Jenni Kayne, the mascot for California ease, has made a career out of embodying a lifestyle. To label that lifestyle “laidback” or “minimalist” would technically be accurate, but there’s more to it than that. The Jenni Kayne ecosystem—made up of ready-to-wear, skincare, and home—quintessentially captures the effortlessness of the West Coast. “I use that word a lot,” she says, with a laugh. Kayne has dialed in from her home in Los Angeles, where the evening before, a coterie of friends and colleagues gathered to celebrate the release of her latest book, Pacific Natural Everywhere, published by Rizzoli.
It s the third in her Pacific Natural series (the first centered around entertaining, while the second focused on interiors). “With this book, I wanted to do something that felt like a natural extension, which to me was this idea of California living everywhere,” she explains. In other words, a home is capable of summoning the California spirit without actually being there. “It’s more about the relationship between architecture and nature.”
The book features 10 homes scattered across some of the world’s most evocative landscapes, from the wildflower valleys of Colorado to a cedar-clad cabin in New Zealand. The properties are arranged by their defining natural element (Aspen, Pine, Oak, Ryegrass)—a decision Kayne chalks up to her Virgo tendencies. (“I like things to be very organized!”)
The process of curating the edit, she explains, was more about a feeling than rigid criteria. “I love that nature dictated the way each architect designed these homes,” she says. “The landscapes are a little less manicured, a little more natural, but then the architecture is a bit more modern.”
A native Angeleno, it’s obvious why Kayne is an unofficial spokesperson for California. But her love of gardens and homes, specifically, is something she traces to her mother. “She’s like a sponge,” Kayne says, “and she’s always learning and evolving and soaking up as much as possible.” During her childhood, Kayne was “dragged” along on art and garden tours. “At first, I was like, these are so boring, but I realize now it really sparked something in me. I think my love of landscapes is because she exposed me to them at such a young age.”
In Pacific Natural Everywhere, a home on the shores of Washington’s Puget Sound—the images of which are published exclusively in this story—punctuates the central theme of the book: simple, beautifully restrained architecture is the best frame, and nature is the best picture. The property in question belongs to Jim Olson of legendary architecture firm Olson Kundig. “There was nowhere you could turn in the house where you weren t looking out to this picturesque view,” she says, adding that it was an honor to feature homes by prominent architects in the book. “Their lives’ work is creating beautiful spaces for other people, but then to see how they create their own spaces—whether it s Vincent Van Duysen’s in Portugal, Marmol Radziner’s in Los Angeles, or Jim Olson’s in Longbranch—it was just a very cool part of the process.”
Olson’s home began as a modest bunkhouse in 1959 and gradually evolved into a modular layout over the years, growing with Olson and his family. When reflecting on the details that struck her most about the home, Kayne points to the mix of materials—spruce panels in the bedroom, river rocks puzzled onto the bathroom counter, and walls of glass that invite the outdoors in. “One of the things I’ve always been drawn to with Olson Kundig’s architecture are the windows,” she says. “They’ve created their own window systems and are really well known for that.”
Michael P.H. Clifford (the photographer behind the book’s images) captures this detail best in a shot of a reading nook, where a single chair faces a massive window—which becomes virtually invisible. “All of these homes also show a lot of restraint when it comes to the interiors and the furniture,” Kayne says. “And to me that’s a very California thing, too—not overdoing it.”
