Style + Beauty

THIS IS WHERE I TAKE HER

Ellie's standing list, for the friend who comes once a year. Article and Photography by I have friends from all over the world who come to visit me in Palo Alto. This is mostly because I’m such an advocate for the Bay! Over the years, I’ve built a perfect little running itinerary for when someone's in town. It’s less a list than a route. Where we start. Blue Bottle on University on a Saturday morning. I grab a matcha and we sit outside on the patio to catch up. A walk worth taking. ...

Home + Design

FROM NEW DELHI TO PALO ALTO

Twenty years of Indian textiles. Three years of Marigold Row. Photography by Karina Pemberton At Marigold Row, a shop on the Town & Country side of El Camino, Anita Mehta is unfolding a piece of cloth that someone in a village outside Kolkata stitched together by hand. She runs a finger along a seam where two older fabrics have been joined. The technique is called Kantha, the Indian habit of refusing to throw a good cloth away. A grandmother's sari starts to wear through. Two layers are laid...

Home + Design

THE HOUSE AROUND THE OAK

A Saratoga rebuild that left the tree standing. Photography by Drew Kelly A couple in Saratoga had a half-acre lot with a protected oak tree on it, and four grown daughters. They were ready to rebuild the house. Every architect they consulted drew a two-story plan, the standard answer when a heritage tree on the lot forces a builder vertical. Cynthia Spence Design looked at the same lot and proposed something different: a one-story modern farmhouse that wraps around the tree instead of...

Home Services

Close to Home

Close to HomePalo Alto takes the spotlight in the latest episode of ADU Adventures, and what the show finds here says something quietly flattering about the town, and about the way its families build.Ask around Palo Alto and you'll hear a familiar set of questions, usually raised quietly, often at the kitchen table. Where will Mom and Dad live as they get older, close enough to help but still independent? Where does a grown child land while saving for a place of their own in one of the most...