A friend and I drove up to Santa Barbara last week partly to visit Lotusland, which has been on my bucket list for a while, and partly to enjoy the city. Lotusland is actually located in Montecito, an affluent unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California, east of the City of Santa Barbara.
I first heard of Lotusland while visiting Santa Barbara for the Summer Solstice Festival in June, 2017. That was quite a different scene with thousands of people thronging the streets. Click here to view my blog post of that event.
Lotusland sits on 37 acres and unless you are a member you must walk through it on a tour with a docent.
It is billed as one of the top ten most beautiful gardens in the entire world. Well, it is very nice and I enjoyed the visit but I’m not sure I would go that far. Maybe we are spoiled for lovely gardens in Southern California but other gardens in other parts of the world spring to mind. Top 100 might be more realistic although I haven’t traveled enough to back that up! But it was worth seeing, for sure.
I took 240 photos during the walk and it was very hard to decide which ones to display… I could easily have included 100 in this post… but I decided to spare you and cut it down to a mere 56 with as much variety as possible… which means some of my favorites hit the cutting room floor… that hurt!
This turquoise glass slag lines the pathways… a very effective and beautiful border.
Lotusland contains about 21 different garden areas with more than 3,000 different plants from around the world. Please click on an image below to begin the slide show.
I’ll be uploading a couple more posts of our trip to the Santa Barbara area so stay tuned!
Christ Cathedral under renovation so I couldn’t get up close and personal. Crean Tower peeking out behind stands 256 feet tall.
Howdy everybody! The last time I posted on this blog was December 29, 2018… that’s almost half a year ago. I’ve been wanting to come back to WordPress but it’s been one thing after another. The past couple of weeks I decided I either had to start posting again or close up shop forever. So here we are for better or worse! I’ve missed all my WordPress friends!
Designed by Philip Johnson, this stunning 236-foot stainless-steel mirrored spire stands over 18 stories tall and houses a magnificent 52 bell carillon. The Arvella Schuller carillon was named in honor of her 35 years of service in bringing beautiful music to the church. This remarkable collection of bells range from six inches to nearly six feet and were forged by the Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry in the Netherlands.
This past Saturday some friends and I visited Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, which is the former Crystal Cathedral headed by Robert Schuller. Now it is owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. The cathedral itself was completed in 1980. In all that time I have wanted to visit! The plan was to view the Sistine Chapel Exhibition. I was not interested as I didn’t want to dilute my previous experiences with this artwork both at the Vatican and in England. Reminder to self: I need to post the photos from the church I visited in Worthing, Sussex.
Designed by Richard Neutra and his son Dion, the 13-story Tower of Hope first opened in 1968. Named after New Hope Ministries, this building housed the very first 24-hour suicide prevention hotline.
The cathedral itself is not open right now as it is undergoing renovations. The dedication is set for July but it won’t be fully opened until 2020 after the organ has been completely tuned. I intend to return at that time as they will be resuming docent tours. However, I knew I would find plenty of photographic opportunities wandering around the rest of the campus while my friends enjoyed the exhibit. BTW, the consensus of the others was that the exhibition was just okay… so I was happy with my decision. There is no greater joy for me than exploring with my camera.
The Cultural Center completed in 2002 was designed by world renowned architect Richard Meier, also known for his commission of the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Jubilee Church in Rome, Italy.
As there was construction going on all over the complex it was pretty much impossible to twist my camera around to avoid it so please excuse the intrusion of chain link fences or scaffolding or equipment. I did crop some of it out which also necessitated cropping out parts of the scene. Enough with the excuses! Click on an image below to start the slide show.
The ladies restroom is one of highlights of the complex. A female parishioner was fed up with the lack of enough facilities for women. She donated one million dollars to build the best possible womens restrooms that amount of money could buy!
Another interesting day in downtown Los Angeles. My friend KJ and I went on a private tour of the NoMad Hotel organized by Eleanor Schrader. This was particularly meaningful to me as when I was a docent with the Los Angeles Conservancy I would bring people to the building in its various incarnations.
(Just an anecdote, I remember many years ago when I was leading a tour, some movie company was shooting a film outside the building. They removed the tree that you see in the above photo. I was really mad. But as you can see, they did it carefully so they could replant it when the shoot was over, and today it is still healthy!)
The 1920s were the glory days of downtown LA and the building known as Giannini Place, the home of the Bank of Italy, was no exception. The building morphed into the Bank of America, then attempts were made to renovate it for offices until it became derelict.
So I am very happy this historic building has been totally renovated in the spirit of its original design to become a boutique hotel.
I popped downstairs to the restroom to discover that the vault had been converted to bathrooms!
Click on an image to start a slide show of some photos of the hotel:
The interior of the hotel is gorgeous. But my favorite part is the roof bar and pool area with some great views of the city! Click on an image below:
Above is the coffee shop decked out for the season.
It was suggested that we should visit the sister hotel down the street for lunch, the Freehand Hotel in what was originally the 1920s Commercial Exchange Building. It’s so great to see these wonderful Beaux Artes buildings coming back to life as apartments and hotels after standing empty for decades.
The ambience of the Freehand is totally different from the NoMad. We both felt like we were in an Asian take on Yosemite! The wait staff emphasized that the chef was half Mexican, half Chinese which influenced the cuisine. We both chose the Tunisian sandwich which was a delicious take on a nicoise salad.
Four members of the Culver City Art Group shared a lovely visit to Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, an art gallery in the Arts District neighborhood of downtown LA. Three of us, B, K and me, rode the Expo Line to the Red Line to the Gold Line and met R there. She drove. Maybe next time we can get her on the train!
The first exhibit was artwork by Mark Bradford. I’ve seen his work at another art museum and fell in love with his images. See my blog post about that exhibit here.
Some contemporary art I can walk right by and other work sucks me in. His images are definitely of the latter variety.
The gallery was originally an old flour mill built from 1896 to 1929. Fortunately the gallery has left a lot of details from that time.
Bradford’s work is very complex. It’s spectacular from a distance but you need to view it close up to really get it.
Looking up at the skylight in the first gallery
I can’t help it, I was as captivated by the details of the building as I was by the art work!
On Sunday S and I decided to walk the two miles from Yosemite Valley Lodge over to the Majestic Yosemite Hotel (formerly known as the Ahwahnee Hotel).
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It was another chilly sunny morning and I was beginning to doubt I would ever experience snow at Yosemite in my lifetime!
Although we enjoyed the group hike the day before, we were equally happy to have time on our own, going at our own speed and stopping to take photos.
A lot of the trees looked pretty brown and dried up. I wasn’t sure if that was the drought or the time of year.
The bare tree branches allowed for some dramatic scenes.
A rather ominous sign. Does that mean the rest of the park is full of guns?
Like Mona Lisa’s eyes, Yosemite Falls followed us along our route.
Our plan was to eat lunch at the hotel bar then take a docent tour of the Majestic Hotel.
Two of the light fixtures in the bar, one with bears, the other with pine trees.
After lunch we had a wait for the docent tour so I hunkered down for a nap in a very comfy chair in the Writing Room next to a window with a lovely view.
View of the hotel built right up against the mountain.
Our tour guide was very lively and passionate about his subject. He told us he had been climbing El Capitan and Half Dome since he was about four years old with his parents.
Although our accommodations at the lodge were very comfortable I wouldn’t mind staying at the Majestic (Ahwahnee) on my next visit! This last photo shows what the original decoration of the walls and ceilings looked like. You can see the areas that have been uncovered under the yellow and brown paint. At one point it was thought to be too busy so it was painted over.
In the very very distance at the left on the top of the mountain you may be able to see a white horizontal splodge. That is the Hollywood Sign. If you look a little to the right you will see another white speck which is the Griffith Observatory.
Almost 30 years ago Library Tower opened as the tallest building in Los Angeles and West of Chicago at 73 stories and 1018 feet (approx 310 m) high. As a Los Angeles Conservancy docent at the time I had the privilege of leading tours around the 72nd story. It was late afternoon. There had been a huge storm the day before. The skies were full of wonderful cloud formations and the view went on forever… from the glittering ocean to the mountains and beyond to the desert. It’s a scene I will always hold in my head.
Wilshire Boulevard at center heading northwest. It jogs to the left around Koreatown to turn west and then runs through Beverly Hills, heads southwest at Westwood Village and then all the way out to the beach at Santa Monica.
It’s now the US Bank Tower but it’s always been an office building closed to the public. New owners took over recently, built some observation decks and installed a glass slide between the 70th and 69th floors and called it OUE Skyspace which is open to the public for the price of a ticket. Above are two views from the observation decks. Below are three photos of the slide.
I was able to get 50% off coupons for up to 16 people and we had 13 in our group so that worked out well. None of us wanted to go on the slide… this time… but there’s always a next time!
I wrote a blog post back in December including a trip to the top of the Wilshire Grand, (you can visit it here) which is claiming to be the tallest building in Los Angeles. In fact, it is a few feet shorter but a mast attached to the top allows it to be called the tallest building. So it’s the fake tallest building in LA. The US Bank Tower is still in reality the tallest. Yes, it bugs me!
The best part is that you can look down on the fake tallest building from the real tallest building observation deck. The fake tallest building is, of course, the one with the mast sticking up above its roofline.
Unfortunately, this was a pretty smoggy/hazy day with limited visibility. Otherwise we would have seen the glittering ocean 15 miles away. I just checked Google maps and at 5:20pm (current time) on a Monday afternoon it would take one hour and 20 minutes to drive those 15 miles! Good luck!
This shell-like image is taken by standing on a glass plate at the top of an old elevator shaft on the 54th floor looking down to the ground floor.
So many stories (no pun intended) in these buildings both happy and sad.
Cylinders in the center comprise the 1974 Bonaventure… still one of my favorite hotels in downtown.
Of course, I have to leave you with a photo of the building itself!
One of my favorite views of the US Bank Tower, originally named the Library Tower, next to the Central Library building. These two buildings by themselves tell the story of architecture in Los Angeles.
The real tallest building in LA!
I’ve probably said it before but I will keep saying it: I love exploring downtown LA (and all of LA) as there is so much to discover and learn. I’ve lived in LA all my adult life and I’m still finding new, delightful and surprising things!
Two days before Christmas I repeated the Downtown Los Angeles Christmas Tree & Decorations Tour. Click on this link for last week’s walk. This time there were five of us. I know there were other people who wanted to come but due to illnesses, injuries and other commitments, could not make it.
Don’t know what kind of tree this is but the red berries made it very festive. At California Plaza.
California Plaza includes two skyscrapers, both of which are shown in the above photo.
My four companions on the walk at California Plaza
Lobby of the US Bank Building with the Central Library in the background.
In February or March I’m hoping to put together a tour of the Central Library and then use the 50% off coupons I have to visit Skyspace, the open air observation deck at the top of the US Bank Building.
A view of the Central Library with the new Wilshire Grand Hotel (with the mast) peeking up behind it.
The US Bank building (also known as Library Tower) was able to build to 72 floors by trading air space with the Central Library. So the library can never build higher than its present height.
Millenium Biltmore Hotel lobby
Yup, you saw the above tree in my previous post. But it’s so gorgeous it’s worth seeing again! Do you recognize that ceiling? It was used in The Poseidon Adventure.
Hands-on dad assisting his daughter with the Penguin helper at Pershing Square
There’s construction going on everywhere these days. More people, more traffic.
Hotel Clark as seen from Pershing Square
The Hotel Clark was built sometime around 1912-ish. It was a transient hotel for many years and in pretty bad shape. It’s really good to see its new life as a boutique hotel with a rooftop restaurant/bar. I have to see if I can get up there at some point.
Tree on 70th floor of Wilshire Grand
View from the 70th floor of the new Wilshire Grand Hotel
If you read my previous blog post, the first time I made it to the 70th floor lobby of the Wilshire Grand Hotel I had a terrible case of vertigo that crippled me, so I couldn’t take any photos. This time I was still a little queazy but I was able to wrap my brain around the fact that I was up so high and it was okay. The above view looks out to the Santa Monica Mountains and towards Malibu.
The main part of LA is known as the Los Angeles Basin. You can see how the name originated as we are surrounded by mountain ranges. On the other side of the mountains is The Valley… still a part of the City of Angels.
And then there are the freeways. Pretty light traffic for a Saturday. Everybody has parked their cars at the shopping malls for Christmas shopping!
The ocean on the horizon… from Palos Verdes to Santa Monica. The ocean is about 15 miles (24 km) from the Wilshire Grand.
I know the color is awful on these photos. I’m still having problems with color calibration and Lightroom… and reflections through the windows didn’t help. A triple whammy.
You might notice the heli-pad on the building next door. Until recently there was a requirement to have a helicopter landing place on every building in downtown for emergencies. Since that ruling has been lifted we are seeing some more architecturally interesting rooftops.
This last photo is a zoomed-in look at Echo Park Lake, approximately two miles (3.2 km) from the hotel. That white object sticking up in the center of the lake is the Olympic Fountain installed for the 1984 Olympics. You can see photos of the lake on my blog post here.
Be sure to see my post about the previous week’s walk-through of downtown decorations at Deck the Halls of DTLA.
Los Angeles City Hall at right mirrored with Christmas tree
Thanks to my friend SB for walking around Downtown Los Angeles (otherwise known as DTLA) with me today. It’s no secret I love downtown and I especially love it at Christmas… otherwise know as “The Holidays.” As anybody who knows me is aware, I embrace all religions and follow none. But I was brought up with Christmas, so that’s the way it is!
The above photo advertises El Dia de Los Muertos which is celebrated at Grand Park with installations honoring the dead, a Mexican tradition. The N.Y.E.L.A. poster is for the New Years Eve party hosted at Grand Park. At right is the reflection of the fountain.
A reflection in a window of the fountain with Christmas decoration on the left half. I always love Christmas with palm trees! After being too hot, today the temperature was around 70F (21C), my perfect temperature!
We walked over to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This was the window of the gift shop. We assumed the colorful tubes represent the pipes of the organ in the hall. And you can see the reflection of City Hall peeking up behind the pipes.
Decorations in the window of the gift shop with reflections of clouds and palm trees. How Southern California is this?
The exterior of the Broad Museum mirroring a reflection of the building next to it.
We walked over to California Plaza to look at the decorations. The Angels Flight train was coming up the track.
City Hall in the background.
Christmas trees reflected in the pool at California Plaza.
Christmas tree and wreath inside the building with reflections from outside.
Another tree inside lobby of a building with reflections from outside. Obviously I’m obsessed with reflections!
Decorations inside the lobby, yes, with more reflections!
Looking upwards from California Plaza
Next we moved on to Grand Central Market. Loved this neon ad for Frontier Whiskey!
Grand Central Market Christmas Tree
One Bunker Hill didn’t disappoint with their decorations. But the coffee bar was closed for the weekend.
One Bunker Hill is one of my favorite buildings any time of the year.
A very decent tree at the US Bank Building, the “real” tallest building in LA.
We then transported ourselves over to the Biltmore Hotel. We had lunch there at Smeraldi’s. We each ordered the mushroom bisque.
Absolute heaven. And we split the prawn sandwich. Equally as good. Just enough food. Would do that again for sure!
I adore the Biltmore. I could live there!
Now this is what I call a Christmas tree. The photo really doesn’t do it justice. Sorry.
They do a really great “tea” in the afternoons.
Christmas in LA cannot be complete without a visit to the skating rink at Pershing Square. The little kids have “penguins” to hold on to. It’s great to see them fall and get up again and still enjoy themselves. A lesson there for all of us!
Looking up from Pershing Square.
Pacific Mutual always has some good decorations. I love all the 1920s buildings in downtown but this one is special to me as when I did my LA Conservancy training this was the building I had to present in order to become a docent. It’s hard for me to believe now but I was so nervous I almost decided to quit the program before I had to give my talk. Glad I didn’t!
After this we visited the brand new Wilshire Grand Hotel. We took the elevator up to the lobby on the 70th floor. I had a bad vertigo attack looking out of the windows as there are no railings to hold on to. Why not??? In any case it was horribly hazy from all the fires so I could not have taken any photos anyway. But it would certainly be an impressive view on a clear day. Some other time, for sure!
I’m not ashamed to admit I love downtown Los Angeles. So when I heard that Carole Garland was showing her paintings of downtown at the TAG Gallery on Wilshire Blvd (near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) I had to go. I took the Culver CityBus line #1 to the Metro line #217.
This was my first visit to TAG since the gallery moved from Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.
I really like the space. It gives the artists a chance to spread out. There’s also a second level.
The photo above is all Carole’s DTLA show.
Los Angeles Union Station
It was difficult for me to pick her three best paintings. I just had to be arbitrary or I would have ended up showing you all of them!
Bridge spanning the LA River
BTW, all Carole’s images are shown with her permission.
The heart of downtown with new Wilshire Grand building in foreground as it was being constructed.
After this I jumped on the Metro #720 bus thinking it would take me along Wilshire Blvd all the way downtown. Surprise, it was only going to Vermont. Fortunately, the bus turned the corner and dropped us all off at the Wilshire/Vermont Red and Purple Line Station.
Looking upwards to the station at the top of the hill
That actually worked out better as I was able to take the Purple Line all the way to Pershing Square for my next adventure. Angels Flight, the world’s shortest railway, had reopened recently (this was September 20, 2017) and I wanted a ride. I won’t go into the whole history here. It’s been pretty rocky. You’ll have to Google it.
The price is one whole dollar for the ride. As I have a TAP card it only cost me 50 cents each way.
I’ve ridden this little railway a million times over the years. I never get tired of it.
Having gotten my jollies on Angels Flight (up and down), it was time for coffee. I had read an article in the LA Times (I subscribe to the digital version) that a coffee bar had opened in the lobby of one of my favorite buildings, One Bunker Hill. Don’t have to ask me twice!
My coffee and the view from where I was sitting.
The building was originally called the Southern California Edison Building when it opened around 1930. It was on the very first architectural tour I took with the Los Angeles Conservancy in 1988 and when I saw the interior I decided I had to become an architectural docent. So I took the training and led LAC walking tours for sixteen years.
I think my little Canon point & shoot camera doesn’t do too bad of a job, does it?
I love the subdued light that comes in through the pastel-colored window panes.
This is the most elegant coffee bar I have ever had the pleasure of spending my time in.
The very friendly and personable barista.
When I was doing the tours I seem to remember there were something like 30 different kinds of marble used in the building. This was just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 which hit the West Coast around 1930 as the building was opening.
Travertine, a porous rock formed in surface waters. If you ever go to Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone, you will be walking on it as it is forming. A fabulous experience.
So now it was lunchtime. I had read a review about Cabbage Patch so I decided to try it out. Mmmmm. I ordered two sides, mashed potatoes and cole slaw. Both were heavenly.
I was so happy, sitting at my window table watching the world walk by. What a lovely day. I was so grateful for my life.
I walked back over to Pershing Square to discover it was farmers market day. We have these pop-up markets all over the LA area on different days. I go to the Culver City farmers market on Tuesday afternoons to buy all my veggies and fruit.
Biltmore Hotel, Library Tower,  Gas Company, California Plaza
And it was time to go home. Downtown is an endless source of enjoyment for me. This was a super day.
Yesterday was the inaugural walk of my photography Meetup group, Walk & Talk Photography. It was a good group and an interesting experience.
Although I’ve taken photos of most of these places before, every time I look through the lens I see something new and different.
Following are some of the photos I took on the walk. Click on a photo for the slide show.
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