Meanwhile, back at the ranch house
Pour a tall Jack and Coke, flip Frankie over on the hi-fi, flop into a Eames leather lounge chair and open your eyes again to that frightfully wacky duck-and-cover age. If your memory is a little hazy, you might want to turn to the pages of a new magazine, Atomic Ranch.
Publisher Jim Brown says the 64-page quarterly focuses on ranch houses and modernist tract homes that attracted -- and still do -- "regular people with good taste on a budget."
Although millions of ranch houses built in the 1950s and '60s were scattered across the nation, the premiere issue showcases a home in Verdugo Hills. It exemplifies all that's right with these horizontal homes: ease of living, the blurring of inside and outside and the ebullient use of fiesta orange, zinnia gold and bayberry blue on walls, cabinets and ceramics.
Brown, an editorial photographer for auto magazines, partnered with his wife, Michelle Gringeri-Brown, a former editor of American Bungalow, to produce the South Pasadena-based publication.
Readers even get space to brag about their abodes, furnishing finds and renovations. "People love to share what they have," says Brown, who spent his teen years living in a ranch in Playa del Rey. "But these houses haven't gotten much respect. We want to dignify them, elevate them for the design marvels they are."
A copy is $5.95; a four-issue subscription is $19.95. The magazine is available at Hennessey + Ingalls in Santa Monica, Fatty's in Eagle Rock, Out of Vogue in Fullerton, Sublime and Modern Way in Palm Springs, and Boomerang for Modern in San Diego. For more information, call (323) 258-5540; www.atomic-ranch.com.
Janet Eastman
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Furniture and tools, with legs
Author-artist David Kirk may be best known for his series of bestselling "Miss Spider" children's books, written in sophisticated rhymes and lavishly illustrated with his own oil paintings.
But before he created books, he designed toys. So it's only natural that Kirk has a line of children's garden tools, outdoor furniture and accessories.
Based on the theme of "Miss Spider" -- a sweet-natured, yellow-and-black arachnid who lives in a florid fantasy world -- the Sunny Patch collection began last year and was created for Target stores. This month, about three dozen new pieces were added, including the Buggy Broom ($9.99), Big Bug Barrow ($24.99), Ladybug Cultivator ($2.99) and the Augie Alligator Lounge ($14.99).
