Lifestyle
Seeking a simpler life, he built an urban homestead. Now his family keeps it growing
In 1984, a determined back-to-earther named Jules Dervaes Jr. brought his wife and children from a 10-acre farm in rural Florida to study theology in Pasadena but ultimately decided on a different ministry: creating a self-sufficient urban farm on a rundown residential property less than a block from the 210 freeway.
Jules Dervaes Jr. didn’t have a long-range plan when he started an organic farm in the front and back yards of his Pasadena home, but he did have a vision of creating a simpler life that his children continue today, nearly eight years after his death.
His wife left not long after — homesteading was not the life she signed up for — but his four children, now in their 40s, remained and today three of the four still work the farm known as the Urban Homestead, providing produce and flowers to more than 100 subscribing families every week, along with multiple restaurants and caterers.
“At first we were just gardening to grow food for our family, but then Dad took on organic gardening as a business,” said Anäis Dervaes, the eldest daughter. “In 1989, we took out our front yard — even the concrete — to grow more food, and our neighbors thought we were crazy, but the business took off, so you can make a living by removing your lawn.”
And, as all farmers know, working very hard.
Dervaes died in 2016 from a pulmonary embolism, but his children Anäis, 49, Justin, 46, and Jordanne, 41, keep building on his vision. Through the nonprofit Urban Homestead Institute established in 2001, they provide food boxes for needy families, offer internship positions to volunteers who want to help at the farm and welcome scores of schoolchildren to see how real food is grown — a program that started after Dervaes encouraged Anäis to try a new thing called blogging in 2000.
It was a time of big protests against genetically modified food, and Anäis wanted to join the demonstrators, “but Dad said, ‘What if we just write about what we’re doing here on a daily basis, living a simple life?’ And I think I said something like, ‘So I’ll write, ‘Today I harvested corn?’ Nobody is going to care about that.’”
But as it turned out, people did. The family got a following, and teachers from Compton High School wrote, asking if they could bring some students to tour their urban farm, “and we’ve been doing outreach with students ever since,” Anäis said.
Not as much as they’d like to, because space is at such a premium they can only accommodate small groups. The garage is now a small store and distribution center for food boxes. The covered patio is a place for classes, demonstrations and their homemade pizza oven. The driveway is lined with trays of plant and flower seedlings. Chickens and ducks live in a rustic L-shaped structure in the back and fruit trees line the property’s perimeter. The rest of the yard is filled with raised beds planted thickly with vegetables, herbs and flowers, accessible by narrow walking paths.
Volunteer and customer Tristan Lahoz, left, and Jordanne Dervaes tend to the densely planted beds at Urban Homestead.
Chef Onil Chibas, left, picks up his order of edible flowers and salad greens from farmer Justin Dervaes.
But you don’t have to do much walking to see plenty at the Urban Homestead. Almost every bed has dense plantings of something — lettuces, spinach, arugula and red-stemmed dandelions (a zesty salad green) — embellished with sunflowers. There’s a big bin of compost-enriched soil where a handheld seed block contraption gets regular use, pressing out four uniform cubes of soil in one squeeze that can easily fill a tray and just as easily be planted once the seeds sprout and grow — a critical tool when you’re constantly harvesting and replanting.
The garden is busy with butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects, especially out front, where flowers are the predominant crop, a jungle of red Flanders poppies and fragrant sweet peas (for bouquets) and sunny nasturtiums, calendulas and roses (for eating).
Dervaes’ children aren’t getting rich, but they’re making a living, thanks to long hours, few expenses and the courage to experiment. The family installed solar panels back in 2003 and a greywater system that keeps their water bill under $1,000 a year. For a time they even recycled cooking oil from local restaurants to make their own biodiesel for their diesel truck, and in 2009, they made a short film called “Homegrown Revolution” that won awards at multiple film festivals.
A few years ago, they used a rent-to-buy plan to acquire a neighbor’s home two doors down and expanded their farm to its front yard. Jordanne, and Anäis live there now, while Justin lives in the main house, oversees the main farm operation and rents out a couple of the bedrooms.
Anäis calls herself the “cook and educator,” making products like jams and teaching workshops in knitting and other home skills. Jordanne, the youngest, oversees their bee hives (kept at another location) and their flock of chickens and ducks, a job she’s had since she was a child. All three do outside consulting on various aspects of gardening, homesteading and raising chickens, which led to Occidental College recruiting Jordanne to teach a popular class in regenerative gardening and sustainable animal care, with occasional input from her siblings. And just recently, Jordanne got her real estate license to pursue her interest in preserving old homes.
The Urban Homestead’s poultry eat much of the farm’s garden waste and provide plenty of nutrient-rich poop to feed the soil. Their eggs are an added bonus for the family.
Anäis Dervaes tidies up the kitchen at her family’s house, built in 1917.
But the family farm is still their main focus, and it keeps them so busy that it interferes with their dating lives, said Anäis. All three are single and would like long-term relationships someday, but it’s hard to find people who share their priorities.
“The dating life is just something we haven’t mastered yet,” said Jordanne, laughing. “I can take on any challenge, but this one baffles me.”
Partly it’s time and partly it’s priorities, Anäis said, like when she gets frost warnings on her phone and has to cut a date short so she can run home to cover crops to protect them from damage.
“We live a farming lifestyle in the city, so we look at things different than most city dwellers, and they don’t always understand,” Anäis said. “But this is our livelihood; this is our life.”
It wasn’t always wonderful, she said. They became a vegetarian household when they were all very young, and as teenagers they all had moments of rebellion. They were homeschooled, but neighborhood kids taunted them about what they were missing — Nikes and hamburgers and sodas in a can.
“We were just granola kids, running around barefoot on the street, and I was feeling like I didn’t fit in,” said Anäis. “I’d say, ‘Dad, why do we have to shop at thrift stores? Why do we only eat out of the garden? Why don’t we eat normal stuff instead of Swiss chard?’”
A plaque memorializes Jules Dervaes Jr.
Handmade jams are available at Urban Homestead.
But once she read the book that inspired her father’s vegetarianism, John Robbins’ ”Diet for a New America,” “It was like a light bulb went off,” she said, “and this lifestyle became mine.”
It wasn’t like their father forced them to do what they didn’t want to do, Jordanne said. “We had a lot of pushback, but he always encouraged us to question everything in our lives,” she said. “And we had responsibilities. There was a sense of pride in growing all these plants, and the business was ours. Dad would always say, ‘If you want to do it, read about it and go do it.’ He challenged us to learn and do our own problem solving.”
There were some limits — Jordanne’s desire to have a horse and a cow just wasn’t possible — but ultimately, it was the freedom to experiment that drew them back whenever they strayed, Anäis said. “There was a sense of identity here, and family survival. It gave us purpose and a passion. I would plant on the moon if I had to.”
The farm is open to visitors the second Sunday of every month, during two-hour “Learning Tours” (tickets are $75). But Justin has a few tips for people who want to remove their lawn and become urban microfarmers — or just landscape with food.
Salad mix seeds planted at Urban Homestead.
Delroy Lindo is nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in Sinners.
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
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Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
Over the course of his decades-long career on stage and in Hollywood, Sinners actor Delroy Lindo has experienced firsthand what he calls the “disappointments, the vicissitudes of the industry.”
On Feb. 22, at the BAFTA awards in London, Lindo and Sinners co-star Michael B. Jordan were the first presenters of the evening when a man with Tourette syndrome shouted a racial slur.
Initially, Lindo says, he questioned if he had heard correctly. Then, he says, he adjusted his glasses and read the teleprompter: “I processed in the way that I process, in a nanosecond. Mike did similarly, and we went on and did our jobs.”
Lindo describes the BAFTA incident as “something that started out negatively becoming a positive.” A week after the BAFTAs, he appeared with Sinners director Ryan Coogler at the NAACP awards.
“The fact that I could stand there in a room predominantly of our people … and feel safe, feel loved, feel supported,” he says. “I just wanted to officially, formally say thank you to our people and to all of the people who have supported us as a result of that event, that incident.”
Sinners is a haunting vampire thriller about twins (both played by Jordan) who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. The film has been nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including best actor for Jordan and best supporting actor for Lindo, who plays a blues musician named Delta Slim.
This is Lindo’s first Oscar nomination; five years ago, many felt his performance in the Spike Lee film Da 5 Bloods deserved recognition from the Academy. When that didn’t happen, Lindo admits he was disappointed, but he had no choice but to move on.
“I have never taken my marbles and gone home,” he says. “And I want to claim that I will not do that now. I will continue working.”
Interview highlights
On his preparation to play Delta Slim
Various people have mentioned … [that] my presence reminds them of an uncle or their grandfather, somebody that they knew from their families, and that is a huge compliment, but more importantly than being a compliment, it’s an affirmation for the work. My preparation for this started with Ryan sending me two books, Blues People, by Amiri Baraka — who was [known as] LeRoi Jones when he wrote the book — and Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer.
Lindo, shown above in his role as Delta Slim, says director Ryan Coogler “created a sacred space for all of us” on the Sinners set.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
In reading those books and then referencing those books, continuing to reference those throughout production, I was given an entrée into the worlds, the lifestyles of these musicians. There’s a certain kind of itinerant quality that they moved around a lot. The constant for them is their music, so that there is this deep-seated connection to the music.
On being Oscar-nominated for the first time — and thinking about other Black actors, including Halle Berry and Lou Gossett Jr., who had trouble getting work after their wins
I will not view it as a curse, because I am claiming the victory in this process, no matter what happens. … In terms of this moment, I absolutely am claiming, as much as I can, the joy of this moment. I’m not saying I don’t have trepidation, I do. It’s the reason I was not listening to the broadcast this year when the nominations were announced. I did not want to set myself up. But I’m … attempting as much as I can to fortify myself and know in my heart that I will continue working as an actor. I absolutely will.
On being “othered” as a child because of his race
Because my mom was studying to be a nurse they would not allow her to have an infant child with her on campus, so as a result of that, I was sent to live with a white family in a white working class area of London. … I was loved, I was cared for, but as a result of living with this family in this all-white neighborhood, I went to an all-white elementary or primary school. And I was literally the only Black child in an all-white school.
So one afternoon, after school had ended, I was playing with one of my playmates … And at a certain point in our game, a car pulls up, and this kid that I was playing with goes over to the car and has a very short conversation with whomever was in the car, which I now know was his parent, his father. He comes back and he … says, “I can’t play with you.” And that was the end of the game.
On the experience of writing his forthcoming memoir
It’s been healing, actually. I’m not denying that it has opened me up. I’ve been compelled to scrutinize myself. I’m using that word very advisedly, “scrutinized.” It’s a scrutiny, it’s an examination of oneself. But in my case, because a very, very, very significant part of what I’m writing has to do with re-examining my relationship with my mom. And so my mom is a protagonist in my memoir. I’m told by my editor and by my publisher that one of the attractions to what I’m writing is that it is not a classic “celebrity memoir.” I am examining history. I’m examining culture. I’m looking at certain passages of history through the lens of the “Windrush” experience [of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK after World War II].
On getting a masters degree to help him write his mother’s story
My mom deserved it. My mom is deserving. And not only is my mom deserving, by extension, all the people of the Windrush generation are deserving. Stories about Windrush are not part of the global cultural lexicon commensurate with its impact. The people of Windrush changed the definition of what it means to be British. There are all these Black and brown people, theretofore members of what used to be called the British Commonwealth. And they were invited by the British government to come to England, the United Kingdom, to help rebuild the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the destruction of World War II. My mom was part of that movement. They helped rebuild construction, construction industry, transportation industry, critically, the health industry, the NHS, the National Health Service. My mom is a nurse.
The reason that I went into NYU was because my original intention was to write a screenplay about my mom. I wanted to write a screenplay about my mom because I looked around and I thought: Where are the feature films that have as protagonist a Caribbean female, a Black female, where are they? … I wanted to address that, I wanted to correct that, what I see as being an imbalance.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Britney Spears
Open to Treatment Plan After DUI Arrest, Source Says
Published
Britney Spears‘ team is hoping the judge mandates treatment for the pop star over jail time following her Wednesday DUI arrest … and Britney isn’t fighting them on that, TMZ has learned.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Britney is willing to comply with a treatment and support plan.
We’re told her team is in the early stages of developing a plan and they’re exploring multiple options, including mental health services, detox, and dual-diagnosis programs.
It’s unclear whether she would do inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it’s also unclear whether she would enter treatment before her May 4 court date.
Broadcastify.com
We broke the story … Britney was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers around 9:30 PM Wednesday in Westlake Village, CA, not far from her home. She was later taken to a hospital — not for any injuries, because we’re told she didn’t sustain any — but to draw her blood to determine her blood alcohol content.
According to CHP, she was arrested for “driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told us an unknown substance was found in Britney’s car, which was sent to be tested.
Britney’s manager, Cade Hudson, previously told TMZ … “This was an unfortunate and inexcusable incident. Britney will take the right steps, comply with the law, and we hope this marks the start of long-overdue change in her life. She needs help and support during this difficult time. Her boys will be spending time with her, and her loved ones are putting a plan in place to set her up for success and well-being.”
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint in Mississippi. Opening night does not go as planned when vampires appear outside. “In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons … they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks,” writes critic Aisha Harris. The film made history with a record 16 Academy Award nominations.
We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Sinners? Here’s what you told us:
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow; starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
If you want another cool vampire movie with Western kind of vibes, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark — super underseen and kind of hard to find, but really gritty and sexy and another very different take on what you might think is a genre that had been wrung dry. – Maggie Grossman, Chicago, Ill.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Directed by David Slade; starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
It follows a group of people in a small Alaskan town as they struggle to survive an invasion of vampires who have taken advantage of the month-long absence of the sun. Both this and Sinners revolve around a vampire takeover and the people’s fight to outlast the “night.” – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
The Wailing (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin; starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
In this South Korean supernatural horror film, a mysterious illness causes people in a quiet rural village to become violent and murderous. A local police officer investigates while trying to save his daughter, who begins showing the same disturbing symptoms. The film blends folk horror, religion, and psychological dread, exploring themes of faith, evil, and moral weakness. Like Sinners, it centers on a supernatural force corrupting a close-knit community, builds slow-burning tension, and examines spiritual conflict and human frailty. – Amy Merke, Bronx, N.Y.
Fréwaka (2024)
Directed by Aislinn Clarke; starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Clare Monnelly, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
In this Irish folk horror film, a home care worker, Shoo, is assigned to stay with an elderly woman who’s convinced she’s under siege by malevolent fairies. Like Sinners, Fréwaka blends folk traditions and social commentary with horror. The social failures Shoo copes with (untreated mental health issues, religious abuse) are just as frightening as the supernatural forces. – Kerrin Smith, Baltimore, Md.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by George C. Wolfe; starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman
This is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a legendary blues singer (Viola Davis) muscling through a recording session with white producers who want to control her music. Chadwick Boseman’s blistering in his final role. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
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