“If anybody said this was Malibu, you’d say they were crazy,” says Richard Hirsh, the millionaire clothier-turned-vintner standing in the vineyards of his Cielo Farms estate.
Hidden in these canyons are not only A-list movie stars like Jennifer Aniston and Mel Gibson but also more than 40 vineyards. (Read More…)
Having already pointed out the fermented tea kombucha “living” on top of the fridge, and the kefir milk fermenting in the pantry, and the homemade sourdough crackers browning in the oven, Melinda Stone led a visitor down to the basement of the Victorian house (Read More…)
Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan, is a vibrant mash-up, an ancient city electrified by the breathtakingly new. Cruise the futuristic food halls of a department store, gaping at the perfect fruit and glistening sea creatures, before zipping up to the traditional floor, with its kimonos and tea ceremony implements. (Read More…)
Japan’s capital is a compelling study in contrasts—sprawling yet full of intimate neighborhoods; ancient yet up-to-the-minute. Here’s how to navigate its riches.
Read excerpted article here
If you spy a dark-haired woman gliding down Mission Street, past the taquerias and bodegas, in a white, head-to-toe bee suit — picture a hazmat suit crossed with a fencing mask — chances are it’s Cameo Wood, en route to a beehive. (Read More…)
A San Francisco home known for its appearances on the sitcom “Full House” becomes a child-friendly haven of high art and chic antiques.
Read excerpted article here.
Packing up 900 pairs of glasses for delivery via the USPS is no easy task, but anything is possible with a little (or a lot of) help from your friends.
On a recent Thursday night in San Francisco’s Mission District, dozens of people congregated in the Southern Exposure gallery for a “wrapping party.” The event is like “going to an art opening, but you’re given something to do,” says Jonn Herschend, one of the evening’s hosts and a co-founder of the as-yet-unwrapped object in question: the latest issue of The Thing, an experimental periodical “in the form of an object” that goes out to subscribers worldwide. (Read More…)
A new Ritz-Carlton and a slew of shops and restaurants are bringing a dose of fresh glamour to this renowned playground.
Surrounded by 18 ski resorts—the densest concentration of slopes anywhere in America—Lake Tahoe is a winter-sports paradise. But despite its abundance of on-mountain thrills, the region has been lacking, somewhat, in off-slope amenities—unless you count the casinos and an all-night bar scene (not to mention attendant bachelor parties) on the lake’s south side. (Read More…)
The city’s unofficial motto, “Keep Austin Weird,” blares from bumper stickers on BMWs and jalopies alike, on T-shirts worn by joggers along Lady Bird Lake and in the windows of independently owned shops and restaurants. It’s an exhortation for a city that clings (Read More…)
Japan’s ancient capital has one foot in the 14th century and the other firmly rooted in the 21st.
While the megalopolis of Tokyo catapults itself into the future, Kyoto—renowned for its temples, shrines, and vibrant geisha culture—has grown cautiously. Two years ago, the government banned rooftop and flashing ads and put a cap on building height to preserve the centuries-old landscape. Now, a surprisingly modern city is emerging as stylish restaurants, shops, and inns pop up in 19th-century machiya, or wooden merchants’ houses. (Read More…)
It was a crisp and sunny Saturday in Yountville, a wine-soaked town in the heart of the Napa Valley, and a steady trickle of day-trippers was hopping from tasting room to oak-scented tasting room, spearing Manchego cubes and sipping the latest vintages. (Read More…)
Gesturing at the wood-and-iron house he designed for his family three years ago, the Buenos Aires–based furniture designer and architect Alejandro Sticotti declares, “It was like putting in a UFO, like something from Mars.” True, with its clean lines, open floor plan, and raw finishes (Read More…)
At first, I tried to resist the seduction. I felt that there was something shameful, whorish even, in tourists lusting after color, pointing their cameras at a retreating pink sari, or a flash of red turbans. Yet over and over again I swiveled toward the colors, camera in hand, as if magnetized. I was in northwest India for ten days, reporting a story (Read More…)
Some people mark new phases of life with adventure experiences (skydiving, safaris) or shiny purchases (jewelry, sports cars). Others renovate. Such was the case with a retired widow who had lived in a two-bedroom on San Francisco’s tony Nob Hill since the ’80′s. (Read More…)
Just three years ago, this stretch of Jessie Street in downtown San Francisco was a gritty back alley, populated by parked cars, pigeons, and the down-and-out. On one side of the street sat a Vietnamese sandwich shop and a budget SRO hotel; on the other hulked the granite and sandstone Old Mint, a Greek Revival building (Read More…)
ON $250/DAY
SLEEP Carved out of a 1920s hotel, the new Hotel Vertigo in Nob Hill (940 Sutter Street; 415-885-6800; www.hotelvertigosf.com) recently emerged from a cinematic makeover inspired (Read More…)
Indian artisans are breathing new life into old traditions.
If you close your eyes and block out the visual cues — the red ocher 18th-century buildings, the brightly colored bazaars, the monkeys scrambling maniacally over the dusty rooflines — you would still know you were in Jaipur, India. The country’s center of traditional craftsmanship has a distinctive soundtrack (Read More…)
Hip hotels, restaurant and museums are transforming the city of Socrates.
Read excerpted article here.
A modern eccentric with an architectural sensibility drawn from ancient Japanese traditions, Terunobu Fujimori designs projects that are exercises in playful experimentation and sophisticated craft.
One of the first things you notice about the Japanese architect and architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori is his voracious appetite. His particular brand of hunger extends not only to food—which he devours swiftly and animatedly, crumbs flying Cookie Monster–style—but also to an ardent intellectual curiosity (Read More…)
Few people would spend their life savings on a plot of land they’d never seen. Two exceptions are Adrienne Webb and Stefan Dunlop, who, while living in a loft in London, snapped up an acre of land in northeastern Australia, 10,000 miles away. (Read More…)