THE JOURNAL
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Ms Sheila Marquez is wandering through the orchard at the home she shares with her partner, Mr Duncan Winecoff, and their two sons, Lucius, eight, and June, four, in Ojai, California. Come springtime, the recently planted “baby trees” should bear enough plums, peaches, apples and pears to feed her young family, as well as the neighbours, who will trade them for their citrus fruits. A nearby vegetable garden is sprouting Japanese greens, artichokes, rocket, onions and carrots. But not broccoli. A gopher gobbled up the last one this morning.
“It’s a battle with the animals living here,” sighs Marquez, who bought the property, which sits on 1.3 acres of greenery (and includes a barn and a swimming pool) in 2019. It’s a challenge to reconcile the image of Marquez, 37, a model and city girl oozing European chic (she hails from Spain), who started her career walking for Gucci and only ever lived in apartments, with the rodent-wrestling woman today. But having kids will do that to you.
“It’s amazing for them to see their mum and dad being resourceful and building things with their hands,” Marquez says. “It’s like, if we want a table, we don’t have to buy a table, we can build it. That’s something we can offer them living here, that’s very important for us right now.”
Winecoff, a filmmaker, nods in agreement. “Not living in a shoe box. Being in nature. It’s a really great place for early childhood.” He should know. Winecoff, who met Marquez through friends in 2013 in New York (the couple owned an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn), spent the majority of his own childhood in Ojai.
Growing up in the Tibetan Buddhist community of this Californian town, which is set against the Sierra Nevada mountains, Winecoff attended a progressive school on a wooded campus founded by Indian philosopher Krishnamurti. Eventually seeking bigger adventures, he left for the Big Apple as soon as he was old enough, but in recent years, found himself growing nostalgic.
“I always sort of knew I could be really happy here,” says Winecoff, whose parents live five minutes away. The children now attend the same school he did. So, while Lucius plays video games like any other eight-year-old, he can also teach his parents about obscure plants, rather than the other way around. “In this home, the roots run deep. It’s such a special place.”
Having long been a second home to the Hollywood elite (Mses Reese Witherspoon, Emily Blunt and Sir Anthony Hopkins are among the stars to have owned property here), it was during the pandemic that Ojai, which has a population of almost 8,000, became sought after by young, cool creative families.
“I think it’s one of the most unique places in the world,” Winecoff says. “It’s protected by a philosophy. They don’t allow national stores, so there are no chains here. It’s looked the same since I first moved here in 1991. I don’t know if another place like it exists.”
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