Last month, when author Audrey Lavin read her children’s book ‘How I Survived My Parents’ Big Scary Divorce’ to a roomful of kids, she asked the crowd how many of them came from a separated household. ‘Half the room raised their hand,’ Lavin tells the Palisadian-Post. ‘A lot of adults said, ‘I could use your book.” In ‘Big Scary Divorce,’ illustrated by Bonnie Lemaire (‘Too Many Zucchini for Zachary Beany’), first grader Maggie McFatcha and her brother experience some serious divorce anxiety. Lavin’s light-yet-firm debut tale comes from a real place. ‘It’s based on my own divorce and my daughter’s feelings on the divorce,’ says Lavin, 45. ‘I’ve basically channeled Zoey.’ If Lavin’s name seems familiar, it could be because the Post once wrote about her pig, Arnold, which is named after Hooterville’s most famous porcine citizen. In 1996, Lavin moved to the Palisades, where she lived for 12 years. Despite the divorce and a relocation last September from Rustic Canyon to Santa Monica Canyon, Lavin’s children still attend Seven Arrows Elementary and Lavin feels very much the Palisadian. ‘I come all the time,’ she says. ‘It’s my town.’ Long before she lived here, Lavin grew up ‘in the slums of Beverly Hills’ and studied journalism at San Francisco State. She transitioned from working as a freelance writer for various Rupert Murdoch publications to learning on the job as a writer/director on syndicated news magazines ‘A Current Affair’ (1988) and ‘Hard Copy’ (1994) after Murdoch bought out Metromedia and formed Fox Television. ‘I was raised by a pack of wild Australian journalists,’ she says. ‘I can drink any of them under the table.’ Lavin went on to work on ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ and create such shows as ‘Amazing Tales’ for Animal Planet in 1997, and ‘Power of Attorney,’ which ran for two seasons on Fox. ‘My ex-husband created ‘Judge Joe Brown,” she says. ‘I actually found Judge Joe Brown for him,’ and she adds that she also discovered K-Earth radio personality Lisa Stanley. Today, says Lavin with a laugh, ‘I’m done with entertainment. After so many years of making really [crappy] television, I want to contribute something positive to society.’ Hence, ‘Big Scary Divorce.’ When she decided to publish a children’s book, Lavin eschewed the publishing house channels, hired Montreal-based illustrator Lemaire, and printed it herself. She hopes that seven-year-old protagonist Maggie’s travails will reach ‘other children in the same boat.’ Today, Lavin’s children, Charlie, 11, and Zoey, 9, are doing fine, but they were aged 8 and 6 respectively during her 2005 split, and they underwent counseling, despite their parents’ amicable divorce. ‘They have survived it with amazing grace,’ she says, adding that relations with her ex are good under the circumstances. ‘We’re great co-parents. We have 50/50 custody and we get along great.’ Next up for Lavin: sequels and an October 5 Orange County Book Fair signing. Lavin already has a title for the next Maggie McFatcha installment: ‘It’s called, ‘I Have Two Houses and You Don’t.”

For those of us in Pacific Palisades who enjoy the benevolence of a Mediterranean climate, the influence of Roman garden design on our residential landscapes may be elusive. But looking around at our familiar trees and plants, we may not realize their origins. Pines and bays, boxwood and ivy and a whole salad of herbs’fennel, parsley, and mustard’were indigenous to the ancient Roman world. To understand the history of Roman gardens, a visit to the Getty Villa is an incomparable resource. Louise du Pont made a gesture toward antiquity by creating a ruined garden in Pennsylvania partly modeled on Roman antecedents, and William Randolph Heart’s gardens at San Simeon incorporated partial reconstructions of Roman garden features. But nowhere in the United States can you find a more complete recreation of Roman villa and garden than at the Villa.   J. Paul Getty’s ambitious undertaking in the 70s drew upon the historical plan of the Villa dei Papiri, a large suburban villa just outside of Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples that was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Papirwas rediscovered in 175, and at that time a plan was drawn of the house and the peristyle gardens and pools, which have been faithfully recreated on a hillside in Pacific Palisades overlooking the sea. Getty chose a setting for his villa that the Romans would have approved. While it lies adjacent to the small ranch house the oil magnate used to store his extensive antiquities collection, the Villa takes full advantage of its ocean vista and breezes, and its location on a natural spring. Water was a distinguishing feature in Roman gardens and accounted for the main difference from their Greek antecedents, says Lynn Lynne Tjomsland, manager of grounds and gardens for the J. Paul Getty Trust. The gardens in Roman villas only had fountains and other water features if a villa was situated near a natural water source, such as a spring, stream or river. Urban gardens were nourished by collected rainwater or by water supplied by aqueducts. Common to all Roman gardens, whether in the cities or country villas, was the balance between rich and diverse plantings and strong architectural decoration. As visitors enter the Getty Villa, they make a symbolic walk through history’the walls are layered as if exposing geological strata’and emerge through time until landing at Papir. This march through time, Tomland says, reminds us that Roman gardens were influenced by previous civilizations. They borrowed the symmetrical layout, painted pavilions, terraces, and avenues of trees from Egypt; from Greece they not only copied classical sculpture to place in their gardens, but also the idea of the peristyle (covered colonnades) that formed an intermediary between the house and garden. Roman gardens served several functions. They provided a suitable space for leisure and the arts’the display of sculpture or painted murals. They were also the ancient version of the modern spa, where health and exercise were enjoyed, and they provided space for growing fruits and vegetables, especially new varieties that had been collected from the lands that fell under Rome’s conquest. The gardens at the Getty Villa illustrate basic Roman design principles in both the enclosed garden in which the buildings surround the garden, and the open garden, which surrounds a building. The inner peristyle provides a tranquil setting between the atrium, where visitors enter the museum, and the courtyard garden. The outer peristyle encloses the large garden surrounding the pool. The centerpiece of this garden is the long, narrow reflecting pool, whose water is gently agitated by three low-level jets of water. Statues occupy the niches placed along the pool’s length. Sculpted low evergreen hedges, including boxwood and rosemary, line the walkway alongside the pool, while bay laurel, acanthus and ivy topiary are planted symmetrically on both sides of the pool. The courtyard garden encapsulates a Roman garden on a small scale’water, symmetry and a quiet palette of green and gray-green plants and trees.   The showstopper at the Getty Villa is the outer peristyle garden, dominated by the azure pool that runs the length of the surrounding colonnade. In Roman times, pools such as these were customarily painted blue or lined with blue tiles and provided the cooling effects of the breezes floating over the water. Romans also enjoyed the reflections that played over the surface of the water. The garden is laid out symmetrically, interrupted by intermittent benches placed under pergolas, draped with grapevines. Garden sculpture, both in the pool and stationed along the paths, was intended to evoke a mood set by the owner, be it a sacred theme with figures of gods and goddesses, a sense of reflection with ancient philosophers, or just a rustic atmosphere depicting fauns, satyrs and nymphs. While the Romans enjoyed the luxuries of art and culture, they never lost sight of the fact that the true object of the garden was to display the joys of nature as seen in its plants. And Tjomsland never loses sight of the intention for this garden as it was originally laid out 30 years ago. ‘All the gardens are scripted following the standards of the original landscape design team,’ she says. ‘The garden is an extension of the collection.’ While Tomland acknowledges the advantages of our Mediterranean climate in achieving horticultural authenticity, she has taken some liberties with plant material. ‘So we can present a meaningful picture and feel, it has been necessary to substitute certain varieties for others that are more suitable to our climate,’ she says. ‘The boxwood is the Japanese version, not the English variety, the rosemary and thymes in the herb garden are those that are available on the market.’ Tomland, who also oversees the Getty Center garden, visits the Villa at least three times a week. Her crew of between 45 and 60 groundsmen manage and maintain the garden ‘at a high level all the time,’ she says. ‘The gardens are very stand-alone and part of the regular docent tour.’

Sixty Years Ago, the Community’s Only Movie Palace Opened

by Michael Aushenker

Once upon a time, Pacific Palisades had a movie palace. Palisadian Sam Lagana still has vivid memories of frequenting the Bay Theatre’and with good reason”as a teen, he worked there during its final days in 1978, before it became Norris Hardware.   Lagana still has some mementos given to him on that fateful night 30 years ago. They include posters of ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ and ‘Freaky Friday”’among the last films to play there.   Today, Lagana, 46, is associate vice chancellor of Pepperdine University, but as a 15-year-old Palisades High School student he worked for the Bay as an usher, working his way up to assistant manager.   ’My job was to lock the doors at the end of the evening,’ he said.   Growing up in Pacific Palisades, Lagana remembers the Bay’s evolution from community focal point to community footnote. The Bay opened in July of 1949 as ‘a gorgeous Art Deco single-screen theater,’ Lagana said, ‘but when we got it, it was $1.50 for adults and 99 cents for kids.’   As a youngster, Lagana saw myriad films there: ”Heaven Can Wait,’ all the Disney films, ‘Smokey and the Bandit.’ They were there for three weeks. There was usually a double header in each theater. It was fun.   ’I’d ride my bike to the theater,’ Lagana continued. ‘Everybody was there on the weekends. The parents would drop the kids off.’   ’It was a nice looking theatre,’ agreed Ann Thompson, 82, who has lived near Will Rogers Park since the Bay’s heyday. She recalls taking her son and daughter to see movies. ‘Birthday parties took place there, and the Hot Dog Show was right across the street.’   Lagana was among those kids frequenting the popular frankfurter joint, ‘while parents went to a Mexican restaurant called The Hacienda,’ he said.   ’Originally, the Bay was one large theater,’ Lagana continued. ‘By the time I worked there, it was a twin. The California Cinema Corporation bought it and they split it [in the mid-1970s]. I was a kid when that sort of happened. Their goal was to have films for mature audiences on one screen and a family screen.’   Lagana, who worked under manager Dennis Addy, made many friends at the Bay, including Erin O’Neill and Johnny and Ash Adams. ‘Guys that I went to school and church with worked at the Bay,’ Lagana said. ‘I see them once in a while, they still live in town.’   One of those PaliHi students landed in the Palisadian-Post in dramatic fashion.   ’Bob Bigelow’s claim to fame was that he lived in Santa Monica Canyon,’ Lagana said. ‘One day, he was driving in his brown Camaro when the whole hillside between Temescal and Chautauqua landed on top of his car. It delivered him all the way down to the sand. The Post got a picture of it.’   Lagana and his Bay cronies once engaged in some good ol’-fashioned boosterism.   ’This local guy, Channing Clarkson, who grew up in the Huntington Palisades, he had a small role in a film [1978’s ‘Coach’ starring Cathy Lee Crosby and Keenan Wynn]. I remember we put up ‘Channing Clarkson starring in’ [above the title of the film], like he was the star.’   Other hi-jinks included swinging on the cables of the original screen’s curtains, which remained hidden behind the twin screens when the theater split its facilities.   ’You could ride the mechanism up, it was beautiful,’ he said. ‘The old stage was gorgeous. If you go upstairs in the hardware store, the stairwell is still there and you can almost tell where the balcony and the projection room still is.’   Long before Lagana was born, the Bay Theatre was a prominent part of the Palisades’ cultural life. Designed in an Art Moderne style by famed architect S. Charles Lee (the man behind the Los Angeles, Tower, and Bruin Theatres), the Bay opened in July 1949, and seated 1,100 people (including 80 loge seats on the mezzanine level). The independent movie house’s projection booth was decked out with Simplex E-7 35 millimeter projector heads, SH1000 Soundheads, and Peerless MagNarc lamps. The proscenium was located behind the screen, which was flanked by massive curtains.   At the inaugural Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce meeting on March 29, 1949, J. U. Chaffin, the Bay Theatre’s manager, served as vice-president of the Board of Directors under president Arthur Loomis.   Hollywood’s swimming screen siren Esther Williams ripped tickets at the theater’s 1949 grand opening.   ’Leland Ford, Sr., the ex-U.S. congressman who lived in town, owned the whole block where the Catholic Church and Ralphs is now,’ recalled local historian Randy Young, who has warm memories of the Bay as de facto community hub; a ‘Norman Rockwell-meets-Hollywood’ experience that virtually every young Palisadian growing up in that era.   ’It’s where all the kids would congregate,’ said Young, recalling that stars such as Duncan ‘Cisco Kid’ Renaldo and Leo ‘Pancho’ Carrillo came to plug their 1950s TV series. ‘At age 5, I’m sitting in the theater, and the Cisco Kid pulls out his big shiny gun and shoots it off. The place was packed with kids and it scared the heck out of us.’   According to Young, after the mid-1960s, the Bay began to decline. Originally a first-run theatre, the Bay was twinned and turned into a second-run venue that ran four films at a time following a first run in Westwood.   ’When it closed [in Fall 1978], it was the end of the era,’ Young said. ‘It was a turning point when the town became something else, from a Norman Rockwell existence to a real estate listing.’   Based in the Palisades since 1925, the owners of Norris Hardware overhauled the Bay complex in 1979 and they have been serving Palisadians ever since. Visit Norris today, and you can make out the bones of the old theater. By the shelf liners is where the ticket booth person once collected admission. Over by the greeting cards is where the snack bar used to stand. Where the Bay’s entrance existed, you can now find Corning ware. Upstairs, the restroom area now contains Norris’s seasonal back stock, and a private office used by the store’s owners once housed the projection booth, while along the staircase wall, a dumbwaiter once circulated the film reels dropped off and picked up by the movie companies. On the Sunset Boulevard pavement out front, you can still see the remnants of the entrance terrazzo.   Ultimately, some longtime locals wish that a cinema spot such as the Bay still existed in town.   ’It was so handy,’ Ann Thompson said. ‘Now we have to drive down to Santa Monica to go to the movies.’   ’As a parent now raising my family in town,’ Lagana said, ‘it’s too bad, not only for me, but for my kids. They don’t have the opportunity to have the Bay Theatre to go to. It was a great social place to see people in the community.’

Warm Memories of the Restaurant and its Famed Wing Ding Room

Today, only its legend survives, but the House of Lee once gave this town some color and ethnic flavor, while its adjoining Wing Ding Room bar gave local celebrities a low-key gathering place to unwind.   Awash in velvet paintings and red vinyl booths, Ah Wing Young’s Chinese restaurant had character, and many actors made his bar their ‘House of Libations.’ James Arness, Richard Widmark and Anthony Quinn passed through the strung beads designating the Wing Ding Room a family-free forbidden zone. You could have called this joint the ‘House of Lee Marvin’ given the amount of time the ‘Dirty Dozen’ star spent there.   Palisades historian Randy Young (no relation) remembers spotting several other stars: Patrick McGoohan, Anthony Hopkins, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, Richard ‘Paladin’ Boone, even Steve McQueen.   ’I always remember that the Wing Ding Room was separated from where the families were,’ Young said of the enigmatic area that became a ‘rite of passage’ once a Palisadian turned 21. ‘James Whitmore would stumble through the beads,’ and inebriated celebrities would slip out the back door, Young recalled.   Another famous face frequenting the Wing Ding was ‘Mission: Impossible’ star Peter Graves, a longtime Palisadian.   ’We always went with friends in the Palisades,’ his wife, Joan Graves, told the Palisadian-Post, including friends from the early Palisades Players theater group.   Inexpensive and far from chichi, House of Lee indulged in some old-school Chinese kitsch.   ’The food was so-so but it wasn’t white bread in an extremely white-bread community,’ Randy Young said. ‘It was exotic. The rumaki was pretty deadly, but the deep-fried shrimp was pretty darned good. The portions were large.’   Palisadians frequented the House of Lee because ‘they were always open,’ Graves said. ‘Ah Wing and [his wife] Kay were just delightful. We loved it. Quite often, we would go and take an order and bring it home.’   And while anyone who spent a tad too much time in the Wing Ding will probably not remember what they drank, everyone remembers the hamburgers.   ’After you finished, you had to go to the dry cleaners, because they’ve just dripped all over you,’ the Chamber of Commerce’s Arnie Wishnick told the Post in February 2000, the year the restaurant became what is now the Pearl Dragon.   The road to House of Lee began in turn-of-the-20th-century China. Born in 1907, Ah Wing Young came to America in 1922 from Canton, after his American-born father died young. Raised by his uncles in Philadelphia, Young entered the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and married Kay, a California-bred Chinese-American he met in New York.   In 1947, the Youngs came to L.A.’s Chinatown district to start a new life together. Contractor Bob Wilson, an old friend from Kay’s school days, helped Ah Wing obtain Palisades land for his grand business plan.   House of Lee became the first business on the north side of Sunset Boulevard between Swarthmore and Monument. And when it opened in 1950, Young did it with a bang worthy of a Chinese New Year fireworks display. The town’s conservative Methodist contingent initially made a fuss over Young’s pursuit of a hard-liquor license. He won, landing the only such license in the business district.   In 1957, the Youngs moved into their residence at 857 Castiac Pl., where they raised their daughter. She went on to marry Lieutenant Alan Eggleston, a U.S. Navy pilot stationed at Barber’s Point in Hawaii, and had two children, Christopher and Kevin.   The Youngs were ‘a very important couple in the community,’ Randy Young said. ‘He was head of the Chamber of Commerce, and a major player with the American Legion.’   ’Ah Wing was the most genial host. His wife, Kay, was super. What a lovely lady,’ said Graves, who recalled that the latter worked with kids making costumes for dance recitals at the Ebsen School of Dance.   Ah Wing Young won Citizen of the Year honors in 1958 for his efforts to get the Legion building established on La Cruz Drive, and he promptly donated the $100 prize to the Palisades Youth House.   ’I am in love with this community, and I want to make the community a better place to live in for our children,’ Young said at the time.   In 1973, Young sold his restaurant to his cousin, Jimmy Fong.   ’I would see Ah Wing from time to time at Mort’s,’ Graves said. ‘He always remembered who everybody was. He was a dear, dear soul.’   Young passed away in 1994.   ’I’m going to take it easy,’ Fong told the Post in February 2000, after announcing that House of Lee was up for sale. ‘Twenty-six years is a long time.’ Alas, Fong died of cancer on April 21 that year.   House of Lee served its last Mai Tai on June 1, 2000, after which a group of investors, including lifelong Palisadian Tommy Stoilkovich, bought the establishment, converted it into Pearl Dragon restaurant (after a brief flirtation with the name Little Buddha). While it still echoes remnants of the original restaurant and bar, the new Pan-Asian enterprise bears only a faint echo of House of Lee, having been remodeled and redecorated into a more contemporary environ. In an April 13, 2000 Post article, Stoilkovich revealed that he wanted a ‘more upscale’ restaurant in the tradition of Nobu and Mr. Chow’s with ‘real Asian flair.’ And yet, by popular demand, House of Lee’s famous Wing Ding Burger survived the transition onto Pearl Dragon’s menu.   Today, Pearl Dragon continues to flourish, but like the Village Pantry to Mort’s Deli, the upscale destination stands in the shadow of its predecessor in the minds of many longtime Palisadians.   ’One time I was at House of Lee with Joan Graves and other members of the community council,’ Randy Young recalled. ‘And Mort of Mort’s Deli came to pick up Chinese food for his family. We kind of wondered why he wasn’t eating at his own restaurant. He said, ‘Hey! Where else can you buy a meal for twenty bucks?”