Mt. Baldy is LA’s Most Infamous Mountain… and the 3rd Most Deadly in the Country

Featured image credit: Eric T. Gunther Jagged, snow-ravaged peaks scrape frosty clouds; a steel gray contrast overpowering blue skies. Blankets of deceptively powdery snow, punctuated by puma prints, blanket thick, unyielding slabs of ice. Silence is broken by the cascading rustle of falling ice shards and frozen boulders gaining shudder-inducing inertia. No, we’re not in […]

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles Revives “Lost” Nature Dioramas… and Adds Some New Ones

Featured image credit: Maarten Heerlien The next time you visit the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, keep in mind that some of those taxidermied animals behind the glass are over a century old. That’s right, the museum’s nature dioramas just turned a century old. And to commemorate the milestone, the museum re-opened a dormant […]

Christmas in Palm Springs Lost Some Magic When RoboLights Went Dark

Featured image credit: RoboLights Facebook Page Christmas in Palm Springs is a special time where time-honored tradition intersects with yuletide camp in a distinctly sweet seasonal cocktail you won’t find anywhere else. But for many longtime residents of the Coachella Valley, it’s not quite Christmas without Robolights. If you’re asking ‘What’s Robolights?”, there’s no way […]

It’s Christmas Year-Round at Santa’s Village Lake Arrowhead, One of the Most Nostalgic California Amusement Parks

Photo credit: SkyPark at Santa’s Village Christmas comes but once a year (to the disappointment of many children and relief of many bank accounts)… but there is one remote corner of the Los Angeles-adjacent Skyforest where that’s not quite true. Since the early 1950s, Angelenos have recognized that Christmas is a daily event at Santa’s […]

Los Angeles Architecture 101: Mid-Century Modern Architecture

Featured image credit: mbtrama As our Architecture 101 blog series has strived to illuminate, California has often stood at the forefront of America’s architectural development. But this arguably became most obvious in the 1940s with the introduction of today’s featured design movement. Since the mid-1950s, the term “mid-century modern” has been bandied about. But it […]

There’s No Place Like Dome: Why Isn’t the Dome House a More Popular Design Model?

It’s unfortunate that the dome house never really caught on as a viable alternative to boxier living. At first glance, dome houses seem like they’d be more trouble than they’re worth. We’re just too accustomed to more traditional home designs. But after reviewing the benefits and drawbacks of dome home life, it seems that it […]

LA Home Spotlight: Hollyhock House

Featured image credit: Codera23 Perched inconspicuously atop the 36-acre hilltop of Barnsdall Art Park, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House is a zenith of Los Angeles architecture. Wright designed the home at the behest of oil heiress Aline Barnsdall with construction beginning in 1921. Following a tense couple of years of design and construction, Barnsdall expressed […]

Absorption Rate Analysis – November 2024: Four Neighborhoods Start a Significant Trend… Will They Keep It Going?

After October’s near-unanimous surge deeper into the seller’s good graces, it’s no surprise that November offered more divisive absorption rates as neighborhoods evened out. Sure, four neighborhoods started a streak of two consecutive months marching further into seller territory. But we saw seven communities rise higher in the seller’s favor and five drop closer to […]

You Could Call the Nethercutt Collection a Museum for Rare Cars. You’d Be Half Right.

Featured image credit: ZR1748 Southern California is spoiled by its automotive museums. We of course have the Miracle Mile’s Petersen Automotive Museum. Then there’s the Mullen in Oxnard. But one that enthusiasts frequently overlook (likely because of its out-of-the-way Sylmar location) is the Nethercutt Collection and Museum, a breathtaking collection of classic, antique automobiles with […]