. . . in an intimate, domestic setting illuminated by flames, candles and carnival lights.

The September Issue

Thanks to ample layout space and the 4-color gods, today’s Los Angeles Times HOME section devotes a whole lotta real estate to my feature story about the indoor and outdoor kitchens of hot documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler.  If his name doesn’t ring a bell, I refer you to the The September Issue, the documentary feature film that opened last weekend in New York and opens in Los Angeles and the rest of the world on Friday. The film follows the legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her creative team as they put together the fashion magazine’s most important issue of the year – in this case, the September 2007 issue. The expanded online photo gallery is here.

Debra and R.J. on location in his outdoor dining room

Every good thing that has happened to me since moving to Los Angeles comes through meeting interesting and talented people who, in turn, lead me to more fascinating and gifted ones. I met R.J. through interior designer Lory Johansson, whose studio is called Just Joh. I met Lory indirectly while profiling a Malibu garden designed by Scott Shrader for Garden Design magazine. Lory designed the interiors for Scott’s clients and I mentioned their collaboration on choosing materials for the indoor-outdoor elements in my text (that piece appeared in January, called “Sunset Soiree.”).

During the editing process, I received a message from the Garden Design fact-checker saying that Lory would love to show me one of her outdoor projects. We connected by phone and arranged to meet at R.J.’s Hollywood Hills property this past February. It takes a lot of time to scout gardens. It’s kind of like buying futures on the commodities market. You have to spend a few hours on the freeway, usually in crummy traffic, on the off-chance that the architecture, interiors or landscape you’re scheduled to visit will be a worthy candidate for publication. For some reason, after speaking with Lory, I had a hunch the trip to R.J.’s wouldn’t be a waste of my time.

Designer Lory Johansson and me. The photo is a little blurry because it was taken without a flash by candlelight. We're happy that the shoot is over!

The property is just stunning, high in the hills above Beachwood Canyon and literally under the HOLLYWOOD sign we’ve all seen in a million movies and TV shows. It’s a circa 1924 Spanish Colonial Revival home, which R.J. acquired in 2005 and has subsequently restored with Lory’s brilliant design skills. Big but not imposing, the house sits on three-quarters of an acre. There is a beautiful garden with a swimming pool, strolling paths, a lawn for croquet and square-dancing, a secret garden and other intimate spaces. You can’t see that now, though, because photographs of the garden are under wraps until Garden Design’s March 2010 issue (photographed by the very talented Jack Coyier). That’s right. First the Los Angeles Times. Then Garden Design. See how lucky I was connecting with Lory?

At the outdoor pizza party featured in today’s LA Times, freelance photographer Ringo Chiu, who shoots frequently for the newspaper, captured the festivities through his lens. I tried to stay out of the way while also surreptitiously “art directing.” Anyone who has worked with a newspaper photographer over the years (this comment is for you Melanie Munk) knows how impossible it is to get them to do what you want. And even more impossible to style a shot as you would for a magazine or book. However tough that “dance” can be, Ringo at least humored my few suggestions (ie, shouldn’t we light the fireplace? how about the candles? let’s move that dead potted rosemary!). He did a great job and it was fun for me to snap a few shots of him at work, shown here.

Photographer and Filmmaker

You can draw a lot of inspiration from this story for your own garden. The best tip from Lory is to go bold with color. She designed the entire outdoor kitchen, benches, fireplace and privacy wall with a white stucco finish, like R.J.’s house. But when it was finished, Lory says she stood at the opposite end of the garden and looked across the pool to the too-white scene. “It looked like Greece instead of Los Angeles,” she lamented. Lory knew color would lend heightened drama, especially in the outdoor setting.

The day before R.J. was planning to host his first big al fresco pizza party, she couldn’t stand it. Lory went out and ordered gallons of paint – rich, deep, paprika-terra cotta red – and got the crew started painting. When R.J. came home and saw what was going on, she promised him that if he didn’t like the result, she would pay to repaint everything white again. (Can you imagine how many coats of white paint it would take to cover dark red?).

Let’s just say Lory’s gamble paid off. You have to read my story to see what R.J. says of the decision to keep it.

After researching and reporting this story, I have two new items on my own garden wish list. Number one: I need to buy a 100-foot string of carnival lights to suspend around my own garden. Number two: I desperately want my own wood-burning pizza oven. But only if I can have Chef Alberto come over to cook for me!

Here are more of my candid party photographs:

My killer backlit shot of the central path

We now have a backyard that is grass-free. The space has undergone a huge transformation since earlier this summer when a crew removed the last patches of dying turf. With irrigation repaired and new planting beds+borders outlined and populated, we received a delivery of California Gold crushed gravel to carpet the walking areas. I’ve since decided on the very best way to describe this color of gravel. To me, it will forever be called “Golden Lab.” When our dog Zanny lays on the gravel in the warm Cali sunshine, we notice that her fur blends beautifully – practically the same color.

Our 25th anniversary was last week, and Bruce surprised me with a brand new digital camera, a Canon PowerShot G10. This is a “big girl” camera. No point-and-shoot idiot stuff for me anymore. OK, basically, I have no idea how to do anything BUT point and shoot, but I hope to learn.

The partner-in-crime in this Canon choice is none other than Bill Wright. Bill and I have worked together for years and together created Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. He knows his stuff. I’m sure he rolled his eyes (privately) about my wimpy camera shenanigans while we were on location together. Lucky for me, Bill advised Bruce on this camera purchase. Oh, and one sweet note. Bruce gave me a 35mm manual camera for a wedding gift on August 24, 1984. It was a beautiful Pentax. I used it for years, but eventually, it broke (OK, it “was dropped,” which is my passive way of saying I broke it) and couldn’t be repaired. That he remembered the wedding gift 25 years ago and wanted to do a reprise was both thoughtful and romantic.  I’m going to get major mileage out of this Canon. That is, when I learn all of its bells and whistles.

Until then, here is my maiden voyage. Photos of the “new” backyard:

Mike Mcdonald, a Green Builder and Visionary

Garden Design magazine asked me to profile one of its “Green Awards” winners for the September-October issue, which is out on newsstands this week.

The story is about a lovely, sustainable landscape designed to complement the cutting-edge, eco-architecture of Margarido House in Oakland.

Margarido House is the creation of builder-owner Mike McDonald of McDonald Construction & Development, and his architect-brother Tim McDonald of Philadelphia-based Plumbob.  The brothers and their multiple collaborators have created a stunning residence that earned the highest (Platinum) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. It is the first home in Northern California to obtain the LEED-H Platinum Award (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

What makes this garden and its home sustainable?

1. It’s Permeable : The patio, roof and driveway surfaces are designed to capture all of the property’s storm water runoff. The driveway’s decorative design uses recycled and perforated Pavestone concrete tiles. Water percolates into a 4,000-gallon cistern hidden under the driveway and, when needed, circulates through the property for irrigation and flowing through the Zen garden’s piped fountain. “We’ve created a self-contained water loop,” Mike points out.

 2. It’s Durable: Garden designer Lauren Schneider of  Wonderland Garden and Landscape in Oakland, chose a diverse, drought-tolerant plant palette. She worked closely with local growers to specify California native varieties, as well as plants from many Mediterranean regions, including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, South America and Mexico. She closely observed the garden during its first year to evaluate whether each plant was durable enough to survive Oakland’s dry summer conditions with infrequent water.

 3. It’s Reusable: Recycled concrete is the basis for Margarido House’s über-modern S-curve chaises, tabletops and sleek urns, which contain succulents, bamboo, and New Zealand flax. Created by Bay Area Concreteworks Studio, which also fabricated interior concrete counters, the products satisfy LEED’s “local” and “reusable” criteria. Other outdoor furniture also has recycled content, including Room & Board’s  “Emmet” Adirondack-inspired chairs, by Loll Designs, made with 100 percent recycled high density polyethylene (plastic).

Margarido House, enhanced by a soft, sustainable garden

One of the key scoring factors in earning this ranking is Lauren’s sustainable landscape design.

Dreamy and naturalistic, the garden is an organic counterpoint to the geometric architecture.

Lauren actually created three distinct gardens – one on the ground; one in the air; and one that climbs an incredible vertical retaining wall and has multiple sections for planting (not to mention a melodic water feature to attract birds).

Photographs of the Margarido’s rooftop garden weren’t included in the Garden Design layout, due to space constraints. I wanted to make sure and show some here. The rooftop is pretty stunning, and not just because it has killer views of San Francisco Bay. It is installed on top of a capillary mat and layer of geo-textile material; over this base are “three inches of horticultural pumice as a drainage medium and five inches of lightweight planting mix,” Lauren explains.

Garden designer Lauren Schneider gave me a personal tour of Margarido House's exterior spaces

The dramatic design includes sedums and sempervivums, golden barrel cactus, lewisia, Cleveland sage, lavender, deer grass, and Libertia peregrinans, a New Zealand iris relative valued for its bronzy-orange blades.

This garden provides top-down insular qualities that cool or warm the home, depending on the season. Flowers and stems of Cleveland sage, silhouetted against the sky, can even be seen through the skylight that illuminates the master bath. The roof garden invites its viewers to look close and study the interplay of plant colors and forms. In an abstract way, they echo the distant scenery where treetops and buildings form an irregular city skyline.

You can read the full story here. And enjoy this gallery of photos that I shot when visiting this past May. You’ll see details that caught my eye and get a fuller sense of this amazing landscape and home.

Kathy Fries, framed by her new gazebo

Most gazebos are a little twee for my liking. If you think of a traditional white latticework structure, the kind that looks as if a gust of wind or a swiftly-kicked soccer ball might knock it over, you probably don’t love gazebos either.

Ever since I started scouting great garden architecture for Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways several years ago, I have changed my tune.

Case in point: When I was in Seattle earlier this summer, my friend Kathy Fries invited me to see her new copper-roofed gazebo. Situated in the heart of Kathy’s prolific vegetable garden, the structure was built by John Akers. I’ve written about Kathy and John’s collaboration before, both in this blog and in the pages of Stylish Sheds. He is a salvage-artist-carpenter who knows how to take Kathy’s grand ideas and construct them into fanciful garden buildings.

It's a lovely addition that enhances the vegetable garden

What I love about Kathy’s new gazebo is that it is both beautiful and functional (not to mention sturdy!). In it, you can gain shelter from rain or sunshine; you can pause while picking raspberries and sit on one of two facing interior benches. You can “gaze out” over the garden, looking through openings on either end or the side walls.

The gazebo’s charming rooftop joins several other turrets, cupolas and domes that populate the skyline of Kathy’s garden. Plus, it gives the vegetable garden a new point of view. When John erected the gazebo, it allowed Kathy to realign some of her paths and planting beds on a main axis. It’s beautiful and I know everyone who sees it will start dreaming about a new sort of garden gazebo.

And did you know that Gazebo is believed to come from the Latin for “Gaze About”? I’ve added definitions from several sources to my Shed Glossary, here.

If you have a Gazebo you want to share, please send me the photo and I’ll post it in the future. Here are a few more photos from Kathy’s garden:

It’s tempting to describe all 28 sheds in Debra Prinzing’s “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways,” but that would take the fun out of discovery. Here’s a tease: A tiny, rustic cabin in the woods; an astonishing, asymmetrical, steel-framed structure over a pool; a grass-roofed, Norwegian stabbur; a stucco-and-tile pavilion surrounded by desert plantings. OK, that’s enough.

For those of you who read Kym’s Q&A interview with me and then moseyed over here, I thought I’d share the photos of each of the stylish structures she highlighted in her tease. These photographs reveal the incredible talent of my collaborator William Wright.

Enjoy!

A Tiny, Rustic Cabin in the Woods

Separate from the main residence but as comfortable as a little cottage, the 14-by-14 foot writing shed is nestled in the Connecticut woods

 A Stucco-and-Tile Pavilion Surrounded by Desert Plantings

Grass-Roofed, Norwegian Stabbur

 I hope you find inspiration from these incredibly diverse garden destinations!

A tiny chicken coop with loads of style

Last week’s visit to Santa Barbara included a stop at “Rooms & Gardens,” a wonderful home furnishings, antiques, accessories and interior design emporium on State Street.

I needed to check out the store’s new backyard chicken coop and garden.

Owners Eric and Jami Voulgaris recently created the sweet coop and romantic garden, where four Buff Orpington hens reside.

When I met Eric a few weeks ago, at the Santa Monica “Rooms & Gardens” store (they own this location with a partner, actress Mary Steenbergen), he told me about the chicken coop project.

The little building measures about 6-by-6 feet in size, with a charming shingled roof, board-and-batten siding, a country-style screen door and shutters. Stained that dreamy grey-blue shade, it looks both elegant and timeless.

A curved cobblestone path leads from the store’s back door out into the postage-stamp-sized garden. Picket fencing contains the four gals in their little yard.

The Voulgaris children named the Buff Orpington chicks, born on Easter morning: “Henny Penny,” “Rosy,” “Cornflake,” and “Scramble.”

The 800-square-foot garden’s renovation came about because it had to be ripped up when the neighboring Apple store was moving in. When that construction came to an end, Eric and Jami saw it as a chance to dress up the space, which really hadn’t changed much since Rooms & Gardens opened 16 years ago.

Happy chickens living in a happy garden

Pretty and inviting, a corner garden

Fully organic, the Martha’s Vineyard-inspired garden is landscaped with espaliered apple trees, Meyer lemon trees, ‘Iceburg’ roses and clumps of lavender. One corner holds a display of potted hydrangeas and an iron chair.

The garden and hens complement the carefree lifestyle settings inside Rooms & Gardens. Eric describes the store’s look and feel as “a fusion of British Colonial, ethnic accents, Chinoiserie and a relaxed coastal theme.”

I love the happy vibe that you feel upon entering. It’s a store where sink-into furniture is paired with uncommon accessories, all of which suggests well-loved and well-lived-in environments.

The garden is open to visitors during store hours. If you want to taste the yummy brown eggs produced here, check with the staff. Eric mentioned that a plan is in the works to supply Tuttini’s, a cafe around the corner, with their daily source of eggs!

A 1926 pool built by William Randolph Hearst now has a new community pool house. The modern columns emulate original ornate ones

My friend Cristi Walden invited me to join her on an excursion earlier this week, one that introduced me to a chapter of Hollywood’s glamorous history. Cristi, a native Californian, is plugged into the architectural-decorative arts world around here. But she’s not just into the luxury, high-end stuff. She’s been known to cruise around LA after dark on tours of vintage neon signs with her pal Eric Evavold, who also accompanied her on our field trip.

The visit gave me a great excuse to spend a morning with Cristi and to learn something new about my own backyard. We met up at the new Annenberg Community Beach House at Santa Monica State Beach, which opened in late April at 415 Pacific Coast Hwy.

Located on Santa Monica’s “Gold Coast,” this is the site where publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst built a $7 million mansion for his starlet-girlfriend Marion Davies. A very informative docent shared the fascinating story. Hearst, who had been married since 1902, became smitten with Marion Davies when she was a teenager performing in the Ziegfeld Follies. He waited until she was 20 and then began to court her (he was 54). Hearst even built a film studio in Manhattan as a vehicle to turn Davies into a classical actress. He never divorced his wife, Millicent, but remained with Davies, who was his companion for over 30 years. She was in 48 movies during Hollywood’s Golden Age.

The Marion Davies Guesthouse has an impressive scale, even for a so-called smaller residence

Hearst visited friend Louis B. Mayer at his “Gold Coast” mansion and in 1926 decided to build his own beachfront estate. Photographs portray the 110-room Hearst mansion as an edifice that looked more like Monticello than anything you’d expect to see on the Pacific Ocean. The five-acre estate also encompassed an ornate marble-edged swimming pool, several guest houses and gardens. Famed architect Julia Morgan, who designed many homes for Hearst (including San Simeon) designed the interiors and also the guest house, which is now restored.

The parties they threw were legendary, including huge theme galas and costume balls whose guests included Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks. The power couple resided here until 1942, when they retreated to another of Hearst’s estates during WWII.

In the late 1940’s, the property was sold, becoming Oceanhouse, a hotel owned by Joseph Drown who eventually demolished the large mansion but preserved an original guest house and pool as well as cabanas and a locker building. Subsequently it was sold to the State of California and leased for thirty years to the popular Sand and Sea Club until the City of Santa Monica assumed responsibility for the site in 1989. After a brief period as a seasonal public beach facility, it was severely damaged during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
 

RESTORED TO ITS FORMER GLORY, IN PART

Recently restored to its former elegance, here's the foyer

Cristi, Eric and Debra, in front of the Marion Davies Guesthouse

According to Cristi, for years Marion’s pool and guesthouse were closed off from public view, hidden and neglected behind a fence. Even though the property was smack in the middle of a city beach, it wasn’t maintained. Cristi recalls that friends (other California tile enthusiasts like her) snuck onto the property about 10 years ago just to photograph vintage pool tile-work that they feared would be destroyed.

In 2005, philanthropist Wallis Annenberg donated a boatload of money – $27 million – to save the property. I feel a special affinity for the Annenbergs, having once met her father, publishing tycoon Walter Annenberg, when I worked for Triangle Communications. Annenberg owned three magazine titles: TV Guide, the Daily Racing Form, and Seventeen Magazine, where I worked from 1980-1982. Once several of us flew on Annenberg’s private jet from NYC to LA to work at a Seventeen Magazine Tennis Tournament at Mission Viejo. Can you imagine me, a 22-year-old junior editor, getting to do that!? I still have the Triangle Corp. deck of playing cards as a memento from that trip.

Designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners, Architects, a new community pool house has 16 sleek “columns” across its facade, a symbolic echo of the 16 ornate columns that used to stand in that exact spot when the mansion faced a pool filled with frolicking Hollywood stars. Isn’t that totally amazing?

Fanciful original tile exists at the bottom of the famous swimming pool

The refreshing and colorful new property also include a children’s play and splash area; beach volleyball and beach tennis courts; a beach cafe and new pool house. The historic Marion Davies Guesthouse has been restored and landscaped. It is available for rental events, but you can also take a guided tour like we did. I’m still not sure how this gracious residence avoided the wrecking ball; “she” must have many, many secrets in her walls!

The tile-lover in Cristi was super excited to see the beautiful and intact tile designs in three original bathrooms (one docent told us the tile had been painted over in white, requiring careful restoration to strip it away). Other noteworthy details include several original lights and chandeliers, as well as intricate crown molding and fretwork detailing. See those details below.

And for just $10, you can go swim in the pool where Hollywood’s beautiful people once bathed, or sun yourself on a chaise next to its black-and-white marble border. Only in L.A.

Here are some more images to enjoy:

Wow – a nice, little review popped up in the July issue of Landscape Architecture magazine’s “noteworthy” column.

Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways: Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations, By Debra Prinzing

Don’t expect the sheds displayed in beautiful, full-color photos in this book to house a lawn mower and a jumble of rusty tools. Geared toward an upscale lay audience, this book is intended to inspire affluent home owners to rethink what a “shed” can be: Tea rooms, writing nooks, playhouses, and fanciful creations that defy simple descriptions fill the pages.

It’s nice to be noticed. But of course, we know that stylish sheds do not have to be “upscale” or “affluent.”

As long as they are designed with heart and soul, they will bring comfort, cheer and satisfaction to their occupants.

Even still, maybe the review will inspire more landscape architects to incorporate diminutive sheds and shelters into their clients’ gardens!

A vintage EGGS sign hangs in Kathy Fries's fanciful coop

Fresh eggs, how can you argue with that idea? I love cooking with fresh, organically-grown eggs produced by free-range hens. Thank goodness that I can buy them at my local, Thousand Oaks Farmers Market every Thursday! 

I wonder how long it will take before I graduate from growing backyard herbs, fruits and vegetables to raising chickens? Let’s see. . . maybe after my children leave for college, and perhaps after my beloved Lab, Zanny, has passed on.

Poultry fever has smitten many of my friends, though. I love the way they’ve integrated chicken culture into horticulture (get it?). And I really love the chicken coop architecture created by inspired hen owners.

Bonnie Manion's hens live in a renovated children's playhouse!

My blogger friend Bonnie Manion, who writes at Vintage Garden Gal, often shares stories of her hens, advice on raising chickens and even the care an maintenance of coops. She has just inherited a couple of charming gals – Buff Wheaten Marans. You’ll want to read more of Bonnie’s chicken adventures (and see more photos of her charming coop, which is a re-purposed children’s playhouse, shown here ).

Recently, a writer friend of mine paid me what I think was a lovely compliment. She said, “Debra, I want to create a book just like Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways – but about chicken coops!”

And my response: Go for it!

Bill Wright, my fearless collaborator, would love to photograph a chicken coop book. I call him “fearless,” because how else could you describe a guy willing to get inside a coop with half-a-dozen chickens, two youngsters and a lot of feed flying around . . . just to capture the perfect shot!!!?

Here is that photograph, of our dear friend and shedista Kathy Fries, along with her sons Xander and Jasper. We documented a moment in their daily routine, when mom and boys feed and water the chickens, gather eggs, and generally putter around the coop. That coop, by the way, is no ordinary henhouse. You’ll see what I mean about “poultry fever.”

”]Kathy’s chicken edifice is called the Palais de Poulet. She worked with Seattle artist-builder John Akers to create the magnificent chicken abode, complete with a jaunty turret and a brick entry path lined with boxwood clipped into a fleur de lis pattern.

READ MORE…