Playa Vista Foe Chains Herself to Gehry’s Door

The protest against architect Frank O. Gehry’s involvement in the Playa Vista development turned personal Wednesday when a longtime friend chained herself to the door of his Santa Monica design studio and was arrested.

Valerie Sklarevsky, 56, was booked on suspicion of trespassing and resisting arrest after police snipped bicycle-lock cables connecting her to the main entrance at the Cloverfield Boulevard office.

“Go home. You have the day off,” Sklarevsky told Gehry’s employees reporting to work shortly before 9 a.m.

Sklarevsky--a onetime development company worker turned environmental activist--said she is upset that the architect is designing buildings for a 60-acre portion of Playa Vista and eventually plans to move his office there.

“I’m deeply concerned for his health” and that of “his wife and children,” Sklarevsky said, referring to what she and other critics contend are potentially dangerous hydrogen sulfide and methane gases beneath the site for the massive housing, office and retail project near Marina del Rey.

Gehry missed the confrontation, arriving for work several minutes after police hauled Sklarevsky off in handcuffs. He said he will not press trespassing charges against her.

The pair’s friendship dates to 1969, when Sklarevsky worked for a Baltimore builder that used Gehry as an architectural consultant. She displayed snapshots of her and a smiling, youthful Gehry to a dozen other demonstrators gathered outside his office.

Gehry said he was concerned when Sklarevsky telephoned a few days ago and told him she was going on a hunger strike against Playa Vista.

“When she called me, she called as an old friend,” he said.

The architect said he advised Sklarevsky that there are numerous wetland areas in Southern California that are far better candidates for preservation than Playa Vista.

The much-acclaimed designer of the Disney Concert Hall, under construction in downtown Los Angeles, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Gehry said he would never locate his office on a site where toxic gases were a danger. A study released in March by Los Angeles officials found that underground gas problems can be adequately handled at the site.

“I’ve got 130 employees. I won’t move there if I think there’s a problem. But as far as I can determine, Beverly Hills has a higher reading of toxic gas than Playa Vista.”

Sklarevsky remained in jail late Wednesday in lieu of $1,000 bail. A colorful and veteran activist who says she has been arrested more than 35 times at demonstrations, she lives in a trailer in Malibu and works with an environmental group that practices organic gardening in Guatemala.

Last month, Playa Vista developers offered to sell a 193-acre portion of the site to a national conservation group to preserve more of the wetlands’ wildlife habitat.

But Sklarevsky said the entire 1,087-acre Playa Vista area should be kept in a natural state.

“The Ballona wetlands are part of an ecosystem that is sorely needed for Los Angeles,” she said as officers moved in to arrest her. “Shame on Frank Gehry for lending his international reputation to this project.”