‘We celebrate today as an excuse for a Highland party.’

It was fortuitously dry the night after one of last week’s unseasonable rainstorms when West Valley real estate whiz James Gary threw a parking lot party for about 5,000 of his friends, clients and business associates on the occasion of St. Andrew’s Day.

For anyone not already familiar with it, Gary provided an account of St. Andrew’s story in a printed program offered to each guest. Briefly, Andrew, the brother of St. Peter, was crucified on an X-shaped cross and, 400 years later, St. Rule, the protector of Andrew’s relics, took them to Scotland, following a vision in a dream.

Nechtan, king of the Picts, was converted to Christianity about that time, so Andrew’s relics were enshrined and Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland.

And therefore, the story concluded with an elfish twist, “we celebrate today as an excuse for a Highland party and a gathering of old friends at the beginning of the holiday season.”

This was Gary’s seventh St. Andrew’s Day party and the biggest yet. Only about 1,000 invitations were sent. The other 4,000 people simply found their way around Gary’s not-too-officious gatekeepers.

Little wonder Gary’s circle of friends grows every year. He provides a free bar (two this year, in fact) and a spread of hors d’oeuvres that could pass as dinner.

The party was held in the parking lot in front of Gary’s Williamsburg-revival office building just north of Topanga Plaza Shopping Center on Erwin Street. The red brick building is modeled after the Colonial buildings of Williamsburg, the restored Virginia town.

The lot was dressed out with a stage, two white wall tents on either side of it to shelter the food and drink and a larger tent in the middle covering about a hundred folding metal chairs. Festoons of red and white balloons crossed from tent to tent.

Guests began arriving at 4 p.m. By 6 all the tents were packed with professional-looking people in business suits and party dresses.

Gary and several dozen other men wore full Scottish Highland colors. His was the Royal Stewart tartan of the Los Angeles Police Pipe Band complete with a horsehair sporran around his waist, a skean dhu dagger tucked in his stocking and a Glengarry bonnet on his head.

At one point a man in a green kilt and black blazer attracted the attention of a cluster of women who all worked for an office machines distributor and were avidly discussing the uses of typewriters in today’s computer-based office.

One of them, a black-haired woman of about 40 with a long black outfit and sparkling earrings, reached out to touch him as he strode by.

“You’re cute,” she said as he disappeared.

A man standing nearby glared at her.

“Cute?” he said reproachfully.

“What else could I say?” she said, shrugging.

“I wouldn’t want to be called cute,” he sniffed.

“I wouldn’t,” she sniffed back, meaning he needn’t worry.

Throughout the evening, musicians and dancers performed bagpipe marches, Highland dances and sometimes bawdy Scottish ballads about Scottish lads and lasses and antics they do with kilts.

Amid the clamor of music and conversation, Gary took a position on the walkway outside his building to greet any of his guests who could negotiate their way to him through the crowd. I managed to get his attention for a few minutes.

Gary said he isn’t a full-time Scotsman but has Scottish blood in his veins and is a lifetime devotee of Scottish music.

He said he throws the annual party just because it’s fun.

While we talked, three pre-adolescent boys wearing ties and blazers and smiles on their faces walked up.

The tallest introduced himself and then reported to Gary that the three of them had been working hard on the refreshments.

“This is my son,” Gary said. “He’s a smart aleck. That’s OK. It’ll make him a lot of money someday.”

At one point, Gary turned around toward the window of one of his agent’s offices and exchanged a few hand signals with a young man who was sitting on a desk inside with a client.

The young man, whose name was Larry Honore, had made no attempt to feign Scottishness.

He wore a black tuxedo with a finely pleated satin shirt and a bow tie. He had a cigarette on his lips, a drink in his hand and a gambler’s look of intensity on his face.

Gary said Honore was working with a developer who was interested in a prime commercial property in the West Valley. It was an in-house deal. Gary was the selling agent.

Gary and I then went separate ways. A few minutes later I saw Gary and Honore standing together in the foyer of the building. Gary was bent over the shorter man and had his arm around his shoulder. Mouth-to-ear, they exchanged a few words briskly.

Behind them was a white bulletin board on an easel. On it, in red marker, was written:

“Today our Year-to-Date production passed $227,000,000 in opened escrows.”

Gary and the young agent felt they were close to raising that figure.

Later I approached Honore. He was ebullient about the evening’s prospect.

“We’ve got a top-end developer taking down a commercial corner in the West Valley during the celebration of St. Andrew’s Day,” he said, poking my shirt occasionally for emphasis.

He thought that was a pretty good story.

But it wasn’t meant to be. When the party was over, the deal still wasn’t. A few more details still had to be worked later on a more sober occasion.