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| My crude 1 minute sketch of Richard Lear at his desk. |
Written By Lewis Portal
Who is your Tenzing Norgay? Who in the hell am I talking about you ask? I'm talking about a person in your life who has influenced or inspired you in some way and maybe responsible or partly responsible for helping you achieve some life success. I believe that every great name, famous, successful person or anyone else that's had a modicum of success has had such a person in their life. There is a clever scene from the movie, Intolerable Cruelty, that puts this nicely. A ruthless but somewhat lovable divorce Lawyer, played by George Clooney, is explaining to his bewildered assistant how to locate their adversary's "Tenzing" to help win their case. You see he explains, every successful person (paraphrasing) "has their Tenzing Norgay, find hers". (Tenzing by the way is the Sherpa who helped Sir Edmund Hillary climb Mt Everest)
Now I realize Tenzing may not have been Hillary's mentor but for sure he was an integral part and a key component in helping him become the first person ever to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, cementing Hillary's legendary success and place in history. Without him he couldn't have done it. An obvious example of a mentor in the architectural world and one that heavily influenced architectural history is that of Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, as we know from history, praised no one. This cantankerous crank thought himself an architectural god up until the day that he died. However, he would call Louis Sullivan his "Lieber Meister" or beloved master throughout his life. Very few others come to mind who Wright admired, Walt Whitman being another I can think of. I believe the path to success besides hard work, tenacity, never giving up, lucky breaks, making good decisions, having supportive people in your circle of life, fortunate circumstances, a good economy, being talented, being able to translate talent into practical use, finding good schooling-having the financial resources for good schooling, a positive attitude, some good self confidence, living in a place that offers opportunity or seeking a place of opportunity, beside these small things a mentor is a spectacular gift to have, better than anything else I just mentioned, at least for me it was.
I was spoiled beyond belief by my mentor and my first "professional" job that he gave me; it changed my life. I say I was spoiled because as it turned out, providence had a life altering experience in store for me, a positive one at that. Through chance, and a bit of luck I happened to meet on a construction site my future mentor's better half, Elizabeth Lear, a talented Landscape Architect practicing in the Hamptons. After some getting to know each other discussion, I mentioned I was searching for an architectural position. She suggested I meet her husband to ask him for a job. I was an inexperienced soul, green as the grass on the exclusive golf courses found in the Hamptons but excited by the prospect and called her husband to schedule an interview. So there I was in Southampton village, sitting on a bench on the grounds of the former Parrish art museum, across the street from the place where I was to be interviewed. It was an overcast gloomy day, gray, like in the movie, "The Ghost Writer" and like the lead character I was full of apprehension. I had brought along a bunch of books, math, engineering and some others, studying feverishly for an hour in preparation for my interview. I was nervous and thought, "Here it is, my chance to do it, I have to nail this". The time came and I walked across the street.
With my portfolio in hand, I entered an old brick building that sat in the heart of Southampton village across from the village police station and next to what would be a staple in my life as it was Richard's, "Barrister's". Many good times with Richard and friends I would have there along with spotting famous people such as Mel Brooks and other actors at this local pub. Up the flight of stairs I went, and into an office I entered where I found a late middle aged stocky, distinguished man, sporting a salt and pepper wavy hairdo. His voice was hoarse and it seemed to me like I just found a long lost Doobie Brother as he sat at his drafting table turning to greet me. The interview must have went well or he took pity on me I don't know which, for he hired me- on the spot. I was shown my office: a rather small space with a huge wow factor. My desk overlooked a giant plate glass window with views onto the hustle and bustle of Main Street, Southampton-how spectacular I thought. This was my first job and I felt I scored- I was given an opportunity to put my nascent architectural skills to work. Although I had no "real" architectural skills to speak of, except that which I learned in school, and that which I learned working with my dad in the concrete business I was eager to show the world how great I was.
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| My office overlooking Main Street Southampton |
It was the age before computer drafting and I had to prove my merit with actual hand drafting, fancy that today. Life was good. I had my own office with a million dollar view, a boss who only bothered me with instructions for doing this or that task and a chance to prove myself and my skills. It helped a thousand fold that I never felt big brother as I later found in other offices I worked at, sometimes being scrutinized for trivial minutia. I was given the key to the office and asked to open it promptly at 8:30 am every morning and wait for the daily "what to do today" phone call that would come always at the same time from Richard. His first words out of his mouth every time were never "good morning", but a RESOUNDING, "ohhh yeah" would bellow from the phone initiating the start of a new day. Looking back at this time in my life, I was truly blessed for the couple of years I worked there. For no other place or person ever came close to matching what was given to me at that time. In fact every subsequent experience after leaving that office would be horrific in comparison, and I knew it. Imagine your first Professional job working for someone like Richard, who was a people person, affable, good humored, extremely talented and loved the world and every thing it had to offer, a high standard was set indeed. Also designing and working on beautiful beach houses, old colonial homes and a few modern structures in a beautiful setting offered by the Hamptons helped to immortalize my experience there. Richard attracted the most eccentric, weird and wonderful people found in the Hamptons. I'm not talking about the awful obnoxious, pretentious element that is attracted to wealth and fame or those who want to rub elbows with them. Unfortunately those folks bring an attitude that could only be fixed by a Spartan kicking them into a bottomless pit. No, these were artist friends for the most part, and thoughtful local people with few exceptions here and there. One of Richard and Elizabeth's friends who I found most fascinating was Emmerick Bronson; a beret wearing ex. Cosmo. photographer who lived in Paris for a time and was an entertaining eccentric.
Richard Lear was in my opinion and will always be, the Mozart of architecture. He seemingly drafted complete buildings straight from his head to paper, first draft, no revising. These designs were beautiful and needed little to no work even after the client reviewed them. Richard once showed me a set of construction plans he did...in pen and ink! For those of you who have worked with pen and ink in the old days and know how much info goes into a construction set of drawings, undoubtedly you find this impossible to pull off but it is true I can assure you. I would of course learn from this master and adopt many of his skills which to this day I still employ. I left that world of Richard for reasons of career growth, which had I known then what I know now I probably never would have left. I did not return to Richard's office, except for a rare visit here and there, and learned of Richard's last days; he was suffering from an agonizing terminal disease. I decided to write him a letter, the timing of which was miraculous-he received it the day before he passed. Elizabeth recounted to me she read my letter to him on that last night he would spend in this world, nodding in approval of what was read. So there it is, my story of my Mentor.
Richard Lear Memorial at longhouse
I must give accolades to Elizabeth Lear who without her support and influence I would never have met Richard and my life would not have taken the path that it did. Elizabeth has always been a constant that I could count on and a shinning star in the Hamptons or anywhere else. I was a struggling architect looking for a job when I met her and she struck up a heartfelt conversation with me even though I was a complete stranger to her. The universe provided for me and maybe that was my time to shine and for that I am ever thankful.
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| Hand drafted sketch I did while at my Lieber Meister office |
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| Moving on to other office's I continued the tradition of hand drafting |
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