Growing coffee isn’t hard. It’s the time-consuming extraction of the beans that defeats would-be backyard growers.

Every season when the coffee bushes hidden in the shade of the Wattles Farm community garden in Hollywood start to produce cherries, one of the gardeners volunteers for the process of peeling the shells, removing the fleshy pulp along with the interior parchment, and washing and air-drying the tiny beans within.

“They’re very enthusiastic in the beginning and are still enthusiastic at the end because the coffee is very good, but they swear they’ll...

For all the razzle-dazzle of costumes worn by Michael Douglas in his uncanny incarnation as Liberace in the HBO film “Behind the Candelabra” — the crystals! the sequins! the furs! — the revelation for design fans will be lavish sets that sparkle with late ’70s and early ’80s style.

It’s a look that, for better or for worse, is experiencing a revival among contemporary designers just in time for the movie’s premiere Sunday.

“There was a lot of glamour in the '70s that really has not been repeated since,” Los Angeles designer Kelly...

The Tyre House, designed by A. Quincy Jones in the 1950s and recently restored by the Silver Lake architecture firm Escher GuneWardena, is a dreamy testament to Los Angeles' age of cool. Step inside the house's expansive, all-white living area and an 11-foot-high ceiling angles gracefully down toward a white brick fireplace that floats toward one end. Sliding glass doors open to a courtyard and pool on one side, to a steep driveway that disappears from sight on the other. Cork floors and a white sofa effortlessly sweeping along the wall add to the sensation of visual harmony.

Created when the...

The Hammer Museum exhibition opening May 25, "A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living," redresses what curators consider a major omission in the history of Los Angeles Modernism.

Jones, they argue, had as much, if not more, influence on Southern California architecture before his death in 1979 than many contemporaries who have since become icons of the era. Curators say Jones, who collaborated for much of his career with Frederick Emmons and lectured at USC for nearly three decades, has gone mostly unrecognized beyond his reputation for designing opulent houses for the wealthy, such as...

When it came to designing their new home in Venice, Jonathan Ward and Jin Ah Park drew inspiration from their two-year backpacking trip around the world. The couple, who work for the international design firm NBBJ, traveled from Britain to Thailand, Australia to Peru, Morocco to Mali -- a journey that they said has given rise to a modern dwelling that draws from cultures around the world yet still evokes a sense of California living.

The 2,900-square-foot home that they designed and built, dubbed the California Poppy House, will be open to the public Sunday as part of the American Institute of...

Other artists on the tour include Corrine Chaix, whose live-work studio is located on a Venice canal; the Winward Street live-work space of Jacob Kassay, who will host a pop-up show of works by Cooper Jacoby, Todd von Ammon and Steven Baldi.

Tickets...

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t appreciate the cute factor of mouse melons. Also known as Mexican gherkins, the fruit of Melothria scabra looks like watermelons shrunk for a dollhouse tea party. Each is the size of a grape, speckled white with green striations.

Raw, the mouse melons have the taste and crunch of a fresh cucumber but with a burst of bright sour lemon from the skin. They are conversation pieces when used in salads, stir-fries, desserts or martinis. And they make wonderful bread-and-butter pickles.

Mouse melons are in the same family as cucumbers but originated...

Matthew Rolston packed the cavernous JF Chen gallery in Hollywood on Friday night to introduce L.A. to his latest project, "Talking Heads: The Vent Haven Portraits," a series of photographs featuring all-too-human ventriloquist dummies.

Much of the early coverage of the book has focused on the eerie and absurd qualities of the dummies (the Huffington Post declared them "creepy"), but through the 5-by-5-foot portraits on view at JF Chen, Rolston was able to reveal much more.

Most evident: The large format of the portraits emphasizes the human hand behind each doll face: the rosy cheeks, the...

The 21st century soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's splashy remake of "The Great Gatsby" may be a head-scratcher, but design fans can't quibble with the period sets created by production designer Catherine Martin.

"The phone has been ringing off the hook," said Frank Pollaro, a custom furniture maker renowned for reproductions of Jazz Age designs. "People are falling in love with Art Deco again."

Pollaro, who wasn't involved in the film's production, isn't the only one noting how much excitement the film's period design has managed to generate. The look of the film's set is rooted in Martin's...

For fans of vintage design who might prop an antiquated TV or analog clock on their well-styled shelf, here's a twist from the Monrovia design firm MollaSpace: obsolete technology as home office organization tool.

MollaSpace's Home Storage System is a series of canvas bins printed with the images of retro audio equipment and accessories. We teased the then-forthcoming design in a January roundup of home organization designs, and this week MollaSpace flagged us that the bins are now available, selling for $8 (clock), $10 (radio) or $16 (speaker or TV). 

The graphics, by Balance Wu Design, are...