The Diva Who Grew Her Own Exotic Kingdom

“Don’t touch. And don’t eat what you touch unless you want to die” are the first words you’ll hear upon entering Lotusland, the exotic, 37-acre kingdom of plants tucked away in the quiet town of Montecito, California. Its roots run three owners and 135 years deep, but it’s the touch of its final, failed opera…

The Last Great Beatnik Café

Behind every generation of revolutionary writers, there’s usually a time-worn café. Hemingway had Paris’s La Closerie Des Lilas; Simone de Beauvoir, the Café de Flore. For San Francisco, the cradle of the Beatnik movement – or at least, its caffeine source – was the Caffe Trieste. High on a hilltop in Little Italy, Caffe Trieste was…

A Dozen Celebrity Digs That Remind us to Go Big or Go Home

As long as folks have had money, they’ve had the ability to realise interior designs that most of us can only dream about – to breathe new life into ancient Italian villas, or hole up in a French seaside fortress; to live out their days in a storybook windmill, or commission a veritable spaceship. Our…

Vacationing at the West’s Smallest Ghost Town

Is luck just another word for good timing? It is for the town of Gold Point. Under the endless stretch of sky in Esmerelda County, Nevada, at the gateway of Death Valley, the little ghost town sleeps with dreams of bygone glory. Of chattering saloon life and gold dusted guns. Once upon a time –…

When Americans Lived in Tree Stumps

There are trees, and then there are trees out west. “Ancient sequoias,” “Mammoths,” or “Big Trees,” as John Muir liked to say – the nicknames varied, but the trees’ contribution the grandeur of the storied West Coast remained the same. Pioneers worked, breathed, and seriously lived in the darn things. Improbable today, but common in…

7 Things You May Not Know About Hearst Castle

They said it was where California met the world. Where Egyptian antiquities mingled with cast sculptures by Bernini, and the gaze of medieval eyes met those of Hollywood’s elite. Today, we’re traveling into the nooks and crannies of La Cuesta Encantada – The Enchanted Hill. 1. Its Architect Was a Woman Where to begin with…

Greetings from California, the Hellish Oil-Pumping State of Yesteryear

It looks like a scene out of a dystopian horror movie foreshadowing our planet’s bleak future. But not very long ago, this was California, the (black) golden state. I guess I never really understood exactly what it meant when they said Los Angeles and much of Southern California was “built on oil”. I think I was imagining some oil fields out…

The Remains of a Hollywood Playground Wiped off the Map

Beachfront properties custom-built for movie stars and the Hollywood elite, panoramic views from the sand dunes stretching as far as Malibu, developed as “an isolated playground for the wealthy”– Surfridge, California was once one of the most coveted neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Today, it looks like this… (c) Eyetwist on Flickr (c) Houze on Flickr (c)…

My LA Boogie Nights Bar

After 24 hours in the city of Angels, I had yet to find the perfect LA hangout I was looking for. I have this romantic vision of Angelinos hanging out on seventies lawn chairs in their backyards with twinkle lights hanging from the trees and margaritas in hand. I love it when my imagination becomes a…

There’s a 73-Year-Old Tiki Bar Hiding in This Hotel’s Basement

Above ground, San Francisco’s esteemed Fairmont Hotel is every bit the prim, posh wonderland you’d expect. But if you ride the elevator to the basement, you’re in for a tropical treat at the Tonga Room, arguably the city’s last great Tiki bar… “The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar” first opened in 1945, replacing what was…