The $10M club
Ultra-luxe real estate rankings, Churn, pod life, tennis lessons, Khruangbin tix, Prelude and Dawn, the best burger in the Bay Area, best SYV restaurants, MORE
REAL ESTATE • Market Report
Luxe life
Conversation starter for this weekend’s cocktail party: How many $10M+ properties traded across the country in the first half of 2024?
Who guessed 838? Winner! That’s a 3.9% increase over last year, per Compass’s mid-year report. Ten markets accounted for over 75% of all sales, including Greater Los Angeles — in the top slot, nicely done — and Orange County at number five.
Here’s the full top 10:
Greater Los Angeles CA • 135 sales (-15.6% YoY)
Manhattan NY • 121 (-2.4%)
Palm Beach County FL • 79 (46.3%)
Miami Dade FL • 74 (21.3%)
Orange County CA • 51 (96.2%)
Southwest Florida FL • 41 (46.4%)
The Hamptons NY • 37 (8.8%)
Silicon Valley & Peninsula CA • 35 (12.9%)
Big Island, Kauai, Oahu & Maui HI • 32 (18.5%)
Aspen CO • 29 (-9.4%)
Elsewhere in the (loosely defined) ultra-luxe neighborhood, Palm Springs (10 sales, 66.7%), Scottsdale & Phoenix (5 sales, 66.7%), and Silicon Valley & the Peninsula (35 sales, 12.9%) made the report’s list of 20 markets that saw year-over-year increases.
Final stumper for your cocktail party friends: Which ultra-luxe market saw the largest percentage increase in sales YoY? Nashville, with seven transactions over last year’s single transaction, thanks to (in no particular order) its moderate climate, good food and music, and tax-free livin’.
LA WORK AND PLAY LINKS: Developer The Bradmore Group unveils new Marina Del Rey campus • Westlake’s shuttered Pacific Dining Car building damaged in fire • Filipino grocery store Island Pacific Market coming soon to East Hollywood • Discovering LA neighborhoods by their trees • Trending: PowerPoint parties.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Tennis
Tennis, anyone?
→ THE COURT: A private court (above) nestled in the folds of Beverly Hills' most prestigious streets, surrounded by swaying palms.
The Instructor: Lori Levi (310-701-6778), a UCLA alumna who honed her craft coaching some of Hollywood's elite. Her lessons weave together technical tennis instruction with advice on game strategy, culinary exploration, and world travels.
The Players: Wide-eyed four-year-olds to spry octogenarians.
The Ticket: After a lesson, hit up nearby Leora Cafe for breakfast or lunch while reflecting on your progress.
→ THE COURT: Silvertop in Silver Lake, with panoramic views of the Silver Lake Reservoir.
The Instructor: Mads Heglund, a Danish powerhouse. Heglund's credentials include a masters in psychology and experience as a top-tier college tennis player and coach. Clients find in him someone who understands that the journey of self-improvement extends beyond the baseline.
The Players: LA's creative vanguard of artistic innovators and trendsetters.
The Ticket: Before or after a lesson, stroll the scenic paths around the reservoir or enjoy artisanal pastries and coffee at Botanica. –Kelly Rose
CULTURE & LEISURE • FOUND Shop
A vibrant affair
In a fitting location on one of the busiest blocks of Highland Park’s Figueroa Street, alongside coffee shops, the Highland Park Bowl, and popular breakfast taco shop Homestate, there’s Prelude and Dawn, the area’s best go-to for gifts and self-care. The vibrant merchandise is indulgent, amusing, and absolutely necessary: Yes, you do in fact require a set of pink hand-blown Bordeaux wine glasses with red grape-shaped stems, and a decanter to match. Incense, candles, eye-catching jewelry, and an extensive apothecary with local brands of nail, face, and body care round out the inventory, and make a trip to Prelude and Dawn a true act of self-love. –Heather Platt
→ Shop: Prelude and Dawn (Highland Park) • 10a-6p daily.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Outdoor Shows
Khruangbin & Unknown Mortal Orchestra • Hollywood Bowl (Hollywood) • Sat @ 8p • terrace 2, $207 per
Alanis Morissette • The Kia Forum (Inglewood) • Sat @ 7p • section 107, $256 per
Foo Fighters • BMO Stadium (Expo Park) • Sat @ 530p • section 111, $385 per
WORK • Thursday Routine
Better with butter
MICHAEL TASHMAN • founder • Churn
Neighborhood you live in: Culver City
It’s Thursday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I wake up at 6:30am and go on a nice long walk to stretch. Then I make myself a black coffee with Churn’s maple cinnamon butter. I’ve been enjoying bulletproof coffee for its health benefits and the maple cinnamon flavor gives me that added boost in the morning. I spend a few minutes checking in with my dad — he’s one of my biggest supporters, and I find that it helps to ground me for the day ahead. After that, I open up my laptop and get to work. Every day is different. I could be ideating the next new flavor or handling a last-minute supply chain issue.
What’s on the agenda for today?
Typically my time is spent on operations — handling the logistics of product demos in stores (one of my favorite parts of my job is seeing people try our butters for the first time), working on our production supply chain logistics, and ideating the next evolution of Churn, which includes forecasting four to five months down the line. It’s kind of like playing the hat shuffle game. We just launched our new hot honey butter, so as of late my day consists of checking that production is running smoothly, getting the product in the hands of new potential retailers and buyers, and helping create content to promote it.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
Yes! Going to Crudo e Nudo in Santa Monica. My girlfriend and I love their caviar nachos and ahi tuna toast. I went to a Japanese culinary school here in LA and Japanese food is my favorite. For dessert, we love Sweet Rose ice cream — their mint chip is to die for.
How about a little leisure or culture?
My girlfriend works in the music industry and we’re constantly checking out new bands and venues across LA. We are good friends with the artist Laufey and love going to her shows around town to support her. Some venues we love are The Winston House and the Greek Theater.
Any weekend getaways?
San Diego is my favorite place to relax and unwind after a busy week. We love the drive down the coast and fish tacos are unbeatable, especially at Oscars and Puesto.
What was your last great vacation?
Last summer I went to France. Taking time off as a founder is hard but so worth it. It recharges you and is always a source of inspiration, especially for a butter business. We really enjoyed roaming around, exploring the quaint towns, and (of course) eating our way through it. It was great to see how they incorporated compound butter into dishes like escargot and steak frites.
LA RESTAURANT LINKS: New restaurant First Born coming this fall to former Pok Pok space in Chinatown • Landmark Watts restaurant Locol reopened yesterday sans Roy Choi • South Central’s Holbox is first mariscos spot in U.S. to earn Michelin star • Deep dive on Downtown’s pioneering Los Angeles River Wine Company • Sonoma 2021 vintage report: ‘an extraordinary year’.
WORK • Offices
Pod life
Fifteen years ago, when we leased 3K square feet of space off Cooper Square in the East Village for a team of 20-30 people, we kept the room open. Since it was a digital media company, everyone was very much online and mostly library quiet, banging away on their laptops and chatting on AIM (pre-Slack!). We also had desk phones, which were mostly for the sales people, who had to cut through the silence to perform their pitches. It was incredibly awkward, even for the extroverts in the group.
Eventually, we commissioned a couple of “private” spaces, a corner boxed in by a glass wall — a semi-soundproof terrarium of sorts — and a carved out “conference room” with an opaque pleated wall that didn’t make it to the ceiling (and wasn’t at all soundproof). All meetings were unintentional all-hands.
We were resisting the office culture of our parents’ generation, breaking down walls or some such, and even though the office was generally full of good vibes, it was all very clumsy, and definitely not for everyone.
If we were blocking out that space today, we’d have considerably more options. Boosted first by a tech-led shift to flexible working environments and then the pandemic — when employees got used to the privacy upgrades their home setups provided — makers of pods and other adaptive furniture have flourished over the last decade. Companies like Framery, Nook, and OmniRoom are pushing the form with space-age single-user phone booths and modular rooms that fit together like Legos.
The result can be awkward in its own way: employees posted up in a series of isolation chambers, in offices where attendance is required to foster teamwork. But the modern workplace is an evolutionary process, and we’ll support whatever it takes to keep the cubicles at bay. –Josh Albertson
GETAWAYS • Bodega, CA
Feeling lucky
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The best cheeseburger in the Bay Area can be found at the Casino Bar & Grill in the tiny community of Bodega (not to be confused with Bodega Bay). The landmark roadhouse saloon is off the beaten path, 60 miles from San Francisco, in western Sonoma County.
The ride out — take Lucas Valley Road in Marin County off 101 — is one of the most beautiful in the world. Once there, find a pool table, a jukebox, and a pinball machine. The rustic cash-only Casino Bar entertains a mix of bikers, locals, marijuana trimmers, and coastal travelers, with seating inside and out.
The smashburger sits under a toasted bun, pickles, ketchup, and a secret sauce — all for nine bucks. Other choices include a grilled cheese sandwich, a hot dog, tuna melt, and Polish sausage. All are served in an open box like you get at the fairgrounds.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the bar offers a live band and a more extensive dinner menu, ingredients for which come from the garden in back and are otherwise sourced locally (including fish fresh out of the Pacific). Order local wines, draft beer from the Anderson Valley, and any cocktail you desire. An empty seat at the bar can be tough to find midday on weekends, but that’s okay, you’ll wait. –Brad Inman
→ Casino Bar & Grill (Bodega) • 17000 Bodega Hwy • 10a-9p daily.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Big crowds expected in Joshua Tree for Perseids meteor shower this weekend • New direct flights from ONT to Sonoma debuting this fall • Tahoe tasting menu destination Smoke Door Lake Tahoe Saryo doesn’t want your Instagram follow • Bodily fluid scandal rocks Half Moon Bay Ritz-Carlton • Truce in Palm Springs battle over tourist-destination statue relocation • What it’s like to travel to Maui one year after the wildfires.
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GETAWAYS • The Nines
Restaurants, Santa Ynez Valley
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of LA’s best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundla.com. For the full archives, click here.
Mattei’s Tavern (Los Olivos), ultra-luxe historic ranch and tavern by Auberge