Honored Guests at the City’s Vast Garden Party
Perched on their pedestals, Diana and Apollo, Venus and Bacchus and a host of other Greek and Roman impostors--some sculpted from Italian marble, others molded of concrete at a San Fernando Valley plant--grace both Westside mansions and nondescript ‘50s apartment houses.
Many Angelenos, it seems, seek status in statuary.
Legions of lions guard the gated estates of Trousdale, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. Behind walls, draped female figures--”The Three Graces,” “The Four Seasons”--grace gardens. Cherubs balance on balconies. Water spouts from the mouths of dolphins into sparkling swimming pools.
It’s all so very L.A. Or is it? “You find much more imitation in Los Angeles than in any part of the States,” observes Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA, “from French cha^teaux to Renaissance palazzos. It may have to do with this whole image of the movies.”
But Angelenos aren’t breaking new ground when they spade up their grass to install a stone god or goddess. Or even an Elvis or the family pet immortalized in stone.
“It’s understandable that you’d have that sort of thing here in California,” says JohnPollini, professor of classical art and archeology at USC, what with our ties to Spain and Spanish architecture. When Spain was part of the Roman Empire, he says, “They imitated what went on at the center of the empire, Rome. Using sculpture was a way of indicating they felt they were very much a part of the Roman world.
“Literary evidence,” Pollini says, “indicates private individuals wanted to have the originals--if they could afford them and they were available. If not, they had plaster casts made of statues and used those in their homes, as we do today.”
Both aristocrats and nouveau riche went in for enormous displays of statuary as evidence of their wealth, much as today “putting up statues of classical works in front of your house is an indication of status, that one is cultivated or cultured,” Pollini says.
At Sculpture Design Imports in Beverly Hills, culture comes at a price--frequently five figures. Pointing to a $29,000 lion, co-owner George Judah says, “Solid marble, 700 pounds, all hand-carved” in Carrara, Italy.
Long ago, Paul Bracci, sales manager of Al’s Garden Art in Colton, learned that “beauty is in the eye of the beholders.” How else to explain a client wanting a rip-off of Brussels’ tourist-titillating mannequin pis--but with a powerful pump enabling the mannequin to pee 20 feet into the swimming pool?
“Others want the water to come out of the bosoms of the statue, any statue that’s topless, like Diana,” Bracci adds.
At the Florentine Art Studio in South El Monte, “Venus is popular, with or without her arms,” says manager Grace Arrighi. And, now and then, someone decides to make a real statement by gussying up a classic. One customer covered Michelangelo’s David in pink polka-dots. Another clothed him in Bermuda shorts.
“We deal mostly with the rich and famous,” says Judah, who mentions almost in the same breath Sylvester Stallone and the Sultan of Brunei. Displayed in his office are photos of the onetime Larry Flynt estate where the paralyzed Flynt ripped out the tennis court and created a fantasy in marble.
“Most of our stuff comes from Greek mythology,” Judah says, leading the way through a large interior space that houses assorted marble or sandstone deities, lions, urns and planters. “A customer will walk in, buy a $30,000 fountain and ask, ‘Can you deliver it tomorrow?’ They may be having a party.” For the impatient, instant aging with brushed-on graphite powder is an option.
“People want things bigger and bigger because their estates are getting bigger,” Judah explains. “You have five or 10 acres. What are you going to decorate it with? A lot of our business goes to Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and Malibu.” He smiles. “Where else could this succeed, if not in Beverly Hills?”
He adds, “Real expensive estates do not want cement statues.”
And what do the beautiful people do with thousands of dollars’ worth of stone and marble when they move to an even pricier home?
Some leave it; others take it. One client installed $350,000 in sculpture in his oceanfront home in Hawaii. A Japanese buyer, having paid $22 million for the property, “took a bulldozer and ran right through everything, gazebos, everything” and put in a Japanese garden.
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At Garden Statuary in Tarzana, “Everything’s concrete,” fashioned from molds at a plant in Chatsworth, says Judy Buksar, co-owner with husband Don.
“They’ll last forever, barring an earthquake.” (She mentions in passing that they had their best year in 1994, patching up gods and goddesses and the like that lost limbs in the quake.)
Custom jobs have included a huge fountain for Mike Tyson’s foyer, Pegasus for a horse ranch in Hidden Valley and a pair of 14-foot lions for Monarch Estates, a Las Vegas housing development. Now, she says, “Siegfried and Roy are real interested in the lions for their home.”
Sharon Stone ordered a big godlike head to spit water into her pool.
Ever-popular off-the-shelf items include David, who’s available in a 6-foot version starting at $995. The bust of Beethoven isn’t a big seller, but Madonnas sell briskly at Easter time, as do angels, and Halloween can be counted on as “the gargoyle season.”
A 5-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty ($995) atop a 4-foot pedestal ($995) is popular with ex-New Yorkers. “They want it for their backyard,” Buksar says. For added authenticity, a few hundred dollars more will get you lights in that pedestal.
People travel to Europe, see beautiful fountains and statuary, and want to duplicate them on their own little slice of Southern California, Buksar says. “It all starts when you decide to have a bench for your garden. Then it’s, ‘Maybe I should have a little pot,’ and pretty soon there’s a statue or two. I’ve seen some really strange things.”
USC’s Pollini observes that the more sophisticated might actually know their Mercurys from their Minervas, “but that would be rather unusual. Among the elite class, we can’t presume education. They’ll have creations of the Renaissance mixed in with Greco-Roman things--and most of them probably wouldn’t know the difference anyway.”
UCLA’s Loukaitou-Sideris mentions, “I’m from Athens. You see these things in museums.” But in private homes? “There’s nothing of that sort.”
