Rustic Canyon

Tucked away up Rustic Canyon is a sordid bit of local history. Surrounded by the rugged mountainsides and overgrown by brush, the burned-out and crumbling buildings are what remains of the Murphy Ranch, where during the late 1930s a small group hoping to establish a Nazi utopia built an elaborate infrastructure that included a 395,000-gallon concrete water tank, a 20,000-gallon diesel fuel tank, and their own power station.

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.

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.

Betty Lou Young, a longtime denizen of Rustic Canyon who wrote books about the history of Pacific Palisades and campaigned to preserve the Santa Monica Mountains and other open spaces, has died. She was 91. Young died Thursday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after a short illness. She had been in poor health since suffering a heart attack in May, said her son, Randy Young. As co-writer and photographer for some of her books about the Palisades, Rustic Canyon and Santa Monica Canyon, he is credited as Thomas R. Young.

A Texas-based Latino newspaper group has received an $18-million investment from a pair of venture and equity firms including Rustic Canyon Partners of Los Angeles. The funding, announced Sunday, is to be used by Meximerica Media, publisher of the Rumbo chain of Spanish-language newspapers, to complete development of papers serving the Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Rio Grande Valley regions of Texas and to launch additional Rumbo papers in that state.

Betty Lou Young, a longtime denizen of Rustic Canyon who wrote books about the history of Pacific Palisades and campaigned to preserve the Santa Monica Mountains and other open spaces, has died. She was 91. Young died Thursday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after a short illness. She had been in poor health since suffering a heart attack in May, said her son, Randy Young. As co-writer and photographer for some of her books about the Palisades, Rustic Canyon and Santa Monica Canyon, he is credited as Thomas R. Young.

Rustic Canyon homeowners have obtained a court order prohibiting their neighbor, film producer Steven Tisch, from landscaping or construction that would affect a 25-foot-wide right of way through Tisch's property. The right of way, which provides pedestrian access to Sunset Boulevard from residences on Latimer Road, has been the subject of litigation for five years.

Members of two Rustic Canyon homeowner groups are seeking a court order against a neighbor, film producer Steven Tisch, in a long-running legal battle over community access to a 25-foot-wide right of way through Tisch's property. Residents claim they are entitled to use the right of way, which for 50 years has provided pedestrian access to Sunset Boulevard from Latimer Road, a paved private road that ends in a cul-de-sac at Rustic Canyon Creek just south of Tisch's property.

In Rustic Canyon, a tree-filled arroyo near Will Rogers State Beach, autumn and early winter can be enjoyed in all their Southern California character. Deciduous trees stand in sharp contrast to brilliantly hued flowers that bloom throughout the Southland. Since the 1820s, the secluded canyon has hosted grazing sheep, campers, saloons, bohemian retreats, and idiosyncratic houses.

Part of what protects Holy Jim Canyon is the back-country road leading there. It can tear the bottom out of an ordinary car or drown it in four creek crossings. It is wild back there. Rains can flood the canyon and block your retreat. Wildfires can scorch the mountainsides and the scattered cabins. Only those who have been there know it's worth the effort and the risk.

It was a remarkable backyard there in Pacific Palisades, the kind that produces enduring memories -- of sloshing in the culvert under Sunset Boulevard, chewing watercress plucked from the spring-fed creek, tramping through tangled woods away from watchful eyes. It made for a childhood that was part Norman Rockwell, part Robinson Crusoe. For years, Thomas Newman, an admired composer of movie soundtracks, has collected ephemera from the places where he romped as a boy -- faded photos, vintage postcards, cartoons and other relics of the Uplifters, a spirited bunch of Los Angeles Athletic Club movers and shakers who bought land from the Methodists in the early 1900s and created a country compound in Rustic Canyon.

Waiting for my order at Huckleberry in Santa Monica, I watch the line move, slowly, forward. Ballet flats, flip-flops, bicycle cleats, and Nikes, Manolos, and sturdy walking shoes and even a tiptoeing cane inch their way to the cash register. Sometimes at lunch the line is out the door, snaking past the tall wooden planters filled with herbs and greens and tomatoes, all the way into the parking lot in back.

Miles away from the bustle of the Sunset Strip and the glitz of Beverly Hills, there's another place where Hollywood lives: the leafy Brentwood neighborhood of Mandeville Canyon. A ranch once owned by actors Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck is on the market, and the canyon's also been home to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Widmark, Eva Marie Saint and Robert Mitchum. Around here, however, the focus is more on the stars in the sky and the natural beauty.

AT Rustic Canyon, September's menu brings golf ball-sized arancine fried to a deep gold. The trio of rice balls sits in a coral red heirloom tomato sauce; each contains a heart of molten fresh mozzarella. Evan Funke, the new chef at this nearly 2-year-old Santa Monica restaurant, has got it exactly right. His panzanella and burrata salad is a delicious variation on the Tuscan classic, an oval bowl heaped with tomatoes, scoops of creamy burrata (made with mozzarella and cream) and large, soft chunks of bread that have soaked up the flavors of the peppery olive oil and vinegar.

RUSTIC CANYON Wine Bar & Seasonal Kitchen in Santa Monica plans to open a bakery-cafe and retail space next spring about two blocks down the street from its restaurant, near the soon-to-open Santa Monica Seafood. Owner Josh Loeb, pictured above, says Rustic pastry chef Zoe Nathan (whose star has been rising these days) "will be running the whole thing as far as food goes." Loeb isn't able to disclose the exact address yet because there's still a tenant in the space, but he says he's already signed the lease.

Franklin CANYON -- just off Mulholland Drive and extending south almost to Beverly Hills -- includes 605 acres of recreational parkland surrounded by high-end homes with views. It has two reservoirs, five miles of hiking trails, seven species of hawks, the William O. Douglas Outdoor Classroom and the Sooky Goldman Nature Center. Beginnings Who says oil and water don't mix?

Bell Canyon is a serene and secluded gated community of about 800 single-family home sites. Crisscrossed by private horse and hiking trails, it sits among craggy slopes in a boulder-filled valley about three miles north of Calabasas in the unincorporated eastern section of Ventura County. History The area has been occupied for about 2,000 years and was once home to the Chumash Indians.

David Livingstone was riding his bicycle one day in 1997 when he stumbled on a community that seemed out of place in Los Angeles. The vegetation was exotic and abundant, and the smell of jasmine and eucalyptus was unmistakable. A gravel-lined creek made its way down the center of the hilly neighborhood, ducking under bridges along the way. There were no sidewalks, no street lights, no picket fences. Residents were as likely to hear the croaking of frogs as the honking of horns.

THE word "rustic," when applied to a restaurant, conjures up visions of hearty, homey dishes and rough wooden tables drawn up in front of a fire where sausages or birds cook over the embers. You certainly don't expect a place with the distinctly urban vibe of the new Rustic Canyon Wine Bar and Seasonal Kitchen in Santa Monica.

WINE bars are popping up all over the Southland like mushrooms after a rain shower. Santa Monica, usually so quick to adopt any trend, has been lagging behind, though. But with the opening of Rustic Canyon Wine Bar and Seasonal Kitchen on Wilshire Boulevard near 11th Street, the city by the sea gets a wine bar and a real restaurant all in one neat package.