In HT’s great grandfather’s day, he farmed citrus and avocados on his ranch on Shepard’s Mesa in Carpinteria. He was an early 20th century businessman and had a hacienda adobe in mind for the main house at the ranch. He hired artisans from Mexico, and the house was built with bedrooms opening to a center […]
A reader asks if restoring paintings or refinishing furniture devalues those objects. I hold onto objects that are damaged or need to be repaired; I call these objects “my orphan-things” and it has given me great satisfaction to breathe new life into them with restorations; but not all my efforts have worked. This newsletter discloses […]
Recently Trending
More from Montecito
The year I was a therapy intern, I remember feeling a great sense of overall well-being. I knew I was being a good mom to my young children, and a loving and present partner to my husband. I was in graduate school to expand my mind, and I was being of service to low-income seniors […]
Newish Montecitan Susan Sofronas – recently arrived from the isle of Manhattan – is settling in nicely. She already adores our little woodland getaway, and as we sip java at sun-soaked Bree’osh on Coast Village, she charmingly parses her personal Tale of Two Cities with open delight. “If you think of New York City – […]
Sunshine, sandals, and sipping something cool – that’s the ultimate summer trifecta, right? As your proud Santa Barbara wine expert and self-proclaimed white wine enthusiast, I’m here to declare this the summer of white wine! Forget the stuffiness of reds – white wines are light, refreshing, and bursting with flavor, the perfect partner for all […]
When I opened that antique dresser drawer, a stiff, corpse-like doll stared up at 12-year-old me. I reeled back in horror, and I have never liked dolls from that day. So as fate would have it, I have an online reputation as a doll expert. A case in point is a photo sent to me […]
Dear Montecito, Four years later and here we are. This column started during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when I found out that half of my exams were being canceled. “Hey Gwyn… mind if I start a column?” And, well, you know the rest of the story! One hundred hours of phone calls, emails, and interviews […]
The sun has been playing hide and seek with us lately. Even with the little we have had, however, the Farmers’ Market shows all the signs of Summer! Moua Family Farm has one of my daughters and my favorite snacks, the Kirby cucumber. This little crunchy fruit, yep not a vegetable, is full of beneficial […]
My 16-year-old son recently came home from school, freaking out that he might get a B in an AP class. Historically, this has not been his M.O., but at the beginning of his sophomore year it started to dawn on him that it was time to get to work. He was hearing and feeling the […]
Read more...
In the late 1920s, throughout California, towns and cities saw a boom in a certain symbolic style of architectural decoration; we will recognize the style when we visit San Diego’s Balboa Park, or San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. Santa Barbara contributed to his style in perhaps the most distinctive sculptural work, located in the […]
This week I spoke to Mason Lender, the 23-year-old founder of an alternative investing company powered by artificial intelligence. Mason grew up here in Santa Barbara, attending Crane Country Day School and Santa Barbara High School before packing his bags to start as an undergraduate in Statistics & Data Science and Global Affairs at Yale […]
Troubled Surf legend Miki Dora – the Dark Prince of Malibu – remains a cipher. His lifelong desire to live in the moment has made him a mythic figure in the surf pantheon; a stature that in his lifetime royally pissed him off. Pop culture shorthand has reduced Dora to a James Dean for the […]
In a little Midwestern red brick two-bedroom house in 1960s Deerfield, Illinois, there came a burly gentleman who didn’t speak English. He had a four-foot-long walrus under his massive ruddy arm with a blue bow around its neck. That stranger was my mom’s cousin from Germany, and the walrus was a Steiff, a famous German […]
Shortly after I got married, my 64-year-old mother lost her battle with breast cancer. Seven years later my father joined her. The loss isn’t any less painful just because you are a grown-up. I was 39 and an orphan. It sounds strange to say it that way, but that was how it felt. “Untethered,” was […]
