FROM LEFT: © PARAMOUNT PICTURES/MARGARET HERRICK LIBRARY, ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES; JASON SCHMIDT
efore the Manhattan penthouses and
the Paris pieds-à-terre, and before the
superyachts and Balinese pleasure domes
came to its attention, Architectural Digest
was singularly focused on the glories of
California, where the magazine was born,
a native Angeleno, in 1920. The young
publication elucidated a vision of America’s
western frontier as a place of 20th-century
innovation and promise, replete with stately Mediterranean-
style manses, sun-kissed Italianate gardens, and picturesque
reflecting pools. As California became a crucible for the nascent
modernist movement, and streamlined houses of glass and
steel rose up beside Cotswolds cottages and French châteaux,
AD began to revel in the heterogeneity of the Golden
State’s landscape.
The greatest California-based architects of the past cen-
tury were all championed in AD’s pages. Wallace Neff, who
built romantic houses of every stripe for merchant kings and
Hollywood stars, was a staple of the magazine’s editorial mix.
His remodeling of Pickfair, the storied house that belonged
to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, made no fewer than
six appearances in AD over several decades. Paul R. Williams,
the first African American member of the American Institute
of Architects, was another of the magazine’s mainstays, helping
to establish an image of California glamour that captivated
the world.
From Irving Gill to Cliff May to the stars of the Case
Study crowd—Richard Neutra, Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood,et al.—AD tracked the advent and blossoming of California
modernism. Julius Shulman and other master photographers
chronicled their work in elegant images that helped sell the
progressive style to a skeptical public weaned on European-
inflected traditionalism. In later decades, the progeny of the
early modernists, from John Lautner to Frank Gehry, became
the new standard-bearers heralded in the magazine’s pages.
Just as California incubated a particular strain of modern-
ist architecture, the state produced a roster of enormously
influential interior designers who riffed on the colors and
light of Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, San Diego,
San Francisco, and all points in between. William Haines,
the silent-film heartthrob turned decorator, was one of the
first design stars in the AD constellation. That groundbreak-
ing society would grow to include Rose Tarlow, Kalef Alaton,
Steve Chase, Michael Taylor, Anthony Hail, and Sally Sirkin
Lewis. In more recent years, Martyn Lawrence Bullard,
Michael S. Smith, Steven Volpe, Kelly Wearstler, and a new
generation of talents have picked up the torch of sublime,
homegrown California design.
The West Coast has proved to be fertile ground for pop-
culture subjects, too, which AD instantly recognized and has
regularly incorporated. From its earliest decades, the maga-
zine has chronicled the homes of Tinseltown grandees both
on-screen and off-, celebrating the titans of an industry that
would put its stamp on America in the 20th century. Those
twin pillars of our editorial mix—California-style dolce vita
and celebrity lifestyle—remain vital components of AD’s
DNA to this day.b
MARLENE DIETRICH IN THE LOUNGE OF HER ELSIE DE WOLFE–DESIGNED BEVERLY HILLS HOME IN THE 1930s.