Editor’s Note: Longtime Rancho Santa Fe resident and former RSF Post Editor Rachel Laffer passed away on July 4 at her Rancho Santa Fe home after a lengthy illness. A private service will be held in August.
Some people pass through this world quietly. Rachel arrived in color.
She was like a rainbow – vibrant, radiant, and impossible to explain. Rainbows don’t make perfect sense. Their colors appear almost magically, leaving us wondering where they came from and where they go when they disappear. Rachel was like that. Beautifully complex. Brilliant. Magnetic. She possessed a light that could never be contained, only experienced.
Rachel left this world peacefully. She did not leave in pain. Her soul was simply ready to fly. While our hearts were begging her to stay, hers was ready for its next journey. There is comfort in knowing that her final moments were filled not with suffering, but with peace.
Rachel lived the kind of life most people only dream about. She was effortlessly chic – one of those rare women who could turn heads simply by walking into a room. She believed every occasion deserved a beautiful outfit, every dinner deserved champagne, and every adventure deserved to be unforgettable.
She loved to summer beneath the Grecian sun, where the sea sparkled almost as brightly as she did. She adored the magic of St. Tropez, where afternoons at Club 55 flowed into evenings filled with laughter, music, and bottles of champagne shared with the people she loved. Glamour wasn’t something Rachel chased – it simply followed her wherever she went.
A graduate of Yale University, Rachel served as an editor of the Yale Daily News before embarking on an accomplished international career as an editor for The Wall Street Journal in Brussels. She later became Vice President of Laffer Associates, the economic consulting firm founded by her father, where she worked alongside him with the same intelligence, determination, and grace that defined every part of her life.
Yet for all of her remarkable accomplishments, nothing made Rachel prouder than being Lottie’s mother.
Lottie was her greatest masterpiece, her deepest joy, and the love she spoke about more than anything else. Rachel celebrated every milestone, every achievement, every dream fulfilled with the kind of pride that only a mother can know. Watching Lottie grow into the extraordinary young woman she is became Rachel’s greatest privilege. There was no room she entered where she didn’t find a way to tell you something wonderful about her daughter.
Her love for her husband, Nikolai, was unwavering. Through every season of life, they stood beside one another with extraordinary devotion. Their marriage was built on partnership, admiration, and a love that never needed to announce itself because it was evident in everything they did together.
She also leaves behind her beloved companions – Wolfie, Figgie, Smudge, Hattie, and Sassy – who filled her home with joy, comfort, and unconditional love.
Looking back on our decade of friendship somehow feels like looking back on an entire lifetime. How can ten years contain so much life? How does one begin to understand losing a best friend… a soulmate? How do we continue walking through a world that suddenly feels so much quieter without her laughter?
If I could relive one moment forever, it would be the night we met.
It was at a charity fundraiser. Rachel walked straight toward me wearing a shimmering gold Yves Saint Laurent top with a fur draped effortlessly across her shoulders. She looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. She smiled and said, “I think I know you.”
From that moment on, my life changed.
She became my person.
Our friendship was built on a thousand beautiful little moments that somehow became the biggest memories. Endless vodka lemonades that always tasted like summer. Last-minute drives to Beverly Hills where shopping somehow became an all-day adventure, followed by dinners that lasted long after the restaurants wanted to close. We laughed until our stomachs hurt. We celebrated absolutely everything. We found reasons to dress up when none existed. Rachel had a gift for making ordinary Tuesdays feel like they belonged in a movie.
She taught me that life should never be lived halfway.
That you should buy the shoes.
Order the champagne.
Take the trip.
Wear the beautiful dress.
Tell the people you love exactly how much they mean to you.
She made life feel larger, brighter, and infinitely more beautiful simply because she was in it.
The hardest part of losing Rachel is knowing there will never be another Rachel.
There will never be another phone call that begins with one of her fabulous ideas. Never another spontaneous weekend away. Never another vodka lemonade shared while laughing until tears streamed down our faces. Never another entrance quite as unforgettable, another outfit quite as impeccable, another heart quite as generous.
The world feels dimmer without her.
But what an extraordinary privilege it was to have lived in the light she created.
Thank you, Rachel, for ten unforgettable years. Thank you for showing us how to live with style, courage, generosity, and joy. Thank you for loving so deeply, laughing so loudly, and making every person fortunate enough to know you feel like the most important person in the room.
You were one of a kind.
You always will be.
And as long as we continue telling your stories, raising a glass in your honor, remembering those Beverly Hills afternoons, those summers in Greece, those champagne-soaked evenings at Club 55, and the immeasurable love you had for Lottie, Nikolai, and your beautiful family, your light will never fade.
We will miss you for the rest of our lives.
Rachel Virginia Laffer was born on August 24, 1972, in Fairfax, Virgina, and passed away on July 4, 2026, in Rancho Santa Fe, California. She is survived by her husband, Nikolai Myers, and daughter, Lottie, both of Rancho Santa Fe; her mother, Trisha Johnson, of Sebastopol, California; her father, Dr. Arthur Laffer, of Tennessee; her brothers, Arthur Laffer Jr., of Nashville, Tennessee, and Justin Laffer, of Nashville, Tennessee; and her sisters, Tricia Laffer, of Waring, Texas, Molly Rembert, of Georgetown, Texas, and Allison Laffer Lindsey, of Coldwater, Michigan.
A private service will be held in August.
Beautifully said. She was one of a kind and will be missed terribly….thank you Christian 💗
So sad. My condolences. I only met her once or twice at the Inn bar, maybe a decade ago. I had a friend who lived in one of cottages there so I was a fixture there at cocktail hour. I felt I knew her by osmosis as I had her grandparents at my home in 1981 when I chaired Lt Gov Mike Curb’s campaign for Gov. Molly and Bill. I was in Curb’s kitchen cabinet. I have lived in RSF since 1974.
And I had met her dad during the Reagan years, at events once here at the Zenith heiress home for a Jarvis Gann event. Sometime after Prop 13.
Rachel certainly had an infectious personality, her father’s daughter. In more recent years she or her team published stories I had written. I guess in an era past we experienced many similar things like Club 55 where I first had happy and scenic times in the 1970s living for a while in the Côte d’Azur.
Albert B. Frowiss Sr
I had the privilege of meeting Rachel only once, while working as cabin crew on a British Airways flight as she and Nikolai were returning from India.
And yet, all these years later, I still remember her.
She was so kind, so full of life, and so effortlessly beautiful. We spoke about her time in India, and we exchanged details so that I could help her discover even more places she might love to visit on a future trip. After that came Christmas and New Year cards, family photographs, and little reminders of the beautiful life she had built.
I still remember her radiant smile and the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen.
Some people leave an impression that time cannot fade, no matter how briefly you knew them. Rachel was one of those people.
My heart is with Nikolai, Lottie, and everyone who loved her so dearly.