Sunset(magazine)

Sunset Magazine

Editor	Hugh Garvey
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Michael Reinstein
Total circulation (2014)	1,262,587
First issue	1898
Company	Archetype (Regent, L.P.)
Country	United States
Based in	Oakland, California
Language	English
Website	www.sunset.com
ISSN	0039-5404

Sunsetis alifestyle magazinein theUnited States.Sunsetfocuses on homes,cooking,gardening,andtravel,with a focus almost exclusively on theWestern United States.The magazine is published six times per year by the Sunset Publishing Corporation which was sold byTime Inc.in November 2017 toRegent,a private equity firm led by investorMichael Reinstein.Regent formed the publisher Archetype in 2019 for its media holdings.

History

Establishment

First edition cover

Sunsetbegan in 1898as a promotional magazine for theSouthern Pacific Railroad,designed to combat the negative "Wild West"stereotypes aboutCalifornia.

Sunset,July 1904, art by Maynard Dixon

TheSunset Limitedwas the premier train on the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route, which ran betweenNew OrleansandSan Francisco(the train is still in operation—fromLos Angeles—as part of the nationalAmtraksystem).Sunset Magazinewas started to be available onboard and at the station, in order to promote the West. It aimed to lure tourists onto the company's trains, entice guests to the railroad's resort (the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey), and possibly encourage these tourists to stay and buy land, since the Southern Pacific was the largest single landowner in California andNevada.

The inaugural issue featured an essay aboutYosemite,with photographs by noted geologistJoseph LeConte.There was information about train travel, as well as social notes from Western resorts, such as this from Pasadena: "The aristocratic residence town of Southern California and rendezvous for the travelingupper tenhas enjoyed a remarkably gay season and the hotel accommodations have been sorely taxed. "Poetry featuring railroad themes and a later string of short stories in which characters swapped tall tales, always aboard a train, also highlighted travel by rail. Most of these early stories were penned byPaul Shoup,who later abandoned fiction to become president of the Southern Pacific.

Earthquake and recovery

Sunsetfrom January 1907. Cover illustration byMaynard Dixon.

On April 18, 1906, the1906 San Francisco earthquakedestroyed theSunsetoffices.The May 1906 edition was a six-page emergency issue,in stark contrast to the 214-page April 1906 edition. The issue opened with a dire communiqué fromE. H. Harriman,president of the Southern Pacific: "The earthquake on the morning of April 18th was the most severe that has occurred since San Francisco became a great city". Next came a message fromSunset's publishers: "This is to announce that by reason of the recent destruction by fire of theSunset Magazineoffices on April 18th, this Emergency Edition will be the only issue of the magazine for the month of May.… The priceless stock of drawing, photographs and engravings was burned.… In one day the accumulation and accomplishment of years were swept away ".

Soon, however, the magazine was trumpeting its hometown's revival, in articles like "San Francisco's Future" and "How Things Were Righted After the Fire of 1906". In "A San Francisco Pleasure Cure", an early story bySinclair Lewispublished in the magazine, a tired businessman revived himself through a visit to the rebuilt city.

Southern Pacific purchased thePortland-basedPacific Monthlyin 1912, and merged it withSunset,to formSunset: The Pacific Monthly.By 1914, the magazine had built strong national circulation and reputation, and the Southern Pacific sold the magazine to William Woodhead & Co.,a group of employees who wished to continue the focus on the American West, but less corporate influence.The Theodore Roosevelt administration indicted the editor, writer, photographer, and aviator associated with a story entitled "Can the Panama Canal be destroyed from the air?"citing national security concerns; the magazine was still owned by the Southern Pacific when the story was published.

The publishers announced their ambitions in the December 1914 issue. Among the promises were reporting from war correspondent Arthur Street, who the magazine sent to Asia to cover the impacts of war and the opening of thePanama Canalon the world; reporting in North America supported by the purchase of a new automobile; coverage of international expositions such as thePanama–Pacific International Exposition;responses to inquiries of a newly-established service bureau, to field questions from readers about relocating to the western U.S. and other matters; and a renewed commitment to fiction and photography.

By 1914,Sunsethad begun to publish original articles, stories and poetry focusing on the West. The format resembled other national general interest magazines of the day such asCollier'sandThe Saturday Evening Post.The new owners sought to "make the magazine a vehicle of Western thought and to steer the magazine into a national market," according to Stanford University librarian Tomas Jaehn.Sunsetreported on heavy political and economic issues; contributors includedStanfordpresidentDavid Starr Jordandiscussing international affairs and future U.S. presidentHerbert Hooverdiscussing the League of Nations. Fiction and poetry became more ambitious, featuring authors such asJack London,Dashiell Hammett,Mary Austin,and evangelistAimee Semple McPherson.

Sunsetcover art in its early years was of high quality, with the early 20th century being the golden age of magazine illustration.Contributors of cover art includedWill James,Maynard Dixon,andCornelia Barns.

The Lane Publishing era

In the 1920s, the magazine became unprofitable, as it grew thinner and its circulation dwindled. In 1929, Lawrence W. Lane, a former advertising executive withBetter Homes and Gardens,purchasedSunset,and changed the format to its current Western lifestyle emphasis.The magazine became focused toward a female audience.The Lane family would ownSunsetfor the next 62 years.

During the Depression, weighty ruminations on politics and economics were replaced with frivolous articles like March 1935's "Little Toes, What Now?", which began "This is the season when all the little toes are going not to market, but to have a pedicure".

Eventually, a meatier magazine emerged.Sunsetbegan "Kitchen Cabinet", a readers' recipes feature (still featured as "Reader Recipes" ). Essays on home architecture became more specifically geared to the West, with a series of sumptuously photographed articles championing the Westernranch house.Travel and garden coverage grew similarly focused and specific. In 1932,Sunsetwas the first national magazine to publish separate editions for different parts of its circulation area, tailoring its gardening advice to each area.

Sunseteliminated the use ofbylines,and articles were increasingly how-to, giving it a voice of authority and efficiency. It was a successful formula: by 1938 the magazine was again profitable.

Under Lane's leadership, the company also produced a successful series of how-to home improvement and gardening books, which are still published today.

Sunsetat War

Sunsetinitially treatedWorld War IIas if it were a temporary irritation, but it soon mobilized for war. One story featured newly minted aviation cadets at theSanta Ana Army Air Base.Aware that the federal government'svictory gardentips did not always fit Western soils and climates, magazine editors planted their own 1-acre (4,000 m²) test plot nearUC Berkeleyso that they could give their own advice.

In 1943,Sunsetdevised a new motto: "The Magazine of Western Living."

At the end of World War II,Sunsetpresented a series featuring innovative plans for homes to be built once the war was won, by architects including Portland'sPietro Belluschiand Los Angeles'sHarwell Hamilton Harris.

When Lane took over the magazine, the population of the West was booming. A few years later, the end of World War II brought an explosion of newcomers. Drawing on his experience from the East Coast-servingBetter Homes and Gardens,he guessed correctly that these new Westerners would be hungry for information about how to travel, cook, cultivate, and build in their new environment.

BuildingSunsetheadquarters

For its first five decades,Sunsetwas headquartered in various downtown San Francisco office buildings. In 1951, the headquarters was moved toMenlo Park, California,a suburb located 25 miles (40 km) south of San Francisco.The 9-acre (36,000 m²) parcel was a remnant of a 19th-century estate owned by theHopkins family.This land was originally a part of a grant to Don Jose Arguello, governor of Spanish California in 1815.Its new headquarters was designed byCliff May,known for his designs of ranch-style houses, which had been featured inSunsetfor two decades. May created a long, low, adobe homestead that surrounded a central courtyard. The central courtyard, or the Sunset Gardens, were designed by the landscape artistThomas Church.

For a while,Sunsetreferred to the Menlo Park headquarters as the Laboratory of Western Living. Its test kitchen processes thousands of recipes a year. It tested its gardening advice in its 3,000 sq ft editorial test gardens, which was designed to achieve high performance in tight spaces. Roughly 50% ofSunset's garden photography was taken in this area.

Time Warner era

Lane Publishing, includingSunset Magazineand books, was sold toTime Warnerin 1990, and the company was renamed Sunset Publishing Corporation.A purchase price of $225 million for the magazine and its related assets was announced.The first issue of the magazine under Time Warner was published in August 1990.

In the 1990s, the franchise began to lose touch with its demographic, who viewed the magazine as something of their parents' era. Newer, fresher-looking lifestyle magazines, such asMartha Stewart LivingandReal Simple,presentedSunsetwith competition. The magazine remained highly profitable, however, generating $28 million profit for Time Warner in 2000 on gross revenues of $78 million.

In 2001, Time Warner reorganized Sunset to be part ofSouthern Progress Corporation,best known for its similar home and lifestyle magazineSouthern Living(its similarity toSunsetis no coincidence: its founders came out West to see how the Lanes did it in the early 1960s)..When Katie Tamony took over as editor-in-chief in 2001, she collaborated with new creative director Mia Daminato (former creative director for Australian-based Federal Publishing Company's Magazine Group) to create a new, more modern design.

The Menlo Park campus at 80 Willow Road was sold to a San Francisco real estate development firm by Time Warner in 2014 for more than $75 million.

In June 2015,Sunsetannounced it would be moving its headquarters toJack London Square(Oakland, California). The new offices opened in December 2015,and the magazine's outdoor kitchen and test gardens were relocated to Cornerstone Sonoma, a winery in nearbySonoma County, California.The magazine's extensive archival collection, including numerous original photographs and administrative papers, would not be brought to the new Oakland location, and was acquired byStanford University.

Sale to Regent and investor Michael Reinstein

On November 30, 2017Time Inc.sold Sunset toRegent, L.P.a global private equity firm led by Beverly Hills based investorMichael Reinstein.Sale price of the magazine, including both its assets and liabilities, was estimated at $12 million — a fraction of the publication's value during its heyday.After sale of the magazine to Regent,Sunsetlaunched a round of personnel cuts, leaving it with fewer than 20 employees, a mere one-fifth of its staff just five years previously.

The publication has suffered a loss of advertising revenue in recent years, which in 2017 pushed the magazine's operating income into the red for the first time since 1938, with a loss of about $4 million posted on nearly $28 million in gross revenue.A cash-flow crisis resulted, with severalfreelancewriters complaining in the Summer of 2017 that payment for published material had been delayed, with one particularly vocal writer noting that he had been forced to wait more than four months after invoicing to receive a check for his work.

The company additionally downgraded its offices, with staff moved in September 2018 from the Jack London Square offices to a less costly facility located several blocks away.Food preparation, an important part of the magazine's content, began to be done at an externally-located kitchen inMountain View.

In March 2020, with the magazine struggling financially due to loss of advertising revenue during theCOVID-19 pandemic,the company put most of its employees on unpaid leave.During the pandemic, the company briefly ceased printing the magazine but returned to print with the December 2020 issue.

Western Home Awards program

Since 1957,Sunset's Western Home Awards program, cosponsored by the American Institute of Architects, has introduced readers to works byRichard Neutra,Charles Moore,Frank Gehry,andCalvin C. Straub,among other notables.

House of Innovation

The "House of Innovation" is an experimental showcase house, opened on September 8, 2006, inAlamo, California.It is a collaboration betweenSunsetandPopular Science.It is part of the "Idea House" program, originally launched in 1998.

Environmental reporting

Sunset's commentary has contributed to the debate on natural features including theMojave Desert,theTongass National Forestand the western U.S. National Parks.Occasionally, it has called for pro-environmental action, as it did with its 1969 article demanding a ban onDDT.

External links

• SunsetMagazine
  • Annual Festival
• A history and bibliography ofSunset Magazinepublished by Stanford University in 1998
• Early editions ofSunsetatGoogle Books