The LA Chronicles Part 1: The House and Day Outfits

So this is the first part of the much-awaited (by some of you, apparently, which I am very thankful for) post on my Memorial Day weekend in LA. I had a hard time to choose the pictures to show you because I have beautiful ones but with a lot of people in them and I didn't want to put pictures of my friends on the web without their permission. So I had to crop most of them and when I really couldn't I did some paint job. But that's the party. This first part is all about the house, that was really the main attraction of the weekend. I have been to LA many times and I have seen it all (or almost), so this time we didn't do any touristy thing (excepted for a walk from the Santa Monica Pier to Venice beach the morning of our departure after checking out) but just relaxed around the pool and spent quality time with our friends (in particular with my husband's best friend who came from Paris and was our guest at the villa).

So as you know I was travelling alone with my daughter on my way to LA and that went very well. She was very well behaved on the plane even if it was a long flight and she didn't sleep much (just enough for me to watch half of a movie, which to me was like being on vacation already). Before leaving I had bought her a little "trolley" to carry around because the last time that we were in an airport (when we went to Seattle) she absolutely wanted to carry my suitcase (which was obviously too heavy for her) and she would throw a fit if I tried to help her. I have to tell you, it was the best purchase ever: we put all her toys inside and just taking them out and putting them back kept her busy for a while. And she was very proud of having her own suitcase like a grown-up (the pic was actually taken on our way back from LA as you can probably guess from her outfit):



My husband picked us up at the airport (he was LATE, can you believe it?) and because it was lunch time and we couldn't check-in before 2.30 we went for lunch in one of my favorite spots in the city: Urth's Cafe on Melrose. Big mistake, as then we got stuck in the traffic of the angelinos who were living the city for the long weekend (we were going in the same direction, towards Santa Monica and the Pacific coast) and we arrived at the villa around 4 (and my daughter, who is always car-sick, would ask "Are we there yet?" every thirty seconds. And that for the entire hour and a half that it took us to get there).
The villa was on the hills beyond the Getty Museum, just off off Muholland Drive. When we pulled up the car on the driveway we already knew that we would not be disappointed:



Actually my husband WAS a little bit disappointed at first because Los Angeles was behind us on the other side of the hill and we were facing the valley, and he was expecting a view on LA. But as soon as we went inside, we were just blown away by the beauty of the house and the landscape. I have already told you that I love the modernist style (even if this wasn't a concrete house) so I will let the pictures speak for themselves:




The living room, kitchen and master bedroom were surrounded by a wall of glass and a wooden deck. Maybe if you live in California you are used to this, but for us New Yorkers (and European transplants) it was a Californian dream:





And from the inside the house:





The deck and pool area, where we spent a lot of time relaxing on the chaise-longues (when we were not too busy watching that our daughter wouldn't fall in the pool):



When it became clear that our daughter would come with us (when we started to make plans for the weekend we had hoped that my mother in law would come to NYC in May and that we could leave our daughter at home with her) I started to worry about the pool (that wasn't kid-friendly, ie didn't have a fence). My mother in law suggested that I buy a pair of arm rings that she would keep on all the time and not just to swim, so if she accidentally fell in the pool she wouldn't immediately drown. That was a very good advice and it took away much of the stress. For most of the time she was fine with wearing them, like here (BTW, she's wearing the Crewcuts terry drawstring dress. I loved this dress so much that I bought also the striped version that went on sale yesterday. Highly recommended):



But sometimes (especially when it was particularly hot) she would take them off and the only remedy to the stress from "baby in the pool" was to go in the pool with her (not the worst thing to do in LA on a hot day):



We never left the house during the day for our entire stay (we only went out for dinner) and I spent a lot of time lounging around in my pajamas pants and a tee or sunbathing in my swimming suit. Sunday was the only occasion when I put on real clothes because we were having guests for brunch and I wore the Target Teagan blouse (whose colors blended beautifully with the colors of the sky and the pool) with Jcrew linen shorts (a perfect outfit for a pool brunch I must add). Here I am dancing with my daughter on the deck later in the afternoon:



That same evening, we went for dinner in Malibu and I wore the Lohemman's maxidress. I have to say that of all the things that I brought this dress was the most suited to the style of the house (as a commenter had very acutely said), even if you can't really tell from this pic:



On Monday morning, before leaving for Santa Monica, I asked my husband to take a pic of me for the blog and basically he took a blown-up shoot of my boobs. So you have to do with this one instead (at least you can see the view):



The morning in Santa Monica was actually the only negative note of the entire weekend. First we went for a long stroll on the beach, as it was the first time that our friend was in LA and he had expressed the desire to set foot on a Pacific Coast beach before flying home, and by 11.30 it got very hot. So we left the car in the parking lot at the Pier and started to look for a place to eat and drink something, towards the Third Street Promenade. We walked for almost an hour under the sun (and with our daughter in our arms) without finding anything. By that time it became clear that my husband had in mind to have THE (memorable) "Memorial Day LA Brunch" while we were in tourist-land, and he was being difficult. So we went back to the car (in a bad mood) and started to look for a brunch place (like, from the car). At the beginning of his stay in LA, our friend had been to a place called "La Grande Orange" on Main street and we went and checked it out but there was a long line outside and we didn't have all the day because our flight was at 4pm. At that point I said, who cares about the brunch (really), let's go to the airport, let's return the car, let's check-in and then we will eat something. But my husband, who had just turned 40, reacted rather like like a 4-year-old and said something like "It's my birthday and I want to have a nice brunch in LA". So we stayed on Main street until we arrived on Abbot Kinney Boulevard which is one my favorite places in LA, but also one with very few (visible from a moving car) restaurants. And not only he wanted to have a brunch, but it also had to be on a terrace. Finally, we found one that he seemed to like but, again, there was a wait so we put our names on the waiting list and we tried to find something else. At that point we didn't know where else to go, so we started to turn in circles and we got stuck in the Venice beach local traffic. Half an hour later we were back on Abbott Kinney and we were finally seated at a nice table on the terrace. During all this ordeal my husband (who is generally the one who stresses if he is late and always wants to leave way in advance to go to the airport) was strangely nonchalant about our flight, that was now a mere two hours away. I think that he wanted this brunch thing so badly that nothing else really mattered. But as soon as we seated down and he got what he wanted he started to realize that we were in fact really late. And that we were going to miss our flight if we didn't leave immediately.
So we shovelled the food up our mouths as quick as possible, we paid and we were back in the car, this time counting the minutes left to embark on the plane. In the end we made it, we were lucky that we didn't find any traffic and that the guy at the car rental company had pity of my daughter and he took us to the terminal in his personal car. Once on the flight, it all started to fade away and became a (bad) memory, but it wasn't really how we had hoped to end our weekend!

I hope that you enjoyed this first part of the LA Chronicles. Stay tuned for the second part (the party) and for a surprise dress.