Home for the Holidays
By Rowena Kelley
Home for the Holidays

This year, we decided not to make the holiday pilgrimage to my in-laws’ house in New England. The chaos of traveling with a 1-year-old makes staying close to home all the more appealing. Quite frankly, so do memories of the fires that ravaged San Diego neighborhoods this past October. Seeing the horror unfold on television and taking in family from evacuated areas reinforced my need to nest. Maybe it’s early motherhood. Or that wise female intuition. Whatever it is, I’m happy to be home for the holidays.

In lieu of packing our bags, I’m taking a cue from one of our most passionate designers and decorating my home to the rafters. Former ASID president Harold Pell is wild about the holidays. So wild, this year he’s decorating his Mount Helix home with six Christmas trees—each filled branch by branch with ornaments he’s made, bought or received over the years. The trees pay homage to Pell’s family traditions and prove that showroom-quality furnishings alone don’t personalize a space the way mementos and photographs do.

I also plan to cook for friends and family. According to our resident TV chef, Sam Zien, you don’t need a chef’s kitchen to cook a feast; as he shows us in this issue, you don’t even need your own kitchen. With tongs, knives and his wooden chopping board in hand, he travels with an entourage of two—a cameraman and his assistant—to film an epi­sode of Sam the Cooking Guy in a lavish downtown penthouse. Silver-leaf ceilings, intricately carved marble floors and walls of Venetian plaster aren’t typical surroundings for a guy who cooks with La Choy rice noodles. But since when is anything from Sam typical?

If tree decorating and cooking aren’t your cup of tea for holiday celebration, we’ve got the story—and party—to inspire. In true Southern California fashion, we take you inside a cocktail party at a Bankers Hill penthouse. Libations pour like liquid gold. Appetizers line festive tables. And Gershwin summons the holidays. If that doesn’t get you in the spirit, I don’t know what will.

As we set forth on rebuilding San Diego, I think it’s wise to do as these folks have done: Hold dear those traditions and people you love. Nurture them. Celebrate them. And build a home around them.

Happy holidays to you and yours.


Rowena Kelley
Editor, San Diego At Home
rowenak@sandiegomagazine.com

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