This Is California

A 1950s house in Ojai taps childhood memories of the Golden State for designers Nathan Turner and Eric Hughes

- Martha McCully

Based in Los Angeles, Eric Hughes and Nathan Turner embody the California dream. Turner was on Million Dollar Decorators and is a lifestyle expert, home cook, author, and decorator with clients from Singapore to Sydney. Hughes has designed homes for Hollywood celebrities including Sarah Jessica Parker, his lifelong friend. But having B both grown up in the Golden State, the couple, who are both ELLE DECOR A-List designers, fondly recall a very different California, a place of stark beauty, simplicity, and self-sufficiency. This was the world of their grandparents and great-grandparentsand one they have now reclaimed for themselves in Ojai.

It wasn't the plan. The couple used to decamp on weekends to Malibu, but when that area became über popular, they decided to look for a sleepier spot. In Ojai, just 80 miles north of L.A., they found an old 1950s rambler-a Western ranch house that once served as the centerpiece of a working cattle ranch. It reminded them of the homes of their childhood. Turner grew up in the Bay Area, spending weekends, holidays, and summers on his grandparents' ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. In junior high, he would ride his horse Cochise on the fire roads into town, ordering a Coke and fries at the Burger King drive-through on horseback. Hughes's grandmother Milly lived in a ranch house in Rancho Santa Fe, in San Diego County.