Penny's Party

Old haunts and a new friend.

We were in London when we got word of Penny's party, and even without hearing the specifics, it was a must. Penny was a dear friend who'd opened many doors for us. When she needed an editor for the magazine she founded, she turned our way, and it marked the beginning of a fabulous five years of international travel to extraordinary locales. As a result of her parties we dined with Christopher Isherwood, a Texas oil heiress, and more artists than we can name. We became friends with her husband, Greg, son of Howard Hawks, the director who discovered Lauren Bacall, and followed him into the desert wastes of Baja California as support crew while he raced off-road. At their Academy Awards parties, we had several real Oscars to play with. Through her we met proteges of the architect Frank Gehry, a friend of the guy who sold Janice Joplin the fatal heroin dose, and Paul Asmuth, the great world marathon swimming champion who now manages an upvalley winery. In short, no one has ever done quite as much for us, supplied so much adventure, physical and intellectual, and asked for so little in return.

Penny had spent the last ten years working for the Herman Miller Company, purveyor of nicely designed office suites, and she was retiring. The party was on the Friday evening following our return from London on a Monday, so we'd have a few days to attend to affairs before driving down to Los Angeles.

As usual, we headed straight to the cafe at the intersection of Rose and Main in Venice, where we planned our intinerary. The Rose Cafe had been our local living room from the day it opened in 1979, and we logged more personal history there than is really advisable: romances by the dozens, friends by the scores, coffees by the thousands. We got jobs out of there, made countless connections, and as many deals. It's a remarkable little crossroads, and there's no telling whom you might encounter; Arnold kept an office in a nearby building, and it was in the parking lot that we first met him, where he bitterly denounced us for some articles we'd been a party to. John Kennedy routinely stopped by when he came to the area, and we've encountered Ed Bradley, Bill Murray and Maria Shriver--pre-Arnold--at that well-sited cafe.

It was that great parade of people that first made Venice so appealing to us, and we soon headed down to the beach and Ocean Front Walk for the full-on display as we strolled to the party.

Los Angeles has a reputation for fast, vast change, but we marvel on every visit to our old neighborhood the extent to which things have remained if not quite the same, at least similar, and often better. We see faces from decades past, stores and proprietors we patronized for a generation; indeed, the changes seem to us to have been much greater in Napa, now almost unrecognizable to an older set.

This day revealed the Venice Beach at its best. The common spring overcasts that so often bedevil the coast had limited themselves to just the slightest amount of moisture in the air, filtering the bright sun into a soft glow. That idiosincratic luminosity and the anarchic nature of the boardwalk's activities lend the place a surrealistic air, and we were reminded anew of the great attraction of the area. Skaters and cyclists threaded along the pathways as sun-bathers lounged on the nearby sands and vendors hawked everything from fortunes to crystals to massages to bad art. Outdoor cafes abounded, and tourists flooded the shops selling cheesey t-shirts and elaborate sunglasses.

It took half-an-hour to walk the mile or so south to James Beach, and the cafe was already full of Penny's friends by the time we arrived. Tuna tartare, little lamb chops and other delectables circulated, and the bar was packed with familiar faces: artists Chuck Arnoldi, Ed Moses and one of the Dill brothers; a film producer, a wide variety of architects and designers and Penny's myriad other friends. A guy played a guitar in the corner, nice voice, easy listening.

Before going to work for Herman Miller, Penny managed logistical details for many Venice artists who made it big, and she knew people from all aspects of life, ranging from starving artists to wealthy patrons and the respective hangers-on. Gretchen took up with the artists when Penny moved on, and after she'd put in her time, she headed for the mountains east of Los Angeles and moved to her country house at Lake Arrowhead. Big changes, less money, more satisfaction. Jane owns a couple of bed and bath stores on trendy westside streets, and sounds as if she, too, wants to escape from it all. Met an architect's wife who complained about all the phonies in the world in which he operated--she's real people, of course. The film producer went on in even more colorful terms as to her frustrations with life in the city. We were amazed at how burnt-out everyone seemed, even though many lived the apparently successful, exciting lives others dream of. Cool careers, sophisticated cultural outlets, nice houses in pretty places, yet they wanted to escape.

We renewed an acquaintance with an artist--to our regret, we didn't know he had a show on at a London gallery, so missed it while there--who lives in a corrugated steel house and discussed benefits of the building type. Later on, we talked to an architect as to the viability of shipping containers as shelter. She enthusiastically cited some of the articles she'd seen concerning their use as such; we countered that it was unfortunate that all of the high-profile experimental projects cost as much as any other construction type, rather diminishing the low-cost possibilities that make them so tantalizing.

By then the party had died off, as the venue gave way to the normal Friday evening cocktail crowd; many of us took to a table for dinner, where Penny and Greg discussed their own housing plans. They intended to rent out the Tudor cottage overlooking the beach at Santa Monica, but save one of the apartments underneath for themselves. They'd split time between there and a new place on some acreage near Taos. Penny already knew the local arts community, was well-prepared for the transition; additionally, at the behest of architect Frank Gehry, she'd be putting together a show of LA artists who influenced him in the '60s and '70s. Greg looked forward to plenty of space to work on his steel fabrication projects, motorcycles and off-road racers.

On leaving, we encountered James, the proprietor of the restaurant. We first met the man in the late '70s, then a willowy redhead with ubiquitous smiles who waited tables at every eatery worth going to in the Venice-Ocean Park area. He'd filled out, his hair had darkened, but the easy smiles remained. He had been a perfect host as a waiter, and his prudence apparently served him well; he'd taken over one of the most successful and pleasant restaurants in the city and actually improved on it.

Before it became James Beach sometime in the early '90s, it was known as the West Beach Cafe. Opening at the dawn of that so-called decade of greed--the '80s--the West Beach poised itself to take full advantage of the emerging zeitgeist. Los Angeles came into its own with the every-decade census, and surpassed Chicago as America's second largest urban area, and there was talk of its becoming a "world-class" city with the '84 Olympics. Venice had begun to transform as well, and the skid row by the sea found its still-remaining Italianate buildings turned into upscale offices, restaurants and shops. And the struggling artists who'd gone there for cheap--but often dangerous--neighborhoods, showed signs of success. It presented a fascinating panorama of little cultures living in close proximity to a beautiful beach, everything from hardcore ghetto to upscale condos to beach pads full of surfers to storefronts housing artists. Cosmo or Vogue at one point declared Venice the new "center of the universe," a little story we read with amusement in front of our beachfront apartment house one day as yet another bum peed against a nearby palm tree.

Our friend Alona consorted with the man who opened the West Beach, and played a huge part in the design, setting off many trends that would become standards in just a few years. The old school Los Angeles restaurants like Scandia, Perino's and the Brown Derby were dying off, with little evidence of replacement at first. Alona helped fill the void with a stark design scheme of white interior colored by rotating art shows of major gallery quality. The food exemplified the trend to California cuisine, consisting of simple, fresh ingredients prepared imaginatively: pork chops with mango chutney, for instance, steaks with port wine sauce, lamb tacos. Though they strived to be different, they never reached the point--so common now--that you needed an atlas and several foreign language dictionaries to figure out what you were eating, where it was from, and how it was prepared.

They created an informal yet elegant retreat that became second-home to many in the neighborhood even as it drew elites from the film and business community at large. The welcome always seemed sincere, and the service was flawless; waiters like James made you feel like a personal guest in an atmosphere of casual comfort. Our companion of the time lived a few blocks away, and we gave up going anywhere else for an pricey meal; it just wasn't worth the drive, the expense or the risk of disappoinment when we had ultimate excellence so close at hand. And though we know not everybody was as warmly received as we were, we didn't mind. As regular locals, we always got the table.

After the dinner rush was over, a party would emerge, everyone seemingly acquainted and somehow connected. People would not-so-surreptitiously snort coke off the tables, and the smell of cannabis would mingle with cigarette smoke. The West Beach even supplied free cigarettes at the bar, accompanied by beautiful little match boxes, paint-splotched as if created by Jackson Pollack.

Under James' tenure, we saw no drugs, but there is such a crowd that several very big, very polite bouncers circulate, and the nightly parties exceed anything we remember, and never did we see anywhere so many good-looking people in one place outside of certain parties in Vegas.

Once out the door, we stopped for a cigarette, and turned to find Martin Sheen standing there. As usual with possibly interesting people, we felt compelled to impose ourselves on the poor man to see what he was made of. We weren't in the least disappointed. He did everything possible to put us at our ease--not that we need much help--and within minutes we were somehow discussing the conflict in Yugoslavia, and trading war stories. Bosnia came up, and he related that even though he had a pass signed by the little state's president, no one would honor it at key roadblocks; he found this incredible. The city of Mostar was mentioned, where our grandfather was born; Sheen couldn't believe that its famous 500-year-old bridge met destruction at the hands of a film student turned uber-warrior. He was gratified to discover that it had been rebuilt.

On that positive note, we relieved him of the burden of our presence, headed back down the darkened boardwalk toward our car, and contemplated the next day's adventure.

As usual with Penny's parties, we'd met someone interesting. Eames Demetrios is the grandson of Charles and Ray Eames, a most dynamic husband-wife design team. We'd heard of the iconic Eames chair years ago, but really knew nothing more than that it was the name of a chair. But during a stay in Mexico City some years ago, we were forced to walk from one subway line to another in a subteranean passage of a quarter-mile. Along the wall were large photographs--5x8 feet or so--starting with a picture shot from above of a man on a backyard lounge. The next shot showed the same scene, but at a great distance, as did the next, which by then encompassed the whole neighborhood. The series continued in like manner, the camera ascending, so you could identify that the city was Chicago, then you saw Lake Michigan, then North America, until, a dozen or so images later you were looking at the cosmos and infinite space. Interesting, we thought.

On the return trip, going in the opposite direction, we encountered unexpectedly the other half of the series, starting again with the man on the lounge. But this time the camera pulled in, to a close-up of a patch of skin, and then into the skin cells, and then deeper still, until, ultimately you were looking at the inside of an atom, and the last image was the same as the one in the other half of the series: cosmos and infinite space. We marveled at the creativity of some Mexican artist, only to learn later that it had been an old Eames project from the '70s called "Powers of 10." The first photo was taken from 10 meters, the next 100, and so on. The second series did the same thing in the other direction, starting with the man on the lounge, going down to a tenth of a meter, then a hundredth, and into the cells and atoms. We know not what contrivances were necessary to pull off the concept, but it worked brilliantly, so much so that it stands as a work of philosophy almost as much as a work of art.

The Eameses pioneered the use of molded plywood, and started out designing litters for the seriously wounded of World War Two, eventually using the technologies for modern furniture. Herman Miller office designs featured the Eameses' creations, eventually producing fabric, wall-covering and flooring patterns, and their impact on modernism is inestimable. Before Ray Eames died, she set up a foundation to handle their legacy, and grandson Eames Demetrios now heads it. We talked at the party and he invited me to see their fabled house, not far from where we were staying at Penny's and Greg's.

Eames took us into the usually off-limits house, and explained that it was one of several in the immediate area that began as a demonstration project to develop low-cost, easy-to-build designs for veterans returning from the war. A rectangular, boxy structure painted in swatches of primary colors was revealed inside to have an open space plan with minimal walls and a mezzanine looking down from a half-size second floor. Large windows brought the outside in, bathing the interior with light even though thick shade trees limited the sun's penetration. Despite modern furnishings, it lacked the sterility so common to the genre because of the Eameses' love of design for its own sake; they'd collected odd little curios from around the world, displayed on the bookcases and tables, each a cheap little masterpiece worked by nameless craftsmen. They'd created a fine, small folk art museum housed in a cutting-edge edifice that even today avoids looking dated.

Back outside, he indicated the siting, and his grandparent's desire to fit the house into the environment, without trying to disguise it. The rectangle paralleled the ridge on one side, and the other faced a grassy expanse that fell off into low cliffs. The bright colors of the house against the green of the hills and the shrouding eucalyptus result in a pleasing juxtaposition of man and nature not often seen in these days of monster houses and small lots.

We thought it very inspiring, and all the way home considered what we might do with a couple of tastefully modified shipping containers on a mountainside we own in Napa, filled with products of our own manic collecting.

Penny had done it again.


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