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custom home the strand bayside real estate manhattan beach

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There’s Been 3 A++ Homes Like This on The Strand in 20-Years!

ByConstance Dunn
May 29, 2020

A custom luxury home—on a hyper-exclusive corner of Manhattan Beach’s much-beloved Strand—offers a rare union of privacy, space and location.

2 minute read

What Everyone Ought to Know About Turnkey Real Estate in Bel-Air

ByWendy Bowman
May 28, 2020

It offers all of the requisite credentials for which the area’s coveted estates are known—including jaw-dropping city, mountain and ocean vistas

2 minute read

Prepare for Fairmont Century Plaza to Take Center Stage in LA

ByWendy Bowman
May 29, 2020

The Fairmont Century Plaza & Hotel is remaking the past and looking forward to a bright future.

2 minute read

Edward Ogosta’s ‘Four Eyes’ Will Give You an Endorphin Rush

ByJenn Thornton
May 28, 2020

Not only does the architecture allow for observing horizon and heavens alike, it supports the contemplation of life’s big questions: one’s role in the cosmos, the human impact on Earth.

2 minute read

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Where to Stay in Santa Barbara? This 106-Acre Seaside Ranch Maybe?!

ByWendy Bowman
May 15, 2020

This coastal ranch estate is where to stay in Santa Barbara and affords a refuge from the noise and stress of the city

4 minute read

Home of the Week: Malaga Cove Home on Rare Corner Lot with Forever Views

ByConstance Dunn
May 15, 2020
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A rare corner lot Malaga Cove home offers fresh style and forever ocean views—along with a desirable distance to town and sea.

Celebrity Interior designer LM Pagano Topanga Home

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Celebrity Interior Designer LM Pagano Lists Her Topanga Canyon Home

ByWendy Bowman
May 15, 2020

A magical interplay of architecture and nature, this celebrity interior designer Topanga Canyon home asks $4.5 million.

4 minute read

Manhattan Beach Sand Section Home That’s Bold By Nature

ByConstance Dunn
May 28, 2020
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One lives stylishly in concert with the environment at this architectural Sand Section home.

3 minute read

Mediterranean Home On a Quiet Road In Pacific Palisades’

ByAbigail Stone
May 14, 2020

A sprawling Mediterranean on a quiet, short road in Pacific Palisades’ South Riviera neighborhood is a rare find.

Uncontrived, lush with exotica and featuring ponds and porticos, stonework and sculpture, “garden” actually seems too provincial a term for the hybrids of function and fantasy that Grace creates. Hers is a fine eye and a remarkable hand. “As a licensed landscape contractor, I build what I design,” she says. “That’s when my work took a big leap forward. There is no separation between design, installation, and maintenance, it’s all one and happens on a continuum. Unless it’s integrated, it doesn’t work—period.” This is how she thinks too, both pragmatically and painterly. Much like an artist, she uses “broad and fine brushstrokes” to transform a two-dimensional canvas into a three-dimensional work of art. And in a systematic fashion; first is attending to infrastructure beneath the ground, then to its surface with the layering of elements. Rocks, for instance, are not so much placed as they are selected and then worked such that their shadows will cause additional depth or bring color forward. From there the garden grows. One also sees this artistry in Grace’s exquisite new tome Private Gardens of Santa Barbara: The Art of Outdoor Living (Gibbs Smith), a rapturous showcase of her elegant outdoor Edens, from rustic to coastal to modern. Each of the book’s made-to-age milieus represents a temple of residential garden know-how and is illustrative of nonderivative design that reflects the character of the native landscape. “The Art of Outdoor Living” idea certainly accounts for the substantial exterior living rooms and heated floors of our era. “About 10 percent of outdoor living comes down to ‘my fort is cooler than your fort,’” Grace refreshingly confesses. But at the root, “it is a way to describe a lifestyle connected to nature.” For Grace, who went from toiling in the family garden to forsaking a career in medicine after a 13-week stint as a park ranger proved she’d long lost her heart to the natural world, this is the point. “Step outside and you hear birdsong, you smell water evaporating. It’s a rich and simple experience, but relaxed and comfortable. We take a deep breath and feel better. It’s so automatic we don’t even think of it, but it is a very profound thing. It’s experiential, there is intentionality to it.” Landscape as soul, nature as a relief—what a thing of beauty. gracedesignassociates.com Photos: Grace Design Associates And Holly Lepere Johnson (Home).

3 minute read

A Lush New Tome: Margie Grace Cultivates Exquisite Gardens

ByJenn Thornton
May 14, 2020

Landscape designer and author of a lush new tome, Margie Grace cultivates exquisite gardens with singular flora and flourish.

@southbaydigs

Joshua Tree’s Posada House is Immersed in Nature

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