provide the same excitement for me as basketball. So, I decided I would specialize in basketball and dropped out of these sports and now basketball is almost a year-round occupation for me. Even in the summertime, I go to summer league basketball and I go to international league basketball. It got to the point where something I never anticipated happened and I became very famous as a result of my basketball involvement. And now I know almost everyone involved in the game— owners, players, management, ball boys.”
I caught Goldstein on a rare day off from this hobby. Sitting near the opalescent pool, with shadows dancing on the water, he tells me he’ s been to 19 games in the past 19 days and the reason he is sitting here with me now is simply because there are no playoff games on this day. If Goldstein isn’ t jetting off to a playoff game, he might be heading to fashion week in Paris, Moscow, or Milan sitting, of course, in the front row at the catwalks as his leggy model“ friends” gallop the runway in front of him. He speaks proudly of his“ enormous” hat collection, many made from rare reptile skins— cobra, python, anaconda— purchased from a mysterious hat maker on a small, serpentine street somewhere in Paris.“ I buy all my hats from him now,” Goldstein says, like the gentlemen is in the CIA protection program.“ He’ s a great hat maker and I only wear his hats these days which means I have a lot of other great hats that I bought years ago that never leave the closet.” he learned to love clothes from his father, but says at a young age he began moving beyond his father’ s conservative dress to his own creative style. When pink became a fashionable color in his teen years, he went all the way and dressed in all pink suits. In his early 20s, Goldstein made a trip to Paris and was bitten by a lifelong fashion bug. Goldstein’ s business card says: FASHION, ARCHITECTURE and BASKETBALL on it, and it might be hard to determine which of those pursuits he’ s spent more time and money on. goldstein’ s early years were spent living in various apartments in West Los Angeles. But, then came Natasha, the Afghan hound and love of his life. The dog needed room to roam. So Goldstein went house shopping.
THE $ 182,000 MAN CAVE The Sheats’ residence had gone through several owners before Goldstein came upon it. In each case, the owners had insufficient funds to realize Lautner’ s design. Substandard materials— plaster, formica— were employed to fill in the gaps. Goldstein found wall-to-wall green shag carpet throughout the house, the poured-concrete structures, including the triangle-patterned living room ceiling, was painted in black, white and green, the bedroom done in turquoise. It was like the 70s gone wild.
“ It was a mess,” says Goldstein,“ but I could see the brilliance of the design.” the house, as with all of Lautner’ s residences, was designed to accommodate, not compete with, its environment. Built into a sandstone ledge high up in Benedict Canyon, the main structure spreads out at a 45-degree angle from the eastern rise. The entrance on the northern end, set against a dramatic junglelike hillside, opens into a den, kitchen, dining area and a living room with cement banquets for seating and a beautiful cement, wood-burning fireplace where the northwest angles meet. The
Photo: Elizabeth Daniels bedroom of sheats / goldstein residence, overlooking beverly hills basin, 2011.