This mother is taking her family out of the box.
Retired model Laura LaRue, 32, of Los Angeles, California, traded the high life for less travel after years away from the spotlight.
Now, she lives in a renovated school bus with her young daughter, grows her own produce and makes a living living off the land as much as possible.
“Most people get married, buy a house and have a baby. That’s what I wanted – a safe haven where I could have people around me and enjoy basic necessities. Luckily, the way I live doesn’t require a lot of money,” she told the LA Times. in a recent interview,
LaRue previously worked with the likes of iconic photographer David LaChapelle and has been seen with some of Hollywood’s most notorious figures, including Leonardo DiCaprio.
But after dropping out of school at 16 to pursue her dreams, the aging model found herself yearning for nature — just as she had when she was a young girl growing up in Thousand Oaks.
“I was busy with city life,” LaRue said. “I thought, ‘I don’t like this at all.’ “I could feel my cortisol levels skyrocketing. The stress caused me health problems.”
She added, “I was on a ridiculous model diet and I wanted to change myself.” “I started going to therapy and spending time alone to work on myself.”
By 2016, LaRue had become increasingly stressed in workplaces and relationships and moved into a 12-by-12-foot cabin on her mother’s 72-acre farm in Santa Paula – though her new life would begin a year later. : Their modest new home was destroyed by fires in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in 2017.
During her healing journey, La Rue fell in love with a man who worked on her mother’s farm, and the pair soon moved out of their 1981 Silver Streak trailer for a life of adventure on the road.
Her relationship began to fall apart when LaRue became pregnant and realized that living off the grid was not conducive to raising a family.
That’s when he decided to settle on a piece of land in Ojai and build his temporary mobile home inside an old bus.
“It was already built,” she told the newspaper, including a composting toilet, a shower, a stovetop and an oven. It’s also got “Perfect” [sleeping] A kid’s nook.”
In addition to her DIY home, LaRue has also managed to pursue a new career as a tie-dye artist, and she launched her brand Ride or Die Ojai during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, she has over 26,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel as she spends her days creating tutorials, teaching workshops, and selling her own unique tie-dye pieces.
“My goal is to inspire people to make changes to better their lives and not be afraid to take risks,” said the mother of 16-month-old Laska.
Despite her souped-up shelter, LaRue said she and her daughter “do everything outside.”
“It’s the best way for a child to grow up.”
