You may not see a bear or coyote up there, but you can camp under the stars at the new Cushman Watt Scout Center and check out the downtown Los Angeles skyline.
The unique project was partly funded by $4 million in donations from real estate luminaries Ray Watt and John Cushman, who are board members of the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The center, at Temple Street and Rampart Boulevard, features a half-acre urban park atop a one-story parking garage. It includes native California trees and foliage, and yes, some artificial turf. Boy Scouts use the park for training and other activities.
“What really makes it neat is we are bringing the camping experience, the outdoor experience, to the inner-city youth,” said Robb Scoular, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, and president and chairman of the L.A. Boy Scouts council.
The experience atop the garage is different from Scoular’s days as a Scout in Montana, where he grew up. But there are no plans to release any wild animals in the urban park to give it a backwoods feel.
Well, “birds will get there on their own,” said John Semcken, vice president at Majestic Realty and chairman of the committee that handled the construction of the center.
Sweet Ride
Sam Nazarian has several Cadillacs of his own, so it makes sense that he’d partner with the carmaker. Nazarian’s SBE Entertainment Group, which owns a bevy of nightclubs and lounges in Los Angeles, has partnered with Cadillac to provide guests of its establishments with chauffeured driving in Escalade SUVs or CTS sedans. The service will be available at the company’s forthcoming SLS Hotel.
Nazarian extolled the virtues of Cadillacs, even giving them an edge in one category over his Bugatti Veyron, which retails for close to a cool $2 million and goes 253 miles an hour.
“I personally have my own Cadillacs, in L.A., Las Vegas and Miami. They have way more trunk space than the Bugatti!” Nazarian said.
Architect Eats
Local architect Stephen Jones, designer of new Santa Monica brasserie Anisette, said he gets a thrill out of dining in the eateries he helps create.
“I’m always very excited and overwhelmed by the fact that we were able to pull off the design,” said Jones, over lunch at Anisette last Monday. He ordered the chicken and this reporter had the mussels. “I’m also relieved that some of the issues that we’ve fretted about seem to not be as big an issue when the project comes together.”
For example, he wanted a separate raw oyster bar at Anisette but there was not enough room; he was pleased in the end with the way it was blended into the regular bar.
Daniel Miller can be reached at [email protected].
