Rustic

Alma Allen wasn't the first to transform tree trunks into side tables and stools, but during the last decade, the Joshua Tree woodworker certainly refined the concept. His work has shaped the rustic modern style you see in stores (think the stump table at West Elm). The L.A. interiors firm Commune Design commissioned him to create tables for the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs and stools for the Oliver Peoples store in Malibu. Allen's latest venture: a Heath Ceramics collection of pottery with lids that Allen crafted from solid walnut ($125 to $325)

Cowboys are my weakness. That's not just the title of my favorite Pam Houston book, but the truth about my undying fascination with those icons of the Wild West. These days, when most of the horses are under the hood instead of a barn roof, it's a challenge to find an authentic outpost where rootin,' tootin' cowboys still have a foothold. That's why there's Prescott. Though the mile-high city about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix is becoming a desirable retirement haven, it's more notable for its long-running rodeo, historic downtown and saloons that are the next-best thing to time travel.

I read "High Price of RV Trips" (Letters, Oct. 27) with amusement. A worthwhile RV can be found for $50,000, and well-equipped units (with air conditioner, microwave, TV) start in the $60,000s. Prices go up from there depending on how luxuriously one wishes to travel. An RV is hardly economical. It is, rather, a way of being able to experience a campfire in a rustic setting and have the luxury of your own comfy mini-condo. Of course, an RVer also can "camp" at a posh full-service resort.

Jeremy Fox is the new chef at Rustic Canyon Wine Bar & Seasonal Kitchen in Santa Monica, owned by Josh Loeb and Zoey Nathan. The former Ubuntu chef recently split from Barnyard in Venice and in December was running things at his Old Soul pop-up (hosted by This Is Not a Pop-Up). Fox succeeds Evan Funke, who left Rustic Canyon last year to open the forthcoming Bucato (and incidentally is cooking at This Is Not a Pop-Up for one night next week ).  "Yes, I have been busy with my new gig," Fox says via email, "and I couldn't be more excited about it. "After all this time, I finally feel right at home, like this is exactly where I am meant to be. I'll slowly be changing the menu over the next few weeks.

Early this fall, I was searching for a European vacation that offered interesting sights, exceptional food and lodging, and the opportunity to be outside and active during the day. I chose a walking tour of the Tuscany countryside with a small company called Tre Laghi Travel (2627 Lombard St., San Francisco, CA 94123; telephone [800] 777-8183.) I was not disappointed. Our group of nine people was treated to heavenly destinations and we stayed at country estates, town villas and rustic farmhouses.

Diana Homer is right about accommodations problems at Yosemite National Park ("Lodging a Complaint," Letters, Oct. 21). My wife and I recently stayed in a cabin at Curry Village in the park. We knew it to be rustic, but we expected it to be clean for $95 plus an energy surcharge. There was no pad beneath the sheet, which the maid did not tuck in. By morning I found myself lying directly on the filthiest mattress one could imagine. It was disgusting. RON PALMER Ojai We recently returned after a couple of days in Yosemite National Park enjoying the fall colors and the beautiful weather.

"Polynesia: Afloat on Society's Fringe" [Oct. 19] brought back memories: In October 1964, on the way to Australia, I flew UTA French Airlines to Tahiti. Upon landing, I was surprised to find myself welcomed as Tahiti's first American jet tourist. It was night, and they put me up in a lovely hotel on Papeete's outskirts, where I awoke to a virgin paradise. Papeete was different then. I moved to the Green Hotel, six rustic rooms on the waterfront, with Stirling Hayden's Wanderer moored beside it. Jack Carpenter San Juan Capistrano Send letters to Travel, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; fax (213)

In your front-page article (Dec. 23), Burma is portrayed as an isolated, decaying and disorganized socialist autocracy, which, although "picturesque," has a "backward economy." People in Burma may use ox carts, 40-year old jeeps, and patronize the black market, but Rangoon is remarkably free of urban problems that make most growing Third World cities virtually unlivable. Such rustic items may also be a small price to pay for avoiding foreign debt. The article admits that neutrality and political stability have prevented Burma from making any new enemies since World War II. How many other countries can boast this?

After reading the article "Bearly Out of the Woods" (Oct. 31) by Greg Miller, I was compelled to reply. My husband and I have been going to Silver Lake Resort in the Sierra for more than 25 years, and we have never encountered a bear. The reason: We know better than to put trash out at night, and we close and lock the door. Yes, the cabin Miller mentioned is small, but nothing like the Unabomber's, and there are larger cabins to rent. And yes, there are no phones or televisions in the cabins.

"Perhaps you're a closet Victorian," said a friend of mine dryly to one of our dinner companions, observing with relish the frilly setting at the Secret Garden. Moorpark is a farm town that would look at home in, say, Montana, and until recently the dining scene here has been limited mainly to steak joints and Mexican restaurants. The Secret Garden adds a charming new dimension. It's in a converted old ice cream shop, and the ornate decor suggests both rustic California and fin de siecle splendor--a combination you more often see up in the gold country.

Toms Shoes has opened its first retail store and community space, in Venice, barely an alpargata's toss from the apartment living room where Blake Mycoskie started building his buy-one-give-one, commerce-meets-cause shoe empire six years ago. Inhabiting a Craftsman-style cottage on Abbot Kinney, the 2,200-square-foot indoor-outdoor space feels like a college coffee house in all the right ways. Created in collaboration with L.A.'s Commune Design, it boasts rough-hewn wooden walls and floors inside.

Motorists have plenty of reasons to stop in Las Vegas, but for those whose final destination is Ely, Nev., the most important is gas. That's because the three-hour drive north on U.S. 93 is filled with so much nothing that they'll start to ask themselves two questions: First, have those scientists who claim our planet is overpopulated ever driven this route? Second, does Ely, a town of about 4,000, really exist? The answer to the latter, thankfully, is yes. The bed Upon check-in at the Hotel Nevada & Gambling Hall (501 Aultman St.; [775]

There was a time when the Pine Mountain Inn hosted the biggest party in town. Bikers would roar up the tortuous mountain roads north of Ojai, and cowboys would mosey by in their pickups. Hunters - sometimes more than 100 at a time - would camp in Tom Wolf's field and string fresh deer jerky on clotheslines. The menu boasted of "the purtiest waitresses, best food, lowest prices and only flush toilets within 14 miles in any direction. " There was no phone and only a generator for power.

Galaxy star forward Landon Donovan has sold his compound in Manhattan Beach for $4.2 million — just shy of its $4.295 million asking price. The two-house compound, built in 2007 and 2008, includes a swimming pool. The rustic Mediterranean main house features a great room-style open floor plan, 11-foot ceilings, terra-cotta and wood floors, wrought ironwork and vaulted ceilings. There are five bedrooms, seven bathrooms and 5,715 square feet of living space. The smaller house includes a gym, a massage room, a sauna, a cold plunge, a home theater, a 300-bottle wine cellar and a guest suite.

Beats there a modern-urban romantic's heart so cold that on finding a little slice of paradise, he hasn't thought, “I'm going to open a B&B” (and maybe an organic farm)? More than 25 years ago, Lee Roversi came to the North Shore of Kauai and did just that. And lucky you if you can wangle one of the two secluded cabins she has built at her North Country Farms , just outside of Kilauea. This is Hawaiian rustic at a high level: The windows are screened in, and there are showers outdoors.

The sign is easily visible as you drive north on Fairfax toward 3rd Street and the original Farmers Market, the name Short Order spelled out in cheerful green neon. Great name, great concept: a burger joint with frills, including a full bar, fresh-baked cookies, a retro soundtrack and, upstairs, a sweet little outdoor terrace. Short Order has been a long time coming. Billed as a celebration of Amy Pressman and Nancy Silverton's 30-year friendship (and mutual love of burgers), after months of hurdles, the restaurant opened in November on a sad note: Pressman had died of cancer two weeks before.

With more than 4 million people visiting Yosemite National Park last year ? and that number expected to increase this year ? it's no wonder lodging inside the park is snatched up quickly. "We typically sell out during the summer season," Delaware North Cos. spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro said of its Yosemite accommodations (Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, Curry Village and the housekeeping camp on the Merced River; the Wawona Hotel, and in the back country, Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, White Wolf Lodge and the High Sierra camps)

On busy Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, some well-kept facades conceal a secret. Behind the Mediterranean with wooden doors, the white stucco two-story with a red tile roof, the long wall obscuring a three-structure compound, hides a singular, massive wealth fueled by obsession. This is Larry Ellison territory, where a Bay Area billionaire with seemingly endless patience and resources is buying up the best spots along Malibu's 21 miles of coast. PHOTOS: Expensive things Ellison has bought The Oracle Corp.

A chicken, a raven and a peacock greeted Lisa and Ron Cerda when they moved into their southeastern Tarzana neighborhood almost two decades ago. It was just the sort of bucolic reception the couple hoped for when they fled crowded West Los Angeles for one of the city's rare residential-agricultural zones, a district that permits farming and the keeping of livestock. Today, the Cerdas say their rustic neighborhood is threatened with extinction. Schools, synagogues and commercial businesses have crept into the district, despite dogged opposition from dozens of residents.

My brother, John, tried to sleep during the boring part of the three-hour trip from Los Angeles to Convict Lake in the Eastern Sierra. Fortunately, I was driving. Besides, I don't think there's a boring part, especially once you get on U.S. 395 in the Owens Valley. To keep him awake, I recounted some of our past misadventures in the great outdoors. Remember when we ran out of food backpacking across the Haleakala crater on Maui? Whose idea was it to take a motor boat up Lake Powell in a snowstorm?