ABOUT SANCTUARIES LA
I'm Shelby Nico Diamond, a design-obsessive, longtime eastside resident, and the person behind this publication. Sanctuaries LA is my ongoing record of what Los Angeles actually is, as opposed to what people who don't live here think it is.
I started it because I kept finding extraordinary things that nobody had written about: a 1922 hunting cabin tucked into a Northeast LA hillside, a Highland Park café built inside a building that had been empty since the 1960s, a ceramicist working out of a quiet Lincoln Heights canyon. This city rewards the people who look closely. Most people don't look closely.
I’m interested in the architects and designers working with what’s here instead of importing a look from somewhere else. The makers doing things slowly and on purpose. The buildings worth fighting for. The neighborhoods that haven’t been flattened yet. Los Angeles has one of the richest design cultures on earth, and most of it is invisible to anyone not paying close attention.
I’m paying close attention.
WHAT YOU’LL FIND HERE
Deep features on homes, architects, designers, makers, and shared spaces across Los Angeles, with particular attention to design, ecology, and local history. New features publish every Sunday across five series: Profiles, Interiors, Shared Spaces, Detours, and Guides.
On occasional Wednesdays I publish From the Field: a shorter dispatch of what I saw that week, what’s worth paying attention to, and what’s coming up in the city.
Free Subscribers receive: Every Sunday feature and Wednesday dispatch, delivered to your inbox.
Paid Subscribers receive: Everything above, plus an annual print zine collecting the best of Sanctuaries LA. Beautifully designed, offset printed, mailed to your door.
Founding Members receive: Everything above, plus the zine quarterly instead of annually.
For features, collaborations, or story submissions, reach out at shelby@sanctuaries.la
Sanctuaries LA is an independent publication. It does not accept advertising and is supported entirely by readers.
