Seventy-five years ago, California got its first taste of a drive-thru hamburger. Harry and Esther Snyder opened a modest 10-by-10-foot hamburger stand in Baldwin Park just east of Los Angeles. The sign read: “In-N-Out Hamburgers: No Delay.” Had the original location not stood in the way of the incoming Interstate 10 that stretches across the continental United States, it would still be standing. In 2014, as an homage to the original, the fast food chain constructed an exact replica of the hamburger stand near its original location. Since that first hamburger stand opened on October 22, 1948, at 4:15 pm, In-N-Out Burger has built more than 400 locations, and it has expanded as far north as Oregon and as far east as Texas.
Lynsi Snyder is the granddaughter of Harry and Esther and became president of the major fast food company in 2010. Under her guiding hand, In-N-Out Burger has continued to thrive and expand, not as a corporate conglomerate, but as a family business. As with the reconstruction of the original location, the third-generation Snyder has vowed to use the company’s history to guide its future.
(Courtesy of In-N-Out Burger)
The core of that history originates from what was known as “Harry’s bible”—a collection of managerial principles concerning how to serve customers and treat employees, ranging from how to properly toast buns to accurately filling out a daily report. “Most of the basics that my grandfather taught his managers are followed to this day,” Ms. Snyder said.
She noted that the priorities of the company are always its customers and employees, and that In-N-Out Burger seeks ways to go beyond what is expected in both customer service and work environment. “Our customers are our number one asset. They are what drive our commitment to quality, friendliness, and cleanliness,” she said. “It’s about giving the customer exactly what they want as long as it doesn’t compromise food safety or throw off our operation. Saying yes whenever possible is part of who we are.”
Lynsi Snyder with her grandmother Esther. (Courtesy of Lynsi Snyder)
From the Top
Ms. Snyder details what gave rise to this company culture in her new book, “The Ins-N-Outs of In-N-Out Burger: The Inside Story of California’s First Drive-Thru and How It Became a Beloved Cultural Icon.” The book is an amalgamation exemplifying how today’s restaurant chain continues to embrace yesterday’s core values.
In order for customers to remain satisfied, or more than satisfied, with their experience, Ms. Snyder acknowledged that it has to start from the top. It has to start with training. Like any good owner, CEO, or president knows, a company is only as good as its employees. Or to use Snyder’s term: associates. “To me, our associates are family, and we take care of them as such,” she said. “We want people to grow with us, … then stay with our company for the long-term. That’s the legacy of our family life down through the years.”
The rugged coastline of Rocky Point at Big Sur. (Maria Coulson)
Big Sur is not so much a destination as a state of mind. The landscape and wildlife speak to the naturalist in every soul who visits there.
For decades, people have journeyed to Big Sur seeking inspiration and communion in this magnificent natural cathedral. Time spent exploring along the coast or trekking through the mountains or roaming among the redwoods or simply laying back in harmony with the surroundings is a sojourn for body, mind, and spirit.
Central California’s Big Sur region of wild and rugged coast and rough and tumble mountains stretches for 90 miles from Carmel to San Simeon, intersected only by iconic Highway 1. Big Sur is about the mountains and the ocean and the interface between the two. Early-20th-century resident poet Robinson Jeffers called it the “greatest meeting of land and sea in the world.”
An artist paints amid wildflowers at Garrapata State Park. (Maria Coulson)
Grandeur and Remoteness
Big Sur’s grandeur and remoteness have long made it a haven for literary luminaries. Author Henry Miller developed a strong relationship with the area, embracing it as his spiritual home for 18 years.
“Big Sur has a climate all its own and a character all its own,” he wrote in his mid-century memoir “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.” “Skies of pure azure and walls of fog moving in and out of the canyons with invisible feet, hills in winter of emerald green and in summer mountain upon mountain of pure gold. There was ever the unfathomable silence of the forest, the blazing immensity of the Pacific, days drenched with sun and nights spangled with stars.”
From his house set on a slope above Partington Canyon, Miller had imposing views of the ocean. But he chose to work in a small, wooden shed facing a wall, not to be distracted. “Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago,” he wrote. “This is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.”
A clear pool ensconced between the massive boulders of Big Sur River Gorge. (Maria Coulson)
Miller fretted that the unspoiled complexion of Big Sur would be lost to the “air-conditioned nightmare” of modern life. He needn’t have worried. It is much the same now as then. Admittedly, a procession of RVs does form in the summer. But only about 1,750 residents live there.
Other than the Native American Esselen tribe, followed by a few loggers, mountain men, and pioneer families in the late 19th century, Big Sur remained a fortress for solitude. Then, in 1937, came the completion of Highway 1, with the blasting of cliff faces and the erecting of bridges spanning cavernous canyons to create a tenuous, narrow strip along the coastline.
Drama and Adventure
“This was home, this rugged, lonely coast,” novelist Nora Roberts wrote in “Daring to Dream.” “He had tooled along the spectacular Amalfi Drive in Italy, sped through the fjords of Norway, but not even their heart-stopping beauty could match the sheer drama of Big Sur.”
Its breathtaking stretch of cliff-hugging, hairpin-turned highway is considered the quintessential scenic coastal route in North America. Even if you cruise the tight track in a humdrum Hyundai instead of a snazzy Mustang convertible with the wind in your hair and the sounds of the Beach Boys’ “California Saga” celebrating Big Sur in your ears, this drive uncorks clutch-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement.
California brown pelicans are often found on rocky or vegetated offshore islands. (Maria Coulson)
You never know what’s over the next rise or around the next bend. It might be mountains that plunge into the ocean, surf and wind that pound the rocky shore and contort the cypress trees into otherworldly shapes, or a sheltered cove that harbors a tranquil sea painted in shades of turquoise and sapphire.
A Haven
Big Sur is a hiker and naturalist’s delight with five state parks. The Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest encompasses a wide range of terrain and trails from casual to challenging and sea level to thousands of feet in elevation. Some of the shortest and easiest jaunts are among the most picturesque. Meadows and hillsides are awash with brilliant wildflowers such as lupines, goldfields, and paintbrush and Calla lilies. Old pirates’ haunt Partington Cove is where otters and seals frolic in the sea swells. McWay Falls plummets 80 feet onto a secluded beach.
In an enchanting forest canyon stroll among a mantle of lush mosses, five-fingered ferns, and delicately flowering sorrel, the only sound is a rippling creek. You will be walking in the footsteps of John Steinbeck; let him be your guide. “Soon the canyon sides became steep and the first giant sentinel redwoods guarded the trail, great round trunks bearing foliage as green and lacy as ferns. A perfumed and purple light lay in the pale green of the underbrush … and overhead the branches of the redwoods met and cut off the sky.”
At higher altitude, the redwoods give way to choked scrub and pungent sagebrush characteristic of an ascent to 3,709-foot Pico Blanco, “a steep sea wave of marble” in Jeffers’s words. Once atop, taking in the panorama, look for California condors with a wingspan of more than nine feet, soaring in bright, cloudless sky or amid fingers of fog.
Storm clouds gather over the 80-foot-tall McWay Falls. (Maria Coulson)
Many Big Sur beaches can only be admired from afar because of high cliffs. But there are accessible strands where you can wiggle your toes in white sand. Garrapata Beach’s long shore and thunderous waves are attractive to beachcombers and lollygaggers alike. The small cove at Garrapata Creek on one end and Dowd Creek spilling over the bluff onto the beach at the other serve as bookends.
Pfeiffer Beach is renowned for its lavender-tinted sand, and offshore Keyhole Arch is popular at sunset. It’s a prime location to sight migrating gray, humpback, and blue whales. Local winged residents living along the sweeping seascape include gulls, cormorants, pelicans, and snowy plovers.
Beyond Big Sur’s scenic splendor is its ecological diversity and importance as habitat for terrestrial and marine wildlife. Nowhere else will you find fog-nurtured redwoods thriving on one slope of a canyon and sun-worshiping yuccas on the other. Similarly, sea otters and cormorants live near dry-climate canyon wrens and whiptail lizards.
Richard Brautigan wrote in his novel “A Confederate General from Big Sur”: “This morning I saw a coyote walking through the sagebrush right at the very edge of the ocean―next stop China. The coyote was acting like he was in New Mexico or Wyoming, except that there were whales passing below. That’s what this country does for you. Come down to Big Sur and let your soul have some room to get outside its marrow.”
A 1960 Austin- Healey parked along California’s Highway 1, overlooking Bixby Bridge in the distance. (Maria Coulson)
The mountainous reaches of the Ventana Wilderness that extend inland for 30 miles are a tight jigsaw of ragged ridges impenetrable other than by mule or foot. Only the most intrepid venture to the headwaters of the Big Sur and Little Sur rivers tucked away high in the Santa Lucia range. The rushing, tumbling torrents cascade down through narrow, rock-walled canyons, spilling into crystalline pools canopied by stands of old-growth redwoods.
The cool marine layer does not extend past the coastal crest, leaving much of the Ventana Wilderness hot and dry during the summer and early fall. The rare, spire-like Santa Lucia fir is found only here on the windswept slopes and rocky outcrops.
Jeffers captured this desolate and hard-bitten terrain in early stanzas of “The Beaks of Eagles”:
“An eagle’s nest on the head of an old redwood on one of the precipice-footed ridges
Above Ventana Creek, that jagged country which nothing but a falling meteor will ever plow; no horseman
Will ever ride there, no hunter cross this ridge but the winged ones, no one will steal the eggs from this fortress.
The she-eagle is old, her mate was shot long ago, she is now mated
with a son of hers.
When lightning blasted her nest she built it again on the same tree, in the splinters of the thunderbolt.”
The poem embodies the timeless spirit of Big Sur. A pilgrimage there catches time in a bottle that lasts a lifetime.
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
The article’s author rides on a bay mare named Suede, amid a lush meadow and the snow-clad peaks bordering Yosemite. (Maria Coulson for American Essence)
While a journalism professor at the University of Wyoming when I wore a younger man’s clothes, I became close friends with a bowlegged, hardheaded cowboy. Seeing us together on the streets of Laramie, folks would holler, “Here comes the cowboy and the professor.” My city slicker self had never ridden a horse, much less herded a cow, before meeting the legendary cowboy. Since then, I have saddled many a cow pony and earned my spurs in spirited roundups across five states with him.
My first wrangling match was on a blustery, bitterly cold, snow-spitting day in early June on the Laramie high plateau. Astride a high-octane mustang, I stared out at the swarm of horns, pounding hooves, and hind ends of rust-colored cattle ramrodded by the legend. When the lead cow abruptly bolted toward open range, the champion pro rodeo bronc rider, anticipating the move, intercepted her with the aptitude of an NFL defensive back.
Whereas I had a cowpoke compadre to make me muscle sore and saddle savvy, the best path for most greenhorns hell bent for leather to rope and ride like a true buckaroo is to bunk at a dude ranch. Through the years the dude ranch concept has evolved into more types of guest ranches than wrinkles on a Brahman bull. There are working ranches, resort ranches, executive-retreat ranches, and those with scarcely a horse, a cow, or a goat to their name. Ranches for hardheaded and weak-minded wannabe cowpunchers where every waking moment is spent wrestling a steer or guzzling a beer.
Ranch for the Ages
Western cities are a short drive and a century removed from dude ranches with herds of cows instead of maddening crowds. Evoking images of the vast expanses of Wyoming and Montana, often overlooked is the rich, guest ranch tradition in California, exemplified by the Hunewill Ranch. Nestled in a cleft on the eastern slope of the Sierras at 6,500 feet in the Bridgeport Valley, its open meadow spreads out like a green mantle below snow-crusted crags bordering Yosemite.
Four generations of the Hunewill family at their California guest ranch. Maria Coulson for American Essence)
The family-owned and -operated 4,500-acre ranch has run cattle since the Civil War and hosted guests since the Great Depression. It boasts a string of 160 horses you can ride at a lope and 1,000 head of cattle you can herd on horseback—unlike most of today’s dude ranches that are more resort than rawhide. At the Circle H, the cowboy life is for real. Guests are treated with courtesy, not coddled like delicate porcelain.
Riding alongside affable and self-assured members of the ranch’s fifth and sixth generations, one can almost visualize their ancestors reflected in their faces. Ancestry and legacy are foremost in their minds. “What makes all the effort worthwhile is the family,” said 86-year-old matriarch Jan Hunewill. “Why else do it? You want to pass it on to the next generation.” And generations of guests returning year after year develop a kinship with the deeply rooted family.
“The older generation appreciates the energy, new ideas, and tech savvy-ness of the younger generation,” daughter Betsy said. “I like to think the younger generation is not afraid to ask questions of the older generation and is able to appreciate the wisdom of experience.” She runs the office; her brother, Jeff, is ranch CEO and oversees the cattle operation; her sister, Megan, heads the riding program.
The Hunewill Ranch offers four- to seven-day vacations ranging from family gatherings to ladies or adults only, for a maximum of 60 guests in 24 comfortable cabins. Stays include food and lodging, horseback riding, and evening activities such as hayrides, cookouts, and square dancing. A former Chart House seafood restaurants chef, Richard Leonin, prepares appetizing meals.
The guest ranch’s six-month season consumes the Hunewills’ lives. They all have sweat equity in taking care of the guests or the horses and cattle, according to Megan’s son, Dalton, who, like the others, often endures 16-hour days. They don’t tell the staff what to do, he maintains, but lead by example and treat them as family. With youthful enthusiasm, Seth Digman said, “I didn’t come from much and love working here. I’ll do anything they throw at me from mending fences to fixing toilets as long as they keep me around.”
Horsing Around
As a rose-tinged, ethereal dawn caresses the mountain crests, an artist’s palate of paints, bays, buckskins, and palominos with thundering hooves and steaming nostrils cascades into the corral from their overnight pasture. Rides on these hale, handsomely sculptured horses are scheduled twice a day unless an all-day excursion is planned. Guests self-select their ability level: beginner, intermediate, or advanced. “The first day of riding, there is a lot of anticipation waiting for your horse to be called—super excited, a little nervous, not sure what to expect; then, when you finally get on your horse, everything falls into place,” counseled Megan’s 18-year-old daughter Aspen, who’s been a wrangler for four years.
Children afraid of horses build their confidence and riding skills in the barnyard and then on the meadow. By the end of their visit, many can ride at a lope. They write Christmas cards to their horses and inquire on Facebook about them. When they become more accomplished riders, their siblings may inherit their horses.
Wranglers work together to guide wayward calves back to their herd. Maria Coulson for American Essence)
“It’s cool to see our son grow up with children who return with their families each year,” Ashley said about her and Dalton’s seventh-generation toddler, Leland. “It’s an avenue to expose a little ranch kid who doesn’t see much of the outside world to people from different backgrounds.”
The Circle H is not limited to nose-to-tail trail riding. It is high-country, boundless riding at its best: the exhilaration of loping across a 4,000-acre meadow in the shadow of the Sierras, saddled on an exuberant quarter horse, churning up sod and splashing through springs with no fence in sight. Demands of everyday life are as far off as the Milky Way.
Horse-walking in the midst of the meadow casts a magical spell as waves of wild irises shimmy in the afternoon breeze and bright clouds of butterflies flit in a winged waltz. An inner peace spreads like a comforting blanket in the zen-like stillness, broken only by the sweet song of a warbling wren.
“One of the best things about riding through the meadow is it’s always different,” Jeff’s daughter, Leslie, mused. “The light is different, the cattle are in a different place, the grass is in a different stage, the horse is different—a colt or your old faithful.”
Charismatic ranch celebrity Benny Romero, who has lived in the hearts of the Hunewills for a quarter century, entertains guests on his popular horse walks. The 78-year-old Basque from New Mexico rides with the ease of a lifetime in the saddle and spins tales with the humor of a seasoned storyteller. He recollects crossing a creek on his gelding, Delta, when two cows butted heads and started a ruckus: “One turned suddenly and struck Delta in the chest, making him swing around real hard.” He quoted Megan saying, “Benny, anybody else would have come off the horse, but you stuck on like a tick.”
Guests herd easy-to-handle Red Angus cattle under the pretense of helping out. “Women just love horses,” Megan contended, “but men like to have a job. Moving cows gives them a purpose on a horse.” Pushing them through pastures and across streams is routine, but not so through open gates where they congregate. Patient prodding and wrangler finesse breaks the impasse.
Canyon Connection
On an all-day horseback ride into Buckeye Canyon, golden shafts of sunlight filter through the tree branches, dappling the trail and underbrush, partially concealing a herd of mule deer. Stands of aspen with slender white trunks and glossy green leaves tremble in the gentle breeze, cooling the sweat on your brow. Unexpectedly, the canyon opens onto a cinematic alpine meadow and a soaring sculpted granite cathedral, cradling glistening glaciers against a cerulean sky.
Amid the majesty, guests picnic on a grassy knoll beside a stony creek. Laze in the noonday sun or under a sheltering fir as blue jays lurk overhead and chipmunks gambol about. A pair of red-tailed hawks soars above the precipitous canyon walls, and a golden eagle perched on the topmost branch of a lone pine emits piercing cries.
In 1861, Napoleon Bonaparte Hunewill established a sawmill in Buckeye Canyon to supply lumber hauled by teams of oxen to mining boomtowns and built a house for his young Maine bride. Esther likely found life difficult in the Sierra wilderness and may have screamed back at the wind howling down the canyon. She may have pined for female companionship, melodic music, and gay laughter when starlit nights fell silent. But standing shoulder to shoulder with her husband, she faced the frontier challenges head on. The ancestral fortitude survives in the strong work ethic of their college-educated progeny, illustrated by the self-reliant women in the forefront of the guest ranch and by the able-bodied men behind the scenes of the cattle operation.
The nucleus of the Hunewill Ranch is the barn raised two decades later in the Bridgeport Valley. Built with pegs, not nails, it is a fine example of late-19th-century craftsmanship. The pungent smell of horse sweat, aged leather, and stacked saddle blankets permeates the dim interior. A family of great horned owls roosts in the cool recesses of the high, shadowy beams.
Eighteen-year-old Aspen Wright guides her little nephew Leland on a horse. Maria Coulson for American Essence)
The graceful, white Victorian ranch house was constructed in 1880 with timber from the canyon. The furniture in the parlor was shipped from San Francisco, including the heirloom Steinway that rounded Cape Horn and was played by daughter-in-law Alice, who graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music. A remodeled portion of the house serves as the family and guest kitchen and dining room.
The Hunewills retain memories of a carefree childhood playing in the hayloft of the barn and the currant patch near the house, swimming in the creek, and riding across the meadow. “My sister, Rhiannon, and I would ride our horses to our favorite fishing hole and ride back with fish flopping on the side of our saddles,” Aspen recalled. “It was kind of gross. We cleaned them and gave them to the cook, who I think threw them away.”
Land Stewards and Cattle Connoisseurs
The cash flow from the guest side makes it possible for family members to stay on the ranch. They directly communicate with each other in a weekly meeting. “We have to work together, talk things out in a civilized manner,” Megan said. “It makes it easier that we like each other and what we do.”
Jeff recently secured a conservation easement, safeguarding the ranch from development. “There’s a lot of habitat that’s being protected,” said Eastern Sierra Land Trust Executive Director Kay Ogden in late 2020. “That land is in their DNA. They’ve owned it so long—they are incredible stewards of the land.” Jeff recognizes that balancing the intricacies of livestock, wildlife, and natural resources is integral to such stewardship.
Leslie’s niche is keeping records of the cattle. “I can talk about cows all day long,” she said with a twinkle. “If you ask me about number 99 with a red ear tag, I can tell you how she performs and give you her entire history. My brain is a mental filing system.”
During the traditional cattle drive complete with chuck wagon in early November, stalwart guests act as drovers accompanying the Hunewills for five days to move 600 cattle over the same route followed for more than a century—60 miles from the Bridgeport ranch to the lower Nevada range. “We cannot stay at Bridgeport in the winter as there is a lot of snow and the temperature drops to minus 34 degrees like in Montana,” Jeff said. The drive’s bone-chilling temperatures and high gusty winds induce the wranglers to doff their Stetsons for warm and snug headdress. Everyone returns to the cozy comfort of the ranch at day’s end.
Horses gather in front of an old barn that has been on the ranch since 1880. Maria Coulson for American Essence)
Reality and Romance
Planning for posterity, the Hunewills have investments outside the ranch. “There was a time when I was young that we sold all the cows to get out of a financial hole,” Megan said. “Cows are liquid assets; we did not have to sell the land.” This reminded me of my first roundup on that bleak, Wyoming day. My first was the fifth generation ranch family’s last. I’ll never forget the heartbreak and the dread in their eyes, wondering what they’d do with their lives.
The reality and romance of the Hunewill Ranch are intertwined. Cowboys hurtle across creek beds without breaking stride and communicate to each other without speaking a word as they ride. Guests straddle a saddle for a week, making a lifetime memory and a mental snapshot of the serenity and natural splendor. “Many of our older ladies like to get out to enjoy the sounds of the creek and the birds and to look at the mountains in the background,” teenage Aspen said, smiling. Years from now, if the offspring play their cards right, her great-grandchildren will take the matriarch for creek-side rides on the ninth-generation Hunewill Ranch.
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
A dream-like Spanish Colonial-style house in the Pasadena Arroyo area of California. (Philip Clayton Thompson)
The team at Evens Architects faced a real challenge when they were tasked with restoring the house known as “Mi Sueño,” or Spanish for “My Dream.” It was a reinterpretation of Spanish Baroque and Spanish Colonial architecture, conceived by famed architect Bertram Goodhue while he was lead designer for the 1915 Panama–California Exposition. That event was to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.
When Evens Architects first encountered the property in 1998 in the Pasadena Arroyo, they found that decades of deferred maintenance and insensitive remodeling had left the once-proud house in poor shape. The task confronting the design team—to restore the remaining fragments of Mi Sueño to their former glory while accommodating the lifestyle of the new homeowners—was daunting.
The completed renovation in 2004 turned out to be a true rebirth. The existing magnificent living room, with its lushly detailed, coffered ceiling of Moorish design, was restored to its original condition. Exuberant landscaping now envelops the home, providing a variety of inviting outdoor spaces. Meanwhile, the completely reimagined master suite, with elaborate hand-cut Moroccan tile mosaics and a canopy bath, evokes a dream-like scenery.
The coffered living room. (Erhard Pfeiffer)Detail of the coffered ceiling design. (Erhard Pfeiffer)Another view of the living room. (Philip Clayton Thompson)
Mi Sueño was constructed in 1915. Originally designed as a residence for a banker from New Jersey named Herbert Coppell, the estate comprised several acres. As the estate changed hands over the years, most of it was sold off. In the 1940s, the house itself was divided into two parts, with one fragment becoming a separate house on the property immediately to the south—which still exists. The northern fragment, which included the living room, became Mi Sueño.
The original parts of the house that were still of great quality and worthy of restoration included the living room and the entry hall, which featured original cast-plaster detailing designed by Goodhue, according to Erik Evens, partner at Evens Architects, a Los Angeles-based firm that’s part of KAA Design Group. The rest of the spaces had been poorly remodeled over the years and had to be reinvented.
The entry hall with ornate plasterwork. (Philip Clayton Thompson)
Evens said the most challenging part of the renovation was rectifying the structural deficiencies of the house. The walls were constructed of hollow clay tile, which was a common building material in 1915 but is no longer used today, and for good reason. “Although strong in compression, the clay bricks are quite brittle and not able to resist the earthquake loads we have in southern California. They simply would not be approvable under current building codes. So for the entire northeast wing of the house, we had to demolish the exterior layer of clay tile bricks and build a concrete shell around the house,” he said in an email interview.
The dining room. (Philip Clayton Thompson)The master bedroom. (Erhard Pfeiffer)
The original house included many details and motifs derived from the Moors, who left a lasting impact on art and culture in the Iberian Peninsula after centuries of conquest. Most notably, the Moorish influence is evident in the star detailing in the magnificent, coffered ceiling of the living room.
“We used this as an inspiration to develop the new spaces of the house,” Evens said. “Our clients requested a large and luxurious master bathroom, so we reworked one of the existing secondary bedrooms into a Moorish fantasy bath, complete with hooded canopy tub and exotic Moorish cut tile mosaics on the walls. The Alhambra in Spain was certainly an inspiration,” referring to the majestic palace complex in Granada.
The master suite bathroom. (Erhard Pfeiffer)(Erhard Pfeiffer)
The mosaics were created by Mosaic House in New York City. Their installation required collaboration between Evens Architects, Mosaic House, and the interior designer, Chris Barrett. Constructed onsite using traditional methods, the mosaics were laid upside-down on a leveled bed of moist sand. Each piece was hand-cut. Once all the pieces were in place, a thin bed of mortar was poured over the back of the tiles. Once that was cured, the panels were tilted up and installed on the walls.
“It was an amazing process!” Evens said, as bathrooms were constructed very differently back in 1915.
The team also created a modern family kitchen, and gutted the northeast wing of the house “to create a new, cozy family room, which opens to the main courtyard through broad French doors,” Evens said.
This restoration was a good fit for Evens Architects, as the firm is committed to the idea that architecture inspired by classic traditions—whether the sources are Spanish, Italian, French, or Moroccan—is well suited to the climate, landscape, and culture of contemporary California.
The courtyard, which features a fountain. (Erhard Pfeiffer)A reflecting pool on the other side of the house. (Erhard Pfeiffer)
Neal Lorenzi is a content guru and freelance writer who has contributed to a variety of publications. In his spare time, he likes to read, listen to music, and power walk.
Karen Framnes is a mother, wife, worker, and ultra long-distance runner who lives with her family—husband, teenage daughter, and their pets—in Rocklin, California, where the San Francisco 49ers football team holds its summer training camp. To say that she tackles many tasks daily understates the case greatly. For Karen and her better half, Kjell, rearing Olivia, their 14-year-old special-needs daughter, is a full-time task. Thus, achieving and sustaining a life-work balance is an everyday reality that Karen navigates, rain or shine. On the surface, her balancing act might look like a parent-guided effort of huge proportions. However, below the surface, Olivia is a big player. In fact, she is a driving force of inspiration in the daily life of Karen, who describes Olivia as “feisty” and “strong.”
Olivia displayed her resolute characteristics soon after birth. As a newborn, she battled not one but multiple life-threatening medical issues—every parent’s worst fear. They required many surgeries and therapies, according to Karen. She marvels at Olivia’s resolve to overcome the obstacles that life has put in her way. “Olivia has overcome tremendous physical and mental challenges due to her disabilities,” Karen says. It is Olivia’s responses to her diagnoses, which include cerebral palsy, that continue to inspire Karen.
“This girl has dug very deep to overcome them,” Karen says. “She has fought meningitis, stabilizing bad gastrointestinal issues, overcoming very scary breathing apnea, and other health issues. Olivia has this great strength and fights hard to thrive. She is strong and gets back up quickly. It truly inspires me to dig deep to overcome my own challenges—some have been pretty petty compared to hers.” “Quit” is not a word in Olivia’s vocabulary.
Human beings learn from each other in varied ways. Kids learn from parents. Children also teach parents. Olivia’s resilience to survive against steep odds has rubbed off on Karen in ways big and small, in and out of their home. In part, Olivia’s resolve teaches Karen to roll with the punches that life delivers. On the job, for instance, Karen’s employer might give her an unexpected deadline to finish a project by the end of the business day. Some people might go ballistic in such a scenario. That is not Karen’s response. She accepts the workplace task in stride, seeing it as a minor blip compared with the health and wellness challenges of Olivia’s life.
As an ultra long-distance runner competing in trail races up to 100 miles long, such as the Headlands Hundred that she finished in 37 hours and 37 minutes last August, Karen reaches deep down into herself to flesh out the energy to finish. She has run scores of such races—not that they get easier, as the weather, for instance, can and does change, forcing runners to adapt. Marathoners talk about hitting a wall of fatigue near the end of their 26.2-mile race. By way of comparison, Karen runs nearly four times that distance in her ultra-long race competitions, pushing past fatigue, mentally and physically, to stay on track and finish her races. Thoughts of Olivia battling and overcoming health issues, beginning from infancy, serve as inspiration as Karen runs mile after mile on the ultramarathon course. Life is not a sprint but a long-term project; parenting a special-needs child is a little like the ultramarathons that Karen runs.
Identifying and setting familial priorities is also part of Karen’s life. “Luckily, our son is older and has his own home,” Karen says. “Olivia is the priority in the house. It is a balancing act trying to explain to her to be patient and wait for attention.” Karen knows that her daughter’s behavior is only partly disability-related. It is a case of “cannot and will not”—her daughter can’t do some tasks and simply won’t do others. It isnot one or the other, but both. That is easy to say but less so to cope with, day after day, as many adults with disabled kids experience. “Part of it is related to her condition and part is related to her being a teenager,” Karen says.
Olivia’s diagnoses include intellectual disabilities. Karen has a unique approach to help her daughter: she encourages Olivia’s affection for pets. “Olivia loves our dogs. I sometimes feel that is her priority, which warms my heart.” Emphasizing such positive interactions that help Olivia—that is what it takes to make her, Kjell, and Karen move forward. It is a one-step-at-a-time endeavor, a little like finishing an ultramarathon.
Working with wrought iron is a 4,000-year-old craft. (Courtesy of Dana Creath)
Jose Lemus was facing a new challenge on a recent workday. The custom order from one of Dana Creath’s two dozen showroom partners nationwide called for a standard table lamp from the product catalog to be reconstituted as a floor lamp. In his 21 years as a maker of Creath’s wrought-iron lighting fixtures and home accessories, Lemus has fabricated anything and everything. He indicated the present job would be no problem.
“He’s an artist,” said company president Greg Perkins, who was showing a visitor some samples. At Lemus’ disposal were a variety of welders and basic and advanced metal-forming tools. While wrought-iron is a 4,000-year-old craft, and hammers, tongs, and anvils have not relinquished their primary importance, the latest machines do add speed and flexibility.
Using a plasma cutter, a kind of torch that slices patterns in sheet steel as if it were cookie dough, Lemus produced the blank for an ornamental piece to be affixed to a lamp. The blank had a general resemblance to a leaf, but it was flat and featureless. Lemus then heated it up. (A six-burner forge stood at the ready just outside the fabrication area.) Then, he worked with tools and imbued it with convexity such that the leaf became symmetrically cupped underneath, like an arched hand. Going another step, he created surface texture, a network of creases that brought the form to life. After painting and an antiquing finish, the ornament would possess a vibrancy that’s unlikely ever to be duplicated in a mechanized manufacturing process.
Artisans create fine works by hand, using a variety of welders and metal-forming tools. (Courtesy of Dana Creath)
Lighting in its many flavors—chandeliers, table and floor lamps, flush-mount ceiling lights, sconces, exterior lanterns—is a Dana Creath specialty, but the company’s catalog also includes tables, mirrors, and pot racks. The 15-person staff operates in a 12,000-square-foot workshop within a nondescript light-industrial district of Santa Ana, the seat of Orange County. Thanks to a nine-foot-tall storage rack full of tools, they can turn out any catalog item, reproducing the exact curve required of a piece of steel. The craftsmen do more than bend metal; Perkins, who has been running the company since 2013, takes on the glass work himself, fusing, rippling, or slumping the panes in either of two kilns. Meanwhile, over in the shade department, two workers fashion the lampshades by hand. There’s even a candle-making studio.
(Courtesy of Dana Creath)(Courtesy of Dana Creath)
The final pieces are sold wholesale to showrooms and designers at prices ranging from several hundred dollars to well into five figures. On a recent visit, a seven-foot-diameter, 20-light chandelier—custom designed for a residence in nearby Irvine—neared completion, as well as nearing the top of the price range.
The story of Dana Creath goes back to 1967. After serving in the United States Navy, the company’s namesake returned to Orange County and went to work in a lamp shop. A year later, Creath opened Custom House Lighting, which is still going on at Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa, six and a half miles from the workshop. After the retail location came the first production workshop, then located in Laguna Hills. Custom orders from hotels and restaurants flowed in during the 1980s, leading to growth. The operation moved to Santa Ana in 2008 and was eventually turned over to Perkins, who is married to Creath’s daughter, Monica. Creath has since retired and devotes himself to fishing at his home in northern Idaho. Greg and Monica have been exploring a transfer of the business that would result in 51 percent of ownership being in her name.
Dana Creath’s lighting fixtures elevate the style of any room. (Courtesy of Dana Creath)
“Most of our employees have been with us at least 20 years,” Perkins said, introducing production manager Miguel Sepulveda, who was fashioning a simple tool for the shade department to use in tucking shade edges out of sight. Sepulveda, 45, came from Arandas in the state of Jalisco in Mexico when he was a teenager, and for a time, he worked in construction putting in concrete driveways.
“I didn’t mind the heavy work,” he said. But construction activity faded after the dot-com-era bust. “I decided to look for factory work.” He started in Dana Creath’s paint department some 23 years ago and has since poured his soul into every job in the shop.
After the blacksmithing in the fabrication shop, there is painting and antiquing, wiring and finishing, and final assembly and testing with bulbs. Everything gets packed in triple-wall cardboard for shipping.
The Dana Creath catalog nearly exhausts all possibilities in traditional designs, with an extensive offering of Renaissance-inspired chandeliers as well as fancy intricacies in all departments. Yet the listing of recent products shows the company updating some traditional designs—and the push extends into product names as well. The exploration of color and form is best seen in a table lamp with a stand that is a vine wrapping around a gracefully curved branch. The startling use of bright yellow paint distinguishes the creation.
(Courtesy of Dana Creath)
“I thought this could work in today’s climate,” Perkins said. The design was resurrected from decades past but modernized with the splash of color. Products were always identified by alphanumeric tags, but Perkins had another idea. “In order to give some of these fixtures more personality, we would start naming them to bring them to life.” Hence, the lamp is called “Artemis,” after the goddess who loved the woods and mountains and led other Greek gods on the hunt.
Plenty of other possibilities lie ahead. For one thing, Perkins sometimes thinks about finding a glass blower from the Laguna Beach community of artists and collaborating on handmade creations in a new realm.
“We’re looking to grow,” he said. Demand has remained consistent in the Southwest and on the two coasts. “Most of our business is probably around the perimeter of the country.” Still, there’s opportunity for expansion of an ancient craft with products for use and appreciation in this present age when Siri can control house lights.
Ronald Ahrens’s first magazine article was 40 years ago for Soap Opera Digest. Nowadays he’s on a 15-year run with DBusiness (“Detroit’s Premier Business Journal”). Ronald lives near Palm Springs, California, where he struggles to understand desert gardening.
Overview of Salvation Mountain in Slab City, CA. Photographed by Jeff Perkin.
“Let’s keep it simple. Don’t get complicated with love.” Leonard Knight
Over a period of almost three decades, Leonard Knight used hundreds of thousands of gallons of donated paint to create a landmark dedicated to spreading the message of God’s universal love. Knight’s creativity, devotion and open-hearted energy magnetized people to the middle of nowhere in the California desert, to experience this truly unique, colorful, and spiritually-provocative spectacle.
At the peak of its popularity, after being showcased in Sean Penn’s acclaimed 2007 film Into the Wild, Salvation Mountain drew over a hundred visitors to the isolated area daily. As his work and message grew in notoriety, Leonard would spend up to 9 hours a day with visitors. Painting, expanding and repairing his work was his morning ritual while the rest of his time was devoted to giving tours around the three story, technicolor “mountain.”
Photography by Jeff Perkin
Knight came to Niland, CA in 1984 with the idea of painting a hot air balloon that read “God is Love.” After having a personally impactful religious experience years before, he made it his mission to serve God in this creative way. As he tells it, he came for a week and didn’t end up leaving for almost three decades. After multiple deflated upsets with the hot air balloon, he turned his sights to an old riverbank where he gradually grew an eight-foot sign to the size of a football field. Initially using concrete and paint, the first few years of his work on the mountain collapsed into rubble when the concrete became too heavy for the land beneath it. A true testament to his exceptional perseverance, Knight started over using adobe that he learned to craft from the area’s natural clay.
Leonard Knight photographed by Joe Decruyenaere
The famous landmark was designated a National Folk Art Site worthy of protection and preservation by the Folk Art Society of America in 2001. The following year it was entered into congressional record as a national treasure. Leonard lived on site in a broken-down fire truck or a hammock with only a modest income check from the VA. Salvation Mountain is located down the road from Slab City where others also live off the grid in RVs and tents. Leonard’s monument is a shining light revealing the best intentions of the spirit of freedom and spiritual seeking that seem to draw people to this largely forgotten area.
Unfortunately, since Leonard’s passing on February 10th, 2014 at 82 years old, and perhaps also in the wake of last year’s pandemic, the monument has endured significant areas of erosion. Constant repair with thick layers of paint is required to stave off the eroding effects of mother nature on this one-of-a-kind art installation and it is only because of the hard work of volunteers that it generally remains intact.
Photography by Jeff Perkin
At the end of Knight’s life, his good friend Dan Westfall helped set up a board of directors and a non-profit 501c3 organization called Salvation Mountain Inc. The organization hires caretakers to live and work at the mountain for a small stipend. The organization’s website calls for donations and volunteers and there is always the possibility that volunteers will restore the site to its full glory.
In today’s digital age, perhaps it isn’t all that important to make a pilgrimage to the middle of the desert to see Leonard’s work in person. Knight wanted his message of love to reach the whole world and knew that the internet was the best way to do that. There is no telling how many people have been touched by his message thanks to his work’s appearance on the big screen, in YouTube videos, and with images and stories shared across social media. Thankfully, the internet provides us a portal to timelessly witness the beautiful spirit of a man whose home, life’s work and faith were so artfully and soulfully intertwined.
Photography by Jeff Perkin
“It was the purest ministry I’ve ever seen. He didn’t have a 401k or a crystal cathedral. He had nothing, but he was happy, and he was joyful, and he was loving.” Dan Westfall (Knight’s friend and co-founder of Salvation Mountain Inc.)
Jeff Perkin is a graphic artist and Integrative Nutrition Health Coach available at WholySelf.com
