Odds & Ends Around the Valley : The End of the Storybook House
For years, drivers on Dixie Canyon in Sherman Oaks noticed the cheery little house covered with hand-painted hearts, vines and other decorative shapes. On the back wall is a surprisingly accurate rendition of a Gaugin painting.
The house is about to be torn down, and none of the neighbors are complaining. They were not too fond of its reclusive and unconventional former owner--a retired (but formerly prominent) Beverly Hills dentist, Sydney Garfield, who died less than a year ago.
The new owners, Jerry and Michele Mendelsohn, who had tried to buy the house, for its lot, for four years, were quite surprised to discover that the fairy-tale exterior masked a bizarre interior. Every inch of wall space was covered with nightmarish art, and dozens of brass address-numbers were affixed to floors, walls and ceiling.
“Judging by the exterior, I anticipated decent hardwood floors with pastel sheets on the beds--nothing like this,” Jerry Mendelsohn says. “It was filthy beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The Mendelsohns remain fascinated with the former owner. In a shed behind the house were former patients’ dental records and stacks of original and exceedingly long screenplays with titles like “Le Juicey Giraffe” and “Caution--Creation Two.” A manuscript called “The Fountain of Resculptured Youth” was filled with the dentist’s drawings and notes of both a scientific and fantastic nature.
The owners’ own firm, Mendelsohn Design and Construction, will break ground in mid-August on a new two-story home on the site.
Summer Magic
For David Dobkin, 10, of Sherman Oaks, the Magic Johnson Basketball Camp at Cal Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks was a dream come true. Never mind its grueling 8 a.m.-to-8-p.m. Never mind that his idol intended to teach him about discipline and hard work as much as about fancy footwork.
“I got to play one-on-one with Magic,” David recalls. “Well, actually it was 10-on-one,” he clarifies.
So which is more exhausting for Magic: playing with the kids or with the Lakers? “The kids wear me out more. Definitely,” he says with a laugh. “I get to eat lunch when I play with the Lakers, but not here. Every kid has a thousand questions he wants to ask me during the lunch break.”
The four most popular questions are: Who will play center for the Lakers next season? How many girlfriends do you have? How much money do you make? Do you know so-and-so?
Magic says he doesn’t mind, though. “I was like them once, and I haven’t forgotten where I came from,” he says.
About 85% of the 330 youngsters who go to Johnson’s camp return for the next year’s session, and David Dobkin plans on being one of them.
Pin Pals, Ear Things
The West Coast is finally catching on to an Encino secret known on the East Coast: jewelry designer Janny Khalili. This month a pair of her earrings is splashed across a feature called “Gilded Page” in Elle, and since the magazine came out she has received orders from several West Coast stores, including Nordstrom in San Francisco.
Mostly, she designs pins and earrings out of her home. (The ones in Elle cost $38.) “My stuff is filigreed and very romantic--kind of Renaissance and French looking,” she says. “All are 18-karat gold-plated, and I use a lot of antique pieces that I collect, from Europe, New York and Rhode Island.”
Women can easily be more creative in wearing pins, Khalili says. “You can wear a pin on your sleeve or on the back of your dress or sweater.”
That’s one creative way to back-stab.
Higher Vision
“It’s not as easy to see planes from a window in a mobil trailer as it is to see them from up here,” says Don Poore, air-traffic manager at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima. He is referring to the airport’s new 60-foot tower, which will be dedicated Aug. 11.
He and four other air-traffic controllers moved into the tower about a month ago. Previously, they did indeed direct air traffic from mobile-trailer headquarters--and without the help of radar.
Whiteman Airport didn’t have any air-traffic controllers at all until October of last year. And they still don’t have radar, but they now have the advantage of height. “It’s strictly eyeball, and on smoggy days, it’s pretty tough,” concedes Poore. “You rely greatly on accurate pilot-position reports.”
Vital stats: 700 planes are parked on the Whiteman field, 500 more than in 1970. There are an average 500 takeoffs and landings daily, compared with 1,200 a day at Van Nuys Airport.
Artist in Residence
Most young artists eventually give up their palette in favor of a regular paycheck. Yet artist Mary Angela, 61, of Canoga Park has managed to support herself and raise three children since her divorce in 1974.
She is at work on paintings to be exhibited in her own one-woman show at the Pacific Palisades Gallery in December. She specializes in portraits, and has had many other shows, including one in China in 1987.
“The hardest part about being an artist is to keep abreast of changing times,” she says. “A gallery is here one day and gone tomorrow. And now they look not only at the aesthetics of art but how it works as decoration in a home. And also, now there’s such an influx in this area of people from all over the world--Japan, the Middle East--that your work has to fit in with their ethnic heritage and background for them to like it.”
Country-Works in Northridge carries some of her miniatures and standard-size oils, as well as a line of prints. Her home at 22143 Sherman Way in Canoga Park is also her studio and a gallery, open to the public if you ring the bell and she happens to be there.
Overheard at . . .
“Why is the freeway bumper to bumper at 10 o’clock in the morning? Shouldn’t everyone already be at work by then?” --Art’s Deli in Studio City
