For over thirty years, I’ve written and lectured about early-twentieth-century architecture, Japanese influence on American arts and architecture, and the historic Arts and Crafts movement, with occasionally forays into Japanese bathing culture and the culinary arts. My special focus has been on the lives and work of the architects Charles and Henry Greene; I’ve written two books on their work, the first of which was honored as one of the New York Times Editors Choice Architectural books of the year in 1998.

My latest book is the memoir cookbook, Six California Kitchens, I co-authored with the late, great chef Sally Schmitt, that won major book awards in 2022 and 2023.

At the moment, I’m working a duel biography of the poet Robinson Jeffers, and the architect Charles Sumner Greene.

I’m based in Japan, my home is in Kamakura, but you will usually find me with pen and paper in hand at my cabin in Minami Yatsugatake.