"The Funniest Thing We Ever Did"

Government's power to declare historical monuments duels with descendents' desire to profit without being stymied by a hated eccentric relative in a very entertaining Los Angeles Times account of the war over a "22-foot stack of crumbling, termite-infested Schlitz beer pallets" on a lot in Sherman Oaks, California.

While the family of its creator, Daniel Van Meter, is eager to get rid of what they call "a rotting vestige of one man's egotism" so they can erect 98 apartments on the site, that rotting vestige is Monument #184 to the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission, thank you very much, in what Commission member Bob Winter calls "the funniest thing we ever did," adding: "Maybe we were drunk."

Comments

[Ken Shultz]

I blame the hippies.

[dead_elvis]

"the Van Meter heirs submitted a news account of the episode as evidence that Van Meter should not be sanctified as a folk artist.

"He was a conniver, a schemer, and a manipulator," wrote Hal Wheatley. He did not create art, Wheatley said. "Instead, he used his eccentric creation to justify a deeply selfish motive ? avoidance of societal regulation."

Nuff said. The palletts should stand. Maybe as a libertarian monument?

[Russ D]

Now his heirs, who never liked the tower and were often at odds with its eccentric creator, want to clear the land of feral cats, strange plants and the tower itself so a developer can put up 98 apartments.

Sounds like a nature preserve too!

[thoreau]

Does the commissioner plan to rescind the joke?

[gaius marius]

i see an environmentally-friendly fuel source.

[Swamp Justice]

"... he used his eccentric creation to justify a deeply selfish motive ? avoidance of societal regulation."

So we will honor his "avoidance of societal regulation" by enforcing the (presumably non-elected) Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission's monument regulations and thus reduce the availability of housing for the poor! <:)

[cdunlea]

I say the Van Meters should plant a hive of Africanized bees and one of termites on the structure. Between the two the health department would raze it in no time flat, monument be damned.

[Semolina]

We're Sorry, But This Post Has Been Found in Violation of Hit & Run Bylaw.

--- Subsection 17a-3: The "Los Angeles Times" news periodical may be cited only by Reason Contributor Matthew Welch.

[pigwiggle]

?So we will honor his "avoidance of societal regulation" by enforcing the (presumably non-elected) Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission's monument regulations?

I think it?s the ?beat em with their own club? rational.

[keith]

The article isn't perfectly clear on if Daniel Van Meter owned the lot entirely, or if he shared title with other members of his family. If he owned it outright, then by having the tower structure identified as a historical monument, he more or less exchanged an easement to the public (by way of the historical commission) which enabled his structure to bypass the threat that property developers embodied by way of leveraging other regulations forcing him to sell out and move on. Clever use of locking up one arm of the government with another.

If the land was jointly owned by his brothers, his parents or whatnot, then he probably caused them their loss (in 1978!) when he had the tower designated as a monument. If this is the case, should they be able to undo it today? Or should they have been paying attention to their rights at the time the historical easement was created? I'd say that's a reasonable debate, and it's not clear to me reading the article if this was the case.

On the other hand, if Daniel Van Meter owned the lot outright in 1978, frankly, his heirs can suck it. The right of use of the tower portion of the property was given away by a previous owner. Too bad.

A similar situation is afoot in my town, Philadelphia, where the eccentric immpressionist art collector (and cranky foe of the art establishment, in particular detestful of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art) Alfred Barnes' Barnes Foundation has recently been authorized by the the Montgomery County Orphans Court to change his will and allow his collection to come under the sway of the very institutions who Barnes hated during his lifetime.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/10410171.htm

On the one hand, Dr. Barnes' original endowment has run out, and the institution is making changes (and is being bought off by the Pew and Annenberg trusts) to save it's financial situation. I suppose if Dr. Barnes had made a bigger bequest, then his will would not be thwarted at this point in time. On the other hand, it makes me truly unlikely to rely on the government to enforce any wills. I have to admit a fondness for eccentric individualist cranks.

To conclude, I'm rooting for the intent and memory of another eccentric individualist crank (Van Meter) to beat his heartless money-grubbing heirs. Dead Elvis, I'm with you. Let's make it a libertarian monument!

[Matt]

Ha anyone looked carefully at the pallets for endangered bats? That would settle it in no time.

[Isaac Bartram]

"Instead, Van Meter collected castoffs ? wooden wagons, junked cars, a 1938 city bus, a turret from a battleship, a boat, a gasoline pump and a kitchen sink ? all of which shared space on his property with goats, dogs, cats, chickens, turtles and raccoons. The pallet pile is his only known creation."

Geez, a guy in my neighborhood did something like this, but they threw him in jail, instead of making his place a Cultural Heritage site.

[Will Bigham]

After reading the article I realized that the lot was only a few blocks away from where I work in the valley, so I headed over there on the way home.

The guy's 'house' really is on the verge of falling down like the article mentions; the roof in the center-front of the house has caved in, the wood is rotting, and I'm really surprised the structure survived the recent storms out here.

The wooden pallet tower is great fun to look at. It's built around a tree (didn't he call it a magic tree in the article?), it's decrepit and falling down, and looks just as rotted out as the house. There was some kind of staircase built around, and the tower was very wide. I think its width may be larger than its height.

There were at least three rotted out cars in the lot by my count, some other rotted out shed-like structures, and a large pile of what looked like scrapwood. The lot was covered in tall weeds and was a complete wreck to look at, especailly compared to the Jewish school and apartment complex right next to it. Both of those were three-story modern complexes.

I've been to the Watt's Towers out here, and this one can't really compare to that. While that one is impressive and really an anomoly to look at in the area, this one is more just amusing and funny. It makes me wish the guy was still alive because he seems like he would have been a funny guy to talk to.

And I really didn't see any neighbors in the are who could have been upset about the proposed complex for traffic reasons. The other side of the street is a public-works/park type area, no one lives there. And the only other two complexes in the cul-de-sac are the school and and other apartment building. The entrance to the cul-de-sac is on Sepulveda Blvd., a major street in the area with no single-family homes.

[NoStar]

An anonymous tip about a shielded dirty bomb buried at the tower's center made to the Dept. of Homeland Security should get the monument removed.

[haha]

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