Buy Bungalow, Sell Bungahigh → Shaggy Chic

Hey Neighbor. Daughter get the stuff. Sons get the stocks. That’s according to a new study out of the wealth distribution department at Harvard (a thing that exists) shows that prior to 1950 Dallas women inherited 300% more wealth than Dallas men – largely in the form of homes. Granted, things changed, but studies historically treat inheritances as lump sums, which they aren’t. They aren’t.

Brothers of sisters would do well to remember that.

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→ Tallow skincare looks will go down as one of the last big TikTok trends and it perfectly encapsulates the best thing about the platform: laughing at the youngs. In this case, youngs unaware that tallow is made from suet, a wax-like fat from around cows’ kidneys, have been rubbing lard on their faces to get a fresh glow. Good stuff. Whatever TikTok flaws, it did provide a one last spot online for unfuckable middle-aged bummers to feel superior. (READ MORE)

→ Every kinda, maybe conservative friend you have will take a step to the right this week. Upper Middle political gossips now treat principled centrism with the same care as creaky cheval mirrors and other delicate antiques.

→ Slate has a big piece on Timothy Chalamet’s brave decision to come out as a Bro on College Gameday and his audio tryst with Theo Von. What Slate does not have – shock of shocks – is a clear schema for bro-ness. If they did, it might look something like this…

Upper Middle Research identifies readers with professional expertise and matches them with surveys and focus groups that pay up to $300 an hour (probably during lunch) and keep them abreast of what’s going on in their field.

Screens destroyed (and rebuilt) the California dream home.

In the 1960s, when he was building the Conejo Valley neighborhood in Thousand Oaks – now a few miles from the Santa Monica mountain fires – Joseph Eichler didn’t envision those 103 modern bungalows becoming status symbols for Mad Men-loving junior execs. He trying to build practical homes for practical people.

But California isn’t just a place – much less one populated by practical people. It’s something on a screen.

Eichler, like all the great Californians, was a guy doing an impression of two other guys. In 1943, when he was still an egg and butter wholesaler, he renting a house in Hillsborough built by Frank Lloyd Wright. He loved it. Inspired by Wright’s “Usonian” [1] vision – one-family homes built with open-floor plans and large windows – he decided to be the West Coast’s answer to William Levitt, who was building tens of thousands of suburban units around New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

But, unlike Levitt’s dreary, Cape Cod-style colonials, Eichler’s homes didn’t look like shit. And that’s where the problems began.

Eichler’s “post and beam” designs, developed with architecture firms, featured blank facades, large atriums, glass walls, and honey-colored mahogany paneling. Inside, they were functional and simple —very California.

Then, between 1950 and 1960, the number of American households with TVs shot from 9% to 65%. And those chunky Ferranti T1825s looked trash next to honey-gold mahogany paneling and floor-to-ceiling glass. So did hulking Frigidaires and oversized GE ranges. Horny for appliances, the middle class began to abandon functional simplicity. 

Then, in 1969, The Brady Bunch debuted on ABC. Like the nearby Eichlers, the Bradys’ Studio City home was Wright-inspired, a split level with an open floor plan. But their home had small windows, dark paneling, vomit-green wallpaper, and a floral couch plopped onto a shag carpet in a living room purpose-built for watching TV.

Middle-class Americans liked The Brady Bunch a lot more than the California modernist homes Slim Aarons had been shooting for House Beautiful. Eichlers became spaces for Eames chair-sitting James Baldwin readers [2].

The last Eichler was built in 1974. But scarcity, like good design, appeals to a certain kind of striver. Enter Steve Jobs. Raised in Cupertino, Jobs became obsessed with how Eichler homes blended “really good design and simple capability” with affordability. In 1976, Jobs co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, who grew up in one.

Fast forward a few decades and Apple TV+ execs flocking west want homes that match their laptops. Eichlers in Palo Alto fetch as much as $4M. In Thousand Oaks, it’s half that, but having one still makes a powerful statement. And it’s not just about success It’s about having a deep appreciation of what it means to live in a dysfunctional, impractical state.

Eichler would have hated that.

→ JW Anderson and Uniqlo dropped another collaboration today. Time to stock up on oversized oxford shirts. It’s impossible to have enough. (“BROWSE”)

→ The bro-coded, Saudi-backed LIV Golf has announced a broadcasting partnership with FOX Sports. Purists won’t watch, but they might want to listen. David Feherty, the only pro golfer to celebrate a win by getting smashed with Led Zeppelin, will be doing commentary. Feherty, a caustic Northern Irishman, balances being the anti-Costas with being extremely thoughtful – a weirdly common trait in ex-cokeheads. (READ MORE)

→ Demand for bourbon is bottoming out.

→ The big Caravaggio exhibit at Palazzo Barberini in Rome is shaping up to be the next great excuse to go to Europe and look at stuff. Apparently the rapist, murderer, and greatest painter of his generation has been uncancelled. (READ MORE)

→ Someone made Doom in PDF form. (PLAY AT YOUR DESK)

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→ International travelers should be paying attention to Scott Bessant’s Treasury Secretary hearing today, listening for the magic words: “Strong dollar.” It’s unlike they’ll hear them as it looks like Trump will intentionally weaken the dollar in service of trade and protecting its reserve currency status. That’s fine… but shitty news for Caravaggio fans [4]. (READ MORE)

→ Judge Reed O’Connor of Texas’s Northern District has ruled that business leaders cannot pursue ESG goals because they are not aligned to a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. The logic is… impeachable as many ESG goals reflect a desire to build a resilient business rather than juice short term games. It feels fitting that the trailer for Apple Cider Vinegar, a Netflix show about an Australian influencer pretending to have cancer to build clout, just dropped. She maximized value. (READ MORE)

→ In Los Angeles, a couple of Warhols went up in flames. This wouldn’t have happened with NFTs.

[2] Eichler had non-architectural differences with William Levitt, who built towns that expressly forbid Black people from moving in. Some of that had to do with the nature of the FHA, but some of it was a product of Levitt being a racist prick, which Eichler was not – a fact that Eichler owners initially worried might depress the value of their neighborhoods.

[3] Imagine the experience of being a relocated Puerto Rican street dog. That’s a Dickensian novel right there.

[4] Don’t get it twisted, Caravaggio has a lot of fans. In a sense, he’s the painterly version of Bob Dylan. Dude went electric. He also went nuts.