Category: Gardening

April 21, 2015 / Vickie Lester

Would I lie to you about Hollywood? Well, I’d certainly fictionalize things… Click on any picture to read all about it

As you know, I’ve been in Palm Springs. Which I have a kind of atavistic love for… The architecture and the terrain: The coupling of cacti and swimming pools… What I forgot about the desert was the wind. The wind that kicks up out of nowhere, throwing palm fronds to…

Read the post

April 9, 2015 / Vickie Lester

MID-CENTURY MOD DESIGNED BY PAUL MILLER – PHOTO BY MAX TATCH

February 7, 2015 / Vickie Lester

Lloyd Wright – Art Deco – The Taggert House

December 11, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Reprise: I have a Pavlovian response, and when I’m feeling peaked I have to go to Palm Springs

When I was a youngster we didn’t spend much time there. My mother spoke of it disdainfully saying, “It’s fine if you’re a Republican or play golf,” neither the party or the sport interested her. I did, however, have an aunt and uncle who had retired young and decided to…

Read the post

October 6, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Wallace Neff designed a house for Italian Soprano, Amelita Galli-Curci

. .

September 4, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Case Study House No. 20 – Photographed by Julius Shulman – Home of Saul Bass

I went to see this house in Altadena when it hit the market in the 1990s. Innovative materials in the fifties hadn’t stood the test of time, but the bones of the house, designed by Buff, Straub, and Hensman, were incredibly beautiful. The house was built for the graphic designer,…

Read the post

September 2, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Mid-century Palm Springs – with Julius Shulman and Albert Frey

July 4, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Independence Day! Have a great 4th, and if I don’t get too pruney from the pool I’ll pop in now and again…

June 9, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Ms. Lester Regrets (Nothing)! For It’s A Book Club World, After All!

There’s a lot of talk these days about the seismic changes in the publishing business. What’s discussed less are the changes to the social aspect of reading and the increasingly social ways people interact over books. And this social component is even driving the way books are marketed, both by…

Read the post

May 19, 2014 / Vickie Lester

I love Los Angeles. I love the light. I love the eclecticism and the architecture. Most of all I love the people.

So, when I satirize, or say dark things about the city in my novel, know that it comes from an abiding devotion to a place I call home. These pictures are not from my home. This place was designed by Rudolph Schindler and opened to the public this past Sunday…

Read the post