Josh Chandler looks down at his fingers as he playfully ticks off the various professional titles he’s held over the course of his career — house designer, builder, contractor, landscape designer, interior designer, illustrator, grapegrower, winemaker, gourmet chef, event planner, livestock rancher, beekeeper.

He looks up and grins. “I know I’m forgetting a few things.”

It might be tempting to wonder if the talented Chandler should pick a lane. Yet as he explains, “The disciplines are actually all very similar. They’re based on scale, texture and color. And if your ingredients are good and you don’t mess them up, you end up with fabulous stuff. Food, wine, arts, architecture — you can easily move from one to the other.”

Some people might think that’s unusual, but for Chandler, it’d be unusual not to think about experimenting with all kinds of artistic pursuits. Now in his late 50s, Chandler knew as early as high school that he wanted to explore as many creative opportunities as he could.

Raised in Napa, Chandler was just 17 years old when his father, a landscape designer and sculptor, enlisted his help to dig gardens for the future Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford. He learned through a chance conversation with the resort chef that the restaurant was in need of staff.

“Ooh, I’d like to give that a whirl,” Chandler recalls thinking. In short time, he rocketed from dishwasher to chef de partie, a job he loved. “Except I realized that working noon to midnight, there’s not a whole lot of sunlight left. I liked the outdoors, so I decided I was going to continue cooking, but for myself.”

Within two years, Chandler had started a family. At age 21, he obtained a landscape architect license and began to buy houses to fix up and sell. He briefly attended two different colleges but decided not to pursue a degree, since he was already doing creative work he loved.

“In the old days, you could do it just by doing it,” he says. “You succeeded through years of practice under an expert’s tutelage.”

In 1998, he and his wife, Mary Beth Chandler, bought Mendocino’s iconic Lazy Creek Vineyards and started making wine from what was the second oldest vineyard in Anderson Valley. Their small-lot Pinot Noir wines were soon cult classics, touted in The New York Times.

But within a decade, the family was ready to be a bit closer to city conveniences. They sold the winery and bought the 40-acre Cloverdale farm they now call home.

All of Chandler’s passions — design, food, farming — come together on the bucolic property, where they spend most of summer cooking outdoors and eating from the garden. The space is anchored by a 1905 Italian-style farmhouse with stunning spindle-trimmed wraparound porches, overlooking several acres of vineyards, where Chandler and his wife still indulge their passion for winemaking.

The heart of the property, the courtyard, brims with stately trellised sycamore trees, brilliantly blooming rosebushes, manicured shrubs, citrus trees in pots and a swimming pool to stave off summer heat. There are nooks and pathways, secret mini-gardens and a sculpture created by his father.

Raised beds offer a bounty of produce, from herbs to artichokes to tomatoes. Chandler grows several varieties of table grapes and fruit in a small orchard. A wood-burning pizza oven beckons next to a hulking, brick and stone fireplace flanked by more climbing roses and pockets of dappled golden sun under olive trees.

To one side is Chandler’s office, inside a stone building that was once home to the Chianti Winery, bonded in 1909. Chandler continues to work on design projects, still drawing nearly all of his plans by hand, from wineries to private homes, with the goal of creating casual indoor-outdoor spaces for an ineffable California Wine Country feel. It’s like stepping back in time to see Chandler’s hand-tinted blueprints and landscape plans scattered about the office on large tables — barely a computer in sight.

Chandler cooks from scratch each day with a focus on fresh, home-grown ingredients, working out of the compact indoor kitchen or cooking outdoors over a live fire. It’s not surprising that the chef rarely limits himself to a single type of cuisine.

“For me, food is like music,” he says. “I can’t listen to an artist’s entire LP or whatever it’s called these days. Give me variety.”

Guests often gravitate to the kitchen as Chandler cooks. But the space is really built just for the chef himself in the way he prefers to prepare food.

“Real chefs won’t walk 10 feet to get to the fridge or stove,” he explains. “You just basically turn, and whatever you need is right there. You chop your stuff, turn and cook it, turn and wash the pots, then turn and plate the food.”

Those who would like to help might be directed to bring veggie trimmings out to the compost pile, to help feed the soil that makes the gardens thrive.

Depending on whim, Chandler might craft Italian, Vietnamese or French coq au vin, often paired with his own plush Sangiovese, grown and vinified just steps away. In summer, he loves to prepare chicken under a brick, with roasted vegetables from the garden and olive oil cake made with his own olive oil (see recipes below). He also butchers his own beef and pork and cures his own salumi.

“I’ve raised pigs, I’ve done it all, from the bottom up,” he says. “But I’m not plucking any more chickens.”

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Chicken Under a Brick with Olive Sorrel Chimichurri

Designer and chef Josh Chandler turns to his garden for an extra spark in this impressive summertime main course, which highlights home-grown chiles, fresh herbs, olives, garlic — even olive oil made from his own fruit.

While Chandler cooks his chicken over a wood fire, the recipe is equally adaptable to a charcoal or gas grill. The key is to have the cast-iron pan and bricks plenty hot, and to use a generous amount of olive oil so the meat doesn’t stick. You’ll want to start brining the chicken the day before.

As Chandler tells it, chicken under a brick goes back to the days of Roman soldiers in the field, who discovered if they roasted their meats under a portable clay dome, they retained their juiciness and developed extra crispy skin. Later, Italian chefs discovered using weights or bricks to expose more of the meat to the heat for even more crispness.

Chandler recommends serving the chicken alongside grilled broccolini with fresh lemon.

Serves 4

3 pounds boneless chicken thighs

½ cup olive oil

For the brine:

½ cup salt

2⁄3cup sugar

1 1⁄4 cup mixed fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary)

6 cloves fresh garlic, minced

1 tsp. chile pepper flakes

4 bay leaves

For the chimichurri:

1⁄8 tsp. Serrano chile, minced

1 tsp. red onion, minced

½ tsp. parsley, minced

1 tsp. cilantro, minced

1 tsp. fresh sorrel, minced

¾ cup mixed olives, minced

1 tsp. olive juice from the jar

1 tsp. fresh garlic, minced

1 tsp. carrot, finely grated

2 tsp. yellow tomatoes, minced

1⁄8 tsp. chile oil

¼ cup sherry vinegar

½ cup olive oil

In a large bowl or plastic container, combine salt, sugar, herbs, garlic, pepper flakes, and bay leaves with 1 gallon water. Add the chicken thighs. Cover and refrigerate the chicken in the brine for 24-48 hours.

Prepare your grill or fire and allow to heat to a high temperature (approximately 500 degrees with a point-and-shoot thermometer). Place a shallow, seasoned cast-iron pan on the grill or fire to heat. Generously brush 2-3 clean bricks with olive oil and allow the bricks to heat along with the pan. It’s time to cook when the fire or charcoal has turned from flames to glowing coals. If you’re using a gas grill instead, dial to the highest temperature and heat the bricks and pan for 5-10 minutes before cooking.

While the fire or grill comes to temperature, prepare the chimichurri. Add all of the ingredients to a bowl and stir well to combine. Set aside.

Remove the chicken from the brine, pat dry with paper towels, then generously slather with olive oil. Place the chicken in the hot cast-iron pan; put the hot, oiled bricks on top; and cook until well crispy and brown on the outside and cooked through completely, about 6-7 minutes (cut into one thigh at the thickest part to test doneness). You may need to prepare the chicken in batches so there’s enough separation in the pan for each piece to get crispy.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes. Spoon the chimichurri on top of the chicken just before serving.

Olive Oil Cake with Nectarines

This elegant summer dessert was inspired by a recipe Josh Chandler found on Epicurious. He uses his own olive oil and nectarines from his trees (the recipe adapts beautifully to other types of stone fruit as well).

The lovely fan of nectarine slices on top is created by laying down slices of fruit at the bottom of the cake pan, then pouring the cake batter over top. The sugar caramelizes around the fruit as the cake cooks, and the slices come out on top when you turn the cake out of the pan.

2 large eggs

1 cup cake flour

¼ cup almond flour

½ cup brown sugar, plus additional to coat the cake pan

1 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. fine-grain salt

2⁄3 cup olive oil, plus additional to oil the cake pan

3 tbsp. Amaretto

2 tbsp. fresh lemon zest

1 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup prepared lemon curd (such as Bonne Maman) freshly whipped cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Using an 8-inch round cake pan, trace an outline on a piece of parchment paper, cut out and place in the bottom of the cake pan. Oil the pan generously with olive oil, then sprinkle with a heavy layer of brown sugar. Arrange the nectarine slices in a fan at the bottom of the pan, on top of the sugar.

Combine cake flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a separate small bowl, stir together the amaretto, lemon juice, and vanilla extract and set aside.

In a stand mixer, beat the eggs, brown sugar and lemon zest on high until stiff peaks form. Once the eggs are stiff, slowly drizzle in the olive oil in a steady stream until fully combined. With the mixer on low speed, add half of the dry ingredient mixture to the batter, then half of the lemon juice mixture. While continuing to mix at low speed, add the remainder of the dry and wet ingredients until just incorporated.

Gently pour the batter into the prepared cake pan with the fruit slices arranged on the bottom. Bake the cake in a 425 degree oven for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and cook approximately 40 additional minutes, until just cooked through. Remove from the oven, and while still hot, slather the exposed surface with a 1/4-inch layer of lemon curd, which will soak in as the cake cools.

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then use a butter knife or spatula to loosen the cake and turn it out upside down onto a serving platter (so the fruit is on top). Serve with freshly whipped cream.