Men’s Club: June 2018 News

Red roses, round dining tables, pretty faces, a meal of bacon, sausage, eggs, fruit, and rolls—and an eloquent presentation by architect Alan Hess. CW, Jack Christiansen, and the Clark team hit a grand slam for our first meeting after Mother’s Day honoring mothers, SO’s, widows, wives, and spice. Architect Alan Hess, an architect, author, lecturer and advocate for preservation of 20th century Southern California architecture, led us through significant local finds. Architecture in Orange County—is there any? Of course. It’s solid modernism, sometimes disappearing. Hess noted that replacement may be okay, but we should look for replacement with something better and not replace flourishes and style with blank boxes. Washington’s Mount Vernon home in Virginia illustrates how revival and recovery from decay and ruins in 1850 turned the estate into a current historical treasure. In Orange County, our premier historical monument is the Mission at San Juan Capistrano and its basilica ruins. Santa Ana has the old courthouse now repurposed as a museum across the street from the Howe-Waffle House. The City of Orange has a downtown preservation district, adding to the current economic vitality of the
city. Hess’s presentation included a litany of noted names in our architecture with slides of their contributions. Hess pointed out advantages derived from master planning, including parkway landscaping and repurposing architectural masterpieces like Philip Johnson’s Crystal Cathedral, created for Pastor Robert Schuller, which has been restated as Christ Cathedral, Catholic Diocese of Orange Pastoral Center. And he reminded us that we cannot leave postmodern Orange County architecture without mentioning Disneyland.
Bob Borland updated us on the three Men’s Club scholarship winners, who will be present at our next meeting. The Del Mar outing will offer winners and winner tips, departing at noon on August 9. There will be no meeting on June 5 so that we can vote in the California Primary. As we used to say in Philadelphia: Vote early and vote often! The next meeting will be on June 19 with a special breakfast by the new Russell and Dohner team. The Enger team elves will continue to serve at this breakfast under the new leadership. At the June meeting we expect to hear from the District Attorney candidates. If my facts are correct, the July 3 meeting will be held on July 4 as the community pancake breakfast, again led by Russell and Dohner. After July 4, we resume our regular irregular schedule with lots and lots of candidates making their pitches.
—Robert Saint-Aubin