Debra Lipp, my brother Glen Alexander Joel, and his wife Rachel are solely responsible for who we are today.
Road Trip to California
I graduated from Alta High School in Sandy, Utah, in 1982. I attended the University of Utah the following year and moved into an on-campus dormitory. There, I met a few new friends at a local poker party.
After developing a friendship, we decided to correct the missed opportunity to take a graduation road trip and follow through with a road trip to Los Angeles, California.
We all hopped in the car and headed for Venice Beach. Over the next three days, we would stop at every beach and take a dip to say we’d been there.
Meeting Debra Lipp
While in Malibu, while exploring the low-tied sea life, I approached a woman who was observing Breaker and asked her what she had found.
She showed me the abundance of living in a tide pool and started a conversation. I learned she was a graphic designer living in Washington, D.C., visiting a client in Pasadena, and spending some time on the Pacific Coast.
I explained why I was there. When she asked what I was studying, I told her I was interested in architecture.
She asked if I had any experience in art, and I told her that I was very much into caricature art and had my cartoon line called “I-zoids.” I proceeded to share with her all the architects I admired and what I wanted to do with my life: become a cartoonist with a syndicated strip in newspapers across the country. I concluded that I was following my parent's wishes to pursue a career in something that made money.
She said that what she did was enough to pay for a lifestyle she enjoyed. This was the first indicator of what was to come.
After talking for about 20-30 minutes, she asked if I could join her for a UB-40 concert at the Hollywood Bowl. At that point, I didn’t care if my friends left me behind or not, but they were excited for me.
That night we went to the concert and developed a decade-long friendship. Over the next eight years we would send each other letters that were graced with doodling, illustrations, and graphic designs.
Back to School
During my collegiate years, we corresponded by writing letters that were pieces of art. I have them stored somewhere, but I need help locating them.
Her letters would include her life experiences as a graphic designer, sharing her artwork and process.
I worked as a valet, shuttle bus driver, and concierge at the Sheraton in downtown Salt Lake City to pay for my college lifestyle. I had the fortune of picking up and dropping off famous politicians, musicians, and international figures.
Perks of Being a Limo Driver
Some of the rides included Chuck Mangione, Glenn Tilbrook of the band Squeeze, Sam “Sluggo” Phipps of Oingo Boingo,
However, Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi financier who was in town overseeing his current film Halloween 5, was my most important ride of all. The film was filmed in Utah, and most of the cast was hosted at the Hotel. Instead of a tip, each offered complimentary tickets to their show, while Adnan asked me for something more: an invitation to have a conversation in his hotel suite.
As I entered his suite, I realized that the main cast of Halloween 5 surrounded me. I recognized Donald Pleasence immediately.
Adnan was in a separate room, and I was directed to join him. He asked me if I could take a side job as a chauffeur for his nephew, Dodi Fayed, an Egyptian film producer overseeing the film's production. He mentioned that he liked how I drove and behaved during his ride.
Halloween 5
Within a day, I was picking up Dodi in a car of his choosing, a brand-new Pontiac Fierro. We drove to the set of Halloween 5 and back to his townhouse rental daily. Sometimes, I would drop him off at the set, pick him up later, and wait for him to finish his business.
One time I was waiting, the director needed a few more extras for the barn scene and called me over and asked if I want to be in it. With my face turned away from the camera, as I was running and screaming out of the barn scene. Most of it wasn't used and the scene was reduced a couple getting away from the party and becoming victims or MLoads of fun.
Triad International
Other trips included rides to his uncle’s Triad International Salt Lake City headquarters outside the Airport. I met two architects there who noticed I was peeking into their offices.
They asked if they could help me, and I told them who I was but took an interest in the new Triad Gateway center model on their credenza. I told them I studied architecture at the University of Utah and was fond of the upcoming Triad complex built just west of downtown.
As filming concluded for Halloween 5, my job as Dodi's chauffeur ended, but only after his Fiero caught fire while I was waiting in his parking lot.
For my Junior and Senior years, I interned at Triad International Salt Lake City Division as an assistant to John O'Dowd A.I.A. and Michael Jimerson A.I.A. Our office was commissioned to design the interior commercial and retail spaces at the Triad Complex, then known as the Gateway to Utah Center.
Upon graduating from the University of Utah in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities, specializing in German and minoring in Art, I had fulfilled all the necessary prerequisites to apply for graduate school. My goal was to further my studies and pursue a Master's degree in Architecture.
Sadly, on April 18, 1989, Adnan Khashoggi, of Triad International, was arrested in Switzerland for concealing funds, obstruction of justice, and his involvement in the Iran Contra Affair.
Heading East to Washington D.C.
With an opportunity lost, Debra, now a Corcoran College of Art + Design-trained graphic designer, suggested that I come East for a break and a culture change to enrich my experience in architecture. While she lined up some potential job opportunities, I applied to the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Maryland.
After being accepted to the University of Maryland, Debra offered me an apartment in the attic of her Tacoma Park apartment. She would spent time showing me around Washington D.C. and the surrounding areas of Baltimore and Virginia just on the other side of the Potomac.
My appointments with architectural firms didn’t pan out because the country was experiencing a slight recession, and nobody was hiring.
Change of Trade
At the time, Debra had a friend, Larry Silverman (sp?), a local construction contractor, whom she suggested I meet for employment. It may not be architecture, but his projects involved the older Georgetown and downtown D.C. architecture, which might enrich my life differently. Boy, was she right?
Larry had me meet him for an interview at a Silver Springs home.
It was a home built on a foundation, with the house sitting a foot above solid clay. The space and water heater are six feet below the ground surface, in a pocket of a hole.
He said the owner wants a basement, so we need to excavate the clay, support the foundation, and create a new floor 8 feet below the bottom of the floor joist on the ground floor above.
Larry said the interview was a test to determine how I recommend performing this task. He said he would leave me to “figure it out.” He wanted me to call him in the morning with an equipment and materials list. He would give me a week to complete the task.
After buying a big bottle of water, I sat in the hole where the heaters were and considered the situation. It was 100 degrees with 90 percent humidity, and the basement felt just right enough to allow me to think clearly.
I noticed that the foundation in the hole still did not show the bottom, so I figured it may have gone past the six feet exposed already.
The following day, I requested ten eight-foot re-bars, a sledgehammer, a spade shovel, a wheelbarrow, a manual hand winch, 20ft of climbers’ rope, and a few 1x10x8 boards.
Having resided close to the Kennecott Copper Mine in Utah for two decades, I recall being taught about their former strip mining methods. Explosive charges were positioned every 20 yards and detonated to remove a section of the ledge. This process facilitated the debris to drop to the lower ledge, from where it was transported to the grinder.
Instead of blasting, I drove a rebar into the clay from the top ledge around the “hole” every 12 inches. I planted the winch from the opposite side of the hole and secured it to the clay with two re-bars. While driving those, I discovered that there was bedrock at 4 feet, meaning that the hole was 6 feet below the floor joist, giving us a 10-foot clearance if all the clay was removed from the basement.
I started with a small exploratory hole near the foundation to discover its actual footing depth, and I was right; the foundation hit bedrock at 9ft below the joist.
Then, moved to excavate away from the foundation. My aim was not to affect the home's structural integrity, and leave the support of the existing foundation to en engineer, architect and Larry himself. Here is a great an example of the type of project we were dealing with. Be mindful, I didn't have a cell phone to Google this back in 1990.
Using the rope and winch, I drove six rebars into the hole's ledge in a linear formation. Then, using the rope and winch, I began removing slabs of solid clay, 6 inches thick, four feet wide, and three feet deep. The slaps fell onto the board I had set up on the hole's floor, which I cut into manageable pieces to load the wheelbarrow and pile into the driveway.
I called Larry that night and told him I was almost down. The following day, he showed up with a few workers, removed me from the project, and assigned it to two other guys. Because of my education in architecture, my ability to read plans, and my solution to the clay floor excavation project, he made me his assistant and carpenter journeyman.
Life as a Fine Carpenter and Foreman’s Assistant
My next assignment was to work on and oversee a project to add an extension and a room to each floor of the backside of Georgetown's home that belonged to then-Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey.
During that time, I learned all about construction. It gave me firsthand experience of how a home was built from the foundation up and how we respected the value of building codes in this colonial suburb of Washington, D.C.
I learned how to coordinate, plan, delegate, manage, and communicate with the project's contractors and architects.
Larry always played with the architects, making them do the darndest things, like walking a plank four stories above ground between two canopy roof ridges to “show them something” when they could have easily accessed the space from the floor below.
While working in construction, I realized that I didn’t want to become an architect anymore. I felt more at home outdoors, moving from location to location, and having a more hands-on experience. After a year of not attending school to pursue a master's degree, I longed to return home to Utah.
Back to Utah
With a belt of experience, I returned to Utah on Halloween 1991. I first worked at the restaurants I worked at while in school in Park City, but I soon found a job as a carpenter repairing roofs that took a beating every winter.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Salt Lake saw many modern homes built with flat roofs, but somehow, we needed to remember how much it snowed in the valley. I pitched roofs around the valley full-time. In a short time, I became a foreman and ran my crew.
I met a girl named Nancy and asked her to marry me, but sadly, she died of cancer before we could tie the knot, leaving me very depressed and uninspired to move on without a purpose.
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