Article 30, My Client is Buying the Stairway to Heaven



If you're a practicing architect especially one in a small firm dealing in an affluent market, over time you must have noticed a particular quality in your clientele: Many of them seem to be trying to buy the "Stairway to Heaven" as the infamous Led Zeppelin song goes (Boy do I love those guys...) So let me explain.

We know the song. Well most of us do (If you don't, get familiar with it, it's worth your time) The song other than being a bit mystical is insightful of the mighty rich who think they can buy just about anything. This song could describe any number of my clients, those who have lots of money and their arrogant false sense of superiority. Now I think this is a common stereotype no doubt and I'm not here to tell you what you already know, no I think there is something else going on beyond the song and the people it describes, at least in my experience dealing with the rich as their architect. I think the stairway to heaven is not an object that is to be bought, nor a metaphor for the ideas of the rich no, it goes far deeper than that, something we can all relate to, at least those of us with an existential thought process and that is immortality.

Now you may be asking "OK dear fellow, the song is nice and we all know a little about the rich and famous and their wonderful attitude but how did you come to the conclusion that your clients are trying to buy immortality, the stairway sort of speak?"

As always I have no scientific data but what I do have is experience and a good intuitive sense. Having dealt with this a number of times, I can only conclude 1 of 2 things: they (the rich) are trying to buy their immortality or two: they suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and need to make my life a living hell in order to gain some mental relief from their psychosis. Well there is a third less likely option and that is that they just want a great house that satisfies all their needs-nah that's never it!

The perfection they seek is not in creating their dream home or satisfying some practical need, it's always about getting it, "just right" whatever that is. If "getting it right " means warding off death and other "bad" things through perfection, then that's an impossible task. The countless hours I have spent on the irrelevant and the trivial for these people would try the patience of Mr. Martin Luther King or Gandhi. These matters and the time spent on them must have some greater significance beyond the hours of picking out a "I don't give a shit color" or "go jump off a cliff with your need for a double shower".  It must be to keep their reaper at bay by seeking perfection; or in other words solving a riddle that will undoubtedly get them into the promise land of ever lasting life. For the rest of us mortality seekers, myself included, there is a sensation one gets when your yard is perfectly manicured and your home is a showpiece for the world to marvel at. You get a sense that all is right in the universe, don't you?

I suspect most people do not know the real reason they fret and fuss over things of little importance which in the grand scheme of things means nothing. Why else would people of reasonable intelligence fritter their precious limited life on things that surely have not the importance of the attention we give it? Oh yes, right, they shall live forever and money is no object...

There's a lady who's sure
all that glitters is gold
and she's buying a stairway
to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
with a word she can get what
she came for

And she's buying a stairway to heaven


There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
Because you know
Sometimes words have two meanings

In a tree by the brook
There's a song bird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts
are misgiving

Makes me wonder

There's a feeling I get
When I look to the west
and my spirit is crying for leaving

In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those
who stand looking

Makes me wonder

And it's whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason

And a new day will dawn
for those who stand long
and the forest will echo with laughter

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean
For the May queen

Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
there's still time to change
the road you're on

Makes me wonder

Your head is humming and it won't go
In case you don't know
The piper is calling you to join him

Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow?
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our souls
There walks a lady we all know
who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
and if you listen very hard
the truth will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
to be a rock and not to roll

And she's buying the stairway to heaven





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