotional backbone of the album. They ask for nothing but attention, and in return, they offer connection.

As the album moves toward release, the brothers envision performances not as “shows,” but as experiences. Gatherings built from moments where the line between stage and audience disappears. Acoustic one minute, anthemic the next. Interactive. “We want to create spaces where people don’t just listen,” Isaac says. “They join in.”

They don’t view the return of The Kin as a comeback or anything overtly redemptive. They see it as one more good reason to celebrate community, life — and to sing together.

‘LONG WAY HOME’ FOR / BY BROTHERS KOREN

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Music & all streaming platforms

Visit brotherskoren.com to explore the music & join the journey

Follow @brotherskoren for behindthe-scenes stories & show dates

The Brothers Koren’s new album brings 21 voices together in a powerful celebration of life, love, and finding your way back to yourself.

Produced at Santa Barbara Sound Design, recorded in two unforgettable days

Featuring a 21-person choir of Songwriter's Journey graduates

SONIC FRONTIERS SONIC FRONTIERS

Claire Chase Leads the 79th Ojai Music Festival Into Uncharted, Enchanting Terrain

STORY BY EMILIE HARRIS

Each June, a singular current runs through this quiet valley: the Ojai Music Festival, now in its 79th year, transforms the town into a vibrant creative laboratory. From June 5 to 8, 2025, flutist and visionary Claire Chase will serve as Music Director, guiding four days of premieres, collaborations, and boundary-pushing performance that reimagine the possibilities of sound.

Known internationally for her daring commissions and kinetic stage presence, Chase has curated a lineup that reflects her lifelong commitment to community, experimentation, and sonic innovation.

“Claire Chase is one of the most vibrant generators of ideas in today’s musical life,” said Ara Guzelimian, Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival. “She brings boundless imagination and generosity of spirit. I’m particularly excited by the musical community she’s creating — composers and performers woven throughout in cross-current collaborations.”

The opening concert sets the tone with Bayou-Borne, Annea Lockwood’s sonic homage to Pauline Oliveros. It’s followed by Marcos Balter’s Pan, a dramatic work for solo flute, electronics, and community musicians. Both are part of Chase’s Density 2036 project, a multi-decade initiative to radically expand the flute’s repertoire and reach.

The Festival will feature world premieres by composers Susie Ibarra, Tania León, Terry Riley, and Bahar Royaee, as well as U.S. and West Coast premieres of works by Liza Lim, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Craig Taborn, and others.

“Claire Chase is one of the most vibrant generators of ideas in today’s musical life.

— Ara Guzelimian

MUSIC ROOTED IN PLACE

Venues across the valley — Libbey Bowl, Ojai Playhouse, and the Ojai Meadows Preserve — will host performances that range from immersive sound installations to intimate chamber works. A centerpiece of the weekend is Liza Lim’s “Sex Magic,” featuring Chase on contrabass flute.

Another highlight is the West Coast premiere of “Sky Islands” by Susie Ibarra, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Music, a richly textured work exploring rhythm, climate, and sonic landscapes.

This embrace of the natural world is a

WHAT IS DENSITY 2036?

signature of the Ojai Music Festival.

Events like Lockwood’s Housatonic sound installation and morning meditations led by Chase and inspired by Oliveros and Ibarra invite audiences to experience music as both a personal and communal encounter with place. Nature is not merely a backdrop — it is part of the score.

A FESTIVAL THAT TEACHES

Beyond the performances, the Festival fosters a year-round artistic ecosystem. For more than three decades, its BRAVO education program has offered music workshops and camps for local schoolchildren.

A 24-year project launched by Claire Chase in 2013 to create a new body of flute repertory leading up to the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varese’s seminal 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5.

THE 2022 OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL CONCLUDED WITH A STANDING OVATION FOR THE AMERICAN MODERN OPERA COMPANY (AMOC).

OJAI WILL HOST THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF SUSIE IBARRA’S “SKY ISLANDS,” FOR WHICH SHE WON THIS YEAR’S PULITZER PRIZE FOR MUSIC

Events like its Imagine Concert bring new music into elementary classrooms, nurturing the next generation of artists and audiences.

That commitment extends to young adults through the Arts Management Internship Program, now in its 15th year. Interns receive hands-on training in production, marketing, and operations while gaining behind-the-scenes insight into a major arts organization. The Festival also reaches new listeners through OJAINext, a free membership program for students and young professionals that offers discounted tickets, invitations to special events, and social gatherings throughout the year.

“The more we broaden our Festival community, the stronger we become,” said Managing Director Gina Gutierrez. “Whether it’s students in our internship program or families attending for the first time, we’re always looking to welcome a new generation of curious musical thinkers.”

LEGACY OF INNOVATION

Ojai’s ability to evolve without losing its essence has long been one

“I’m particularly excited by the musical community she (Chase) is creating — composers and performers woven together in cross-current collaborations.”

— Ara Guzelimian, OMF Artistic Director

LIZA LIM’S “SEX MAGIC” WILL BE AMONG THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FESTIVAL THIS YEAR, FEATURING CLAIRE CHASE ON FLUTE.

of its defining traits. Since its founding in 1947 by John Leopold Jergens Bauer and conductor Thor Johnson, the Festival has served as a testing ground for musical innovation.

Once envisioned as a “Salzburg Festival of the West,” it has welcomed giants like Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Pierre Boulez. In recent years, that legacy has been carried forward by artists like Rhiannon Giddens, who brought her own genre-blending brilliance to the role of Music Director in 2023 — the same year she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her opera “Omar.”

This year’s Festival closes with a joyful family concert and a communal performance of Terry Riley’s “Pulsefield,” a participatory sound experience that invites musicians and audience members alike to shape the final sonic landscape.

Under Claire Chase’s daring leadership, the Ojai Music Festival affirms its role not only as a cultural mainstay, but as a portal — welcoming listeners into deeper, stranger, more beautiful ways of hearing the world.

“There’s something magical about listening to music under the stars or blue skies — with the sounds of nature co-mingling.”

— Gina Gutierrez, OMF Managing Director

Tucked between the mountains and the sea, Ojai offers a rare blend of natural beauty, artistic spirit, and small-town charm. Known for its enchanting “pink moment” sunsets, thriving creative community, and focus on wellness and sustainability, Ojai is a sanctuary for those seeking a slower pace without sacrificing culture or connection. From boutique shopping and world-class farmers markets to scenic hiking trails, luxury spas, and awardwinning dining, Ojai invites you to live in harmony with nature while enjoying the finer things in life.

Finding FamigliaFinding Ojai Alow-budgetfilmtradesHollywood andhustleforhometownharmony discoverscinematicgold

STORY BY DEVO CUTLER

“So many life lessons learned here about family and friendship. But some of those were hardearned lessons … being back here brings it all to mind again so clearly,” says Alma, a character in “Finding Famiglia,” a low-budget indie feature filmed entirely in Ojai, masquerading cinematically as Northern Italy.

Certain places can unlock memories — some we cherish, others we try to forget. Ojai has always conjured the former

for me. For more than 25 years, I’ve returned to this town as a creative refuge: performing stand-up at Libbey Bowl to support cancer recovery, screening my short films, leading workshops, and speaking as an insider in the entertainment world. Now, as a resident, I watch a different kind of movie each morning from my porch — light sweeping across Chief’s Peak as friends gather for free coffee and conversation.

That’s how I first heard about “Finding

Famiglia” — a feature being shot in just six days with reasonable hours (compared to the usual 18 to 25 days for similar projects). It promised a mentorship model for emerging directors, local hiring, zero waste, and — almost unheard of in filmmaking — a commitment to zero conflict. I was intrigued.

Most people have heard horror stories from film sets. My own cousin, a retired teacher, once took a gig as a background artist (formerly known as an extras)

and complimented the star’s hairstylist at lunch. The director, overhearing, snapped: “No one asked you. You do not exist.” That kind of toxic ego runs rampant in this industry. But I’ve also seen what’s possible when filmmakers lead with kindness and purpose. Despite its century-long history, the film industry still evolves — and some pioneers are reshaping it into something more human-centered and respectful.

Ojai, with its blend of outsider artists, spiritual seekers, neurodivergent creators, and collaborative thinkers, welcomes that ethos. We host Ojai Day, dance barefoot in the park, paint public mandalas, and rally for causes under the sycamores. This town isn’t just quirky — it’s radically connected.

So, how did this production land in Ojai?

Susan Kelejian, co-founder of OVATE (Ojai Valley Artists Theatrical Ensemble), said the connection felt destined. She spotted a Facebook post from a friend looking for “a location in Southern California to stand in for Italy.” Her response? “Drive up the East End into Upper Ojai, park, and look out over the valley — it resembles Italy.” With vineyards, ranches, and rolling hills, the resemblance is uncanny.

Susan reached out to Mother-Daughter Entertainment (MDE), helmed by director/producer/author and empowerment coach Elizabeth BlakeThomas and her daughter, Isabella Blake-Thomas, an actress and Producers Guild of America member. Their initial meeting revealed a web of connections. Elizabeth had previously attended Susan’s devised theater project “The FuryUs Collaborative Project” with actress Jodie Sweetin, who had been deeply moved by the play’s themes of

DIRECTOR ELIZABETH BLAKE-THOMAS ON SET

trauma and recovery. It became clear: They were kindred spirits.

Knowing that Sweetin had collaborated with MDE on other films reassured Susan. She quickly grasped that this team prioritized communication, emotional safety, and low-conflict collaboration.

Elizabeth’s vision aligned with Susan’s long-held dream of launching OVATE Studios, a homegrown production hub.

Could Ojai provide the ideal “Italian villa” backdrop while supporting a 30-person crew? Susan thought so.

As she scouted locations, she also advocated for local hires. “Too often people come here, take what they want, and leave Ojai worse off. They metaphorically kick the fruit, eat it, and leave the tree bare,” she said. “But if you plant seeds with intention, you can reap new crops — of sage, of wisdom. And that has value.”

One local hire was Joe Puglio, a teacher and author of Italian descent, cast as a background artist. “All I had to do was walk out of a church,” he said. “But my boots rustled the leaves too loudly. One of the lovely producers — Isabella, I think — said kindly, ‘Darling, you’re making too much noise. Let’s get another take.’ I had a ball on set. The mother-daughter team were the opposite of abusive.”

The film, adapted from a novel by executive producer Alice Manica, explores cross-generational friendship, family heritage, and female empowerment. It mirrors the kind of enduring relationships that Elizabeth and Isabella have fostered through their projects — and that Susan tapped into when when helping in assembling the Ojai cast and crew.

“Film succeeds on the back of strong relationships,” Kelijian said. “With trust in place, you can bring others along — and even mentor new voices.” Elizabeth embraced that spirit,

allowing emerging directors to shadow the production.

“It’s always challenging making a film,” Isabella Blake-Thomas said. “People ask what it’s like working with my mum, and I always say, ‘It’s fantastic.’ We have strong communication, and our focus is always collaboration. That sets the tone. When others see how we work, they mirror it, and the whole set becomes a drama-free zone.”

Claire Chubbuck, the production’s acting coach and Second Assistant Director, reinforced that view.

“Elizabeth is shifting the paradigm of onset dynamics,” she said. Chubbuck’s role as conflict-resolution specialist helped actors feel safe and prepared, working with Isabella to keep the schedule on track and the atmosphere calm.

Alice Manica described the story this way: “‘Finding Famiglia’ is a coming-

of-age, female empowerment story about cross-cultural friendship, survival, and rediscovering identity. The friends reconnect in their sixties, but they still feel like those 20-something girls — caring for each other, loving life.”

Ojai’s Mediterranean-like climate and landscape — citrus groves, olive trees, drought-tolerant herbs — matched Northern Italy’s. “There are even palm trees?!” one surprised intern asked. It made the perfect stand-in. MDE is

PHOTO BY MARILYN WILLIAMS

still completing post-production, with fundraising ongoing and locations kept under wraps. But Elizabeth Blake-Thomas beamed as she spoke of her time here. “What better place to film a zero-waste production than a city I came to love?”

Coincidentally, my sister Wendy Cutler was cast as a grandmother. She spent six weeks learning Italian to bring authenticity to the bilingual flow of her role. Her on-screen husband, Marcelo Tubert, (pictured above) said, “This is the sixth or seventh project I’ve done with Elizabeth and Isabella. They’re a dynamic duo — so talented!” Wendy, a veteran improviser and voice actor, added, “It was a miracle they finished in six days. But that’s what preparation and

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: AN OJAI GARDEN TAKES CENTER STAGE (PHOTO BY DEVIN ALPANIAN); ELIZABETH BLAKE-THOMAS (PHOTO BY DEVO CUTLER); THE DIRECTOR CONFERS WITH ACTORS (PHOTO BY SAMUEL DAVIES)

positivity can do.”

Respect and care on a film set foster creativity. “There was a similarity to the way we work …” said Susan, a screenwriterdirector and who’s day job is as a clinical psychotherapist. A single location minimized stress and nurtured connection. Many cast and crew members were housed by Ojai friends, and intimacy flourished.

Elizabeth, her British accent both elegant and grounded, reflected, “Our preparation paid off. The production ran seamlessly. Ojai is the real star.”

Ojai has long played a quiet role in film history. “Two Jakes” was shot here. Even D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”

used Ojai’s backdrop in 1915. Whatever your opinion of that film, its influence on cinematic form is undeniable.

For my own work, I say “Go Ojai!” With Hollywood in flux — sky-high rents, post-pandemic shifts, a stifled studio system — Ojai offers opportunity. As former City Council member William Weirick noted, “Even big-budget films are struggling. L.A. is like a ghost town.” Independent filmmakers, however, are finding new momentum.

Maybe it’s time Ojai considered citysponsored incentives for micro-budget productions. After all, legacy isn’t just what we do — it’s how our actions ripple forward.

‘MY

LAST

KAREN K. LEWIS IN HER STUDIO: PHOTO BY CINDY PITOU BURTON

CENTRAL PARK POODLE

SEVENTY YEARS

IN THE MAKING

rom a wartime internment camp to SoHo galleries and plein air trails in Ojai, Karen K. Lewis paints a life of resilience, imagination, and grace.

“English Garden Mural” is one of Karen Lewis’s favorite paintings. After its debut, the piece was stored at the Ventura Museum, where it remained unseen for 30 years. Now, it’s being brought back into the light — just in time for a Ojai Valley Museum retrospective celebrating her seven-decade career as a visual artist.

TUSCAN POTS

SHADOWS

Karen’s work has spanned nearly all of her 90-plus years, evolving across eras and continents. Her paintings reflect a life shaped by displacement, creativity, and perseverance — including three childhood years imprisoned in a World War II internment camp in the Philippines. Her art endures as a vivid testament to her indefatigable spirit.

She was born in Glendale, California, and in 1937, when she was 4, her family moved to the Philippines after her father, Brian Kerns, accepted a job there. When World War II broke out, Japanese forces detained American citizens and confined them to internment camps. Karen later co-wrote a book, “Interrupted Lives,” about that experience and recently attended the 80th reunion of those liberated from captivity.

“Most of my old friends are dead,” she said with a rueful chuckle, “so there are few of us. But our descendants — our kids — are taking over the organization. This reunion marked a changing of the guard, so to speak, and the descendants are building enthusiasm for the reunions to continue.”

Among those descendants is her daughter, Arden Lewis, an

INNER PEACE

MOTHER AND THE GIACOMETTIS

JUNKYARD DOLLS II

Emmy Award winner for her debut documentary “Leveling Lincoln.” Arden is now at work on her second, “The Last Reunion,” about her mother’s internment and the experience of her maternal grandparents and fellow prisoners.

“In 1945 General MacArthur liberated my mother and thousands of others after years as POWs in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila,” says Arden. “For decades afterward the survivors would gather to remember those years of deprivation and imprisonment, sharing stories of starvation and endurance.”

and spent hours designing wardrobes for them — a fascination that later inspired a series of paintings focused o n dolls’ heads.

Karen first discovered her love for art while behind the barbed wire. With crude supplies and stubby pencils, she began sketching — early efforts that stayed with her long after the war. When the family returned to Los Angeles, 13-year-old Karen was in 8th grade and began taking private piano and art lessons.

“I did not have any musical interest at all,” remembers Karen. “But my art teacher inspired me greatly.”

She enrolled at Chouinard Art Institute while still a student at John Marshall High School. She was infatuated with paper dolls

After high school, Karen attended UCLA and pursued a B.A. in Art Education, plunging into the world of commercial art — producing storyboards and fashion illustrations. During this time, she met Craig Lewis, a fellow student.

Their relationship began as a friendship — Karen with her brushes, Craig with his pen. She recalls how they often drove to Santa Monica Beach in his old convertible, parking under a streetlamp on Pacific Coast Highway while he read aloud to her from “The Life and Times of Archy and Mehitabel,” a whimsical collection of poems featuring a poetic cockroach and an alley cat. After Craig graduated, he headed out on Route 66 and landed in

Washington, D.C., working as a reporter. He and Karen exchanged letters and kept their connection alive across the miles.

As soon as Karen graduated, Craig returned to California. When he asked me to marry him, I think I took a day to decide before saying yes,” Karen remembers. “I don’t know why I took that long!”

They married and settled in Washington, D.C., where Craig launched a career writing for Business Week and other magazines.

Karen painted when she could, though she had less time after Craig arranged a job for her as a file clerk to help with expenses.

Craig’s work flourished. He reported on aerospace during the peak of the space race, then transitioned to public relations with the FAA.

“He wrote the speech for John F. Kennedy,” says Karen, “the one for the opening of Dulles Airport in 1962.”

CAR BABES

Their lives moved with Craig’s career — Washington, Dallas, then back to Washington — along the way raising four children: sons Mark and Kern, and daughters Arden and Robin.

Karen recalled, “Mostly I was a mom, but each time I had a child I rewarded myself with an art course at night.”One such course brought her under the guidance of noted printmaker Joseph Kainan.

“His style evolved from the social realism of the 1930s to more abstract portraits in the ‘50s and later,” remembers Karen. “He encouraged me to find my own style, and I painted portraits to bring in some money.”

She worked from photographs, painting in the kitchen. “The photograph could free me from the restrictions of a model,” she explains. “But my painting background was rooted in expressionism, the snapshots became a point of departure because as the tiny photos grew into small murals, the individual personalities became more apparent and important.” She used photographs in painting family scenes as well.

PINOCCHIOS

GIRL IN ORANGE

In 1964, Craig took a position at Martin Marietta in New York, and the family settled in New Rochelle. Karen taught art at a Catholic girls’ school, covering the basics of illustration and advertising to help students pursue careers in art. She also earned an MFA from Lehman College and joined the Pindar Group — a collective of women artists who carved out space for their work during a time when few galleries showed women’s art.

They leased a gallery in SoHo, directly across from the famous Leo Castelli gallery, and curated shows of their own and other women’s work throughout the 1980s.

How does Karen describe her art? “I’ve always loved the directness of painting from observation, which makes me a figurative painter,” she says, “and the juiciness of paint, and the tactile quality of pushing oily paint around with a brush on a springy canvas.”

Known for her large figurative still lifes and landscapes, she finds inspiration in everyday moments. On one walk with fellow plein air painters, while others focused on trees and vistas, Karen was drawn to a cluster of plastic lawn chairs. That moment sparked a whole series of paintings — one of them depicting black chairs in snow, starkly echoing bare winter trees.

Eventually, she and Craig bought a house in Ojai in 1989 as a home base for visiting their aging parents and, later, for retirement. “The idea was to stay in the house when they came out to visit their mothers, and eventually live there full-time when Dad retired,” says son Mark.

LEWIS FAMILY FROM LEFT: KERN, MARK, CRAIG, KAREN, ARDEN & ROBIN.

PHOTO BY CINDY PITOU BURTON

Before retirement, though, Ogilvy & Mather offered Craig a position running the L.A. office. He accepted, and in Ojai, Karen met artist Nancy Whitman, who inspired her to explore plein air painting.

In late 1993, Ogilvy shuttered its L.A. branch. Craig was asked to return to New York, and the couple rented a furnished apartment on the Upper East Side, with a sitter looking after their Ojai home. While there, Karen discovered “The Garden of Dolls,” a quirky yard filled with old toys and dolls.

Karen envisioned a painting and took photos. “Upon returning a few weeks later for more photos, the garden was gone,” she says. But it lives on in her “Garden of the Dolls” series.

Craig retired a year early, and in 1994, they moved back to Ojai for good. He passed away in 2021. Karen still paints nearly every day in her Art Barn studio.

Her work has been shown in libraries, galleries, museums, and juried exhibitions across the country, including seven shows in SoHo.

Now, she’s preparing a major retrospective: “SEVEN DECADES:

The Art of Karen K. Lewis,” opening June 19 and running through August 3 at the Ojai Valley Museum. The exhibit will feature key pieces from her lifelong portfolio — including English Garden Mural, brought out of storage for this occasion. Karen calls the show her “last hurrah.”

“I have always wanted to be an artist,” she says. And the art world is thankful that she has been granted her wish.

By becoming a monthly donor, you can amplify your impact. For each new monthly donor, a generous donor will contribute $250 toward the match! DONATE TODAY AT

Perhaps it was potter and “the Mama of Dada” Beatrice Wood’s influence, going back nearly 90 years. Maybe it even goes back further, to the Chumash people’s ingenious and astounding artistry with basketry. It’s clear that Ojai has long been a haven for artists. The natural beauty

FIRESTICK GALLERY

Firestick Pottery provides classes, studio/kiln space and a gallery abundant with fine ceramics. 1804 East Ojai Avenue. Open from 10 am to 6 pm every day. Gallery Open to the Public. FirestickPottery.com 805-272-8760

NUTMEG’S OJAI HOUSE

Featuring local artists, including William Prosser and Ted Campos. American-made gifts and cards, crystals, and metaphysical goods. 304 North Montgomery nutmegsojaihouse.com 805-640-1656

OVA ARTS

40+ local artists with unique contemporary fine arts, jewelry and crafts. 238 East Ojai Ave 805-646-5682 Mon 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tues-Thurs, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fri 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sat-Sun 10 a.m. Third Fridays - 5-7 p.m. with Live Music, Wine & Community OVAArtsgallery.com

JOYCE HUNTINGTON

Intuitive, visionary artist, inspired by her dreams and meditations. It is “all about the Light.” Her work may be seen at Frameworks of Ojai, 236 West Ojai Ave, where she has her studio. 805-6403601

JoyceHuntingtonArt.com

OQ | ARTists & GALLERIES

framed so well by the long arc and lush light of an east-west valley lends itself to artistic pursuits, as does the leisurely pace of life, the sturdy social fabric of a vibrant community and the abundant affection and respect for artists and their acts of creation. Come check it out for yourselves.

CANVAS & PAPER

paintings & drawings 20th century & earlier

Thursday – Sunday noon – 5 p.m.

311 North Montgomery Street canvasandpaper.org

KAREN K. LEWIS

Paintings, prints & drawings. 515 Foothill Road, Ojai. Viewings by appointment. 805-646-8877

KarenKLewisArt.com

POPPIES ART & GIFTS

You haven’t seen Ojai until you visit us!

Local art of all types, unusual gifts, Ojai goods! Open daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 323 Matilija Street

DAN SCHULTZ FINE ART

Plein air landscapes, figures and portraits in oil by nationally-acclaimed artist Dan Schultz.  106 North Signal Street | 805-317-9634

DanSchultzFineArt.com

CINDY PITOU BURTON

Photojournalist and editorial photographer, specializing in portraits, western landscapes and travel. 805-646-6263 798-1026 cell OjaiStudioArtists.org

MARC WHITMAN

Original Landscape, Figure & Portrait Paintings in Oil. Ojai Design Center Gallery. 111 W Topa Topa Street. marc@whitman-architect. com. Open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

LISA SKYHEART MARSHALL

is a local artist inspired by the natural world around Ojai and beyond. Open Studio event in October. For more info: OjaiStudioArtists.org or SkyheartArt.com Instagram: @skyheartart

TOM HARDCASTLE

Rich oils and lush pastel paintings from a nationally awarded local artist. 805-895-9642

Nestled in Stewart Canyon between North Signal Street and Foothill Road, this hidden 8.3 acre wonderland is an ideal canvas for your dream project. With breathtaking views of the valley, downtown, and mountains to the south, it offers multiple sites for a main residence, guest house, studio, pool, pool house, barn and stables. Enjoy privacy, the Pink Moment and easy access to Shelf Road and Pratt Trail. The property boasts mature oaks, native shrubs, a stream, and vibrant spring flowers. Offered at $1,225,000

SERENE EAST END RETREAT

Old-world charm and modern luxury on a lush, sprawling .82 acre lot. The completely updated 3br/2ba main residence has a clean, airy aesthetic with wood floors and stylish finishes. The modern kitchen flows into a spacious living room with vaulted ceilings and a fireplace. The primary bedroom has high ceilings, clerestory windows, and a renovated bath. A converted garage serves as an entertainment room or office. The grounds include a brick patio with a stone fireplace and a lap pool with a deck. The 2br guest house is a 1934 log cabin, rustic outside, fresh inside with new windows, a fireplace, and a full kitchen. Offered at $3,175,000

By Ilona Saari

Randy Graham

STORY BY ILONA SAARI

illions of kids growing up across the country “back in the day” spent many a Saturday in local movie theaters. They’d meet friends as soon as the theater would open in the morning, then rush in and hit the concession counter for popcorn, bon bons, Dots, Jujubes, red licorice or other candy delights.

They settled in their seats and spent hours watching cartoons, followed by old-timey serials like “Flash Gordon” or “Abbott & Costello,” followed by the first of a “double feature” – a ”B” movie (low budget) which was often a western starring Randolph Scott, then a first run “A” movie with big box office stars, such as Natalie Wood, John Wayne and Debbie Reynolds. Or perhaps a popular Rock Hudson and Doris Day romantic comedy.

America was entranced in a Hollywood movie culture ... adults and kids alike. Its glamorous stars became America’s royalty.

Decades passed and many towns had to close their local, stand-alone movie theaters as cinema complexes (Cineplexes) in shopping malls sprang up and multiplied like Roger Rabbits across the country.

Our total movie experience evolved.

Each theater in a Cineplex showed a different movie and we could no longer sit in that darkened room all day watching cartoons, newsreels, adventure serials or “B” movies, as theaters emptied after each showing and a new audience streamed in.

Concession fare also changed as theaters began offering hot dogs, nachos, microwave pizza, along with the earlier popular concession candy selections and popcorn. Of course, nothing was healthful, never mind gourmet. Some mall Cineplexes include

ICED STRAWBERRYBLUEBERRY MATCHA LATTE

OJAI PLAYHOUSE

LAVENDER

LEMONADE SLUSHIE

arcade games, fast food restaurants, even bars, where patrons can enjoy lunch, dinner, sip a glass of wine or cocktail before or after seeing a movie. The town/village local movie experience had disappeared.

Going to a movie was now part of the mall culture, not the movie culture, as malls and Cineplexes became replicas of each other as so wonderfully satirized in a movie, of course: George Romero’s 1978 horror movie, “Dawn of The Dead.”

Enter David Berger and one of America’s last stand-alone movie theaters — California’s historic Ojai Playhouse — now reopened after floods, fire (in the building’s attached restaurant) and remodeling.

David, along with Jasmine Jacobson, the theater’s operations manager, have brought back the neighborhood movie experience for all of us to enjoy, and together have reinvented concession fare.

They haven’t forgotten movie-goers favorite box candies, but have added some different choices such as Japanese rice candy. Also on the theater movie menu are other more healthful, even gourmet choices, starting with organic popcorn.

Yes - organic popcorn! Popped in coconut oil, this delicious Playhouse popcorn has a natural buttery flavor with a hint of salt. None of that

phony movie theater butter which mixes butter “flavors” and salt in oil and often adds silicone to make the “butter” richer.

If you love cheese (I’m a confessed cheese-aholic) the menu tempts with Brooklyn’s authentic coal-fired Table 87 pizza, flash-frozen to keep its freshness and heated in the theater’s oven.

And, one of America’s favorite sandwiches is “in the house”: grilled cheese on Japanese milk bread (a vegan cheese version is also available).

If hot dogs are your jam, bite into an all-beef Hebrew National, smother it with miso mustard and kimchi (a spicy Asian sauerkraut) or fresh dill pickle relish — a delicious, albeit more healthful version of New York City’s famous Sabrett hotdogs.

If you’re a vegetarian or a vegan, you’re also invited into the doghouse with a completely vegan option.

Speaking of New York City, as an ex-NYer one of my favorite Manhattan “street snacks” was a soft pretzel with a schmear of mustard to go. Welcome to the Playhouse concession and its selection of soft pretzels straight from an LA bakery each day... there’s a mustard salt pretzel, a pretzel stuffed with cheddar cheese and, for a breakfast or dessert pretzel, try the one with cream cheese and cinnamon.

One of my favorite appetizer or dessert choices is a charcuterie board filled with a selection of cheeses and meats, nuts and fruit.

CONCESSION SNACKUTERIE

THE CONCESSION BAR & LOUNGE

Yes, the Playhouse offers its version of that favorite: “snackuterie” in a box ... cheese, salami, Marcona almonds, dried nectarines and rosemary crackers.

Looking for something cold and creamy? Check out the theater’s frozen ice cream treats.

which comes out like a custard or milkshake, then topped with whipped cream and a Luxardo cherry. Also, on the slushie menu is a frozen lavender lemonade slushie made with organic citrus, lavender syrup and butterfly pea flower to make it purple. Or enjoy a strawberry or blueberry iced (or hot — you decide) matcha latte, or a cold-coffee brew “s’mores on tap” (with added chocolate syrup, vegan marshmallows, Graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream) ... the choices are many.

Other non-alcoholic drinks are Martinelli’s apple juice, along with craft bottle soda and colas with natural cane sugar... no corn syrup allowed. And if you’re a chocolate lover, there’s an organic hot cocoa, with vegan marshmallows to satisfy your chocoholic craving.

If you’re 21 or over and want a slushie with a kick, cocktail slushies are in the offing. Try an Espressotini or a Banana Colada, perhaps a spicy Mescal Margarita, or Mai Tai... maybe a White Russian.

Yes, cocktail choices are also limitless as The Playhouse has a full bar, with a bartender who can serve up specialty cocktails, such as Poprockarita made with jalapeño tequila, mescal and Pop Rock Candy Rim, as well as traditional cocktails such as gin & tonic, old-fashioneds (with citrus Amaro), martinis or whiskey, neat or on the rocks. Speaking of rocks, The Playhouse has cocktail ice cubes, along with its slushie ice.

Of course, you’ll want something to drink, and the Playhouse’s organic fruit slushies are a culinary taste treat. Made with real whole fruit purees, they are low in sugar and have no additives, chemicals or dyes. “Just nature’s colors and flavors!” Jasmine explains. The flavors are often changed for variety and include: strawberry, pixie, and banana cream (banana puree and coconut cream)

If you’re a beer or wine lover, do not fear, there’s something for you here. Beers include a few draft choices, including Peroni and BrewLab dark lager, and craft beer such as Donna’s Pickle Beer, BrewLab Pilsner and Guinness.

For wine lovers: everything from Lorenza Rosé to Far Out Chardonnay to Field Recording Pinot Noir and Fractured Syrah. Want to taste them all? Flights are available for both beers and wines.

Proud of his Playhouse Theater, David also makes a concession to non-movie goers as well as those enjoying the latest marquee title. The doors are open to those who want to stop in and enjoy a cocktail or share a Table 87 pizza with a friend.

The theater is totally sound proof so the movie watchers won’t hear what’s going on in the lobby bar and those in the lobby won’t hear the movie. So, if the theater is open, so is the lobby bar and “lounge.” Come on in and enjoy a spectacular movie house experience, with a one-of-a-kind concession lounge. In both aspects, Berger has raised the bar, so belly up and chow down!

Bon appetit!

SOFT PRETZEL - FRESH BAKED

A COCKTAIL & BEER ON TAP

WHITE RUSSIAN

ESCAPE IN A MOMENT

Deeply rooted in the region’s fresh, flavorful bounty, Ojai Valley Inn’s masterful chefs and seven original dining outlets have earned our beloved resort a stellar reputation for culinary excellence. From signature Italian-California fine dining at Olivella to our one-of-a-kind epicurean experience, The Farmhouse, we invite you to escape in a moment you’ll savor always.

CHEF RANDY | LIFE OF SPICE

fresh summer quinoa salad

What better time than summertime for a fresh salad made with quinoa, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumber? Serve with a loaf of fresh-baked bread for lunch or bring to the table at dinnertime as a side salad. Either way this savory-sweet salad is certain to be a hit with family and friends.

DRESSING INGREDIENTS:

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons maple syrup

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon salt

SALAD INGREDIENTS:

1 cup quinoa (rinsed and drained)

½ teaspoon Better Than Bouillon (vegetable base)

Fresh corn kernels (cut from 2 ears of corn)

1½ cups sun-gold tomatoes (cut in half)

¾ cup red cabbage (chopped fine)

1 cup cucumber (peeled and diced)

Randy Graham is a writer, author, and private chef. He enjoys cooking for friends and family using ingredients from backyard vegetable and herb gardens. His food is often called “vegetarian comfort food.” He and his wife, Robin, live in Ojai, California, with their dog, Willow. Robin and Willow are not vegetarians.

DIRECTIONS:

Mix all dressing ingredients in a blender until smooth. Set aside.

Bring quinoa, bouillon, and 1½ cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 12 to 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed. Set aside, uncovered.

Bring 2 cups water to a boil in separate saucepan. Add corn, and cook for one minute. Drain and rinse under cold water. Drain again and set aside.

Stir corn, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumber, and quinoa together in a large mixing bowl. Pour dressing over salad and gently mix until combined. Serve chilled.

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OQ | yesterday & tomorrow

92 battle for Ojai’s soul

100

Grant Ranch & Ojai’s Own ‘Succession’ Drama

By Mark Lewis

109 calendar of events

Ojai’s Venues Heat Up with Festivals, Concerts, Parades & Fireworks

100 ghost herd returns

Once Thought Vanished, Sespe Bighorn Sheep Flourishing By Chuck Graham

110

nocturnal submissions

Reign Check for Elizabethan Wokeness By Sami Zahringer

The Rebirth of HOTEL

Ojai’s historic inn is being reimagined — with reverence for its past and vision for its future.

By Bret Bradigan

For more than a century, the El Roblar Hotel has stood at the heart of downtown Ojai — a gracious monument to the town’s quiet elegance and layered history. First opened in 1920 and later transformed into The Oaks at Ojai, the property served for decades as a beloved wellness retreat until the Thomas Fire in 2017 brought its long run to a close. But the story was far from over.

“It’s been a long process,” says Eric Goode, the artist, filmmaker, conservationist, and co-owner of the revived El Roblar Hotel. “We bought it right after the fire, in 2018, and thought we’d be open by now. But restoring something with history — it takes time, and it should.”

Goode is best known for creating renowned boutique hotels like New York’s Bowery Hotel, and for his work in documentary film, including “Tiger King” and “Chimp Crazy.” But his connection to Ojai runs deeper than brand or business. Son of a Thacher School teacher, he’s owned a home here since 1989, drawn by childhood memories of the Sespe Wilderness and Ojai’s natural and cultural harmony.

“I just see it as a very special place,” he says. “Ojai is still Ojai. That’s rare.”

A Century in the Making

The story of El Roblar began more than a hundred years ago with another visionary: Edward Drummond Libbey, the glass magnate whose philanthropy helped shape the very identity of Ojai. Libbey recognized that the newly renamed town needed a year-round hotel — unlike the seasonal Foothills Hotel —a nd personally donated $10,000 to kick-start the effort. Two prominent Ojai citizens, Judge Boyd Gabbert and J.J. Burke of the Ojai Realty Co., led the charge to raise an additional $30,000 through stock sales.

To ensure aesthetic harmony with the town’s evolving Spanish Colonial look, Libbey hired architect Richard Requa — already known for designing the Arcade next door — to draw the hotel plans. Construction began in the summer of 1919, led by Pasadena contractor Robert Winfield, and finished less than a year later. One final decision remained: the name.

“After much discussion and suggestions as to what name to call the hotel,” wrote historian David Mason, “a name was decided upon: the Hotel El Roblar.” While some locals lobbied for “Libbey’s Tavern,” the philanthropist firmly opposed it.

Living Landmark

Now, more than a century later, the El Roblar is once again in transformation — this time under the stewardship of Goode and a talented team of designers, builders, and hoteliers, including partners Ramin Shamshiri, a designer, and Warner Ebbink, a restaurateur, who are both acclaimed in their respective fields. Jeremy McBride is the project’s managing director.

From the beginning, the team approached the project as a collaborative creative endeavor. “This has been a true partnership,” says Shamshiri. “Eric, Warner, and I each had a strong hand in shaping different aspects of the design. It’s been a broad and dynamic process.”

When completed, the reimagined hotel will feature 50 guest rooms, a pool, a public-facing restaurant, and flexible space for local events. But perhaps more than what it offers, it’s how it offers it that matters most.

Much of the architectural inspiration stemmed from a deep dive into the building’s past. “Early on, we researched and found the original drawings,” Shamshiri says. “That was our kickoff point.

ERIC GOODE

ORIGINAL ELEVATION DRAWINGS OF THE EL ROBLAR HOTEL, 1920

We loved the lobby paneling, the fireplace, the arch — we wanted to restore those key elements to their original glory.” Two trellises were added at the entrance and the Condor Bar to break up the facade, while the colonnade of arches supporting the front balcony was rebuilt to meet both modern and historical standards — no easy feat. The balcony was built larger to offer more shade and larger patios for guests. It passed muster with the Ojai Historic Preservation Committee after some initial reluctance.

“We wanted it to feel warm, inviting — like it’s been here for a hundred years,” Shamshiri adds. “That was always the goal.”

“We want to revive this history and offer it to guests in a new way,” says McBride. “This hotel has been here 105 years. We’re just the next stewards. Maintaining what it was — while creating something new — is challenging. But it’s what makes it meaningful.”

The team has gone to great lengths to preserve the building’s architectural heritage, including dusting off those original drawings to recreate the stone fireplace in the lobby and using salvaged materials like the restored archway at the hotel’s entrance. “Every square inch has been rebuilt with care,” McBride says. “We hope people see that. We’re still in it. There’s fatigue, but also pride.”

That mix of history and vision extends to the new panoramic mural anchoring the hotel’s public space. “It celebrates the heroes of Ojai,” McBride says. “It tells the story of why we’re all here. The backcountry, the richness of this valley — it’s all embedded in the place.”

Shamshiri called the mural “an ode to the history of Ojai ... (but) fun and camp, with Beatrice Wood, Krishnamurti, Edward Libbey, as well as (former Oaks at Ojai Spa owner and fitness celebrity) Sheila Cluff.”

A Community Centerpiece

While the El Roblar will welcome visitors from around the

EDWARD DRUMMOND LIBBEY

JEREMY MCBRIDE AND RAMIN SHAMSHIRI

ARTIST RENDERING OF THE 50-ROOM EL ROBLAR HOTEL, 2025

world, its soul remains firmly rooted in the local community.

“This is a town-centered hotel,” McBride says. “It’s exciting to see Libbey Park, the Playhouse Theater, the restaurants — all co-existing with the hotel at the center. There’s a reverberation of life here. We want to be a place where the town comes together to do its work — events, fundraisers, meetings.”

The project has already begun building bridges with the community, hiring local high school and college students. “Kids from Thacher, Nordhoff — faculty kids, even — will have safe, meaningful jobs here this summer,” McBride says. “We’re going to have 50 to 75 full-time employees at peak. It becomes a kind of mini-economy. And we want the staff culture to reflect the town. That’s everything.”

Inside the boutique, visitors will find only locally curated goods. And the restaurant — The Condor Bar — is both a tribute and a statement. Named for the once-nearlyextinct California condor, the space honors conservation success and symbolic rebirth.

“The condor nearly vanished,” Goode says. From barely two dozen condors in the 1980s, there are now at least 500 with their territories expanding. “Now you can see them soaring again over the Carrizo Plain and Sespe. That kind of resilience — that’s what this place is about.”

condor bar takes flight Ebbink adds. “The condor was perfect — it’s a powerful image of resilience and rebirth ... It’s also part of the bigger picture that we wanted this to be part of Ojai, where you can feel the history.”

The name sparked a creative thread. Once they had it, everything flowed, Ebbink says. “We imagined the menu design, the motif — images of condors, subtle decorative nods, a visual story grounded in place.” But the concept goes beyond aesthetics. “It’s about grounding the guest experience in this landscape — Ojai’s richness, its backcountry, its history.”

The food, too, will reflect that thoughtful connection. “It’s going to be modern Mexican cuisine — with masa made by hand and a standout cocktail program,” Ebbink adds. “We’re excited about our frozen Cadohijillo,” which is an Ojai take on the classic carajillo using Licor 43 and espresso.

Sustainability With Intention

Goode, McBride, Shamshiri and Ebbink are also focused on creating a sustainable guest experience. “Everything has intention,” McBride says.

That includes composting and water-saving systems, reduced waste practices, and guest participation in re-use and resource conservation. “We don’t want to greenwash. We just want to

do the right thing,” he says.

For Goode, the goal is a thoughtful balance between accessibility and protection. “Tourism, done well, can be a gentle footprint,” he says. “People come, appreciate the beauty, support the local economy, and leave it better.”

Shamshiri agrees: “This hotel is part of the downtown landscape. Restoring it adds a piece of continuity back to the town.”

A Personal Commitment

McBride, a seasoned hospitality professional with global experience, didn’t expect to fall for a small town hotel. “Eric brought me here,” he says. “And I fell in love with it in a way I didn’t anticipate.”

What changed? “The density of a town like Ojai — you feel everything,” he explains. “You influence the project, but it also influences you. This isn’t a leisure brand

where you’re just one of a hundred. Here, the question is: Why stay with you and not someone else? What do you stand for?”

McBride sees this not just as a job, but as a legacy project. “We have a responsibility to bring back a historical jewel that people remember with real affection. It just so happens we’re next in line to give our take on it. How cool would it be if this becomes an asset our kids inherit — something meaningful for them, too?”

Looking Forward

Goode shares that vision. Though El Roblar will not be a direct continuation of The Oaks and its wellness-focused retreats, the legacy of care and connection remains. He praises former owner Kathy Cluff, who has served as a consultant on spa programming. “We’re not trying to replicate The Oaks, but we are trying to honor it,” he says.

Instead of regimented health routines, the new spa will offer restoration — spiritual, physical, and communal. “We want guests to feel present,” Goode says. “To reconnect.”

Ebbink agrees: “We park your car, and we hand you a bike and a map,” says Ebbink. “We want you to get out and explore. Hike the trails, find a watering hole, engage with the town.”

Projected to open June 12, the hotel will stand across from the Ojai Playhouse, which reopened last year after a burst water main flooded it in 2014, with hopes of mutual revival. “Dinner at the Condor, a movie next door — that’s the vision,” Goode said. And beyond dinner and design, both Goode and McBride want El Roblar to feel, again, like a part of Ojai’s fabric.

“If we do it right,” Goode says, “it’ll feel like it was always here.”

by

Photo

Andraz Lazic

Care Convenience

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An important part of providing exceptional healthcare is making sure it’s easy to access and use. That’s why we rolled out MyChart, a seamless, secure patient portal where you can schedule appointments, message your provider, view test results, and pay bills. Our 2 hospitals, 25+ Health Centers, 3 Outpatient labs, and Pharmacy are all connected to MyChart for enhanced security and care. Find out more about the benefits of MyChart, and how to sign up, today.

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DR. NANCY DOREO

is a naturopathic doctor and chiropractor specializing in Applied Kinesiology. Modalities include: IV therapy, Homeopathy, Flower Essences, CranialFacial Release, Gentle Manipulation, Acupuncture Meridians, Massage Therapy. DrDoreo.com 805-777-7184

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SECURE BEGINNINGS

Pre-birth to 3; pre/post-natal wellbeing; infant/toddler development; parent education/support. SecureBeginnings.org info@securebeginnings.org 805-646-7559

OQ | HEALING ARTS

LESLIE BOUCHÉ, C.HT.

Cert. Hypnotherapist

Find your calm center. Release negative thinking, emotional reactivity, anxiety, fear and unhelpful behaviors. Improve sleep and comfort. Safe, loving, rapid change. It’s time to feel better! leslie@lesliebouche.com LeslieBouche.com | 805-796-1616

LAURIE EDGCOMB

Lic. Acupuncturist since 1986, voted best in Ojai! Natural medicine including Microcurrent, nutritional and herbal consultation, Facial Rejuvenation. LaurieEdgcomb.com 805-798-4148

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JTumamait@hotmail.com 805-701-6152

1 SHELF ROAD 3.5mi

EASY | Elev. Gain: 200 ft | Overlooks downtown Ojai.

2

RIVER PRESERVE 0-7mi

VARIES | Elev. Gain: ≤ 520 ft Wills-Rice Loop is the longest trail.

5

HORN CANYON 5.5mi

STRENUOUS | Elev. Gain: 1600 ft | Goes to the Pines.

8

ROSE VALLEY 1mi

EASY | Elev. Gain: 100 ft Rose Valley Falls.

3

PRATT TRAIL 8.8mi

STRENUOUS | Elev. Gain: 3300 ft | Goes to Nordhoff Peak.

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MODERATE | Elev. Gain: 740 ft | Cozy Dell Creek & Ridge.

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SISAR CANYON 22mi

STRENUOUS | Elev. Gain: 4800 ft |Topa Topa Bluffs.

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GRIDLEY TRAIL 6-12mi

MODERATE | 3 mi to Gridley Springs (Elev. Gain: 1200 ft) 6 mi to Nordhoff Peak.

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MATILIJA CANYON 12mi

MODERATE | Elev. Gain: 1200ft | North Fork.

10

SULPHUR MTN. 22mi

MODERATE | Elev. Gain: 2300 ft | Sulphur Mountain Road.

Start writing your Ojai story with us.

We are a little team with a lot of love for houses and the people they hold. We know Ojai and the mountains that surround it. We know the secret pockets and lanes that make it magical — just like we know all of the corners of Los Angeles and its unique architecture, design and possibility. We understand the market and sales and the delicate nature of navigating the process of buying and selling a home. We’ve got this. Each house is a story. We want to know yours.

Elisa Crispi Tracey Becker

Michelle Berryhill

Andrew Stiles Heidi Sowards

NEW WORKS FESTIVAL

JULY 31 - AU 3 ojaiplays.o g OPC ’ S 2025 New Works Festival will include presentations of f resh new plays and unique events desi ned to foster connections between the playwri hts of today, the artists of to orrow, and YOU. learn more and at

With more than 250 hours of conversation, Ojai's podcast, Talk of the Town, has barely scratched the surface of what makes this village, perched on the eastern edge of the Pacific Rim, so rich, diverse and fascinating. Listen in on conversations with legends like Malcolm McDowell and Sergio Aragonés to the people who make Ojai what it is such as Chumash elder Julie Tumamait-Stenslie and assorted newsmakers, writers, filmmakers, fishermen, musicians, rogues & scoundrels.

Available wherever you get your podcasts

improving gardens through water catchment systems,

compost teas & extracts and mulching

MEINERS OAKS

KROTONA INSTITUTE

GRANT RANCH IN 1935 (AT RIGHT, K.P. GRANT)

ARBOLADA

NORDHOFF CEMETERY

OJAI VALLEY INN

The Grant Ranch Legacy & the BATTLE FOR OJAI’S SOUL

OJAI RANCHER K.P. GRANT DIED A CENTURY AGO, BUT THE FATE OF HIS PROPERTY IS AN ONGOING SAGA WITH THE FINALE YET TO BE WRITTEN - AND WITH THE PRESERVATION OF OJAI’S QUIRKY SMALL - TOWN CHARACTER POSSIBLY RIDING ON THE OUTCOME.

BY MARK LEWIS

LAST YEAR for the Fall issue, the Ojai Quarterly ran a piece we called “West Side Story,” about the epochal events of 1924, when three big West Side ranches separately were developed into Villanova Prep, the Krotona Institute of Theosophy and the brand-new town of Meiners Oaks. This issue, we present a sequel of sorts to “West Side Story.” It concerns a fourth big West Side ranch that changed hands in 1924 – the K.P. Grant Ranch.

The Grant Ranch did not, at first, end up in the hands of developers, which is why we left it out of “West Side Story.” But over time, chunks of it were sold off and turned into the Y shopping center, the Caltrans yard, the hospital and nearby medical offices, the Ojai Terrace and Taormina neighborhoods, the Hitching Post and Creekside condo developments, Nordhoff Junior and Senior High School, a big part of the Ojai Meadows Preserve, and the stretch of Highway 33 that runs from the Y to the Deer Lodge.

After all these years, just one chunk of the old Grant ranch remains unsold. You likely know it well: The 14 vacant acres of weeds and wildflowers that sit across the 33 from the high school and the Meadows Preserve. The address is 1450 Maricopa Hwy. A developer from Beverly Hills agreed

to buy it two years ago with a view to putting up a huge apartment building complex there. But the deal fell through before escrow closed.

Why does that one chunk of the ranch remain unsold, after all these years? It all goes back to 1924, when K.P. Grant died. His ranch passed to a large group of heirs, one of whom married a developer named Edwin Carty. In the 1950s and ‘60s, Carty sought to consolidate as many Grant Ranch parcels as he could and turn that stretch of Maricopa Highway into a retail and residential district. His own mother-in-law sued him for fraud, but she lost.

Carty encountered more effective resistance from local folks such as City Councilman James Loebl, who feared that Carty’s plans “would ruin Ojai as we know it.” An epic political battle ensued, followed by an epic legal battle, as everybody fought over the legacy of K.P. Grant. The saga reminds local historian Craig Walker of HBO’s recent hit series about a patriarch and his three children, who fought one another for control of his media empire.

“The story of the Grant Ranch is Ojai’s own version of ‘Succession,’” Walker says.

BORN IN CANADA in 1842, Kenneth P. Grant arrived in Ventura around 1870 and set out to make good. He flourished as a blacksmith, an undertaker and a carriage maker, and later gave the city the acreage that now comprises Grant Park. He moved to the Ojai Valley in 1891 and established the 342-acre Grant Ranch, where he raised plums for prunes, grain, apricots and other crops. His ranch was bounded on the east by Del Norte Road and what is now the Ojai Valley Inn; on the north by Cuyama Road (then called Meiners Road); on the south by what is now Krotona; and on the west by the big Meiners ranch, now Meiners Oaks.

“His ranch house — Grantwood — was located on the southwest corner of Del Norte and Cuyama, across from the cemetery,” Walker says.

Grant served a term as county supervisor for the Ojai district. He also served on the committee that brought the railroad to the valley in 1898, and he donated the land that became the line’s Matilija Station. (It’s now the site of Rotary Park.) He helped E.P. Foster acquire Camp Comfort in 1904 and arrange for it to become the county’s first public park. He was, in short, a man who gave generously to the community. And not just his time and money, but his land. Finding that his ranch was bigger than it needed to be, he began selling off pieces of it at $100 per acre, even though he said it was worth $200 per acre.

“It is a shame,” he said, “for men to hold more land than they can make use of, while honest, deserving poor men are compelled to do without, simply because they haven’t money enough to buy large tracts.”

ABOVE: CARTY PROPERTY VIEWED FROM CHURCH ROAD, LOOKING WEST BELOW: LOOKING SOUTH FROM CUYAMA ROAD

Grant and his second wife, Tonie, both died in 1924. They had no children, so K.P. left his ranch to his late sister’s descendants. Initially, the main beneficiary was his niece Minnie McDonell, who lived at the ranch and kept it going, and mostly intact, until her death in 1948. At that point, control of the ranch passed to numerous heirs, including Minnie’s niece, Doris McDonell Carty of Oxnard. Doris was married to Edwin Carty, a county supervisor and developer.

“After Minnie’s death, the family began selling off parcels under the direction of Carty, an ambitious, politically savvy family scion whose vision for the property was often at odds with the community, the Ojai City Council, and even his own family,” Walker says.

ED CARTY was born in Santa Barbara in 1897. He met Doris while they were attending Ventura High School and married her in 1919. The couple settled in Oxnard, where Ed ran the Carty family ranch. Eventually he turned his hand to politics, serving as mayor of Oxnard during the ‘40s and as the Oxnard district’s county supervisor from 1952 to 1965. He also became an extremely successful developer, starting with his family ranch, which he subdivided for residences. When Doris inherited part of her own family’s ranch in Ojai, Ed had some ideas about what they should do with it.

“Carty’s vision was shopping centers, housing tracts, commercial development, condos and apartments,” Walker says. “He persuaded the family members to join the properties together, claiming they would be worth more. He promised all the family members their shares

would be respected. That didn’t happen, and Myra McDonell, Doris’s mother, sued Carty and her own daughter for fraud. There was no written agreement, so Myra lost the case.”

According to contemporary news coverage in the Ventura County Star, Myra had inherited 25 acres of the Grant Ranch from her late husband, Charles McDonell, with the proviso that she in turn leave the acreage to their son Bruce, Doris’s brother, “as a stake to help him in life.” Somehow those 25 acres ended up in Ed Carty’s hands, and he declined to return them. Myra filed suit against Doris and Ed in1955, but it was dismissed the following year, and Bruce was out of luck.

In the years that followed, another Grant Ranch heir sold a parcel to developers who planned a big shopping center at the Y, to be anchored by a Safeway supermarket. (It’s now a Vons.) The Ojai City Council refused to approve the project. They had seen how the downtown districts of Ventura and Oxnard had withered when new shopping centers were built on the outskirts of town.

“And this did begin happening here,” Walker says. “Stores, businesses, and public services that catered to locals began moving to the Y or Mira Monte, and stores downtown started going out of business.”

The Council didn’t want that to happen in Ojai. But the developers managed to put the issue to a vote of the people, and in 1959, Ojai voters overruled the Council and approved the Y shopping center project.

When that shopping center opened in 1960, Carty proposed to build another one further up the Maricopa Highway on unincorporated county land. As a powerful county supervisor, he made sure his land there was zoned for highdensity commercial use. Ojai officials feared that Carty’s plan would lead to uncontrolled development all along the highway outside the city limits. To gain some control over the situation, the city approached Carty with a request to annex his land. Carty was willing — so long as the parcel he wanted to develop retained its zoning.

“They wanted to incorporate it,” Carty said in an oral history. “They begged us to come into Ojai.”

City officials informally agreed to leave his zoning unchanged, and the land became part of Ojai in 1964.

At the time, Caltrans was in the process of widening Highway 33 from two lanes to four. That’s why Maricopa Highway from the Y to Cuyama Road was, until recently, the only four-lane road in Ojai. It was supposed to eventually connect with the four-lane freeway that was advancing from Ventura toward Ojai in stages. But that freeway got no further north than Foster Park, because in the late ‘60s, a coalition of local activists rose up against it. They feared the development that always follows in a new freeway’s wake.

Many of these same anti-freeway activists decided to stop Carty’s

retail project while they were at it. (Among them were Pat Weinberger, John Taft, Winnie Hirsch, and Craig Walker’s father, the architect Rodney Walker.) A new City Council majority was elected in 1970, and they promptly changed the zoning on Carty’s land. No high-density commercial development allowed.

Jack Fay, a holdover from the previous Council, was outraged that the city had gone back on its word.

“The city invited him in, on the understanding that the zoning would remain the same,” Fay told an interviewer some years ago. “We had a moral obligation to him, and he got stuck.”

When Carty died in 1990, his Maricopa Highway parcel remained mostly vacant. And it’s still vacant today.

SOME FIFTY YEARS LATER,

Borrowing the strategy of the Y shopping center developers, Carty launched a successful petition to put the matter to a vote of the people. Feelings ran high during the campaign, and few people in town were indifferent to the outcome. But Ojai’s attitude toward development had done a 180 since the previous vote in 1959. When the special election was held in January 1972, an astonishing 70.4 percent of eligible voters turned out, and they voted 3-to-1 against Carty. James Loebl hailed the result “a mandate of the people for the kind of ruralness and atmosphere we want here in Ojai.”

Carty, who felt he had been unfairly vilified during the campaign, called the election result “a payday for slander.” A powerful mover-and-shaker whose circle of influential friends included former California Governor Earl Warren, Carty was not accustomed to taking “no” for an answer. He sued the city to restore his original zoning, and he won at the district court level. But the city appealed and ultimately won the case.

Ojai’s downtown is vibrant and charming, but most of its shops and restaurants now cater more to visitors than to residents.

“Fortunately, downtown Ojai was saved by some modest redevelopment projects that revitalized the area while preserving the town’s historic character,” Walker says. “It was also saved by the area’s many historic buildings that attracted tourists. As the locals moved out, the tourists moved in, helping to save the smalltown character of Ojai as it was in the 1920s.”

Locals still do much of their shopping at the Y, but no big new shopping center has been built on Maricopa Highway since 1960. The highway’s four lanes are now two, thanks to the recently completed Phase I of the Active Transportation Project, which gives more room to bicycle and pedestrian traffic. The new bike lane runs along the southern flank of that

last unsold piece of K.P. Grant’s old ranch. Carty’s heirs still own it, and currently they’re asking $14 million for it, or $1 million per acre.

There are six Carty heirs who share ownership of the property, according to Edward Carty, who with his sister Anne runs an antiques business in Montecito. Five heirs, like Edward and Anne, are grandchildren of Edwin and Doris Carty; one is a greatgrandchild.

Two or three years back, local Ojai environmentalists led an effort to raise enough money to buy the land. They fell short, and the property was sold — provisionally — to the aforementioned Beverly Hills developer, Henry Shahery. He informed city officials of his plan to put up nine large apartment buildings, each one 10 stories tall, comprising a total of 2,500 one-bedroom apartments. About 500 would be reserved for lower-income people.

Edward Carty says the heirs did not know about the developer’s extremely high-density plan when they agreed to sell him the land.

“We had no idea!” he says.

You’re thinking, what? No way that sort of monstrosity would ever be built in Ojai. And you’re probably right. Nine 10-story towers crammed onto 14 acres? This may have just been an

EDWIN CARTY

envisioned settling for something less ambitious. But even a project only half as big might have spelled the end of Ojai’s pretensions to being a semi-rural community with small-town charm.

Ojai’s zoning laws, conforming to its general plan, forbid highdensity residential development in that area. Shahery & Co. sought to exploit a technicality that could let him invoke the socalled Builder’s Remedy, which allows developers to supersede local zoning laws if a city’s housing element is not in compliance with state law. City officials pushed back against his strategy, and they must have been persuasive, because last fall Shahery canceled the property purchase before escrow had closed.

But, with the California Legislature passing all sorts of laws to combat NIMBYism and add much-needed housing across the state, it’s no surprise that this developer was tempted to take a shot at developing the Carty parcel. Shahery and his associates ultimately folded their tents and went away, but the property is still for sale, and Sacramento is still leaning heavily on towns like Ojai to allow more housing to be built — especially “affordable” housing. What’s to stop other developers from trying their luck there? And who’s to say one of them might not succeed?

“At some point, somebody can just cram something down their throat,” Edward Carty says.

“I’d hate to see something modern and inappropriate there,” he adds. “It should be as beautiful as the Arcade downtown, or the Ojai Valley Inn.”

Capitalism, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Those 14 acres will not remain vacant forever. Perhaps, as Craig Walker suggests, it would behoove the community to proactively foster a development there that would use the land in ways that benefit Ojai, without destroying its small-town ambience in the process. That would at long last write a happy ending for the K.P. Ranch saga. After all, the Y area today provides vital services to the community, and its development did not doom the downtown district. It might even have saved it.

“In the 1960s, the Y area development, of which Ed Carty was the public face, was seen as an evil force by most locals,” Walker says. “But perhaps in the end, it was a necessary evil, because by drawing development toward the city’s West Side, it shielded Ojai’s beautiful and historic downtown buildings from the ravages of modernization. It is a question for the community to ponder as we move forward into an uncertain future.”

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INTHEKINGDOM OFWIND&STONE

Once vanished from the Sespe, the ‘ghost herd’ of desert bighorn sheep are back — nimble, elusive and reclaiming lost ground in one of California’s wildest landscapes.

STORY & PHOTOS BY CHUCK GRAHAM

“For a moment, I forgot the precarious three-foot-wide ledge beneath my boots.”

A shard of crumbling shale skittered down the cliff, drawing my gaze upward into the blue skies above the rugged Sespe Wilderness, part of the Los Padres National Forest.

A majestic desert bighorn ram picked its way toward me with nimble grace, making me forget I was clinging to a precarious three-foot-wide ledge. Its steady gaze held mine, bold and unflinching, as it approached to within 25 feet.

But hunger called the broad-shouldered ram. It quickly lost interest in me and shifted focus to munching birchleaf mountain ma-

hogany, hollyleaf cherry, and spiny rush — a rugged buffet for these agile herbivores. Soon, he joined 13 other bighorn sheep — clearly his herd. One other smaller ram lingered nearby, but the rest were ewes. Between feedings, the dominant ram sniffed each female to check for estrus. It was a moment of wilderness peace — until it shattered. A rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base ripped through the Sespe with a thunderous shockwave, spooking the herd into a full sprint.

As disruptive as the sonic boom was to all things wild in the Sespe, the sheep’s response was breathtaking. They vaulted skyward in two astonishing bounds. Clearly, height and open terrain were their edge against danger.

SESPE SURVIVAL

For over 100 years, desert bighorn sheep had vanished from the Sespe. Hunting, livestock-borne disease, and shrinking habitat wiped out the iconic desert dwellers by the late 1800s.

But in 1985 and again in 1987, California Fish and Game conducted two bighorn transplants totaling 36 animals. The sheep came from Cattle Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains — about 60 miles southeast as the condor flies. The Sespe has always marked the western fringe of their historic range. The translocated sheep were released near the southern slopes of San Rafael Peak at 6,634 feet and near Mutau Flat.

Although the release began with promise

“By 2003 the population was considered extremely reduced/extirpated.” — Dustin Pearce

— 28 sheep fitted with VHF radio collars — the outcome proved grim. Fierce winds scattered the fragile herds far from escape terrain like the sparsely vegetated San Rafael Peak. By 1989, 16 bighorns were found dead, likely taken by mountain lions.

“Monitoring efforts for this population were extremely difficult in the 1990s and early 2000s, with a small population in highly inaccessible terrain,” said Dustin Pearce, an environmental scientist with California Fish and Wildlife, who is the unit biologist in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties covering the Sespe bighorn sheep population. “By 2003, the population was considered extremely reduced/extirpated.”

Then came the Day Fire of September 2006. The blaze consumed 160,000 acres, sweeping through the chaparral-choked Sespe Wilderness. However, it proved crucial for the Sespe bighorn’s survival. These animals rely heavily on keen eyesight to spot apex predators — mainly mountain lions.

When the translocations occurred in the 1980s, the terrain around San Rafael Peak was so overgrown that predators had the upper

hand over unwary bighorn. But the Day Fire reset the balance between prey and predator. With the chaparral cleared, the desert bighorn population began to rebound. It also gave hikers and backpackers wandering the Sespe a rare chance to spot these nimble animals navigating steep cliffs and narrow canyons in their newly opened habitat.

As sightings increased, survey efforts were renewed with an intensive collaring operation in 2017. Nineteen animals were fitted with radio collars, yielding fresh insight into their range and behavior. By 2019, the population was estimated at 119 animals, with a confidence range between 88 and 150.

There’s growing optimism that these desert bighorn will continue expanding their territory throughout the Sespe. Unconfirmed reports place them near Thorn Point, several miles west of San Rafael Peak, with confirmed sightings as far east as McDonald Peak at 6,870 feet.

LEFT PAGE: THE WRITER AND FELLOW GUIDES HIKE ALONG JOHNSON RIDGE IN THE SESPE BACKCOUNTRY, ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE ELUSIVE BIGHORN SHEEP

ABOVE: AN AGILE BIGHORN SHEEP PICKS ITS WAY ALONG A NARROW LEDGE. ABOVE RIGHT: A RAM STANDS SENTINEL

CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: HOLLY LEAF CHERRY IS A KEY PART OF THE BIGHORN’S DIET; SHEEP FORAGING AMID THE RUGGED TERRAIN; A RAM SURVEYS THE TERRAIN FOR THREATS, PEEKING FROM BEHIND COVER AND THROUGH THE BOULDERS.

CONFIRMED SIGHTING

They were resting on a steep, grassy slope on a nameless potrero between San Rafael Peak and the narrow spine of Johnson Ridge. Ten desert bighorn sheep, all facing eastward, were spotted by one of the ten guides I work with at Channel Islands National Park. A couple of us had binoculars, and that’s when Jerry blurted out, “There’s some bighorn right there,” pointing.

We all gazed at the same sweeping slope, awestruck by the sight. They were at least a mile away, and about four miles north of the Sespe River.

The ram perched above the group, no doubt watching over his herd, which included two lambs — a promising sign that their numbers continue to grow. As we descended the rolling spine of Johnson Ridge, we kept tabs on the sheep as they basked in mid-winter sun and 60-degree air. During our final rest stop on an exposed ridge, we watched the band stretch and amble into a narrow ravine plunging hundreds of feet toward a shaded creek. They vanished into the dense chaparral, their tawny coats blending seamlessly with the tangled wild.

FOLLOWING GRINNELL’S TRAIL

Not long after photographing desert bighorn sheep in the Sespe Wilderness in December 2024, I gave a presentation on the Carrizo Plain National Monument to the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Association. Before the talk, I had dinner with board member Page Philler-Adams, my girlfriend and all-world naturalist Holly Lohuis, and Dr. Paul Collins, retired curator of vertebrate zoology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Dr. Collins asked what I’d been working on, and I told him I’d just returned from the Sespe, photographing those stealthy, nimble creatures. Then he asked if I’d heard of Dr. Joseph Grinnell. I said I had, and mentioned I’d heard there were once desert bighorn sheep in the Caliente Mountains — overlooking the Carrizo Plain to the northeast and the starkly beautiful Cuyama Valley to the southwest.

“The ram perched above the group, no doubt watching over his herd, which included two lambs — a promising sign that their numbers continue to grow.”

SWEEPING SURVEYS

After several emails and phone calls, I finally reached Chris Conroy, curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) at UC Berkeley. He sent me a digital copy of Grinnell’s journal from his 1912 expedition documenting California wildlife.

Spotting wildlife isn’t easy. It’s a waiting game. Hours in the field hoping something materializes. Searching for burrows, dens, nests, scat, and spoor. It requires patience. Grinnell was doing all of that — and more — logging discoveries across countless habitats. He traveled far and wide across the most biodiverse state in the Lower 48, monitoring and counting species by car, train, horseback and on foot. He never found bighorn in the Sespe, but that didn’t stop him from looking throughout California’s vast desert terrain.

“Look him up at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley,” said Dr. Collins. “Grinnell did an extensive study of wildlife surveys in California in the early 1900s.”

In one journal entry, Grinnell recounted speaking with ranchers on the southwest side of the Caliente Mountains in the Cuyama Valley. Their ranches, nestled at the base of the arid range, were near where they’d occasionally seen desert bighorn. They believed

DR. JOSEPH GRINNELL TOOK ON EXHAUSTIVE SURVEYS OF CALIFORNIA’S WILDLIFE IN THE EARLY 1900S. HIS ARCHIVES ARE KEPT AT THE MUSEUM OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. ABOVE LEFT; WHILE HE SPOTTED NO BIGHORN SHEEP IN OJAI’S BACKYARD IN THE SESPE RIVER DRAINAGE, HE DID FIND A WEATHERED HORN NEAR THE CUYAMA VALLEY. ABOVE RIGHT; DR. GRINNELL’S CATALOG CARD ENTRY FROM 1912.

the animals had since been hunted out. Still, Grinnell went to investigate. On April 26, 1912, he didn’t see any bighorn — but on a north-facing slope, he discovered a lone, weathered horn. It became one of many specimens he brought back to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

The Caliente Mountains remain one of California’s most remote regions, devoid of human settlement. The range is arid, blanketed in juniper groves and scrubby chaparral. Several times a year, it gets snow. The summit — at 5,106 feet — is the highest point in San Luis Obispo County. A collapsed cabin at the peak once served as a lookout during World War II.

GETTING MY JURASSIC ON

Conroy invited me to photograph the single horn left long ago by that ram, and I took him up on it. When I arrived at the MVZ, I felt like I’d stepped into the original Jurassic Park. We climbed a spiral staircase into the museum’s inner sanctum, passing above the towering skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

After photographing the horn, I headed straight for the Carrizo Plain, specifically the northeast foothills of the Calientes. I followed Bitterwater Valley Road, a windy two-lane that connected with Highway 58, then down Soda Lake Road, the monument’s main artery. I car-camped on a nameless dirt track. Staring up at shooting stars, I imagined desert bighorn sheep once again traversing the rolling Caliente Mountains.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife maintains a current map of bighorn sheep populations across the state. Most of the occupied habitats are in the desert, but the Sespe and San Gabriel Mountains still harbor growing herds — where rugged isolation has aided their survival.

Several red-outlined areas mark unoccupied habitats, including the Caliente Mountains. Long-range conservation plans are underway to one day return bighorn to these ancestral ranges.

Good things in life can sometimes take a long time.

DR. DREW EGGEBRATEN, DDS

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Dr. Andrew Eggebraten, USC Graduate and his family

OQ | EVENTS CALENDAR

june - july - august

annual events

4TH OF JULY PARADE & FIREWORKS | JULY 4 | 4THOFJULYINOJAI.COM

MAY 28-29

Ojai Art Center’s 46th Annual “Art in the Park” Times: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Location: Libbey Park

Contact: OjaiArtCenter.org

805-646-0117

Founded in 1977 to give artists a place to sell their work during Memorial Day Weekend.

MAY 30 TO JUNE 26

“Music as Muse” - Pastel Society of the Gold Coast

Opening reception during Ojai Music Festival on Sunday, June 7, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Times: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Location: Ojai Art Center, 113 S. Montgomery Street

Contact: OjaiArtCenter.org

805-646-0117 IG @psgc805

JUNE 5-8

Ojai Music Festival

Dates: Thursday through Sunday Times: All Day, Contact: 805-646-2094

Locations: Libbey Bowl and various venues. An annual contemporary classical music festival featuring innovative performances. The 2025 edition is directed by flutist Claire Chase and includes world premieres and works by composers Susie Ibarra and Terry Riley.

JUNE 19 TO AUGUST 3

Karen K. Lewis Retrospective

Opening Reception: June 20, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Date: Thursday to Sunday Time: 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Location: Ojai Valley Museum 130 West Ojai Avenue

Contact: 640-1390

A longtime Ojai resident, Karen K. Lewis has spent her life exploring the interplay of color, form, and memory. Lewis’s work reflects a lifetime of evolution, passion, and storytelling through paint. Check out the cover story in this issue of Ojai Quarterly.

JUNE 21

The 37th Annual Ojai Wine Festival

Time: 12 noon to 4 p.m.

Location: Lake Casitas Recreational Area 11093 Santa Ana Road

Contact: OjaiWineFestival.org

Overlooking scenic Lake Casitas, the Ojai Wine Festival is an idyllic venue to taste award-winning wines, amazing craft beers, ciders, seltzers and fine spirits. The Ojai Wine Festival is organized by Ojai RotaryWest and supports many charitable projects.

JULY

4

Fourth of July Parade & Fireworks

Times: Parade at 10 a.m., Fireworks at dusk, gates open at 5:30 p.m.

Location: Ojai Avenue for the Parade, Nordhoff High School for the Fireworks. Contact: 4thofJulyinOjai.com

Considered one of America’s finest small-town Independence Day celebrations. The Fireworks

show includes food trucks and live music.

JULY 20-AUG 3

Ojai Playwrights Conference Times: Varies

Location: The Thacher School Contact: OjaiPlays.org

Playwrights will spend the first week in community with other writers, directors, and dramaturgs, reading and discussing the work and a second week in workshop (with actors) to develop their new plays, culminating in public performances.

RECURRING EVENTS

JUNE-JULY-AUGUST

Historical Walking Tours of Ojai

Date: Every Saturday

Time: 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Location: Ojai Valley Museum 130 West Ojai Avenue

Contact: 640-1390

Come see why there’s so much historical hullabaloo about the “smiling vale.”

THURSDAYS

Ojai: Talk of the Town Podcast

New episodes come out Thursdays through the Ojai Vortex newsletter. Dive into Ojai’s quirkiest conversations on Talk of the Town! From artists to oddballs, we chat with the people who make this valley tick. New episodes weekly — tune in, laugh, repeat!

| NOCTURNAL SUBMISSIONS

BY SAMI ZAHRINGER

A Housewife’s Log

The year is 1587 and Elizabeth I has a difficult decision to make. Her cousin to the North — Mary, Queen of Scots — has been offering her subjects a trendy new social contract that threatens to make Elizabeth’s reign look stuffy and repressive. Mary has also been rumbled in a treasonous assassination plot against Elizabeth but it’s her perceived coolness that really irketh the English queen. However, to publicly execute another sitting monarch would shock all Europe. Elizabeth has also recently taken up therapy to work through her feelings of anger, shame; the whole thing with the headless mum and psychopathic dad etc.  She doesn’t want to be remembered as a tyrant like her father, Henry VIII, or her sister, Bloody Mary. It is a decision that could transform history.

SCENE:

Elizabeth in her day-room at Greenwich surrounded by ladies-in-waiting, her Fool, her dwarf, and assorted small dogs and harpists. An emotional support parrot perches on her throne occasionally butting in with bolstering phrases such as “Hey Queenie, thou doth look super cute today, as if thou hardly had smallpox at all!” and “Way to subdue the Irish with mass decapitations, ma’am!”

Elizabeth is reading Ye Moderne Glamoure magazine and thumbing idly through the articles: “Sleeves — How Big Can You Really Go?”; and “Pubic Lice: Is A Merkin Right for You?”

Suddenly, the queen flings aside her magazine and kicks a blameless chair, violently cursing the chair, its mental abilities, and its sexual history:

“Ugh! Cousin Mary’s trending AGAIN. She hath grown most nauseatingly woke of late. Marry, these ‘reforms’ she’s making in Scotland are nought but pathetic entreaties for trendy renown and popular favor!  Listen to this! ‘She’s let her mazes go wild because she considers them  ‘phallocentric attempts to impose human notions of order onto nature!’ AND, get this! She hath urged her serfs to reject the concept of ownership! It sayeth here she hath put ferns and bean-bags into all Scottish dungeons to create a safe space for her serfs to express their authentic selves in order that they might ‘owneth themselves fully.’ Apart from being literally owned by her, that is.”

Dwarf, Fool, Ladies and Parrot murmer things along the lines of: “Well naturally…” ; and “Of course, I mean they still have to be owned by her obviously”; and “Like, duh!”

Lady C: (buxom and shifty) “But, serfs don’t own anything real anyway, right? This serf-empowerment thing can’t really do any harm, can it? They’re just smelly hairballs, after all.”

DWARF (small, canny): “Ah, in Scotland thou art not allowed to say smelly hairballs anymore. Queen Mary has decreed that that is classist and odorist and perpetrates outdated and damag-

ing concepts of social and personal worth.  Thou must now say things like ‘dirt-accomplished’ or ‘invigoratingly odored.’”

QUEEN E venomous, pacing; stabs a finger at Wench’s Weekly magazine:

“Remember that ‘Beauty Secrets of A Queen’ article I wrote last week? The one where I suggest adding lead powder to sheep fat to whiten one’s face? And moving one’s hairline fashionably back by dissolving the forehead hair with vinegar and ant eggs? SHE is in this week’s issue saying women shouldn’t have to live up to “impossible Elizabethan beauty standards”! That’s me she’s talking about — my impossible standards!”

FOOL (slyly): Well, you are impossible, ma’am. I mean I’m just a soggy-bearded old quake-buttock but isn’t that why you’ve been seeing that therapist, Master Don T. Wigout? To become less impossible? More … possible, as it were. Ahahaha, but hey nonny nonny! Prithee, forgive my blithering for thou knows’t I’m naught but a sniveling little gutter-duck with no more brains than a partial snail. Pay no mind to me, Queenie, for I am certainly not here to speak truth to power under the cover of jocular inanity in the just-now-forming new Shakespearean dramatic tradition. No, not me! Fol-de-rol all the day and a carrot for company, that’s all I be good for!”

Elizabeth turns on her Fool, like a whirling ginger typhoon, sucking a small Skye terrier into her spinning orbit.   “Tell me the truth, Fool!” she snarls. “What does a serf actually want? What is it you people really desire in life?”

FOOL: “Oh me, ma’am? Well I’m nothing but a spoon-brained maggot-fancier but, if pressed, I’d say I just want self-determination and to manage a modest time-share dung ‘eap for vacationing serfs, while keeping me ecological footprint as small as possible.”

QUEEN E: (Bewildered) “Huh. Well. Thank you for feeling comfortable enough to share that with me. But, pray, what dost thou say about Mary’s notions for the upward mobility of serfdom?”

FOOL: “Well, most illustrious and radiant queen, me own nephew, Thieving Tom, was erstwhile a cutpurse. So crooked ‘e ‘ad to unscrew ‘is britches at night. ‘E nearly lost is ‘ed over it, and ’e was only 7 years old. So ‘e moved up to Scotland, got sober in one of Queen Mary’s mead-addiction clinics, and took up the apofecarying business, ma’am. No training to speak of and ‘e was all set to just charlatan ‘is way into the golf-club set, but then something remarkable happened.”

Ladies, dwarf, parrot, dogs, harpists and queen all gather closer to hear better:

FOOL: “’E got his start, y’see, by — undercover of night — throwing a bit of the old ear-of-leper into a well to infect the villagers thereabout, and the plan was ‘e would swoop into town with some tonics and unguents and a bit of duck-glue for limbs that was really ‘anging off. ‘E reckoned that statistically some would succumb and then ‘e would claim to have cured them wot didn’t die. Well! ‘E did some monkeying around with self-raising flour and the whiskers of a hanged man and whaddayaknow! ‘E only went and ‘ealed ‘em all! Turns out ‘e were a natural! Cure anything, ‘e can! ‘E cured my ‘emerrhoids — begging yer pardon, ma’am — with potatoes peelings and the desiccated funny bone of a nun. And though we are yet centuries away from inventing anesthesia, he hath had some success with garlic compresses and vomit of owl. Of course, some say he’s just a schill for Big Herb but there art always haters, artn’t there?

“Well anyway, One day Tom, ’e just up and quit serfery. He’s nine now but ‘e’d already been a working serf for five years and ‘e said it just weren’t bringing him joy. Instead ‘e threw himself wholesale into is new passion project. Leeches, ma’am. ‘E now provides top-drawer leeches to every apothecary, witch, and sado-masoch-

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ist in the greater Edinburgh area. But he’s mindful, see? That’s what sets ‘im apart ‘e says. ‘Is leeches are strictly sourced through ‘an ethical and sustainable supply chain.’ (Winks and taps raddled old nose) “People pay silly money for ‘em! I tell thee, thy perpexingly radiant majesty, it’s the future! Now e’s started to organize other nine-year-olds into a union with team-building exercises in the Lake District.”

QUEEN E: (stiffly) Well, that certainly all sounds very…progressive. Perhaps, I do have something to learn from Cousin Mary. Whereas before I would have flown into a storm of envious fury, I can now name the dynamic. I now have the emotional tools to see that my toxic jealousy is preventing me from flying like the goddess I truly am towards my best self. I’ve really been doing the work, you know? I’m so much better.”

Somewhat mollified, the queen takes up her magazine again. Immediately turns puce. Screams:

“Hark unto this bullspizzle! It sayeth here that Mary’s working on a line of SPF-imbued organic neck-care creams for the toilers in the fields who tend to neglect their moisturizing regimes on account of struggling to stay alive in a pitiless Elizabethan economic environment. That’s MY economic environment! I mean. I. Can’t. Even! That’s IT! Her head is coming OFF!”

“Wait, wait good queen!” cries Lady Katherine. “Pray remember the counsel of thine therapist! Prithee, utter thy affirmations!

“Oh do fie off, Katherine” screamed the queen “ You really are a reeky, tickle-brained hag. By God’s hat, I swear I shall …! Aarrgh!… Deep breathing! Deep breathing!”

Silence for a while as the queen paces furiously and mutters her affirmations: “I am a very good queen who is worthy of love. I am a light and weightless being who moves in the world only with love and good intention etc.”

Peace reigns for a time. The weak winter sunlight through the casement fades.

QUEEN E (pacing again, growing moody): “They say Mary has a wild and saucy beauty not found at our English court.” She looks around challengingly at her courtiers.

“They SAY she is most fair of countenance and milky of shoulder.  THEY SAY she has ‘a snap in her garters’!”

Sensing tension again, Lady C shut her book by the late Anne of Cleves called “He’s Just Not That Into You”:

LADY C: “Well you know what Mr. Wigout says. He says those milky descriptors of her are indicative of the discriminatory cultural notions of associating pleasant or desirable qualities with light, and unpleasant or unattractive qualities with darkness.”

QUEEN E. (low and menacing): “Thou art not helping, Lady C.”

FOOL (brightly): “I ‘eard she is ugly! Oh indeed, I hear she is differently-visaged enough to stop a clock! And sshh, c’mere. I also ‘eard she has thick ankles and an avoidant attachment style. Come, come, most frankly hot and sexy queen, trouble ye not with yon Strumpet o’ the North. Let us be happy!”

QUEEN E (roaring) : “Me? I’m so happy I could be twins! And that’s not just angst-driven pathological positivity talking, although it might be the sherry. I’m happy as a clam!”

DWARF (Bright-eyed, protective): Hmm. Verily, it hath been newly uncovered that the provision of royal clams doth originate from a bank nigh to the Tower of London. Yon clams have been feeding off the untreated sewage of the Wretched and Hopeless. I do fear that all the clams thou hast been partaking of art, in truth, clinically depressed.

QUEEN E: What???? I hath been exposed to downer clams? Who is responsible for this? I want them burned to death as anon as possible! Oh wait, wait, I’m doing it again! Why must I go straight to burning?”

DWARF: “Hush, hush, dear majesty. Remember thou art NOT Mary, no more art thou thy father. He did execute 72,000 people over 38 years. That’s 5 a day! In thy most majestic mercy, thou aren’t even close!”

LADY W (bland, scone-like, nodding sagely): “Hurt people hurt people.”

LADY F (Pointy-chinned, also nodding) “So true. Sooo true, friends.”

LADY B (petulant, mauve): “Friend, Lady F? Ha! What friend art thou? Thou said thou couldns’t come to my granny’s funeral because (Mimics whiny voice) “Thy grandma’s death is triggering for me. I’m not in a space to authentically show up. I need to practice compassionate detachment to maintain my goal progress and self actualization program and thou and thy dead granny are

only going to set me back.” HA! Some friend, Lady so-called F!

DWARF: “What the eff, Lady F? Thine own granny ain’t even dead yet! Wherefore art thou triggered?”

LADY F:  “Yes, but she has a sore leg and, mark ye, one day she WILL die and that is triggering! Listen! Listen sister, just calmeth thine bosoms and remember what Mr. Wigout said because right now I am NOT seeing you lean into the discomfort, practicing radical self-acceptance OR learning to self-soothe. I am going over here now to hold space for you. Lady F seethes off to a corner to stab malevolently at her embroidery.

LADY W (timid, gastric, but now emboldened): “Yeah, Lady F, thou also said thou couldn’st come to my gender-reveal party because thou needed to honor thy personal boundaries and conserve thy emotional bandwidth! Mr. Wigout would say that that was weaponizing your emotional inadequacy!!”

LADY F: “Oh found thy voice hast thou, Lady W? Thou goat-bothering ninnyshanks! By my granny’s withered leg, I will not let this pass! Thou must needs respect my boundaries, thou simpering little lickspiggot!”

QUEEN E. “ENOUGH! Can we get back to me and my problems? I mean, I AM queen if that even MEANS anything any more! What am I going to do about Mary? Head off or do I suggest a bonding spa weekend in Epping Forest? Decapitation or do we see Master Shakespeare’s new rom-com together?  I mean, she’s super annoying and doth maketh me look like an old fuddy-duddy who can’t getteth with the times, and she did try to have me killed! But…she’s still my cousin and I hath worked so hard on my anger. I don’t want to be THAT queen, you know? “

LADY K: (Good teeth, bad ears, wisely) “I feeleth like it’s not about the assassination attempt. I feeleth like thou art trying to project onto Mary some feelings and frustrations about other aspects of thy life.”

QUEEN E: (suddenly deflated): “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I just feel like life hath been low-key cringe lately, thou knows’t? Mayhap I’m just jealous. Mr. Wigout said there’s a chance it could be generational trauma. He says it was paternal rejection that caused sister Bloody Mary to do all that flaying alive and hideous torture. It’s not our fault at all really, when thou dost think on’t. Nor daddy’s, even. He was only king because his brother carelessly died. He sucked his thumb all his life, you know. He couldn’t help it any more than us!”

Courtiers all look down, busying themselves with lyres, shoelaces etc.

“But what to do about Scottish Mary? Ideally, I’d like to form a

strong bond of sisterhood with her. Show all Christendom my lighter side. I do have one you know. I’m very funny, everybody says so.”

ENTER MESSENGER, Hands Queen new copy of Monarch’s Monthly. Queen browses it. Queen roils. Queen clutches pearls. Queen screeches:

“She hath an op.ed, in here too!!! She writeth “Serfs of Scotland need no more to plow fields. Such rape of the planet is immoral and short-sighted and I’m working to dismantle agribusiness conglomerates, cut out the middleman, and return a serf’s labor to his own purposes. To this end I, Queen Mary of Scotland and soon (fingers-crossed!) England too, am sponsoring a Scottish midden-to-table cafe enterprise for which serfs — as we have won’t have any idea of germ theory for another few hundred years - won’t even need a food-handling certificate. I also want to build a womyn’s spa and conference center where we can hold sacred space for our ovaries and things.”

“Aaargh! She’s so bloody woke!  I mean everybody says I should have her head chopped off but then she’d win the moral upper hand. I would go down in history as undermining the sisterhood in a rabidly patriarchal world and resorting to violence to solve my problems. Hmm. Does that really matter though? (Steeples fingers) After all, I’ll be dead by the time history goes down…”

LONG PAUSE…

Suddenly, the queen reels around to face courtiers with a diabolical, black-toothed, massively-foreheaded grin.

“I’ve had a flash of stupendous clarity that can clearly only be divine! I am going to bring out my own signature scent. It shall be called “Me, The First” and it’s going to be terrific. Everybody says I’m the best at mindful self-care. Really, nobody will ever have smelled anything like this. It’s going to be incredible and I AM A VERY STABLE GENIUS, GOT IT????”

Queen stares at tiny trembling hands.

“Quick! I’m having feelings! Verily, I need to workshop this immediately with mine Dwarf.  DWARF! Come hither and bring the blackthorn switch for I shalt workshop this by beating thee as a way of transferring my self-loathing onto someone I both confusingly love and despise.”

FOOL: “Mary says we shouldn’t say ‘blackthorn’ any more. She says we should say ‘thorn of color…’”

QUEEN E: “Aaaarrgh! OFF WITH HER HEAD! OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! WHY’S THAT CORGI LOOKING AT ME? BEHEAD THAT CORGI TOO!”

Bloodcurdling scream and fade to black…

On 40 prime East End acres, this unique citrus ranch has fabulous Topa Topa views, four legal houses, a 2800 sqft barn, and 36 acres of organic orchard. One of the best wells in Ojai provides reliable income from 6000 Valencia trees, 2000 Pixie trees and 200 pecan trees. The remodeled 3500sqft, 3bd/2.5ba main house, built in 1917, has beautiful views from nearly every window. The 3 auxiliary houses provide great rental income. Includes extensive water infrastructure, 2 Casitas water meters, 40kw of solar panels, a John Deere tractor and a Gator.

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