Fact-filled and funny stories

Unlike some podcasters who interview experts, Wells takes a solo approach to his often-humorous audio postings. The Laguna Niguel garden, furniture and lighting designer and author of a new book on architect Harwell Hamilton Harris researches, writes and records his podcasts when a topic moves him and he has time to spare.

The schedule may be spotty, but each segment is frisky and quick -- only a few minutes long -- and packed with opinion and stats. Wells, who served on the board of the Southern California chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, can load in lots of facts without bogging down the story. And he is a storyteller, explaining how Harris lured Surrealist Man Ray to photograph Harris’ spartan Modernist houses and how a forecasting device similar to a Ouija board instructed “one-hit-wonder” architect George Wyman to design the geometric, M.C. Escher-esque Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles in 1892.

In tongue-in-cheek delivery, Wells reports on a British study that says women think architects are sexy. He jokes that Brad Pitt, an architectural devotee and newly minted design practitioner, would fit in nicely with the group. But, Wells warns, “Brad, you’ll need to take a pay cut.”

-- Janet Eastman