- ‘This is all I wanted.’ After living off-grid in a trailer, Laura La Rue, a tie-dye artist and former model, created a live-work compound centered around an Ojai school bus.
- Respecting the U.S. surgeon general’s warning about parents’ stress, the single mom has turned the bus into an idyllic haven for herself and her daughter.
When Laura La Rue thinks about her life — from modeling for Elite Models at age 13 to living off the grid in a trailer — the 32-year-old tie-dye designer marvels at her quiet life today in Ojai, where she lives in a school bus with her 16-month-old daughter, Lasca.
“I feel like I should be 100 years old,†she says, laughing. “I just had my 32nd birthday, and my goal is to try and enjoy it and all that comes from the changes I’ve made. I’m trying to be present for my daughter. My hope is that she’ll learn the value of simplicity and that happiness doesn’t come from material things.â€
Growing up in Thousand Oaks, La Rue says she had a happy childhood and was “very fortunate†to attend private schools. “My mom was always a horse lady, interested in ranching, while my dad was passionate about camping and birdwatching,†she says. “So I grew up with a deep love for nature.â€
La Rue left high school at age 16 after taking the California High School Proficiency Examination so she could model full-time in editorial campaigns shot by famed photographer David LaChapelle and walk the runway for designers such as Jeremy Scott.
Antique malls, consignment stores, flea markets, thrift stores and vintage shops: L.A. has it all when it comes to shopping for secondhand furniture.
Soon afterward, she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived in Los Feliz from 2009 to 2015 and eventually partied with celebrities including Seth MacFarlane, Jared Leto and Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Those were my party-girl days,†La Rue says of carousing at L.A.-area spots such as Soho House, No Vacancy, Drai’s, Teddy’s at the Roosevelt Hotel and the West Hollywood S&M-themed nightclub Voyeur, which, according to La Rue, featured naked dancers.
“What a weird time,†she says. “I shock my friends in Ojai when I tell them my crazy L.A. stories. Maybe I’ll write a book about it someday.â€
After eight years, she was done with L.A.
La Rue makes pancakes inside her school bus. “It’s very chill and it’s not that crazy at all,†she says of the baby-proofed bus. “It’s baby heaven.â€
“I was over the city life,†she says. “I thought, ‘I don’t like this at all.’ I could feel my cortisol levels shoot through the roof. I had health issues brought on by stress.â€
So La Rue moved to a 10-by-12-foot cabin on her newly divorced mother’s 72-acre ranch in Santa Paula and started anew. But when the Thomas fire came through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and burned the property in 2017, including the cabin, she moved to Ojai, where she got a job as an innkeeper.
After being involved in a toxic relationship, La Rue decided to focus on herself and try to get healthy. “I had been on a ridiculous model diet, and I wanted to turn myself around,†she says. “I started going to therapy and spent time alone to work on myself.â€
But living alone in a cabin in a small town was difficult. “I was lonely,†she says.
During that period, she recalled a cowboy she had met at her mother’s ranch. “I remember him jumping off his horse to shake my hand,†says La Rue. “I was used to city boys in skinny jeans. Here was this well-dressed cowboy from Idaho. I looked him up on Facebook and sent him a message. We eventually met up at the Deer Lodge, and when he asked me to dance, we fell in love immediately. He was such a breath of fresh air. “
The couple embarked on adventures in the backcountry starting in 2019 and eventually settled into an off-grid life near Carpinteria, where La Rue lived in a 1981 Silver Streak trailer. “I did that for four years,†she says. “We didn’t have power, running water or a bathroom. We were really roughing it.â€
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she and a friend became interested in natural dyes and decided to tie-dye thrift store finds, from stained T-shirts and jeans to bed sheets. “I got obsessed with it, and my side job became my full-time gig,†she says. She started attending workshops, reading books and experimenting with different plant-based dyes, including turmeric and madder root. She made a small collection of one-of-a-kind bandannas, socks and baby onesies, and her fashion label, Ride or Dye Ojai, was born.
When La Rue discovered she was pregnant on her 30th birthday, she acknowledged that her off-grid existence would be difficult with a baby. “I needed cell service in case there was an emergency, and I needed community,†she says. “I didn’t want to rely on the generator if I needed power or hiking to the pit toilet.â€
Also, her relationship with the cowboy was deteriorating.
“It became clear to me that it was not going to work out,†she says.
When a friend told her about an affordable piece of land for rent in Ojai, equipped with water hookups and power perfect for a trailer, she signed the lease immediately after looking at the property, which is anchored in an oak grove.
“I had been looking at a school bus and couldn’t believe this piece of land had materialized,†she says. “I started slowly working on it. The property would be my place to work.â€
Meanwhile, when mudslides from heavy rains made it impossible for her to return to her trailer in Carpinteria, she took it as a sign.
Inspired by the slow flower movement, landscape designer Kathleen Ferguson is “making people happy†by growing environmentally appropriate flowers at her micro-farm in L.A.
“I literally could not get back there,†says La Rue. “I had worked on my plant dye garden for a long time. We grew it from nothing. It was huge and beautiful, and the mudslides took out the entire garden into which I had put so much blood, sweat, tears and money. I took that as a sign that I needed to move to Ojai.â€
After purchasing an RE200 school bus on the property that belonged to friends, she committed to living in Ojai full-time — on the bus — starting in March 2023. “It was already built out,†she says of the drivable bus, which includes a composting toilet and shower. Her compact stovetop and oven run on propane tanks, which she picks up every few months in her Toyota. “It had a perfect nook for a baby. There were so many signs along the way pushing me to be here.â€
Sulfur cosmos on the property.
Lasca runs by one of her mother’s eco prints, left, in the outdoor live-work area.
Today, La Rue grows most of her dyes on her parcel, including indigo, sulfur cosmos, coreopsis, scabiosa and madder root, and she has set up her tie-dye station on the property. The landscape inspires her, and she incorporates walnuts, oak balls and leaves into her colorful eco-prints. She also teaches workshops and tutorials and posts vlogs about her life via her YouTube channel, @rideordyeojai, which features a video introducing her that has nearly 240,000 views. “My goal is to inspire people to make changes to better their lives and not be afraid to take risks,†she says.
La Rue, Lasca, their dog, June Carter, and their cat, Johnny, primarily live outdoors. “We do everything outside, and that’s the best way for a kid to grow up,†La Rue says. “I’m growing all of our produce. Most people get married, buy a house and have a kid. This is what I wanted — a safe haven where I can have people over and enjoy the bare necessities. Luckily, how I live doesn’t require a lot of money, so I can support myself with Ride or Dye.â€
Still, it can be challenging. La Rue says living in a bus without air-conditioning during the heat of summer can be unbearable, and the narrow living spaces of the bus are “claustrophobic†at times. But at a time in history when parents are feeling overwhelmed, so much so that the U.S. surgeon general has issued an advisory highlighting related stress and mental health concerns, La Rue feels confident in raising Lasca in an idyllic environment where her daughter can roam free.
La Rue credits her parents for giving her the support she needed to take a nontraditional path.
Her father, Allan Crandall, helped La Rue build a cozy air-conditioned 10-foot-by-12-foot Tuff Shed on the property where she and Lasca can relax and escape the heat.
Also, if she needs a hand, her mother, Holly La Rue, lives a few miles from La Rue and her daughter. “I worried about her horribly when she lived in L.A.,†La Rue’s mother says. “I just hoped the job I did raising her would kick in. And it did. She created her own life in Ojai. She knew nobody. She left L.A., found her spot here, entered the tie-dye business and found a community of artists and musicians. She is very soulful and grounded.
“Lasca is such a laid-back kid,†Holly La Rue adds. “I kind of envy the way she is raising her daughter. It’s exciting for me as a mom to see her success.â€
Chad and Stacie Vanags’ backyard cutting garden has become a healing sanctuary for the couple and others, following Chad’s Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis.
Such praise can be hard to reconcile with her life in L.A., but La Rue feels that she is where she is supposed to be. She hopes to stay in the school bus for a long time.
“Natural disasters, birth, breakups, new love, all the things: I feel good about my decisions,†she says.
Asked what she hopes Lasca will take away from living in a school bus in a small town, La Rue says she hopes her daughter will cultivate independence and a deep connection with nature. “I hope she’ll grow up understanding where her food comes from, appreciating the changing seasons and learning to live sustainably,†she says.
“I want her to feel a strong sense of community. In a small town, people know and care for each other. She’ll grow up surrounded by people who support and look out for one another. She’ll understand that it’s OK to take a different path and that she has the strength to overcome challenges.â€
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