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Magazines, South Bay Digs Magazine

South Bay Digs • May 15, 2020

ON THE COVER Paseo Del Perfect: An enchanting Malaga Cove home with ocean views and central courtyard on Paseo Del Mar presented by Justin Miller of BCB Premier Estates at Beach City Brokers.

Featured Articles in This Edition

Celebrity Interior designer LM Pagano Topanga Home

- Homes For Sale
- Luxury Real Estate

Celebrity Interior Designer LM Pagano Lists Her Topanga Canyon Home

ByWendy Bowman
May 31, 2022

Calgary Central Library

Calgary’s Central Library is an Icon of Contemporary Design

ByJenn Thornton
May 31, 2022

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).

- Design
- Exterior Design

A Lush New Tome: Margie Grace Cultivates Exquisite Gardens

ByJenn Thornton
May 31, 2022

Santa Monica coastal ranch home

- Homes For Sale
- Luxury Real Estate

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

ByWendy Bowman
May 31, 2022

Palos Verdes Estates Property

Malaga Cove Home on Rare Corner Lot with Forever Views

ByConstance Dunn
March 21, 2023

boutique hotel rooftop

3 Luxury Boutique Hotels That Stand The Test of Time

ByKarine Monié
May 31, 2022

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