TWO
THE HOUSE
PRESENT DAY
From the street, it resembled a Mayan temple hidden in the forest, one that had lain undiscovered through the centuries. The front of the house was dominated by a vertical glass hexagon formed of cast blocks of concrete in a chrysanthemum design that gave the facade a moiré pattern in the early morning and early evening. The trees and bushes were untrimmed. A FOR SALE sign perched at the curb.
“The gardening service will be out on Friday,” the realtor assured Kendall Coffin.
Maureen parked her Mercedes SUV at the curb and got out. She was a plump, middle-aged woman with big hair and cat’s-eye sunglasses which concealed twinkling eyes. Kendall got out. He was of medium height and build with medium brown hair wearing a Nexus T-shirt, khakis, and huaraches. The only concession to hipsterdom was a diamond stud in his left ear. He had a narrow face, close-set gray eyes, and a spade chin reflecting his Irish/Scots ancestry.
They walked up the concrete steps between two blank walls to the dark entry alcove, sealed off by an art deco metal gate fashioned of arched panels and chevrons. A thick chain ran through the center posts and connected with a massive Case padlock.
Maureen removed a key ring the size of a quoit from her purse. It carried dozens of keys and must have weighed five pounds. Selecting the proper cylindrical key, she unlocked the padlock and pulled the chain through. The gate swung reluctantly inward with a hair-raising shriek. The main entrance was covered with metal panels, a vortex design with blue glass eyes in the center. A frosted ten-inch cube at face height was the only window.
The door swung inward with some resistance. Maureen put her shoulder into it. They stepped into the foyer. Kendall was overcome with a sense of wonder he hadn’t felt since he was a child and first visited Wyrick World in Tampa with his parents. He had always loved the architecture of Roark Dexter Smith, had even planned to be an architect, studying drafting, math, and design at the University of Wisconsin. But somewhere along the line big-breasted women and men in tights seized control of his imagination and he ended up drawing comic books.
There was a box of brochures resting on the tile floor. Maureen stooped and handed one to Kendall. “I’m sure you’ve seen this.”
The color brochure featured a shot of the inner courtyard at night lit by offset lamps and a brief history.
WALLANDA HOUSE
Los Angeles, 1971
Frank Wallanda was a writer, producer, and director best known for his string of wholesome teen comedies in the seventies and eighties, Stylin’, The Quinceañera, Prom Queen, and Li’l Darlin’. In 1970 he asked his friend Roark Dexter Smith to design a house that would accommodate lavish parties and entertaining. Smith reacted with what many consider one of his boldest designs, a complete environment redolent of an exotic but undetermined culture. Smith conceived the house as a hacienda built around a central courtyard containing a pool, garden, and Smith’s unique plinths and pillars that drew inspiration from Mayan, Aztec, Sumerian, and Egyptian culture.
The house presents an imposing if not intimidating face to the street, almost fortress-like in height and imperiousness. The entry lies at the top of a narrow stair that lies in perpetual shadow due to carefully groomed juniper bushes, through a pair of lavish metal gates that depict stylized leaves and water, through a door that could have been taken from a Japanese siege castle, opening on the airy, inviting interior courtyard.
Here Smith collaborated with Wallanda to incorporate the magic of stagecraft. The courtyard contains theater lighting, an automatic sliding steel cover for the pool topped with hardwood so it can be used as a dance floor, and even a permanent “refreshment lounge.” Smith’s unique plinths with erotic nymphs dominate one end of the courtyard. Their eroticism is not immediately apparent.
The interior features five bedrooms, five and a half baths, a library, living room, lavish kitchen, and a basement theater with seats taken from the Art Deco Strand Theater on Melrose Drive, dismantled in 1964.
Ironically Smith stated Wallanda House did not represent his ideal of organic architecture but rather was a flamboyant, self-conscious effort to create a total living environment for his friend Wallanda.
Maureen led the way through the foyer and opened the double glass doors to the courtyard. Like the front gate, the glass doors incorporated an art deco design: lilies and dragonflies. They stepped into the courtyard in the cool of the morning. The pool was full and gleamed blue. The lawn was shaggy, and a few weeds peeked through here and there, as well as in the planters. Pyramidal facades rose at both ends of the court. The house seemed both modern and ancient.
“I apologize for the condition. The yard service will have this all straightened out by the weekend,” Maureen said. “I told them I was showing the house. I don’t know if you have any experience with these lawn services, but they are completely at the mercy of their illegal labor.”
“It looks fine,” Kendall said, recalling the crabgrass nightmare he’d left in Nebraska. “Why isn’t an architectural treasure like this already occupied?”
Maureen walked toward the pool gesturing. “I’ll be frank with you. It’s a bitch to keep up. Doesn’t even have central air-conditioning, although it’s designed in such a way as to make maximum use of shade. A lot of the tiles are loose, and the stonework needs repair in places. People interested in show places don’t want to spend a lot fixing them up. They either tear them down or build from the ground up or they move on.”
“I can’t imagine anyone tearing down a Smith house anywhere,” Kendall said.
“I know. It’s sacrilege. But this is Hollyweird. Nobody can remember anything that happened prior to last week. They’re asking 3.3, but if you make them an offer of 2.9, I think they’ll bite.”
It was a lot of money. Kendall had recently inherited a sizeable sum from his mother, Elizabeth. Liz died of natural causes at the Sunny Brook Nursing Home in Omaha, leaving Nick a jaw-dropping 2.5 mil. Where it came from, he had no idea. She must have won it in the casinos. Every week Sunny Brook sent a bus to the Horseshoe in Cincinnati. Liz’s death came exactly one month to the day after the death of Kendall’s wife, Shirley. Shirley died from an overdose of Oxycontin and vodka. The coroner said it was accidental. Kendall wasn’t so sure.
Two point five wasn’t two point nine. There would be closing costs, moving costs, repair costs. For a while, Kendall was making over six figures a year drawing comics, particularly Marvel’s Dr. Strange, for which he had become famous, but he had fallen out of the system. As in any branch of entertainment, there were one thousand eager beavers standing in line to take his place. His favorite editor was fired along with Kendall’s future Marvel prospects. The new editors brought in their pals. Same old same old.
Kendall chose a paradigm shift: moving from Omaha to Los Angeles at the invitation and promise of his old college buddy Nate Polis, now a big shot at Wyrick Pictures. Nate said he could get Kendall work storyboarding and designing. Nate dangled an Art Directorship in the wake of Shirley’s suicide, as many old friends with whom Kendall had lost contact checked in.
With his mother’s inheritance, Kendall researched houses online, stumbling across Wallanda House by accident. Internet info was sparse, reprising the brochure. The idea, the dream of living in a Smith house occupied Kendall’s mind like raccoons in the attic. An industry friend recommended Maureen. Two weeks after the funeral he landed in LA.
Maureen turned to him. “Would you like to see the interior?”