A final note: Larry's yard

June 10, 2006
Larry Scarpa held a smallish gathering in his yard at the conclusion of the AIA festivities. We had published his Umbrella House, a photo of which he used as an invitation. I wanted to see what we had published, and to see Larry, an old architecture friend. When I drove up the street in small-scale Venice, I passed Jonathan Segal getting out of his car. There weren’t that many people standing in the yard, but I immediately recognized the other three editors from Record who were there, and there, on the low wall, sat Larry.

After snagging a quick drink, I looked up to the second floor and saw another architect waving down at me. He looked so familiar, but not an LA name I could recall. When he came down I found that it was John Howie from Florida, the author of a seminal book on the Sarasota school, and one of my favorite personalities. He was chatting with Marvin Rand, an architectural photographer par excellence, the individual who had shot Larry’s house for us, and who continues to perform photographic magic with a lens. He wasn’t the only photographer present: my colleague from New Orleans, Neil Alexander, with whom I had made a documentary on the late architect Hays Town, was lumbering down the steps. He made a few surreptitious shots of the gathered group.

Just over there was Frances Anderton, the host of DNA, an LA-based public radio show that included me in an interview on hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. Frances, an excellent conversationalist, was talking to Peter Cook, Paul Finch, and Bill Menking, a trio we had just encountered at the Audi party for the Architect’s Newspaper.

The evening was sublime: all sunset and wafting Pacific breeze and blooming trees. Good friends, old and young, a house that shone like artwork, a narrow street near the ocean. I want to live in Los Angeles.

Robert Ivy, FAIA