Not a Garden-Variety Walk Down the Aisle
One day Pyung Im--the Rev. Pyung Im--went shopping for a church site and wound up with a rain forest.
It wasn’t some kind of mystical-religious experience. In fact, it’s kind of hard for him to explain. He saw a “For Lease” sign on a big warehouse-like building on a commercial strip of Hawaiian Gardens and decided to take a look inside.
Im found himself in The Rainforest, a tropical fantasy with man-made rain, a man-made waterfall and man-made fog, with exotic fish and chirping birds. A labyrinth of tangled vines, giant ferns and banana trees.
A church, it wasn’t. Still, Im had to have it: “I liked this place. It was very peaceful.” The owner wanted $200,000 up front on a 10-year lease at $4,000 a month. So what would a man of the cloth do?
“I pray. I pray. It worked.” Five months later, he signed the lease, for $20,000 earnest money. Now, he had to figure out what to do with a rain forest.
“Plants, toys are not good business. And I had to pay the rent. A lot of people suggested a restaurant. Or maybe garden weddings.” Weddings, Im thought--good idea. And think what you save on the flowers!
In the two years since, there’s been a wedding in The Rainforest just about every Saturday. Some days he books two or three.
Most couples, like Julie Florin and Roger Alfaro of Bell, exchange vows in the small white gazebo Im built beyond the waterfall and koi pond. Julie explains, “I always wanted a garden wedding.” She found The Rainforest in the Yellow Pages. And where did the Alfaros honeymoon? Hawaii, of course.
Bernice Estrada had never considered a garden wedding until her sister-in-law spotted The Rainforest. “I’ve been driving by there for at least 20 years and had never realized what it was.”
It is a bit unlikely, out there among an auto repair shop, a family dentist and a janitorial supply house.
And if it’s a bit Disneyesque, well, it was designed and built by Tim Bunner, a former Disneyland art director. He loved the tropical atmosphere of Costa Rica and “wanted to bring a piece of that back to Southern California.” That was in 1988.
He and wife-to-be Judy then went into the exotic plant business in their 13,000-square-foot nursery, 200 feet long and 30 feet at the peak of its corrugated roof.
Bunner remembers, “We thought it could be a little jewel in an ocean of problems.” It was a lifelong investment but, by December, 1991, a somewhat disillusioned Tim and Judy Bunner moved to Oregon, to escape urban violence and find a place “with trees and water and space.”
A few months later, along came Im.
Plunging into the unknown was not new to him. Immigrating from Korea in 1973, he’s joined the Army “to learn American language, customs.” Later, he ran a tailor shop on a military base in Anchorage and owned a gift shop in Hollywood.
Three years ago he was ordained in the Korean Presbyterian Church, but he doesn’t have time these days for preaching, what with cultivating his forest. Once in a while he’ll perform a Korean wedding at his place. He preaches on Sundays--but at a nondenominational church in South-Central L.A.
The Bunners’ former greenhouse is now a bridal shop, run by Im’s wife, Hyeock, who makes custom gowns. With that, the tuxedo rentals, and $300-$500 for each wedding, “We can survive here,” says Im.
Is Bunner horrified to see brides and grooms in his rain forest? Not at all. “It’s a great idea,” he says. “We thought of it ourselves.”
Indeed, he and Judy were married there three months before they moved north.
Senior Harmony
We dropped by for the monthly house meeting at El Greco, an ethnically mixed cooperative apartment community that is home to 14 seniors--10 singles, one couple from Russia, another from South America.
They pulled up patio chairs and formed a circle in the shade of a big golden trumpet tree in the lushly planted patio. And then they got down to business.
Muriel Mines, 72, opened the meeting by reporting that she’d written to Hillary Rodham Clinton “on behalf of all of us.” She’d told the First Lady that “we’re very concerned about the problems of Medicare.”
And, Mines added, “I got an answer. They said they are delighted we are concerned individuals who have written in record numbers.” She paused. “Well, we’ll see. I’m analyzing her handwriting.”
Nettie Goldstein, 74, offered the treasurer’s report: “We’ve got $29.90. We’re a little richer.”
And then Lee Henry, 67, brought up the matter of bugs. It seems that some unidentified crawling things had invaded the graceful 64-year-old Spanish-style building and were nipping at some of the residents.
Appropriately, it was B.J. Kelly, a retired geologist of “over 70,” who brought up the subject of earthquakes. Referring to the recent big one in Japan, he noted, you never know...
Had everyone established a safe hiding place in their own unit that they could find in the dark? Did all the women know how to shut off the gas? After all, what if all the men were to have heart attacks?
Janet Witkin, executive director of Alternative Living for the Aging, a seniors’ roommate referral service in Los Angeles, was sitting in. She suggested that, in the event of the big one, they’d need to address psychological as well as practical needs: “Whatever works for you. If you’re into praying, pray.”
At her urging, the group’s members talked about life at El Greco. Were they happy? Lonely? Discontent? A few grumbled about the size of the apartments. And one or two mentioned little conflicts.
But Henry seemed to put his finger on what really counts: “When you want to be alone, you can be alone.” When you want companionship, it’s always available.
New business included a discussion about the need to trim that golden trumpet tree. At 5:15, an hour and 15 minutes after the meeting started, Clara Gurowitz, who’s “over 62,” broke it up: “I’m hungry.”
The El Greco family is a real mix, stirred up now and then by its own Perle Mesta, in the person of Muriel Mines, who always has something cooking on the stove and is ready to share.
She endorses Alternative Living’s basic premise that older people who are self-reliant are better off in mini-communities than in institutions or living alone. And that even those pretty much set in their ways will adapt to new ideas, new people.
“I’ll never say it’s perfect here. Life is not perfect,” Mines said. “But we did learn to live together, regardless of our differences.”
She laughed. “When you’re young, you can fight and flee.”
After the meeting, she mentioned that last year she had eye surgery, had her teeth pulled and broke her nose in a fall. Through each crisis, she felt she was sheltered by family.
Her first set of dentures were killing her, she recalled, so one day she just left them out. Because this is family, she felt no need to hide behind closed doors.
When one of the other residents, aghast, said, “Muriel, you look so old . . . “, she just smiled and said, “Yes, but I feel so good.”
