Please Do Not Disturb: Builder, Remade Marriott at Rest

The face lift and body work are finished on the grand, not-so-old gal at the corner of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills. Guests of the Warner Center Marriott hotel will no longer be awakened to the less-than-dulcet song of the jackhammer.

Gone are the men painting the exterior who startled the occasional guest dashing across the room from shower to clothes. A collective sigh of relief has gone up from the management and staff now that the hotel has completed the renovation following the Northridge earthquake.

Some $15 million, thousands of hours of work and 16 months after the rocking and rolling, the hotel has a new look and a new sound: quiet.

No one is more relieved than Randy Sumner, who for the past year and a half has left his Phoenix home every Monday morning and returned to it every Friday evening. During those 69-odd weeks, he’s been overseeing the rebuilding of the Marriott. Anyone who thinks this is a cool way to pile up frequent-flier miles hasn’t taken into consideration Sumner’s workload.

“Since we began the project, we’ve had crews working almost continuously around the clock,” says Sumner, project manager for Interstate Corp., which holds the franchise for this Marriott.

Sumner has certainly put in his time.

He was sent to Woodland Hills the week of the earthquake to devise a plan for reconstruction of the facility without closing it. And he’s been at it, except for weekends, ever since.

“I think we were fairly successful in not interfering with the business of the hotel while closing off three floors at a time to work on. Everything was repaired or replaced including the swimming pool,” says Sumner, who adds that many of the local folks who were staying at the hotel during the renovation were there while their homes were being repaired.

Whole families moved in, sometimes with grandparents, children and even pets, giving the place the look of an upscale refugee camp. He says with all the dogs, cats and even birds around, it got to be a real zoo.

“It did have its funny moments, partially because there was such empathy between the local guests and the work crews. Most everyone had lived through the earthquake and were doing the best they could in difficult circumstances,” Sumner says.

He particularly remembers the time he walked into the engineer’s office and found one of his men baby-sitting a longtime guest’s Doberman pinscher. Another time, a worker was on his hands and knees removing marble flooring from the lobby when he was greeted with a sloppy kiss from another guest’s collie.

He adds that out-of-town guess sometimes were less adaptive to the general upheaval. Many were there on business and were upset by the general “work in progress” look of the place. But Julie Reigle of the hotel’s public relations staff figured out a way to reduce some of the annoyance.

She created the Harvey Wallbanger Club.

“She dressed up the front-desk personnel in hard hats, and work clothes with T-shirts that identified them as Wallbangers. She also wrote a newsletter that let guests know what floors and other areas were being worked on so they felt informed and included in the process,” Sumner says.

One man, he says, got so involved in the process that he demanded Sumner direct him to the place where hard hats were being provided to guests. Sumner says the man seemed to be disappointed to hear that he wouldn’t be issued a construction hat to parade around in.

Because Sumner was away from his Phoenix home and wife Bobbie during the week, he often worked from early morning until 10 or 12 at night. Dinner was on a tray in his room while he did paperwork.

“Every night I’d go down to the hotel’s Parkside Grill and order my dinner, and while I was waiting, I started playing the piano. It got to be sort of a custom for a while,” he says.

He laughs at the idea that some guests might have thought that, in addition to his long hours as project manager, he was required to put in a half-hour or so playing the piano for the dinner guests.

“I did enjoy playing, though,” says Sumner, adding that he once received a grand piano, which he still has in Phoenix, as a bonus from a contractor who was pleased with Sumner’s work.

Now that the work on the Marriott is completed--with all guest rooms and public areas as well as the exterior facade and grounds renovated--it would seem reasonable to think Sumner couldn’t wait to get out, and stay out, of town.

Not so, he says. “I’m proud that the job came in on time and on budget, but, because I was here so often and long, I got to know the staff of the hotel well and I’ll miss what has been my family away from home.”

Julie Reigle says the feeling is mutual.

So Long, It Was Good to Know You

It’s time to say goodby to a couple of notable Valleyites who have appeared in past Chronicle columns.

First, to Ed Lange, a cheerful, funny, volleyball-playing nudist who founded Elysium Institute in Topanga. He died a week ago of natural causes at the age of 75.

Lange, when he opened the clothing-optional institute in 1967, was considered by many to be anything from a public nuisance to the devil incarnate. In recent years, Lange, a former high-fashion photographer, has been cited for his human rights activism, philanthropic contributions to local organizations and was named Topanga Chamber of Commerce’s Man of the Year.

Lange never lost his sense of humor or eagerness to defend and promote nudism. He was always more than eager to explain the difference between nude and lewd to an Elysium guest or a nosy reporter.

Hats off--and any other item of clothing one might care to discard--to salute the life of this unique local character. May he be serving up his sense of humor along with volleyballs in the Elysium Fields on high.

It’s goodby, also, to David Israel of Woodland Hills, the engaging young man who started up the imaginative 1950s-themed Cruisers carwash and coffee shop in Northridge about a year ago.

Like Lange, Israel seemed to be able to cheerfully clear the hurdles of bureaucratic red tape that trip up many entrepreneurs. Like Lange, Israel was willing to devote long hours to his pet project. And like Lange, his enthusiasm was one of the draws that made the unique business a success.

Unlike Lange, Israel never reached his full potential. He didn’t die of natural causes. He died a week before his 30th birthday when a Jeep in which he was riding went over a cliff. He was ejected and the vehicle rolled over him.

He died at Northridge Hospital Medical Center an hour after the accident.

It seems he and three friends had gone for a ride after an evening of beer-drinking while watching a Los Angeles Kings hockey game. The four were in high spirits when they started out on the Mulholland Drive ride.

Only three survived.

It can not be said too often: If you drink, don’t drive.

Overheard:

“Give me the good old days before we women were liberated--back when husbands had to pay alimony when they dumped their wives.”

Fortysomething woman in Tarzana to her mumbling fiftysomething husband at Bed, Breakfast & Beyond.