Siting Santa Monica: Ocean to Beach

Siting Santa Monica: Ocean to Beach

There is a magical walkway between Street and Santa Monica Beach.

On Ocean…beguiling architecture can be seen…

complete with detail of tile, brick and terracotta.

To the side..wooden shutters and pattern upon pattern,

giving new meaning to “white picket fence”.

As one moves down the walkway from Ocean to beach….one sees more layers, of pattern and material, plants and metal. Santa Monica knows from gates…weathered, imposing, architectural, artsy.

At the bottom of the walkway, is another magnificent building that manages to combine quaintness and stateliness.

More texture.  This side faces the beach.

Heading back up the walkway, towards Ocean Street again, one passes more brick, banked with foliage and flowers.

Palms, succulents, flowering plants and a mix of materials soften the concrete.

The walkway weaves its magic…feeling for all the world like a picturesque country lane…

Albeit one with some interesting signs, which betray its origins in the world’s entertainment capitol.

More gates, and a visual archway created.

These could be the gates to an Tuscan Villa, if one didn’t see the Pacific Ocean to the right, directly West.

True to ever artful Santa Monica, brick pattern and mosaic design add just enough visual interest to a garden wall to arrest and entice.

It is no accident that the mosaic design leads our eye to the gate, and what lays behind it.

I turn, to take in the Western view…from where I walked,than back Eastward, to Ocean, where I am walking to.

For now.

Walk with Me

Walk with Me

Take a bucolic Santa Monica walk with me…one of many. Enter though the archway.

Feast your eyes on the magnificent purples of the Jacaranda blooms, punctuated by white paper lanterns round as moons.

Purple butterflies and pink flamingos strut and flutter across this yard.

Buried deep in the foliage of fern and palm, this house hosts garden sculpture and pink blossoms.

Intricate painting on a front gate door is enhanced by picturesque peeling, showing the effect of wind and weather.

Further Jacaranda glories line the street.  Tis the season.

Intense purples collide in colorific harmony…

Passing though? Or living here…don’t miss the delights  of walking  Santa Monica’s leafy avenues…hidden treasures and abject pleasures await those with patience, willingness, and an attentive eye.

 

Straight is the Gate: NOT!

Straight is the Gate: NOT!

The Venice Canals are a fantasy-land of visual whimsey.  Art and architecture, design and details, color, form, texture and landscaping intersect with the natural world of earth and water, mingling in a magical way.  Here, the lines between privacy and the public are both diffused and defined.  Visitors stroll past homes that buttress right up to the sidewalk, but often are shaded by trees, and hidden behind hedges, walls and gates, or a combination of all three.

Metal, wood, and foliage flow together  to create both art and utility.  We are are so caught up in observing the material mix, we forget to peer beyond the gate.  Mission accomplished.

Creative cutouts provide contrast to the wood and metal geometry below, and make of this gate a work of art, both two and three dimensional.

No-one is getting past this gate, unless the owner wants you to.  So arrested by its beauty, we forget how formidable it is. Flanked by bamboo, the strength of its materials, shape and detailing stops us in our tracks.

The simplicity of repeated squares which form a pattern is further softened by curving grasses, and enlivened by the use of stones on the ground in front.

A similar repeated shape creates a grid, reflecting the larger tile-like stones before it, creating a starker, and more stream-lined feeling.

What magnificent and magical gates have been in YOUR purview lately?

If you feel so inclined, please share about them with us here.

We love to hear from you.

Remember, we are all traversing this thing we call Life, together.

Cheers!