The Paul Lucas Hamilton House

This week's excitement was that I had a chance to speak with Locke McCorkle.  He's 91 and as keen-witted as ever.  He's a model for one of the main characters in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums.   In his oral history, he does talk about Paul Hamilton, the architect who lived in Orinda, and his wife Rita.   Paul was friends with Roger Somers, a designer, builder and jazz musician.  Roger, along with poet Elsa Gidlow, helped create Druid Heights, the bohemian counter-culture retreat in Marin, that is on the National Record of Historic Places. Along with projects at Druid Heights, the two collaborated on the Tallac House in Tahoe and perhaps other projects.  Paul is noted as the architect of the Tallac House, the house that was used for the Whitney Houston movie, "The Bodyguard" and also for "City of Angels."  Here's a real estate listing for the house from 2015: http://southtahoenow.com/story/03/27/2015/lake-tahoe-s-tallac-house-was-featured-bo...

Graphics from https://www.cnn.com/style/article/movie-villains-modern-architecture/index.html.   Architect Chad Oppenheim published " Lair:  Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie Villains"  in March 2020.  The premise is that modernist, futuristic and utopian architecture has been (erroneously) associated with amorality.  "Modern domestic architecture has become identified almost exclusively with characters who are evil, unstable, selfish, obsessive ..."  Joseph Rosa (CEO of the Frye Art Museum) writes in an essay in the book. "Were they still alive, this might thoroughly shock the pioneers of modernism who envisioned their movement facilitating a healthy, honest, and moral way of life."