Peninsula Sotheby’s International Realty

Interested in the real estate market? Why not inquiry at Sotheby’s? The president of the Palos Verdes Peninsula branch of Sotheby’s International is co-owned by Rick Edler – a Valmontian. We caught up with him and his busy schedule to ask a few questions of our own.

Valmonte Magazine : Where do you see the real estate market headed in our area this year?

Rick Edler : Valmonte should be steady and balanced in 2010, with 2011 and 2012 being banner years, though we need more ‘move-up’ buyers; 83% of the sales in 2009 were distress sales and these don’t create new buyers. We will probably see less of this in 2010. Currently, 53% of our buyers are involved with these distress sales. and it will likely continue to improve, assuming banks continue to lend.

Valmonte Magazine : How do you view home ownership?.

Rick Edler : First and foremost as shelter and for the enjoyment of its surroundings. Second, as an investment with 2010 being the largest High School Graduating class, we are still a decade away from new home buyers.

Valmonte Magazine : What do people love so much about Valmonte?

Rick Edler : Quick off the hills, tree’s, young families and the character of the neighborhood. These are all reasons Valmonte also has a high rate of families changing homes within the neighborhood.

Rick Edler has lived in Palos Verdes much of his life, graduating from PV High. He did Undergraduate work at USC in his double major - Entrepreneurship and International Marketing. He started in real estate with his mother, Kitty, at ReMax. Together they built the business until it became the Edler Group in the late 90’s. Moving forward, Rick went to Shorewood Real Estate to try his hand at his own business. Eventually he approached Sotheby’s and they elected to give him Peninsula Sotheby’s boutique. He is now the president and CEO of Sotheby’s Manhattan, Redondo, South Bay and PV and oversees all operations of the business. His sixteen years of real estate experience secured him the honor of Realtor of the Year for 2009 by Realtor Magazine. Rick is on the board of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Board of Realtors, Silverdes, L.L.C. (a real estate development firm), Merryweather Properties, Inc. (a real estate investment firm), the Bank of Palos Verdes and the Neighborhood Church board of trustees and is director of MSMLS, Inc. (Multi-Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc.).

Married with four kids; Gracie (8), Charlotte (7), Mark (4 and named after Rick’s brother) and Sofie (4) Rick has a very full life!

Offices are located at 608 Silver Spur Road, Suite 250 in Rolling Hills Estates, Ca. 90274. The phone number there is 310.541.8271.

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ April 2010 issue,Palos Verdes Peninsula,Southern California Sotheby's,Rick Edler,Niki Chanel

Teenagers on Ice

On the 7th of March, 2010 the Ice Chalet Skating Rink in the Rolling Hills Estates, Promenade on the Peninsula mall generously hosted a night of free skating to Valmonte residents from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Many brave souls with no previous experience gave it the college try and got better each lap around the Arena. Those that have spent childhood years in colder climates got reacquainted with gliding on ice and enjoyed the cool comradery.

However, there were an elite few who put us all in our place with their grace and expertise. Laney Diggs, 17, and Stephanie Valasek, aged 14, are two such Ice Angels.

These young athletes skate two to three hours a day, seven days a week and more time is added when they have an upcoming event. Working so hard on their skating does not leave time for much else so they have given up activities like Girl Scouts and Cotillion.

This sport can also be costly. There are traveling expenses; this April Stephanie is very excited to be competing in Toulouse, France with the Los Angeles Ice Theater. Costumes that must allow for ease of movement and present a smooth appearance are pricey and they need at least two costumes per year. The material that delivers this combination is a knit fabric and damages easily. The special, over-the-boot tights that cover the entire skate can run after a single performance. “Gloves, too - it’s up to a pair a week!” explains Christie, Stephanie’s mom. The costumes are designed by their various designers and choreographers who have the task of melding the design with the music. The girls compete with several musical genres - “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller, the overture of a 1960’s movie, “Irma la Douce” and “Les Mis”.

Laney began skating at age 5. She is 17 and a senior at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. She now trains in Harbor city, but trained in El Segundo alongside Evan Lysacek, who won a gold medal in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. At the time I spoke to her she was 15^th in the nation in the senior solo category with USFSA, the United States Figure Skating Association. She currently skates for the All Year FSC, Figure Skating Club. In 2010 at the US Championships, Laney became the Senior Bronze Ladies medalist in the Pacific Coast Sectional Figure Skating competitions. She says that experience is her life’s “defining moment”. Her favorite city that she has skated in is Vancouver, Canada and when she’s not skating, she likes to cook, read, watch basketball with her family, and has Olympic aspirations.

Stephanie, 14, started skating when she was three. Like all kids she went on to include many extra curricular pursuits to her calendar but the love of skating grew by leaps and bounds – literally! She has outgrown the Rolling Hills Estates Ice Rink because it is not long enough for some of her jumps. She now skates at five different rinks from Burbank to Harbor City. Stephanie helps teach the Learn to Skate classes every Saturday to give back to the rink where her career began.

Christie Valasek knows how hard these kids work at their sport and realized there was no High School Varsity letter available to them. After presenting their case to the school athletic director, it was agreed – skaters would get their due recognition as they certainly deserve the letter. For the first time in PVPHS’s history, on April 17^th, 2010 at the Rolling Hills Community Covenant Community Center at 735 Silver Spur in Rolling Hills a banquet will be held to present Varsity letters to these accomplished kids. Tickets are $20.00 which includes dinner. Call Christie Valasek at 310.722.0605 for more information and ticket sales.

See what can happen from a little fun in your neighborhood?! And to think – I had never been inside the Rolling Hills Estates Ice Chalet before - all the while kids have been building a future there. It’s a friendly and well maintained rink where one can go watch local teams play hockey or just practice standing up… on blades.

“Thank you so much for doing this!” I heard as I was leaving. Yes – thank you!

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ May Issue 2010,Ice Chalet Skating Rink,Rolling Hills Estates,Promenade at the Peninsula,Figure Sakting Club,Valesek,Diggs,FSC,Los Angeles Ice Theatre,Niki Chanel

A Frog into a Prince

Pat Cox is one of Valmonte’s amazing artists. Her home on La Selva Place, the hundredth built in Palos Verdes Estates, is filled with her intuitively skilled and constantly changing art work. Her chosen medium is “Assemblage” (you say it with a French accent). The art form is defined as ‘the putting together of disparate parts into a new whole using stuff from everyday life, both found and manufactured, fragmented or intact.’

To facilitate her craft she is a self-proclaimed ‘avid collector of junk’. Though some of her junk, mind you, are antiques and airplane propellers. “The materials I choose determine both its structure and its content. I look for things that fire me up and catch my attention.” Many of her pieces she considers unfinished because they still ‘speak’ to her. “My work explores the mystery and power of found objects through combination, alteration, juxtaposition and layering. The goal: transformation… the ordinary into the extraordinary, the frog into the prince.”

To accomplish these lofty goals she has had to become a painter, a welder and a carpenter. “I marry the materials.” The results are elegant, fluid and meaningful. Some contain love letters; others are built from space debris. A spindle becomes a vase, a bone relives as a bird, cotton and wire become the most intriguing of characters locked in a glass tube. Her home is a fascinating gallery of thoughts and feelings.

Pat started her artistic journey as a painter and over time, moved onward to collage. The process of collecting and rearranging paper to create an image evolved yet again - into the world of 3D - a sculptural form of collage. This practice of piecing together found objects for art’s sake was popular in the 1920’s and had notoriety in the 30’s. When it again took center stage in the 50’s the name Assemblage was coined and gallery goers know it is still alive and well today.

Many artists became quite famous for this type of work, Picasso being one of them. His exploration of found objects, along with the influence of Georges Braque, laid the ground-work for Cubism when these artists went back to painting. Joseph Cornell put his assembled worlds in boxes and is said to have been on the path to Surrealism. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (the Dada Baroness) made Assemblage more famous than herself and she is suspected of being a source of inspiration behind “Ready Made” art – art made from manufactured and recognizable items like urinals and bicycle parts.

The ‘objets d'art’ that Pat Cox creates are more figurative in nature than Robert Rauschenberg’s, more narrative than Marcel Duchamp’s work and hold more mystery than Man Ray’s studio art. Each of her pieces invites you to find your place in it. Some enchanting and others bold; sliced submarine parts rearranged into a giant piece of jewelry appearing to hang weightless over a fireplace. Shrines of every size and topic seem to give homage to the mummified cougar lurking from a high shelf… or maybe it’s the Apollo 18 titanium Rorschach; each fantasy world is yours for the imagining and as fascinating as the next.

And, yes, they are for sale.

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ May Issue 2010,Palos Verdes Art Center,assemblage,Niki Chanel

Phil Norman Design Group

Phil Norman is what you might call an interior architect.

Phillip Norman grew up in Iowa and graduated from Iowa State University in 1991. Though he didn’t much like the cold winters, Iowa State offered the top ten Architectural programs in the nation and Phil studied them all. Once he had added Interior Design to from ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) to his resume, he left for Southern California… with only $400.00 in his pocket. He didn’t know a soul there but managed to get as close to the border as possible - San Diego, for the warmth.

He went through the yellow pages in the designers section looking for work and got hired as an assistant. It wasn’t long before he was working on his own projects. In 2004 he started his own business in Palos Verdes, which he loves for the “small-town-in-a-big-city feel, and the sense of community”.

That same year Phil met Tawnie, a Los Angelian - born and bred, and they married shortly thereafter. Their daughters are Payton, who is almost two and four year old Casey. Cole, the only boy, is three.

The company offers much of what Southern Californians enjoy by concentrating on the South Bay residents from Manhattan Beach to PV. The Design Group primarily focuses on the residential customer. What is unique about the firm is they’re really good at bridging construction to decorating. “We can talk plumbing to pillows.” They work with local architects on projects yet are very approachable from an individual’s standpoint. “That’s a reflection on our Midwest roots!” says Phil, with a smile.

When they are not tiling your bathroom or landscaping your yard, the Norman’s enjoy the beach and hiking. A walk along the eastern cliffs of the peninsula takes them to their favourite restaurants, Trumps and Terranea.

You can visit the Phil Norman Design Group showrooms at 2780 Skypark Drive, #120 in

Torrance, Ca. 90505 or call them at 310-325-3751 or find them on the internet at www.normandesigngroup.com .

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ May Issue,Palos Verdes Peninsula,Phil Normans Design Group,Niki Chanel

Towering Over Valmonte

At 4420 Via Valmonte stands the Gate Lodge Tower, distinct in its rustic stone setting conjuring images of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The stalwart sentry guarding the eastern entrance to Palos Verdes Estates was originally intended to be the guard house for a gated community that was then called the “New Palos Verdes Project”.

Built in 1926 the tower is a two story, 15 feet wide, round construction with 18 inch thick walls of PV Stone. Upstairs is a room with a view, though trees have grown high and obscure its vista. Downstairs, there is a kitchen and living room area complete with fireplace, and over the years this romantic scene has belonged to a few renters.

Overlooking PV’s eastern border with Torrance, the property commanded a majestic panorama over Los Angeles and a part of what was once Frank Vanderlip’s 16,000 acres. As the New Palos Verdes Project progressed, the section of Hawthorne that snaked up the hill was renamed Via Mirlo, reestablishing the guard tower as the “Mirlo Gate Lodge”. Shortly after the tower was finished, the street was renamed Hawthorne and continued on to the golf course. Although the tower has had many names since, ‘Hawthorne’ has never been one of them.

The Great Depression and World War II changed everything; this and many other projects poised to be built in PV were brought to an end and the New Palos Verdes Project became nothing more than drawings on paper.

Over the next decade the Great Lakes Carbon Corporation leased about 300 acres from Vanderlip. Dicalite (diatomaceous earth) was mined from the quarry at the bottom of the Valmonte bluff (now Hawthorne and Via Valmonte) and extended into what is now the Hillside Plaza, a part of Torrance. The mining company wanted to own the land and in 1953 the purchase of 6,800 acres from Vanderlip’s holdings caused the company investors to reassess their plans and the land was developed into a business and residential area. In 1965 Hawthorne was extended up and over the top of the hill to join Palos Verdes Drive South and what was once Via Mirlo became Via Valmonte.

In 1939 the City of Palos Verdes Estates took possession of the tower when the city was incorporated. No longer a sellable piece of real estate, it yet remains a symbol of our piece of the hill - Valmonte. Quaint on its pepper tree lined property, the tower is a quiet reminder of strength, safety and grandeur – exactly what we love about Palos Verdes and for the select few who have lived there, a man’s home actually can be his castle!

Source for this article: Palos Verdes Library’s Local History

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ March 2010 issue,PV tower,Palos Verdes Gatehouse, Palos Verdes Library, Niki Chanel

Zen and the Art of Aquarium Maintenance

by Zen Kent

(I assisted Zen in the writing of this article. ~ Niki )

My name is Zen Kent and I live on Via Valmonte. I am a senior at PV High School. One of my AP marine biology class projects is putting together a salt water tank for another biology class. My dad has had lots of saltwater aquariums over the years and I wanted to try it for myself.

I have a 40 gallon tank at school with a Bio-Ball, Wet/Dry system and when I am finished it will be a ”Touch Tank”. That’s an aquarium that has an open top and is accessible to student’s hands and easy observation.

Salt water for this kind of tank should basically be between 7.6 and 8.4 PH so I buy the water. That way I know it starts out OK for the fish. A gallon of salt water costs about $0.69/gallon. (40 gallon tank of water is about $30.00 to start but I have to keep putting more in because it evaporates.)

To get the microbes to grow so the tank can become sustainable, I need “Live Rock”. The rock is not really alive but lots of micro and macroscopic marine life live on and inside it. The rocks cost about $6.00/lb. A one pound live rock is about the size of a piece of fruit and I have 2 of them = $12.00. I put 40 pounds of live sand in there, too. It helps with the PH and the creatures need an “ocean bed”. 40 pounds of live sand cost me about $50.00.

Tropical tanks are warmer than freshwater ones, about 72º-80º degrees F. The fish that are used to this temperature, I think are more beautiful; fish like the Dragon Rass. My plan is to introduce a Dragon Rass into the environment that I make in the tank. This fish has a lot of energy and an egotistical personality; kind of an Alpha male thing. The other cool thing about this fish is that it sleeps under the gravel on the bottom of the tank. It will spend an hour piling up small gravel to sleep under it. It’s like he can turn out the lights when he wants. I think that’s smart - he avoids predation while he sleeps. I’ve never seen anything else like it. I like how the Dragon Rass changes color throughout its life, and I also like its name. They cost about $20.00 each.

Eventually I want to add an anemones and a Clown fish. Normally anemones sting, paralyze and eat fish but some of them pair up with Clown fish. The Clown is immune to the sting of the anemone so it’s protected from fish eaters while it stays close to the anenome. The anemone is protected from polyp-eating fish because the Clown fish chases them away. They have a symbiotic relationship. We humans have a lot to learn from that. A Clown fish can be from $6.00 to $12.00 and the cheapest anemones are about $25.00 each. The anemone can also eat blood worms which I can buy frozen and mix them in salt water before I add a teaspoon to the tank. The frozen blood worms are about $7.00 a package.

I will need snails, crabs and cleaning shrimp to keep the tank clean and habitable for the other fish and a snail can cost from $1.00 to $5.00 and the cleaner shrimp are $30.00 each. Hermit crabs are also good cleaners. They are about $1.50 each.

People have learned a lot about the ocean lately because over the last 30 yrs that they have been able to enjoy salt-tanks in their homes and observe ocean life closely.

I have a school budget of $160 and I’m almost there. If anyone is interested in helping me learn and teach others about sustainability of an ocean ecosphere, I would be grateful. Donations can be left in the school office for my teacher, Mrs. Kuhn, or for me, Zen Kent or at my favorite aquarium store: Neptune’s Reef at 2851 Pacific Coast Highway (near Crenshaw) in Torrance, 90505. Their phone number is 310.534.2323. Ask for John; he’s the owner and is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in the field. He always has some cool thing to tell me about fish or the ocean when I go there. Go have a look for yourself – it costs nothing to look!

Thank you for your support!

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ March 2010 issue,Palos Verdes High School,salt water aquariums,Dragon Rass,Clown fish,living rock,wet-dry system,Neptune's Reef,Torrance,Palos Verdes Peninsula,Zen Kent, Niki Chanel

Comfort with a Cause

Two friends… two angels… June Grossberg, owner of “Concepts in Yarn and Needlepoint” and her very good friend Leslye Borden together champion a program to help turn around the lives of abused women and children through a highly successful volunteer effort called “Handmade Especially for You”. The self esteem of battered souls is often so low they honestly believe an abusive lifestyle is what they deserve.

Enter the “Comfort Scarf”. In 2008 Leslye Borden started knitting sox and hats for underprivileged and abused kids across the country. Her love of knitting evolved into the “Handmade Especially for You”. Later that year she approached June, looking for a sponsor. June offered her shop for the “Knitting Club” and asked her suppliers to donate to the cause. Yarn manufacturers get their name out to potential customers, June’s store gets more business, knitters have a quiet place to create, Leslye’s project gets the support it needs and escapees from abuse are assisted - everybody wins.

Day after day heaps of soft yarn in every conceivable color and design appear on Leslye’s doorstep. Some donors are known, some anonymous; some private while others are in the business. The main contributions come from distributors like Trendsetter Yarns, Crystal Palace Yarns and Knitting Fever Yarns though at least another twenty manufacturers participate. Leslye winds the yarn into skeins and artistically combines several colors into individual ‘kits’ each containing a total of 100 yards (300 feet) to make one 4-5” wide, 60” long scarf. Volunteers use an open-weave stitch to knit numerous pieces and drop them into the donation box at the store. Leslye then sends them to shelters throughout California, helping create chapters around the country. It sounds fun but there is a serious side and a lot of work is involved, not unlike allies in the underground. It is important to have dependable, dedicated knitting members and the need for steady yarn supply is paramount.

The program is built on the healing psychology of gifting and has been proven to start victims on a road to a better life. Some of the women who receive one of the ‘gifts’ have never before been given anything that was just for them; the impact of a stranger donating time, effort, creativity and compassion has a deep and positive effect on their psyches. Many embark on a quest to seek a more nurturing environment for themselves and their children.

Crochet Magazine (crochetmagazine.com) published an article about “Handmade Especially for You” in their October 2009 “Talking Crochet Newsletter” and the response was overwhelming! People all over the States wanted to participate in this volunteer movement. Case in point: Peggy Bomba of Craig, Colorado read about Leslye’s efforts and was inspired to include “Comfort Scarves” in her classes at the Craig-Moffat County Jail where she has taught crocheting for over two years. These incarcerated women, often themselves victims of violence, frequently react to life in an aggressive manner, yet they now crochet scarves for other women in need. The work is calming and the fighting has stopped. Peggy has broadened her endeavors to include other causes and more volunteers – even men enjoy the handiwork! To date, she has sent two shipments of scarves to Leslye. It seems the term ‘corrections’ has taken on a renewed meaning: transformation. It’s a huge step towards healing ones self image. Examples like this prove that the work is worth the effort and the reward, immeasurable.

Crisis centers everywhere need continued assistance from the outside world to demonstrate to victims escaping abuse that life can be different - better. This last Christmas the ‘Scarf Project’ answered that need; the goal was 2,000 scarves yet the two partners were pleased to receive over 2,500 in time for the holiday delivery, a total of 6,500 for the year! They deliver the finished scarves to home offices of the shelters, keeping the safe-house’s actual locations hidden.

Leslye’s success with “Handmade” has been helped by June Grossberg through her store “Concepts in Yarn and Needlepoint”. June supports the “Comfort Scarf” drive by donating her shop and time so volunteers can come in and knit for the project, free of charge. Every Wednesday evening from 5:00 to 8:00pm about eight to twelve volunteers from Palos Verdes, Torrance and Redondo arrive with knitting needles in hand, pick up a free, pre-measured kit and enjoy the evening’s ‘girl time’ while they create a link of love to their less fortunate sisters. Other knitters who choose to craft theirs at home can pick up kits at the shop. June supplies two bins: one for Leslye’s kits and one for finished scarves. Leslye picks up the finished work and tags each one, signed by its maker. Finally, a non-knitting volunteer wraps each scarf with a brightly colored ribbon, ready for the next delivery batch.

The store “Concepts in Yarn and Needlepoint” is located at the end of Via Valmonte on Hawthorne Blvd. in the Hillside Plaza and normal business hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm, though open until 8:00pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. June carries many scrumptious yarn varieties in her shop imported from foreign manufacturers primarily Italy, Japan and Turkey. American manufacturers are not producing designer yarns at this time, but it is a growing industry. Hand dyed silks, Alpaca, Cashmere, Merino sheep’s wool, fibers made from soy milk, Kapok, corn and organics for soft baby items; colors, textures and designs are enough to make you drool! Patterns, buttons, notions and needlepoint supplies all vie for space in this cozy wonderland and if you still can’t get enough there are classes in crocheting, needlepoint and knitting, custom work and Ghost Knitters are available.

Abuse is not exclusive and can appear at any stage in life. It crosses all lines of society; age, race, education, creed and monetary circumstances. Addressing domestic violence involves us all - those in need and those that can fill the need; sometimes the boundaries are blurred. Volunteers are taking up the cause and knitting circles are spreading with new chapters in San Diego, one in Naples, Florida, one in the making in Seattle and approximately fifteen others throughout the country. To learn more about the scarf project, read Leslye’s monthly newsletter on her website at:http://www.handmadeespecially.org

By the way, if you don’t know what a Ghost Knitter is, I can only tell you that it is so secret you’ll have to visit the shop to ask… and bring your knitting needles!

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ March 2010 issue,Palos Verdes Peninsula,Concepts in Yarn and Needlepoint,Handmade Especially for You, Niki Chanel