Early Saturday morning, five women and four children share seats on the San Ysidro trolley. The children sit primly, staring out windows at the emptied weekend city slipping by. Three women are black, one is …

From 1881 until her death, Jekyll was the premier influence on English gardeners, coaxing them to eschew the elaborately formal Italian and French garden models in favor of "cottage gardens on a country house scale."

Otto Bos, the governor’s loyal and indispensable aide, had suddenly died that Sunday. But before the services could begin, a late plane-load of legislators and political hangers-on from Sacramento was holding up the proceedings.

Mention the word “architecture” in the same breath as “Tijuana,” and most people think of brightly painted stucco curio shops or pastel-colored, two-story restaurants on Revolution Street, home of the striped burros and photographers, trinket …