After successfully selling T-shirts from hisUSC dorm, DALTON GERLACH decided tostart an apparel-making firm. Meet Gerlach,23, and other Angelenos in their 20s whohave started their own business.

BEGINNING ON PAGE 27

Why ArchitectBrenda Levinrehabs so manylandmarks,such asDodger Stadium.PAGE 15

How RichardRosenblattplans to splitDemand Mediain two. PAGE 5

M A I L T O :

Tell us: How do you give back?Nomination Deadline: Friday, May 17, 2013

For more information, see page 25

LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNALVolume 35, Number 19 May 13 - 19, 2013 • $5.00

labusinessjournal.com

T H E C O M M U N I T Y O F B U S I N E S S TM

By RYAN FAUGHNDER Staff Reporter

Every business has its risks. But most busi-nesses don’t risk getting an airplane seized by aforeign country.

That’s what happened to International LeaseFinance Corp. The Century City company lost aBoeing 757 to Russian customs officials after theairline that leased the plane ceased operations.Because of what it claims was a customs paper-work error, ILFC can’t get its jetliner back.

Research suggests that used 757s sell for about$10 million, although ILFC is battling its insur-ance company for $21 million.

The episode is an example of the danger busi-

Please see AVIATION page 46

UpFront

SPECIAL REPORT

By JACQUELYN RYAN Staff Reporter

After years with few if any new hotel develop-ments, at least eight hotels totaling 1,855 rooms areunder construction across Los Angeles County.

Those rooms represent a 116 percent increasefrom the number of rooms under construction lastyear, when postrecession hotel expansionresumed. They will add about 4 percent to theinventory of nearly 50,000 midrange to upscalehotels rooms in the county.

But it doesn’t stop there. At least 11 more proj-ects totaling 1,544 rooms are planned for the com-ing two years, according to the Los AngelesTourism and Convention Board.

Businesses seek ‘shakedown’ reliefBy HOWARD FINE Staff Reporter

THE certified letter that came to BrettSchoenhals’ Eagle Rock restaurant justbefore Christmas sent him into a near panic.

The four-page letter delivered to Schoenhals’Coffee Table Bistro from a local attorney’soffice warned that within 60 days he would besued for violating California’s Proposition 65toxic chemical notification law and that he wasliable for fines of $2,500 a day going back onefull year – or more than $900,000. The noticeinvited him to call the attorney’s office. Theimplication: He could pay the lawyer money to

settle the matter.Schoenhals’ crime? Allegedly failing to post

adequate signs saying that the alcohol he servescould cause cancer when consumed and couldcause birth defects in unborn children.

“I had a sign posted in the bar, but not at eachentrance and not in every room,” Schoenhalssaid. “And for this I could be fined nearly $1 mil-lion and have to fight a lengthy legal case? Thatwould put me out of business.”

Schoenhals is one of scores of restaurant own-ers and operators in Los Angeles County and

Please see REGULATION page 46

Please see HOSPITALITY page 45

AVIATION: ILFC sues insurerover loss of aircraft in Russia.

By ALFRED LEE Staff Reporter

REUBEN Yeroushalmi wakes up about 5a.m. each day and spends the next 15hours on a mission that enrages business-

es: threatening to sue manufacturers for not warn-ing of toxic substances in their products.

At his Beverly Hills office, he sorts throughfindings from a team of investigators who try toidentify lead and phthalate in household productssuch as baby sandals and headphones. He has theresults confirmed at an independent lab, then,because the product was not emblazoned with awarning label, he fires off a legal notice to theoffending product’s manufacturer. The business

HOSPITALITY:Developerscheck into projects amid recovery.

News &Analysis

People

20 in Their 20s

A new flavor –birthday cake –is taking a sliceof the market.PAGE 3

Hoteliers FindRooms in L.A.

‘Dude, Where’sMy Airplane?’

Targeted: CoffeeTable Bistro ownerBrett Schoenhalsat his Eagle Rockeatery, whichreceived a letterwarning him ofProposition 65 fines.

Active: Prop. 65 lawyer Yeroushalmi.RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ

Please see LAW page 47

TOXIC PROP

Lawyers reap Prop. 65’s rewards

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PEOPLEMAY 13, 2013 LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL 15

By HOWARD FINE Staff Reporter

LOOK at many of L.A.’s best-known land-marks and there’s a good chance thatBrenda A. Levin designed their rehabs.

Levin, who has owned her own architecture firmsince 1980, has made her reputation renovatingand restoring many iconic buildings in andaround Los Angeles: the Bradbury and Oviattbuildings, the Grand Central Market, LosAngeles City Hall, Griffith Observatory and theHuntington Library/Art Galleries. She has justwrapped up work on a $100 million renovationof Dodger Stadium, is nearing the end of fouryears of work restoring Wilshire BoulevardTemple and is starting update work on the FordAmphitheatre. Levin, 66, came to L.A. with herhusband in the late 1970s after several years inBoston. She was born in Teaneck, N.J., thedaughter of a real estate developer. Levinrecently sat down with the Business Journal totalk about her work on grand old buildings,sharing office space with her husband for morethan 30 years and her status as one of the fewprominent local women architects.

Question: When did you decide youwanted to be an architect?Answer: I always had an interest, ever sinceI was walking with my father through tracthomes under construction in New Jersey backin the 1950s. I would go through houses thatjust had the frames up and I would imaginecertain designs and interiors. Then, when I

got to see the finished homes, I was alwaysslightly disappointed because they looked dif-ferent than I had imagined. So that got meinterested in design and architecture.

Architecture wasn’t a typical careerchoice for women, was it?My parents encouraged me and my sister tochoose whatever career we wanted, to followour passions, irrespective of gender. Theyenrolled me in art classes when I wanted. Iwent into university as an arts major and thengraphic design. But I saw how male dominat-ed the architecture field was as I once peeredinto an architecture class and saw only twowomen in a sea of something like 60 men.That made it seem quite inhospitable to me.

But you plunged ahead anyway.Yes. After I moved to Boston, I decided totake classes at the Boston Architectural Center.I had some wonderful faculty members whohelped get me into internships at someremarkable firms in Cambridge and Boston.One of those firms, Benjamin Thompson &Associates, did the Faneuil Marketplace, oneof the first adaptive reuse projects in the coun-try. I worked on the model for the FaneuilMarketplace and that’s when I first realizedthe power of architecture in urban design.

Then what happened?I decided to pursue postgraduate work inarchitecture and enrolled in Harvard

University’s program. By that time, I hadalready met my husband, David, through amutual friend. He had just finished HarvardLaw School and passed the bar; he waited forme to finish my program at Harvard.

So how did the two of you end up inCalifornia?David spent his high school and college yearsin California and really wanted to get backhere. He perceived California as the place toestablish roots and start a career. So he accept-ed a position to be the training director for theCoro Foundation. As soon as I graduatedHarvard in 1976, we moved to Los Angeles.

How did you get your first job?I went knocking on doors of local architecturalfirms. One day, I knocked on the doors of theHollywood office of John Lautner. He had juststarted back to work on Bob Hope’s house inPalm Springs; there had been a fire and somelitigation. He needed someone to help build amodel. So he hired me at the impressive fee of$5 an hour to build that model.

That’s the saucer-shaped house thatmade headlines recently when it was puton the market for $50 million, right?Yes, the very same. And it was an incredibleexperience because Lautner’s architecture wasa complete eye-opener for me – very organic,material based, huge forms, yet still full ofdetail. And, of course, doing the work for

such a celebrity client – talk about L.A.!

But you didn’t go into residential archi-tecture. Why?Well, I spent a little over a year there and sawhow much of a struggle it was, even for a stararchitect like Lautner. He was the FrankGehry of that time and one of the most cre-ative people I ever met. Yet he struggled withthe clients, with having enough projects, witha desire to do more than residential work. Allthis made me realize I didn’t want to do resi-dential work. I was much more of an urbanistand I wanted to impact the city. So designingmy own home in Los Feliz a few years laterwas the first and only piece of residentialarchitecture I supervised.

What was that like? Do you still livethere?It was challenging. It was in the beginning ofmy career, so I was really testing my limits.And it made me truly understand the sense ofdeferred gratification involved in architecture.It took nearly five years from the time I startedthe design until completion. I was testingmaterials; it’s all made out of plywood andsheet metal. Because of the location against ahillside, I used the outdoor space to basicallydouble the size of the home. And yes, Davidand I still live there; I suspect we will continueto do so until we can no longer do the stairs.

Architect Brenda A. Levin has helpedshape local history while renovatingL.A. landmarks such as Dodger Stadium.

RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ

Blue Sky: Brenda A. Levin at Dodger Stadium, where she oversaw a $100 million renovation that included creating more plazas and spaces outside the venue.

Home Field

Please see page 16

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16 LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL PEOPLE MAY 13, 2013

So how did you make the transition to theurban architecture you wanted to pursue?Back in 1978, the Coro Foundation, where myhusband worked, was moving from the his-toric Bradbury Building to the nearby OviattBuilding, which developer Wayne Ratkovichhad just purchased. I was brought in as Coro’sarchitect for the tenant improvements.Through that project, I met Wayne and hereferred me to the firm that he hired to do thetenant improvements for the whole building. Iworked on that building for almost two years.

Then what happened?I soon realized that this firm I was now work-ing for specialized in tilt-up concrete andindustrial buildings, especially in the InlandEmpire and desert communities. That didn’t fitwith what I wanted to do as an urbanist remak-ing cityscapes, so I felt the time was right toopen up my own firm. So I opened the doorsof Levin & Associates in 1980. I really wantedto have more control over my own life andpursue projects I thought would make a differ-ence. The latter worked, though I think I cansay now that I was somewhat naïve in howmuch control I truly had over my own life.

Was it hard getting work at first?No, and in that I was very lucky. WayneRatkovich immediately hired me to work onthe design for Rex Restaurant that was goingin the ground floor of the Oviatt Building.Coincidentally, right around that time, myhusband decided to start his own firm. So wewere both launching our own separate busi-nesses at the same time – and we were build-ing our home and we had our baby.

That must have been quite a balancingact for you.Yes, it was. David and I figured if we couldsurvive this period, we could survive anything.

It sounds like you found the work satisfying.Yes. Through our work, we were able to saveseveral historic buildings that otherwise mighthave been demolished. You know, it’s amaz-ing coming from the East Coast where somany buildings get reused right alongsidenew buildings, but until right about this time,the trend here was to demolish all the oldbuildings and put up something new. That just

seemed so strange to me, to tear down thesebeautiful old buildings. We came in right atthe start of the historic preservation move-ment here in Los Angeles and it really fit inwith my sense of city-making.

You did a lot of work downtown, didn’t you?In the mid-1980s, developer Ira Yellin, whowas also going around and buying up olddowntown buildings for adaptive reuse, con-tacted me and I started working on some ofhis buildings – most notably the BradburyBuilding and Grand Central Market.

How did you find the time to raise your son?In the early years, I just brought him with mewherever I went. If I needed to, I handed himoff to someone for a few minutes and then tookhim back as I went about my work. As he wasgoing to school, I was constantly running lateto meetings and picking him up. But I think heturned out OK; he now works at GeneralElectric in their renewable energy division.

What is it like to share office space withyour husband?Before texting, emailing and cell phones, itmade for easier coordination of our schedules– personal, professional and civic. This wasespecially true when we were raising our son.Now I can’t imagine having to wait until theend of the day to catch up. People always ask:“Isn’t that a lot of time to spend together?”No, not when you admire, constantly learnfrom and love each other.

You have worked on so many L.A. land-marks and projects. Which one are youmost proud of?I think the renovation of Griffith Observatory.It was my first totally public venue and anicon beloved internationally. What’s more, it’svisible almost 360 degrees around the city.

What about the Dodger Stadiumrenovation?From the beginning, our charge from StanKasten and the owners was to improve the fanexperience and create more fan amenities.Our task was to create the feeling that fanshave when approaching Fenway Park orCamden Yards, of walking through the city toget to the stadium.

How did you do that?That meant creating more plazas and spaceson the outside of the stadium proper; a placeto meet people and socialize. So on the upperlevels, we built two new team stores, two newconcession buildings, a children’s play areaand a restroom building. We built seven newbuildings in all. Of course, our specialty ismaking those buildings fit in with the existingarchitecture: the concrete blocks, the corru-gated metal and the space for signage.

What was most challenging aspect of thestadium project?The time factor: Seven buildings in fivemonths. I like to contrast this with thepainstaking work we’re doing on WilshireBoulevard Temple, which is taking us four

years and where you can focus on everyscrew, every piece of wood and every decora-tive element. With Dodger Stadium, decisionshad to be made very quickly and once made,there was no time to go back and readjust.

You like to travel. What are some of yourfavorite places?I love traveling to Europe and seeing all thedifferent architectural styles. A recent trip wetook to Turkey was absolutely amazing – somany different architectural styles right nextto each other. But the best trip I ever took wasto the Galapagos Islands. I truly felt at onewith nature there; it was such a differentexperience for someone like me who livestheir life in such an urban setting.

Architect Julia Morgan was one the mostinfluential people in your life. How so?She was one of the first prominent womenarchitects and certainly the most famous. Shedesigned Hearst Castle, but she also designednearly 700 other buildings. She was my inspi-ration. We have one interesting parallel: Juliahitched her wagon to the Hearst family as itrose to prominence, while I hitched mywagon to Wayne Ratkovich as he rose toprominence in local development circles.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?Pay no attention to your Harvard classmates’East Coast bias and advice. Los Angeles –and California – is the place where architec-tural opportunity abounds. How true thatadvice was and still is.

Continued from page 15

Through theYears: Clockwisefrom left, BrendaA. Levin withcommercial building developer WayneRatkovich; withson, Eliot, andhusband, David;working on amodel of BobHope’s home inPalm Springs;going over plansat Levin &AssociatesArchitects’ officein downtown Los Angeles.

BRENDA A. LEVINTitle: Founder and Principal

Company: Levin & Associates Architects

Born: Teaneck, N.J.; 1946.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in graphicdesign, New York University; master’sdegree in architecture, Harvard University.

Career Turning Points: Working on modelfor Faneuil Marketplace in Boston in early1970s; knocking on door of John Lautner’sarchitectural firm in Hollywood in 1977;opening own firm in 1980.

Most Influential People: Commercial realestate developer Wayne Ratkovich; the latedowntown L.A. developer Ira Yellin; the latearchitects John Lautner and Julia Morgan.

Personal: Lives with husband, planning andpolicy expert David Abel, in house shedesigned in Los Feliz. Couple shares officespace in downtown’s Fine Arts Building.They have one grown son, who works onrenewable energy projects at GeneralElectric Co.

Activities: Travel; hiking, especially inGriffith Park; swimming, especially at LosAngeles Athletic Club; various civic activitiesincluding work for the Downtown Women’sCenter, which provides housing and servicesfor homeless women.

RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ

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