Los Agaves newest location is at 2911 De La Vina Street. The doors opened yesterday and the space looks fantastic. Here are a couple of pictures. The space is large and open and parking is plentiful.

BRINGS A WORLD OF CUSTOM DESIGN TO SANTA BARBARA

Living in Santa Barbara and sourcing the best of domestic and international design used to mean driving to Los Angeles. Not anymore. Now, thanks to the growing line of products and services at Reed Floors & Interiors, it’s all available ten minutes from downtown SB.

Since acquiring Reed Floors in 2010, Romain Doussineau has expanded and refined the business, which is located amid the growing collection of home-centric stores along Santa Claus Lane in Carpinteria. First, he added new lines and styles of flooring. Then, last April, Reed expanded into the neighboring space. The renamed Reed Floors & Interiors has become a one-stop shop for flooring, carpets and rugs, furniture, lighting, wall coverings, window treatments, fine textiles and more. Romain sources products from around the world and works directly with manufacturers. “We want to be a resource for designers,” he says. ”We want to be a place where you can get anything, and everything is possible.”

Reed clients, many of whom are interior designers and contractors, can shop for European wallpapers and flooring from France and South America. They can choose from hundreds of fabrics for window treatments, upholstery and pillows – and then have them made and installed by Reed’s expert craftsmen, whose work carries a lifetime guarantee.

“We can re-create any piece of furniture, but our specialty is working with designers to make originals,” Romain explains. “We can spec the welting, the cushion foam and the springs. We can re-cover old couches or create a new French settee.” Reed is bringing back wallpaper and offers an array of other innovative wall coverings, including the distinctive Roxipan line of concrete-veneer products.

Clients who are working on a project themselves can seek advice from Reed’s in-house designer, Christine Craig, whether to find fabric for a single pillow or to design an entire room. “We offer so many beautiful products here,” says Christine. “We just want to help everyone make the best choice for themselves or their clients. We don’t like to say no, and we try to keep the door open for any design possibility.” As they say at Reed, We source for you. We work for you. We care for you.

3821 SANTA CLAUS LANE, CARPINTERIA • 805.684.7583 • REEDFLOORS.COM

Dining at the Andersen’s Restaurant and Bakery in downtown Santa Barbara is like stepping into an elegant, yet relaxed Danish palace. At first the child in each of us is drawn to the dazzling bakery display case. The sparkling selection of goodies are too many to name here, but some local favorites are the Butter Rings, Apple Strudels, Almond Marzipan Kringles, and a delicious selection of cream pastries. A special homemade Marzipan cream is at the heart of many of these delights.

Located in the heart of the historic La Arcada Plaza, this beloved establishment was brought to life by master chef Alfred Andersen, who brought his dream from Denmark to Santa Barbara. Today it is owned and managed by the charming mother and daughter team of Birte and Charlotte Andersen. Their passion and commitment to using quality ingredients is heartfelt and evident in each item that leaves the kitchen.

A full breakfast, lunch and dinner menu is also available, with a fabulous wine selection to accompany what is known as Northern European Cuisine. The elegant, recently added LiseLotte Room is a lovely contemporary space that is available for rental for birthday and anniversary parties, wedding receptions, baby showers or corporate events.

A sumptuous High Tea service is available daily from 2-5 pm, and includes small sandwiches, scones, pastries, and fruit in season, with a wide variety of teas to choose from. Served on beautiful tiered silver platters, it is available for a party of two or a larger gathering of up to 150 people. Call ahead to have Charlotte assist you with your party needs.

The vision of Charlotte and Mrs. Andersen continues to march into the future, as they create new culinary delights daily. Happy hour features a carefully selected assortment of appetizers and beer and wine. Live jazz music and wine and dish pairing dinners are ongoing, check the website for details!

1106 STATE STREET, SANTA BARBARA
805.962.5085 • ANDERSENSSANTABARBARA.COM

A REDESIGN BY SANTA BARBARA’S CABANA HOME UNIFIES DIVERSE STYLES TO CREATE A SOOTHING,
WELCOMING MODERN RETREAT FOR A YOUNG COUPLE
CALM, WARMTH AND BALANCE INFUSE THE WINE COUNTRY HOUSE THAT STEVE THOMPSON REDESIGNED FOR THE SON AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OF AN OLD FRIEND. THE FRESH EARTH tone palette punctuated with color, exudes warmth. Curves and straight lines gracefully interact. Wrought iron, wood and natural textures, such as jute, woven grass, burlap, silk, wool and linen, suggest elemental comforts. Touches of Spanish mission style co-exist happily with an unobtrusively modern sensibility.
Ask Thompson, though, and he’ll tell you that it took a full year of concentrated effort to get there. “Virtually every piece of hardware was replaced and every surface refinished,” he says. All of the ceilings and walls had something done to them. The bathrooms were all gutted and restyled.”

The first time Thompson saw the custom-built two-level residence, located on a picturesque acre of undulating green hills that back up to the furthest outreaches of Vandenberg Air Force Base, it was an inelegant, 5,000 square-foot mash-up of colliding lines and competing styles. Colonial fought with Spanish, traditional battled modern, pointed cathedral windows scowled at an unbroken sprawl of pop-out colonial window grills. “There were lots of angles and lines, and the house seemed to have no rhyme or reason,” Thompson says of the four-bedroom, four-bath home. “My job was to unify it and make it more modern.” A key first step was transforming the many triangle-shaped door openings – particularly in the long first-floor central hallway – into arched openings, using the arched front door as a template. That, in combination with the existing barrel-tile roof, allowed the Spanish mission influence so prevalent in the area to emerge.

A 39 foot thickly woven jute runner now extends along the length of the hall, which is flanked by custom-made wrought iron sconces, which suggest candles along a winery corridor. “It’s not a Spanish theme park. It’s a modern home that pays homage to the area’s Spanish heritage,” Thompson says. Another major first-floor reconfiguration involved removing a massive multi-angled column from the end of the living room closest to the kitchen. The column had rendered a corner of the living room unusable, created dark chaos where it intersected the ceiling, and truncated the attractive coffered kitchen ceiling.

Pushing the kitchen wall toward the living room allowed Thompson to even out the height of the kitchen ceiling and extend its coffered design, and use the front side of the column as the back wall of a living room alcove for an antique Asian wardrobe. The dining room was originally another oddity, designed with two of its corners cut off. Thompson filled the cutouts to define the polygonal room, where a custom-made wrought iron chandelier hangs above an extendable  round table.

The house also had the rare problem of too many windows, which, Thompson says, “let so much light into the house that it washed out all the colors.” He replaced a wall of windows with a wall and shelving that now holds the couple’s collection of art glass. The owners did not like the red cherry-wood floors, so Thompson suggested first bleaching, and then staining them to the desired dark-brown color and  saving the clients about $50,000. Wool carpeting is installed in the bedrooms.

Thompson updated the appearance of the kitchen by replacing some of the brown-and-black granite with stainless steel backsplashes to complement the existing appliances. Cabinets were refinished with dove gray lacquer and the front of the bar counter was antiqued to enhance the breakfast room, where a chandelier crafted from an antique wine barrel hangs above a table made from a refinished reclaimed door.

Thompson describes the original media room as “too tall and too blank; a square box with 12 foot high ceilings, no molding and no detail.” He added a wood floor, then installed ceiling moldings and used three tints of paint – dark on the ceiling, lighter on the molding and lightest on the walls – to “shrink” the room vertically and “expand” it horizontally. With the push of a button, the curtains close to darken the room for optimal viewing in a room that, like the house, now feels right, natural and balanced.

CABANA HOME
SANTA BARBARA • EL ENCANTO HOTEL • MILL VALLEY
cabanahome.com

photography by James Bartsch  •  story by James Badham

Using traditional textile artistry he learned from his grandmother on the shores of Lake Titicaca, Puno, Aymar Ccopacatty transforms discarded plastics into vibrant works of art. His collages and textiles are designed to inspire and to generate discussion on the use and disposal of plastics worldwide. The reception will be held at Plum Goods on Saturday, June 29, 2013 from 5:00pm-8:00 pm. All are welcome to attend the reception, view his innovative works of art composed entirely of recycled plastics, and meet the artist. Proceeds from the show will benefit the Ccopacatty Andean Library-Cultural Center founded by Aymar’s father, artist Peruko Ccopacatty (ccopacatty.com/library) as well as the Santa Barbara-based Tribal Trust Foundation, which works to preserve indigenous cultures worldwide (tribaltrustfoundation.org). Aymar Ccopacatty is an intercultural artist of Peruvian and U.S. heritage, who learned the traditional textile art of the Aymara from his grandmother on the shores of Lake Titicaca, Puno. After studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Aymar now divides his time between the USA and his hometown of Puno.

Currently, plastic bags provide the prime materials for his work. He transforms these discarded plastics into vibrant works of art designed to inspire and generate discussion on the use and disposal of plastics on a global scale. Ccopacatty currently participates in expositions in Peru and internationally. For more information on Aymar and to view images of his work, please visit aymart.org. Plum Goods is located at 909 State Street. For more information, please contact Store Manager Suzy Granziera at 805.845.3900.

Aymar Ccopacatty will demonstrate weaving/knitting with plastic bags at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on Sunday, June 30th from 12-5 pm in associate with SBMA’s major exhibition Labour and Wait (on view July 2 – September 22, 2013).

Others come looking for a fast snack and get waylaid by the freshest local organic ingredients presented in carefully prepared dishes that reflect Southern California’s farm-to-table sensibility. Early in the day, you might have a cup of organic coffee or a latté and a homemade blueberry muffin or a breakfast quiche. Later, it could be a glass of fine wine from the extensive collection to go with the daily cream-free soup, a seasonal salad inspired by farmers market produce, a creatively composed sandwich, or the locally famous Friday special – homemade posole verde.

You can also eat inside, surrounded by appealing displays of jewelry, table linens, small sculptures, lamps, candles and other garden-related objects – think owls and butterflies – that share a homespun feel derived from wood, stone and other natural elements. It’s the perfect setup for wherever a post-prandial peregrination may lead.

3811 SANTA CLAUS LANE, CARPINTERIA • 805.745.5505