Six Degrees Of Rancho Santa Fe
They say that everybody is connected to everybody else in a mere six steps. We put that theory to the test and showed Thyme in the Ranch baker Dominique "Bunny" DeMaria that not only is she connected to architecture legend Lilian Rice, but a lot of fascinating people create the community bonds in between.

1. Dominique (Bunny) DeMaria
Next time you lick your lips after finishing a scrumptious bite of cake from Thyme in the Ranch, give thanks to 23-year-old Bunny the baker. As a small child she was fascinated by cookbooks. While her friends browsed the pages of Peter Rabbit, DeMaria absorbed herself in the magic of mixing ingredients. Her fascination drove her into culinary school where she further indulged her passion. "After culinary school, I really didn’t know how or where to start my baking career, then my uncle, a customer of Thyme in the Ranch, told me about their amazing muffins and suggested I contact owner/baker Shane Pursell. He took a chance on me and hired me," explains DeMaria. Three years have passed since and Pursell has no regrets. "Bunny is an exceptional person who loves what she does. I’m a detailed, take-charge perfectionist type and Bunny is the first person I’ve ever truly been able to turn things over to. I’m very lucky." Thyme’s three-layered big sheet cakes covered with fresh flowers are popular for weddings and special occasions and their cookies and cakes find their way into many offices and homes. "The café and bakery is the hub of the town and there is always a line out of the door for lunch and baked goods," says DeMaria. "Christmas is also a wonderful time with Ranch locals like Connie McNally, owner of the antique shop, filling their stores with our Christmas cookies."

2. Connie McNally
In 1962, while driving from her Palm Springs home to the just-built La Costa Resort, horse lover Connie Benson got lost and ended up in Rancho Santa Fe. "When I saw the horse trails I thought I’d died and gone to heaven and vowed I’d live here one day." That day finally arrived in 1980, two years after she married Bill McNally. As a child Connie had been raised among the sophistication of antiques with a father who also taught his six-year-old daughter to play chess and backgammon. With an appreciation for English and American antique silver, continental furnishings, paintings, and objects d’art, Connie and her friend Babs, wife of jockey Willy Shoemaker opened their first antique shop in Palm Springs in 1976. In 1978, Connie was joined by her husband and they formed The McNally Company Antiques, Inc. "We traveled and exhibited at many antique shows throughout the country until 1991 when we opened our first Rancho Santa Fe antique shop on Via de Santa Fe," explains Connie. That same year Connie became the chairperson for The Country Friends fashion show and served on the board of directors for nine years. Fourteen years ago The McNally Company moved to their current historic location on 6033 Paseo Delicias. "Our gallery/shop is a high-end Rancho Santa Fe destination and like this historic block in the Village, it represents an echo of the past. If you want to hear more echoes from the past, speak to Bill Compass, the bellman at The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. He’s been there for 30 years."

3. Bill Compass
"As a kid in high school I enjoyed riding my bike, exploring the neighborhood," says Bill Compass. "One day I found myself in the Ranch and loved it. In 1977, I saw a job advertised at The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe, so I applied and was interviewed by Daniel Royce. The Royce family has owned the Inn since 1958." According to Compass, during the late ’70s the Inn was more like a country club for locals. "There were no restaurants like Mille Fleurs or Delicias in the Village. The Inn was the place to dine so lots of residents, like Reg Clotfelter and his wife, Connie, would arrive all dressed up. Ladies in mink coats and men in tuxedos." Compass moved to the front desk and remembers checking in President Nixon. "There wasn’t much security in those days. People could just walk up to him." After 30 years The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe is like a second home to 50-year-old Compass. "I love it here because every day brings something new. I’ve watched generations of the same family come and go. These days I see the son and grandsons of Reg and Connie Clotfelter stop in. That family has a lot of history in the Village."

4. Tom Clotfelter
Seventy-five-year-old Tom and his two sons, Cutter and Chaco, are deeply entrenched in Rancho Santa Fe life. Together they make up three generations of Clotfelters still actively involved in Rancho Santa Fe Real Estate. Tom’s parents, Reginald and Connie Clotfelter, arrived in Rancho Santa Fe during the Great Depression in 1931. Tom’s father held the position of junior salesman for the Santa Fe Land Improvement Company. In 1940, when George Richardson purchased a small inn called La Morada (now The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe), Tom’s father agreed to manage it. He remained the Inn’s manager until 1958. Tom’s mother, Connie, co-founder of The Country Friends, wrote for the local newspaper and in 1985 published her essays in a book entitled Echoes of Rancho Santa Fe. "When I was born," says Tom, "we lived in Adobe 1, built in 1831 by Juan Maria Osuna. In 1933, my father sold the Osana Adobe 2, a 50-acre property, to Bing Crosby and his wife, who lived there until 1944." In 1934, the Clotfelters purchased a 1923 rowhouse designed by architect Lilian Rice. In 1970 he purchased Clotfelter Real Estate from his father and moved into a 1925 Lilian Rice cottage-style home built by Claude Terwilliger.

5. Claude Terwilliger (1883-1958)
"My grandfather was a short man with a short man’s complex," says Don Terwilliger who lives in Del Mar. "Today I think we would call it a Napoleon Complex. Grandfather was a ladies man who married three times and dabbled in a variety of ventures, quickly losing interest in them all. He ran to Reno for a quickie divorce from his second wife and then lived for a short time in Cuba with his third bride. Tragically he committed suicide in 1956, six weeks after her death. He was the same age as me — 75." According to Don, Claude made his first million by selling his grain business in Calgary, Canada. "Each year the family wintered in California and in 1923 grandfather decided to sell his business and Belgium horse ranch and permanently move grandmother Florence and my 18-year-old father, Ted, to California," says Don. "Set to retire, grandfather purchased a few hundred acres scattered throughout Rancho Santa Fe from the Santa Fe Railroad." Among the lemon, walnut, and orange groves, In 1925, Claude met and commissioned architect Lilian Rice to build a home for the family on a hill overlooking a valley with views to the northwest and south. The family lived in the home for six years until Claude left for a new venture in Golden Hill, near Downtown San Diego where he built an apartment house. "His restless spirit kept him on the move," says Don. "He experimented with citrus groves in San Bernardino County, followed by cattle rearing, and finally he became a rodeo promoter in Riverside."

6. Lilian Rice (1889-1938)
Rice is considered one of California’s most gifted architects. She spent the last 16 years of her life in Rancho Santa Fe where she’d been principal architect for the community. Born in National City, Rice became the first woman graduate from the University of California at Berkeley School of Architecture in 1910. Twelve years later, the firm Requa & Jackson hired Rice, giving her responsibility for developing the civic center site in the heart of the Rancho San Dieguito project (the Village). In June of 1922 they broke ground with the site plan relabeled Rancho Santa Fe. According to David Gebhard, University of California Santa Barbara, August 5, 1992, "... it was she who set the stage and established the character of the place in her design for the civic center, and for many of the community’s first dwellings." Her sensitivity to the place was beautifully summed up in the July, 1928 issue of Architect and Engineer: "I found real joy at Rancho Santa Fe. Every environment there calls for simplicity and beauty — the gorgeous natural landscapes, the gentle broken topography, the nearby mountains. No one with a sense of fitness, it seems to me, could violate these factors..." Today many of Rice’s homes and commercial structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Covenant refers to the original community as planned by Rice, who also designed the library, civic center, elementary school, numerous private homes, and The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. Thanks to Rice, the community of Rancho Santa Fe was dedicated as a California State Historic Landmark in 1989.
— Ingrid Hoffmeister, photography by Jennifer Nelson and
courtesy of the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society