Original subtitles

I've been coming to this part

of the desert for 16 years.

It was a nice place to escape for the weekends

and just get a little bit of simplicity and clarity

in your busy LA life.

We're on the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains.

Got a lot of brown tones.

Lots of crystals in the mountains.

- Mm-hmm. - So you have like--

Little bit of sparkle.

Being here, it just

feels like you're kind of bathing in light all the time.

And the sky, it feels so vast.

This house was actually built in the '30s

from a clay vein that's just a couple

hundred feet away from here.

I mean, I think it's great that you

honored the original adobe, and we kept the face of the house.

So when you walk in,

most people walk into the dining room.

Then you see the kitchen, and then

that's kind of where everybody hangs out and entertains.

From a design perspective,

I really love the way those spaces came together.

Creating a home is an incredibly intimate process,

the detail that you go into.

How do you live?

How do you live your life?

And what do you need?

We were just friends.

We never worked together, and then I got to see--

And now we're sisters basically.

And now we're sisters.

And it was, like, really cool to see her

in her element doing what she does so well because she

has really good taste.

Right off the living room is the master bedroom and bathroom.

There's a little nook there where you can hang out

on these two little built-in benches

and enjoy, like, stargazing at night

or the sunrise or drink tea.

Then there's a whole nother experience

when you take a little pathway down to the pool.

In the evenings, I love to sit in the sauna

before I go to bed.

Helps me sleep at night.

The front of the house

faces the ultimate view, which is the Sawtooth Mountains.

As you walk around, there's an airiness

so that it almost feels like you're one with the desert.

This is very much like indoor-outdoor living.

As a photographer,

I'm stimulated by people and travel.

And at one point, a lot of my friends were coming out here

and started purchasing property.

And it was still very affordable back then.

I wanted to build a spot for people to come together.

It was for my family.

I looked with my realtor for about two years

to find this place.

And the house was abandoned for over 50 years.

And I just walked in, and I was like, no way.

Am I doing this?

There was just, like, food cans from 1980,

thousands of vinyl records just kind of, like,

broken on the ground.

But then I looked outside, and I'm like,

OK, this is exactly the spot I want to be,

and then the journey that I thought would take six months

began.

And it took four years.

We met years ago.

I'm friends with her younger sister--

My sister.

and know her mom.

Yeah.

It's like a whole thing.

It's very familial.

But I feel like this, like, really bonded us.

You were like, I don't know exactly what it is yet,

but I know it's something really great.

Some people are like just tear it

down and build it all facing the Sawtooths and make it all glass

and make it super modern.

I'm like, I can't tear down, like, a 1935 adobe.

Are you kidding me?

She helped me save it.

The technical drawings were

a little tricky to work with.

Everything was drawn in the dirt with a stick.

I'm not kidding.

Or on a napkin.

Or on a napkin.

But we were able to translate them.

How do we connect all of these things,

trying to respect what came before us

and incorporate Magda's lifestyle into it, which

is she's-- she's an artist.

She's a creator.

Being a photographer myself, seeing how

the light falls, we could come here and look at textures

and colors together as the light changed in the winter

to the summer.

And every corner that I was in a chair,

I had to make sure that I saw the view of the mountains.

It was truly connecting with the earth

and the surroundings.

It was truly connecting with the view, the way the light moves.

I was studying adobes and trying to figure

out, like, what makes them special,

what makes them work so well.

And they integrated all the furniture in these spaces

because it's highly functional.

And it looks rad.

And it looks so cool.

Minimalist textures, natural materials.

You feel that original adobe, but then you also feel

the design of what came after.

And I think the connection is just really present.

It was truly a process that involved, like, sincere

dedication.

Well, that was my house.

I will never forget how hard it was to get it to this place.

We became close through the process,

and also I had such a beautiful relationship with this house.

So when I walk in here, I appreciate it so much.

You can be a kid here.

Like it's simple living.

You can go hiking and explore and ride

dirt bikes and motorcycles, and it's just so beautiful.

You want a place where your people

could gather and feel restored.

And people have come here,

and they have gathered.

And people have written scripts here and recorded records,

and friend of mine met her fiance on that couch.

This is a sanctuary,

and I think that's what you needed in your life.

This would be an amazing place for other people

to kind of inherit and just keep it going, just

joy, laughter, fun, cooking.

Restorative, the restorative artist retreat.