At Home with Kai + Lee
ai Loebach is an expert in putting together all the elements of a successful evening. He has invited me to a dinner party at his house in the Hollywood Hills. “I truly love entertaining at our home,” he says. “It always gives me the feeling of being part of a big family, which is something I never had, as I grew up as a single child with divorced parents. I could do them every night!” As a chef and event planner, he has made a career out of creating delicious events for his clients. I soon discover that his catering company is a means to an end; the money he earns serving movie stars is funneled straight back into his raison d’etre, what he unabashedly refers to as “my addiction – collecting art. “I see something and I fall in love with it, and then I start figuring out how many events I have to do in order to make the money.”
“The presentation is such a huge part of it, how it looks is super important to me. It’s called the culinary arts for a reason.“
The soft light of the early evening throws long shadows as I park on a quiet street just off Mulholland Drive. The one-story house is modest and unobtrusive, nestled behind a wall. Kai’s art collection is anything but. The 1940s house is adorned with a lovingly curated array of art from around the globe. When Kai isn’t working, he’s traveling to art fairs in search of new pieces and discovering new artists, many of whom have become lifelong friends. In addition to the friendships fostered and the beautiful pieces to hang on his wall at home, the pleasure is also in the discovery; the journey’s the thing. “Little fish might be more interesting than landing a big fish,” he explains, “if you find the jewel in the little fish it’s less obvious and far more thrilling than ‘blue chip’ art.”
Kai greets me with a pale pink, citrus cocktail. He’s relaxed and relishing the addition of each new guest. The house fills with laughter and easy banter as strangers are introduced to strangers, old friends hug, and social media ‘friends’ finally meet in person. We marvel at the beauty of our accomplished host’s home below a large white neon sign: HAPPINESS IS EXPENSIVE. Kai explains that the Mexican artist, Alejandro Diaz, is referring to the harsh reality of people paying vast sums of money to cross the Mexican border into the United States. It’s a newsworthy conversation starter.
Hors d’oeuvres arrive, one after the other, each one more tempting than the last, and presented beautifully on long wooden boards; rice-paper cups with cashew cream, avocado, and heirloom tomatoes, a delicate cone of spicy tuna topped with a dot of sunny yellow mango coulis, and then chicken crostini with apricot mustard and crispy sage. “I like to serve food that is very colorful and easy to identify, this is always key – the minute people start asking questions I feel I’ve lost.”
Guests explore the various corners of the house. We carefully descend the stone stairs to the pool, surrounded by whimsical Alice in Wonderland lollipop topiary trees. Here we find the outdoor kitchen, the source of the food and mouthwatering smells. “I don’t like the house to smell like food,” he says. “Especially fish and fried potatoes, it reminds me of when my grandmother would cook and the smell would linger for days.”
Kai Loebach grew up in Wuppertal, Germany, a city where “the clouds seldom got over the hills. I came to LA for a three-week stay, without a single day of rain, and supermarkets with shelves stocked full of shiny produce. I was overwhelmed and hooked.”
Kai and Lee have owned their house for 19 years. Like most houses in the Hollywood Hills, the house has a vivid past. “The neighbors heard the screams when Warren Beatty lived here and won his Academy Award for Best Director for Reds (having boycotted the award ceremony). Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford lived in the house after Warren, and I still receive mail for them which I always hand deliver to their current address.”
It’s not all parties, gardening, cooking, and art for Kai and Lee, as together they created Partners for Pediatric Progress. It is a non-profit project at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where Miller is Dean of Students, helping to meet the healthcare needs of children in some of the most underserved regions of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
Dessert is served and we move into the kitchen for mini carrot cakes, one-bite apple crisp tarts, and flourless chocolate cakes topped with edible gold leaf. Friendships have been made as the group moves from room to room, laughing and joking as we admire and learn about the art. In the living room, the artist, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, has embedded a framed painting in a large concrete block. “I love concrete,” Loebach tells us and shows us two more pieces by the artist in the office – this time he’s embedded rows of delicate light bulbs that incongruously support two extremely heavy concrete blocks. In the hallway, there’s a recent acquisition, a needlepoint portrait of the Queen of England by Loebach’s good friend and neighbor Polly Borland. “Prison inmates stitch it and then hung with the back of the work frame facing out.” A green glass bottle is suspended in a corner by the front door (Francisco Tropa, Phare).
