Itβs been a whole year since the dust settled from the construction on Patrick Williamsβs Point Loma home. But heβs still conversational in first-time-remodeler speak. Ask him about the style of his three-story and, with his hands in the air, he replies simply, “Whatever you see here, I guess.”
Then, as though on cue, his interior designer Rhianna Jones chimes in: “Itβs casual, modern, coastal. Casual in the sense that they donβt take themselves seriously.”
The “they” is Williams, with his dry humor, and his sweeter half, Jen Riddle, both in the medical device industry and part owners of The Lionβs Share and Coin-Op Game Room.
Amid the homeβs blue hues and sleek lines (creating that coastal, modern vibe), you can spot elements Jones has sourced specifically to reflect the coupleβs cheeky personalities. Thereβs a monkey in almost every room, hints of orange (Williamsβs favorite color), tongue-in-cheek artwork and photos, and a strong first impression in the form of a plum-colored front gate.
The home is almost a complete 180 from what it was when the couple purchased it over two years ago as a means to get their first place together and upsize from Williamsβs Kensington house and Riddleβs downtown apartment.
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
Left: The plum-colored front gate, with limestone walkway | Right: The coupleβs usual dining spot is right off the kitchen, around this Barlow Tyrie table and under the Safavieh umbrella (chairs from World Market)
Based on a good olβ word-of-mouth referral, they hired Will & Fotsch Architects to draw up a plan that would embrace their sweeping views of the San Diego skyline and flip the unfinished basement into a habitable state, upgrading the home to a true three-story.
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
A navy island with quartzite countertop anchors the kitchen, with bar stools from Nuevo. | Photo: Jenny Siegwart
The referrals kept rolling from there, when they brought on Royal Home Remodels to knock the house down to the studs. Soon after they took a chance on Jones, whoβd just launched her own design firm, Tidal Interiors.
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
A Serena & Lily area rug carries the coastal vibe into the great room, along with a custom-made sectional by Kravet.
“If youβve ever watched HGTV, it is not that simple,” Riddle says. “Weβd never done this before and I just thought, βOh, only rich people get interior designers.β But then Rhianna met us here while we were in the middle of construction, and she knew more than just design. She could work with the contractors. People donβt know that, though. It has so much value.”
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
A granite accent wall makes a statement in a powder room next to the office.
Jones furnished the home from top to bottom (everything but a king-size mattress is new) and helped the couple whittle down their fixtures and finishes, from a wood accent wall in the master to the encaustic tile backsplash in the kitchen, grasscloth fabric on the office ceiling, and the use of limestone to marry every level.
A desk from Modloft and chair from Restoration Hardware face floor-to-ceiling windows the couple installed for more city views.
The limestone starts outside on the entryway, past that plum gate. It continues onto the second-floor patio that, thanks to floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, is now an extension of the kitchen and great room. A 14-foot-tall limestone wall with a fireplace serves as a divider between the kitchen and great room.
“Everybody is all βopen concept this and that,β but I like having some division,” Riddle says, “just to have spaces defined.”
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
Left: Even the master bathroom takes advantage of the skyline views with its open concept. | Right: A bathroom is tricked out in pressurized teak from IndoTeak and limestone flooring.
Not to mention that the third floor is reserved for the master and requires some structural support. Here are more places where Jones ensured the coupleβs casual personality would shine. A decorative stack of books on the nightstand has the quote “Why the f**k canβt I have fun all the time?” on the spines, attributed to Kate Moss. The master bathtub fills with water from a faucet mounted in the ceiling. The bathroom walls are pressurized teak, and today some fresh eucalyptus was hung to elevate the room to feel like a spa.
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
An accent wall, laid with wood from Duchateau, catches the eye in the master bedroom, with a custom-made bed from Bardβs Decorators, side tables from Worlds Away, and lamps from Arteriors.
The bottom level is less serene, more fun and games, because the main draw is a 1,000-square-foot addition adorned in Lakers and Packers decor (Williamsβs and Riddleβs teams, respectively).
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
On the bottom patio, a chandelier from Lβaviva Home hangs over an outdoor table from Article and chairs from Target.
“This is where Rhianna really came in,” Williams says, noting she put a mature spin on how they display their sports memorabilia.
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
In the game room, the built-in wine cooler and kitchenette come in handy for entertaining guests.
Save for the second floor, the game room is where they spend most of their time. But when the three big-screen TVs arenβt blasting their favorite teams, the couple is on one of their patios, gazing across the pool toward what drew them here in the first place: the San Diego skyline.
Inside the Coin-Op Owners’ Point Loma Pad
The game roomβs reserved for the homeownersβ sports memorabiliaβand cheekier adornments like the monkey pendants from Love & Aesthetics.
“Here, even when the sun goes down, you can see the boats go by, the planes fly in and line up to take off,” Williams says. “Thereβs always something going on, and we love the activity.”
Everything SD
AUGUST 26, 2026
Your Kidβs Old Bedroom Is Ready for Its Next Chapter
From moody retreats to income-generating ADUs, San Diego parents are rethinking the rooms their children left behind
That was the question on loop in my head as I sat, nearly catatonic, watching my chickens scratch and crap, from a chair on my patio. It was the first Monday after dropping my one and only at college on the other side of the country. I was tired to the bone and in shock. Eighteen-plus years of permission slips, math homework, Barbie play (ugh), carpoolingβmy God, the carpoolingβand a teenager who, for four years and counting, communicated almost exclusively through side-eye and not-so-under-the-breath clapbacks. Parenting is insanity, and when it stops, it feels so good and so bad all at once.
Photo Credit: Aaryn Belfer
I wonβt linger on my personal recovery here, except to say: Part of moving on is dealing with that empty room. What do we parents do with the utensil vortex, and more importantly, when do we do it?
My daughterβs room sat for two years like a forgotten museum exhibit, preservedβnot because I was sentimental, but because my husband was. While he didnβt want her to feel erased when she came home, I wanted to expunge her Totoro-meets-Pepto-Bismol gray-and-pink aesthetic, the sports jerseys, the inspirational stick-on decals from Etsy, the bazillion discarded beauty products that didnβt make it into the blue duffel bags.
My metamorphosis took a while, but I built a new, brilliantly free, empty-nest life. No more driving hundreds of miles a week, no more bleachers, no more ref whistles reverberating in my dreams. I reclaimed myself, then I hired a professional to help me reclaim my kidβs bedroom.
EBSCOβs Research Starters series says that βempty nest syndromeβ is a real, if not clinical, diagnosisβno chart line, no billing code. Just a recognized experience of grief, loneliness, and diminished purpose that can take up to a year to resolve.
Creating a Sanctuary
Courtesy of Treci Smith
I turned to Treci Smith of Treci Smith Designs because I loved what she did with her sonβs bedroom. (Full disclosure: Sheβs a friend.) After several interrupted attempts at reimagining the room, she designed a den for her husband, Amir. The couple, married 32 years, raised four kids in their four-bedroom ranch home in Bonita, and over the years, the kids switched rooms and pairings countless times.
The house Tetris continued as each child went off to college. But when their youngest left, his bedroom atrophied. It became a haphazard office and, for one stubborn stretch, nothing at all. A purgatory.
βWe wanted to utilize every room in our house,β Smith says, βnot letting it be a room that just sits empty.β She finally made a plan to evict purgatory, but the pandemic hit, and all four kids moved back home. It took a while longer before the room was finally hers to play with.
Courtesy of Treci Smith
What Smith created in its place is magic. It feels like a speakeasy. Dark, moody, and deliberately masculine, the den looks like how sandalwood and musk would smell if they took physical form. Itβs got a bar cart, Amirβs cigars, a speaker, a desk for his real estate research, and French doors that open to a courtyard and pool.
βWhen we think of meditation, we think of light and airy,β Smith says, rejecting that thereβs only one way to create calm. βItβs a sanctuary. Itβs a place where the rest of the world doesnβt really feel like it exists.β
Smith doesnβt talk about trends. βI think everything has to have a purpose, and not just to be magazine-ready,β she says. βSo I ask clients, βHow do you want to feel in this space?ββ
For my project, Smith isnβt interested in erasing the past so much as spotlighting it. As she guides me in reimagining my kidβs former room, sheβs pushing back on my urge to wipe the kid out of it entirely. βI donβt want her to feel like sheβs been pushed out of the house, essentially,β she says. βThe room is now functioning for other purposes, but itβs still hers.β
She pulls a painting of my daughter off the wall in another part of the house for use in the new space. She also caught sight of a planed section of a pantry door from our last house, which has my daughterβs height marks in my handwriting, climbing as she grew. βGrab that,β she tells me. βIt has to go in.β
Thatβs not just decoration. Itβs continuity.
From Playroom to Paycheck
For years, the biggest room in Melissa Gaviriaβs Rancho PeΓ±asquitos house was a shared bedroom and playroom for her two kidsβabsorbing blocks, toys, and balls that, with impressive consistency, never made it into the ball pit. As the kids grew, the room saw less use, then emptied out entirely: Her older child moved out, her younger one moved upstairs.
Gaviria tried turning it into an office, but βthat was just one little corner of a whole big room,β she says. When a coworker converted part of a house into an Airbnb-ready ADU, Gaviria was inspired.
She hired award-winning designer Jen Guerin of JG Color Studios to create a junior ADU. Itβs technically attached to the house but is functionally its own unit, with a French-door entrance on the side so guests never have to walk through the homeβs main living space.
Gaviria didnβt wait until both kids were gone to build her nest egg (the unit pays her mortgage, and she rents the whole house in the summer and travels). The kids were 14 and 10 when construction started, and she gave them markers and crayons for one last pass at the walls. I ask whether she left any of their artwork as an homage. She laughs, βI canβt rent with a Godzilla on the wall.β
I beg to differ there.
Photo Credit: Hali Makanah
Guerin pulled from Gaviriaβs Colombian background, incorporating blues and a deep burnt orange as nods to home.
Guerin, whoβs designed dozens of these transitions over 20 years, says most parents pivot more slowly than Gaviria. βIt always starts with paint,β she says, βthen flooring and slowly a replacement of all items.β But the instinct, fast or slow, is the same: βThis chapter isnβt about erasing the family story. Itβs about making room for the next one.β
Enveloped. Safe. At ease, creative, and a little bit sexy. I wanted an understated drama that didnβt match our minimalist, midcentury design elsewhere in the house, but that matched the inside of my soul. I wanted dark and light, color and whimsy. I wanted to never want to get out of bed, and for guests to feel that too.
Another parameter: I had a tight budget. I mean, letβs be real about the economy, right? Smith guided me toward a dark paint my husband and I put on ourselves, then sourced used and vintage pieces to go with the bed and other accoutrements we already had, and mixed in a few new pieces from Ikeaβlike the two-tone green speaker lamp. She nudged me not to erase my kid entirely, so I dug through boxes of ephemera in the garage, framed some old artwork, and tucked a few other mementos away for discovery, should someone look closely.
Most guests wonβt notice. Theyβll just sink into the bed and not want to leave, which is the whole point. But if you know where to look, my ladybaby is still in thereβsheβs just not running the place.
Aaryn Belfer is a writer and editor specializing in nonfiction across art, architecture, and culture. Once upon a time, she wrote a provocative column for San Diego CityBeat (RIP). She was a runner up in the 2025 Matchbook Stories contest at the San Diego Central Library and is irrationally happy about it. Currently in her Soft Girl Era, Aaryn has expensive taste in (mostly flat) shoes and will choose a great art exhibit or live jazz concert over almost anything else. Except, possibly, Javier Bardem.
Growing up in Carlsbad, I never quite understood why people vacationed there. What, so you want to check out the field where I have soccer practice? Pay my orthodontist a visit? Carlsbad just felt like a town by the beach, no better or worse than any other in the country. It took going to college out of state for me to actually understand just how rare a place like Carlsbad is.
Thanksgiving break my freshman year, my first time coming home after three months in the Midwest, my shoulders dropped. I rolled down the windows and drove to lifeguard tower 37βthe hangout magnet for Carlsbadβs youths (and, in the summer, tourists)βand the smells of the ocean woke me right up like smelling salts do. I finally got it.
Carlsbad isnβt just a stopover town on your way to something better. It is the destination. Travel + Leisure named Carlsbad one of the top 50 places around the world to travel in 2026. From the whole globe, the travel magazine picked my home. Sure, weβve got the Flower Fields and Legolandβbut now itβs the smaller ships and indier dreams that are giving it street-level character.
Itβs not just Carlsbad, either. People have talked about the βNorth County bubbleβ for decadesβa force field that prevents its residents from traveling south of the 56. Itβs often used derogatorily, and itβs a fairly accurate burn.
For decades, living up in North County meant giving up on culture, or at least culture within close proximity. But now, the main expansion of San Diego culture is happening up north. Central San Diego restaurants have started taking notice and are expanding into the areaβspurred no doubt by Oceansideβs food boom and the Jeune et JolieβCampfireβWildlandβLilo constellation in Carlsbad. City Heights burger joint Key & Cleaver opened a new spot in Oceanside; the owners of Parc Bistro-Brasserie in Bankers Hill opened Parc Lounge in Rancho Santa Fe. Possibly the strongest market indicator is that Sam Foxβone of the most successful restaurateurs west of the Rockiesβhas started focusing on North County for his concepts. In 2025, he opened both The Henry in Carlsbad and Culinary Dropout in Del Mar.
For the ultimate insider guide, we found a handful of inspiring people who live and create and truly know six North County neighborhoodsβSan Marcos, Escondido, Oceanside, Leucadia, Rancho Santa Fe, and Vistaβand asked them how theyβd spend a dream day out and about in their town.
Courtesy of North City Farmers Market
San Marcos
San Marcos is in full renaissance mode. The biggest story is that the grand North City vision is starting to peek through the scaffolding. Itβs essentially the North County Downtown thatβs been written in the tea leaves and discussed whenever someone gets stuck in traffic at the 5/805 merge: a 200-acre, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use face-changer thatβs slated for 2,600 homes, 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 250 hotel rooms, and about a million square feet of offices and labs. Its most recent manifestation is 222 North Cityβa 12-story residential tower with over 450 residences, rooftop garden, pool cabanas, art installations, and almost 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail (Necessity Coffee, Buona Forchetta, Draft Republic, Milonga Empanadas, and a grocery store anchor on its way).
Which means Restaurant Row is no longer burdened with being the primary caregiver for the hungry or the socially inclined. Patricia Prado-Olmos has watched the city morph during her nearly three-decade tenure at CSUSM, having spent the past six years as the schoolβs chief community engagement officer. She also just announced her forthcoming retirement at the end of the 2026β2027 school year, so sheβll have even more time to haunt local haunts.
Meet the Local: Patricia Prado-Olmos
Those in the know call the university βCal State StairMasterβ from the Sisyphean amount of stairs on the hillside campus. So, any day at or around CSUSM should start with a homestyle carbo-load (biscuits and gravy) from Mama Katβs.
“Thereβs something about this breakfast spot that immediately puts me in a good mood,β she says. Mama Katβs is also known for its pie (strawberry-rhubarb), which is breakfast if you change your perspective.
Rull, a Michelin-trained pastry chef whoβs done stints on Netflix (Bake Squad) and Food Network (Super Mega Cakes, Halloween Wars), opened his patisserie last fall. The hype hasnβt cooled off yet: Get there early because the crowds do.
Emma Veidt is an editor at San Diego Magazine. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism. She loves running, hiking, and rock climbing, but really, she mostly loves encounters with the street cats around North Park.
Strolling down Orange Avenue on a sunny afternoon, you’ll hear the hum of beach cruisers rolling by and visitors making their way toward the Hotel del Coronado. Dogs pause to greet one another on the sidewalk, palm trees sway overhead, and for a moment, you’re convinced you’re living inside the postcard from the gift shop you just passed.
That feeling of pulling up a chair and staying awhile is exactly what inspired Little Frenchie. French cuisine has a reputation for feeling a little intimidating, but the restaurant is rewriting that narrative with food and wine that feels approachable.
βSometimes when you read a French menu, you come across words you canβt even pronounce,β David Spatafore, the owner of Little Frenchie, says. βWe wanted to create a restaurant where people felt comfortable.β
The team loves finding unexpected ways to make familiar dishes feel new. A burger becomes a showstopper when it is finished tableside with melted raclette, while a French Dip gets elevated with prime beef and Wagyu makes its way into the burgers. Even Eggs Benedict gets a French twist, swapping the traditional English muffin for a buttery croissant. The GB&J, Little Frenchieβs take on a grilled cheese, brings that same playful approach with seasonal jam and French Brie layered into a comforting classic.
Nearly everything at Little Frenchie is made from scratch, with ingredients carefully chosen to match the restaurantβs standards. Even the bread receives special attention. Each morning, the team sends a car to Prager Brothers Artisan Bread to pick up freshly baked loaves, ensuring every element of the meal reflects the restaurantβs commitment to quality.
Edna Harper asked for one thing before she died: that the next owner of her iconic Mission Hills home keep the street-facing βgarden.β Which is essentially asking the future residents to be curators of a whimsical and obsessive, delightful and strange, classic, cartoony and slightly unhinged sculpture museum. Harper, who died in January at the age of 87, poured her heart into this topiary bonanza, and itβs right there for everyone to see.
Like thousands (or millions, thereβs no formal estimation) of others, I had scrolled through the photos of this topiary fantasia before I ever stood in front of it. As of this writing, Harperβs Topiary Garden is No. 227 of 2,686 Things to Do in San Diego on Tripadvisor, making it a popular tourist stop between fish tacos, a day at the beach, and a stroll in nearby Presidio Park. But crowdsourced photos quickly snapped in direct overhead sunlight tend to flatten the shapes that, while meticulously manicured, refuse to behave. In person, Harperβs figures seem to be in motion and, given that theyβre sculpted out of bushes, they literally are. (Iβd love to see a maintenance timelapse.)
Animals emerge out of shrubs as if they have impish ideas. A fanciful whale, a man in a sombrero, a random spiral twisting skyward, otherworldly creatures that defy categorizationβall of these exist together in a neatly trimmed cascade pouring down the steep front slope of the property.
You donβt accidentally end up with a yard like this. You decide to create it and choose to cultivate it, and then you keep deciding and cultivatingβfor decades.
Although a consistent parade of looky-loos have visited over the years, most have never been inside the home, which is on the market for the first time since Harper and her husband, Alex (who died in 2020), bought it in 1969.
Courtesy of Christopher Delgado
βIt was and is a landmark,β says Christopher Delgado, Harperβs cousin and trustee of her estate. βShe specialized in Chinese brush art and Japanese art called βsumi-e,β a form of Zen art. She was a creator … she was very, very talented.β
I canβt stop thinking about Harper, sitting at the kitchen window, looking down at her masterpiece and the watchers watching it. The image of Harper enjoying the joy the public took from her handiwork makes me want to understand the woman behind the work. Because topiary, as an art form, has always been a little… loaded.
Topiary has always had a bit of an identity crisisβand thatβs part of its charm.
When I think of topiary, I immediately think: Fancy. French bourgeoisie. Palace of Versailles. Mais non! Topiary has its origins in Rome. According to the Center forArchitecture, the word βtopiaryβ has its origins in late 16th century English, which combines the Greek word βtoposβ for place and the Latin word βtopiariusβ for ornamental gardner.
Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez
Topiary started as a flex, really. A Julius-Caesar-adjacent pastime for the most ancient one-percenters; an expression accessible only to those with land, labor (or, put more plainly, enslaved people), and spare time. In its earliest form, topiary was about control: bending nature into submission. Itβs where symmetry and precision signaled order, taste, and money.
But with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages that followed, the topiary almost preceded the Dodo Bird in extinction. Monks quietly kept the art alive by growing herbs and manicuring the gardens and hedges within the courtyards of their monasteries.
It wasnβt until the Renaissance nine centuries later when topiary saw a resurgenceβah, Versailles!βand this form of pleasure gardening went into overdrive. Nature became architecture. The French pruned their foliage into iconic cones and obelisks, walls to keep out the riffraff, and ornamentation designed to impress. The Dutch got a little freaky, as they do, and sculpted complicated figures, animals, and even furniture.
Inevitably, the pendulum swung again, and topiary fell out of favor once it became viewed as excessive and even absurd. Even so, it never really disappeared. It just migrated to exist in a completely different paradigm. It was less Versailles and more, βWhat if this bush were a mouse?β
Fast forward to Disneyland in 1963. That year, the park opened a topiary garden in Fantasyland with verdant sculptures of giraffes, camels, elephants, and hippos all inspired by Denmarkβs Tivoli Gardens.
Disneyβs interpretation of topiaryβwhich is still a fixture of park decor todayβfalls more into the realm of imagination and possibility than restrained aristocratic performance.
Thatβs one of the stranger throughlines of topiary: It moves from elite to everyday, from stiff and formal to playful and silly, from symbol of control to something steeped in personal expression.
Which is what makes a place like Harperβs Topiary Garden so compelling and the woman behind it utterly intriguing.
Courtesy of Christopher Delgado
Born in 1938, Edna Harper was something of a Renaissance woman. She worked for two decades as a dental assistant, and she later became a notable painter, calligrapher, and stained glass artist (the house itself is adorned with her work). But she was also savvy in other ways.
βShe graduated [with a degree in dental assisting] from San Diego City College and wanted to have her own money and her independence,β says Delgado. βMost people didnβt know that she was such a great businessperson, and for many years, she managed all of [the coupleβs] properties on her own. She was great at building relationships … she touched a lot of peopleβs lives.β
Her friend and fellow artist Julie Roth attributes her artistry to her relationship with Harper. The pair met two decades ago at an art class at Oasis in Mission Valley.
βShe was just the most encouraging person,β Roth says. βI didnβt know I could paint, but apparently I can. She was a tremendous person.β
I asked Roth what sheβd want people to know about her friend.
βHer empathy and diplomacy,β she says. β[She had] a sharp eye for other talent. She spotted me, but Iβm not the only one she encouraged.β
That sharp eye suggests attention, the same kind it takes to look at a bush and also see a whale. Or a spiral. Or something that doesnβt exist yet, but could.
Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez
Nothing about Harperβs life suggests someone chasing attention. And yet, she ended up creating something that demanded hers, and she took great pleasure in seeing people enjoy her creations.
The garden didnβt happen all at once. It grew out of years of travel, observation, and collaboration. Harper often traveled without her husband, always returning from trips to Japan, Thailand, and other parts of Asia with ideas and impressions captured through sketches in a notebook.
βShe would get creative ideas from her travels … sheβd come back with ideas and pictures, and theyβd go about cutting that topiary bush into shape,β Delgado says.
For the past 25 years, she had the help of her gardener, Pedro Duranβwhoβs still employed by the trust and has maintained the garden since Harperβs passing.
In the early topiary years, Harper worked closely with Duran in what Delgado describes as a kind of shared βlabor of love.β She would share her sketches and together the pair would shape the bushes into something deliberate.
Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez
βAs she got older, she would increasingly draw her ideas and [Duran] would [carry them out],β Delgado says.
That collaboration reinforces that her garden was not an act of control, but one of creative collaboration and translation. From memory to sketch. From sketch to shrub. From something seen, somewhere else in the world, to something rooted in the soil of a steep hillside in Mission Hills.
Harper also made sure that the lawnβs boisterous energy made its way into the house on Union Street. Apparently, she threw legendary parties.
βFairly regularly, in the late β70s and β80s, she would host Super Bowl parties with 200 people. She had TVs everywhere,β Delgado says.
Itβs not hard to square that image with the stillness of the garden which, despite the careful pruning and intentional design, is voluminous and nearly vibrating.
And, damnit, I wish Iβd watched some sportsball on her shocking number of TVs and wandered out front to the topiaryβslightly wine-drunk with an orange smear of wing sauce on the corner of my mouthβto marvel at the leafy hippo and this womanβs elaborately creative life.
Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez
I can hear Delgado smiling as we talk on the phone. Heβs going back to his childhood, when he talks about being one of the cousins Harper doted on when he visited.
βThe adults were inside, and weβd be out in the camper,β he says, βand [Harper] would come check on us, make sure we were okay. She always had gifts for us. If it was Easter, there were chocolate eggs. If it was Christmas, stockings. We were the beneficiaries of them not having kids because they showered us with all their love.β
Knowing this and taking a look at her garden again, you can see itβs not the work of a shut-away curmudgeon. Itβs wondrous, inviting, and the right kind of weird.
βUltimately, she did it for herself and family, first and foremost,β Delgado says of Harperβs Topiary Garden.
Harperβs one request of whomever buys her home may seem like a focus on basic maintenance, about hedges and upkeep and preserving something visually striking. But itβs really about attention. And maybe, too, about legacy. Not hers, per se, but the legacy of community, relationships, art, creativity, possibility, adventure, culture, dedication, and love.
For now, itβs there for anyone to see, and its future is in the hands of whomever comes next.
Aaryn Belfer is a writer and editor specializing in nonfiction across art, architecture, and culture. Once upon a time, she wrote a provocative column for San Diego CityBeat (RIP). She was a runner up in the 2025 Matchbook Stories contest at the San Diego Central Library and is irrationally happy about it. Currently in her Soft Girl Era, Aaryn has expensive taste in (mostly flat) shoes and will choose a great art exhibit or live jazz concert over almost anything else. Except, possibly, Javier Bardem.
The floor is made of glass. Under your feet, you can see the cellarβ15-foot ceilings, soft light, and stained white oak walls the color of desert silt.
Tucked behind the wood, inside the doors, and in the ceiling is a highly advanced and very specific network of tech assembled in San Marcosβperfectly calibrating the room for humidity and temperature with vapor barriers, specialized insulation, and LED lights. Along the walls on matte blag pegs lay 1,000-plus bottles of wineβsome iconic collector vintages, some with stories, some earmarked for major life moments.
This is a very serious wine home, built by someone whose obsession eventually leads to a call with Chris Noel.
βWe have some clients who have been collecting wine since the β60s and the β70s, and they have collections of 15,000 or 20,000 or more bottles,β says Noel, owner of Vintage Cellars, the San Marcosβbased designer of custom wine vaults for some of the regionβs top restaurants and super-collectors. β[For them], collecting wine is similar to Jay Leno collecting cars.β
Courtesy of Vintage Cellars
Before the wheel, there was wine. Fermenting fruit sugars into alcohol was a thing as early as 4100 B.C. (wheel, circa 3500 B.C.), most likely a happy accident. Unsurprisingly, the tipsy breakthrough in juice arts was a huge hit. The challenge was that it was also hugely perishable.
The first efforts to save it from spoil were clay vessels called amphora, often fully or partially buried to create a sun-proof, temperature-stable environment. The terra-cotta pots were pointy-bottomed, which stacked and traveled better, encouraged gas circulation (thus preventing oxidation, the famed wine ruiner), and helped separate sediments.
Once basic preservation was figured out, makers noticed the aging process ushered in a moodier magic. So they engineered structures to tinker with the possibilities of the long haul. Those first wine holes in the dirt evolved into entire catacombs, tombs, quarries, and caves.
Courtesy of Vintage Cellars
Ancient Romans engineered wine storage rooms called fumariums, built facing north to avoid the sun and filled with smoke to speed the aging process (no doubt rapidly aging the cellar workers in the process).
For centuries, specialized wine storage was mostly a commercial venture. Serious wine people would (and still do) outsource their collections to a bonded storage facility or turn to professional cellarers who run giant chilled warehouses of cabernets.
A few major social moments sparked a more serious at-home cellar trend. First, the βJudgment of Parisβ in 1976 (California wines famously besting the French in a blind tasting) established US wineries as worthy of collections.
A few years later came the 1982 Bordeaux, one of the most-coveted vintages in history. It was championed by a US lawyer named Robert Parker, whose 100-point scale rating system would quickly become the gold-standard for grading wines, creating a huge boom of wine collectors for the next few decades (wine as an economic investment became a thing).
The US economy also boomed in the β80s, while France hit a skid. With the dollar trading 6-1 against the franc, US collectors had a rare chance to pick up Grand Crus at serious bargains, which demanded equally serious storage.
Courtesy of Vintage Cellars
Given that framing, 1990 was a fairly great time for Vintage Cellars to get into the game. Noelβwho worked his way up at the company and then eventually took over as owner in 2020βand his team work with architects, designers, and builders to create cellars that both fit the space and act as an attraction in multimillion-dollar homes across the region, and at top restaurants like Pamplemousse Grille in Del Mar and Avant Restaurant in Rancho Bernardo Inn. They hide cooling systems in brick-walled enclosures, bend bottle racks around curved walls, create standalone pavilionsβengineer structures for cabs.
Their cellars hover between 50 to 70 percent humidity to keep the cork appropriately moist. Air too dry, and a cracked cork will give up the ghostβO2, in excess, turns wine into vinegar. If the airβs too dry, it can shrink the cork, eventually evaporating the wine and creating a low pressure that will pull in destruction. Too humid, and mold contaminates the works.
Lightβs a big no-no for wine, too. Incandescent or halogen lights were the norm for cellars 20 years ago, but they emitted heat. Like SchrΓΆdingerβs Cat, these bulbs would risk the subject in order to view it. Vintage Cellars adopts LED lighting and, for glass cellars in the sightline of bright windows, mechanized shades that lower during UV exposure times.
Custom circumference-cut cove trays, leather saddles, and pegs stabilize bottles in Vintage Cellars storage areas; movement disturbs the tannins and upsets the aging process. And these cellars are smart, with app-based monitoring, remote temperature monitoring, and eSommelier cellar management. Donβt fret, Siriβs got your Syrah.
The most important decision, however, is deciding when to uncork that special bottle.
β[A lot of times, people]Β are saving those wines for specific moments in lifeβmaybe a 50th anniversary or when their firstborn turns 21,β says Noel. βThatβs how they look at it: as social and also to create memories.β
Pete Peterson has served as high as Editor-in-Chief of an enthusiast media magazine and as low as writer of his own bio⦠In addition to contributing to San Diego Magazine, Pete authored the YA novel One Tiger One Teen and is working on his second novel. Slightly more info is available at petepetersonauthor.com.
Troy Johnson is the magazineβs award-winning food writer and humorist, and a long-standing expert on Food Network. His work has been featured on NatGeo, Travel Channel, NPR, and in Food Matters, a textbook of the best American food writing.
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on womenβs sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional womenβs volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staffΒ for San Diegoβs team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojoβs inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.Β
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