Photo Essay: The Quiet Elegance of the Wilshire Ebell Theatre

Although it took me years to get inside The Ebell of Los Angeles clubhouse for its open house last September...

 

...I'd actually already been to its theatre, on its south wing facing 8th Street, to see a performance of orchestral Dr. Dre all the way back in November 2015.

Photo Essay: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area, California City

I haven't had much reason to return to California City since I first visited in 2010. 

After all, there's not a whole lot there.

 

 

But on a clear Saturday morning after the wettest winter weather I've experienced since moving to Southern California in 2011, it seemed like a good idea to drive a couple of hours north to the Mojave Desert...

 

...specifically to celebrate the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area's 50th anniversary. 

Photo Essay: The Clubhouse of Sisterhood, The Ebell of Los Angeles

There's a somewhat secret brotherhood that characterizes Los Angeles—a city of private associations that go beyond just your run of the mill country club.

There are athletic clubs, breakfast clubs (the oldest of which, I am a proud member), camera clubs, adventurers' clubs, fishing clubs, writers' and directors' guilds, actors' unions, magical societies, fraternal organizations, and more.

And I hate being left out of any of 'em.

 

But it took me many years to explore LA's landmark house of sisterhood: The Ebell Club.

Now, in honor of Women's History Month, it feels like a good time to share my photos and what I learned about it.

Photo Essay: A Reimagining of LA's Century Plaza Hotel, the Centerpiece of a 'City Within a City'

I started driving past the Century Plaza Hotel, along Century City's Avenue of the Stars, pretty regularly sometime in the year 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

circa Dec. 2021

It was on my way home from the Santa Monica College swimming pool—but it wasn't the most convenient way home.

Photo Essay: All Saints Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills

I've visited churches of many different faiths all over Southern California—and even in Las Vegas—but somehow in the 12 years that I've lived in Beverly Hills, I'd never stepped foot inside any of the three historic churches that line Santa Monica Boulevard right in the center of town. 

 

This past Presidents' Day, I decided to maximize my day off and not only visit all three of those churches—but do so by attending the annual Presidents' Day Organ Festival, hosted by Los Angeles Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and the Los Angeles Theatre Organ Society (which I'd been wanting to do for several years but could never muster the energy nor the time to make it there).

Photo Essay: Beverly Hills Historic Cactus Garden, Restored

It's one of those places that I've driven past a hundred, maybe hundreds of times—and yet until recently, I'd never stopped and gotten out of the car to take a look around. 

 

It's the Beverly Hills Historic Cactus Garden, part of the Beverly Gardens Park, north of the area of Beverly Hills known as the "Golden Triangle"—and I finally took a stroll through on my way to the Church of the Good Shepherd on my day off on President's Day.