Nancy Pearlman is many things: radio personality, environmentalist, dancer and storyteller. Chief among these is passionate host. On occasional days throughout the year, she opens the doors to her family’s midcentury modern cabin to friends, architecture enthusiasts, artists and hikers she met on the trails in the surrounding San Jacinto Mountains. Located in Idyllwild, a resort town 5,000ft above Palm Springs, the home was designed by architect John Lautner for her parents, Dr Carl Kenneth and Agnes Branch Pearlman, as a holiday retreat.
Visitors must wind their way up vertiginous hillside roads that are not for the faint of heart until they reach the cabin, tucked amid tall pine trees and chaparral. Inside, Pearlman rewards them for their trouble with a large table laden with a smörgåsbord of eats. Cheeses, spinach dip, hummus, banana bread, wine and hard-boiled eggs cover the entire surface. It’s far more food than the 17 people assembled could possibly consume, but the antique table (and its abundance of food) is important. Her parents would always put out a spread for guests, and her gracious welcome and food offering honours their legacy.
