California Living

Against all odds, Richard Christiansen has come back to New York. The ad guru spent the better part of two decades in the city running campaigns for the likes of Hermès, Givenchy, and Calvin Klein via his agency Chandelier Creative.

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But then Covid-19 hit, and he became one of the lucky ones who used the pandemic as not only an opportunity but also a means of escape. “New York stresses me out,” he told me a few weeks ago overlooking the lush fauna of his seven-acre, Highland Park, California property, Flamingo Estate. He handed over his company, and moved west full time to dedicate himself to the land. It's a breathing scene that is both literal and metaphorical; one that he lives in as well as has created a brand around.

Since acquiring the land Flamingo Estate sits on in 2013, Christiansen had to rebuild it from the dirt. To do so, he turned to Studio KO, perhaps best known for their work on the Musée Yves Saint Laurent on Marrakech, and rely on his upbringing on a rural farm in Australia to create a dense orchard villa in the middle of the outskirts of Los Angeles' hills. In doing so, he filled the place with plants—lots of plants—and even more excitement.

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Now, the founder not only lives there—between the renovated main house, goat shed, and several honey-making bee outposts—but it's also where he germinates on all things local, hyper, and quality-made. That includes everything from the Flamingo Estate's locally-popular farm boxes, which brings the farmer's market to you, so to speak, to the one-off products it creates, including its exfoliating peppermint soap and dehydrated strawberries. “This place is our little laboratory,” he joked with his team.

This week—across the country from all of that—Christiansen welcomes guests into a scene seemingly straight out of a Wes Anderson film. An emerald shop-in-shop at New York's JW Marriott Essex House on Central Park South is manned by two attendees as charming as they are demure. To the left is a peppery extra virgin olive oil harvested from Philip Asquith's olive farm in Ojai, to the right is Expansion, a co-branded candle by Flamingo Estate and JW Marriott composed of white lotus flower, rosemary, and holy basil. It was the perfect way for Christiansen to come home.

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“Scent is something that is so personal,” Bruce Rohr says at the Flamingo Estate pop-up, the first retail presence of the brand in New York. The JW Marriott Vice President and Brand Leader is referring to both the new fragrance, which is also the new signature scent of certain JW Marriotts around the world, and its corresponding candle, which is hand poured in LA. He continues: “It has the remarkable ability to evoke such strong memories and transport us back to cherished moments in our lives.”

But the occasion just marks the first part of a 360 partnership between Flamingo Estate and JW Marriott that reiterate both brand's dedication to hospitality and horticulture. In addition to the pop-up and collaborative scent, Flamingo Estate is also curating the musical playlists at global JW Marriotts. It's also made a one-of-a-kind honey, which also notably features holy basil aka “Queen of Herbs.”

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“Our goal was to bring forward some of the notes found in the fragrance since these ingredients have benefits both from an aromatherapy perspective and when ingested," says Christiansen specifically about their co-branded honey. "We added bergamot that we source from the Calabrian coastal regions in Italy. As a flavor, this essential oil adds a beautiful green floral quality. The honey itself is single origin, from California where Flamingo Estate was born. The bees forage on wildflowers in a protected national forest.”

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Flamingo Estate x JW Marriott is available online and at select JW Marriott hotels now.