Greetings from the good ship Prana! The voyage to upgrade and enhance the landscaping and parking here is well underway, and we wanted to fill in those of you who may not have had a chance to come by and visit, and let you know how it’s going.
In case you’re not familiar with it, Prana is MSIA’s world headquarters, and is located in a turn-of-the-century Italianate villa here in a historic district of Los Angeles. For a little background, the house was built by the Guasti’s, a family of prominent wine merchants, in 1912. They brought in artisans and craftsmen from Italy to work on the place, and set up a mini workers village across the street during construction. It’s quite a house. The Guasti family lived here until the late twenties, when the place was bought by Busby Berkeley, a legendary Hollywood film director famous for his lavish choreography. After that an association for retired doctors and their widows bought the place and added two large residence wings on the back, which serve as our residence wings today. The property also has a substantial three-stall carriage house, which now serves as annex office space and product warehousing.
MSIA has owned the property since 1974 . It had fallen into disrepair just before we bought it, so the process of moving in was a lot about cleaning out the musty old curtains and such, and cutting the weeds and overgrown shrubbery. Through the 1970’s was a grand time in Prana’s history, with live John-Roger seminars held here every week, and over a hundred people living here as residents. From that time to the present there were various upgrades made on the property, but nothing much structurally until 1994 when the Northridge earthquake did substantial damage to the main building and carriage house. Since then we’ve completely retrofitted and refurbished the buildings, including recreating the original architectural balustrade, which had been removed for safety reasons soon after buying the property. We also added a modern handicap-access ramp, had the original oak paneling in much of the house restored to its former beauty, restored the ceilings and much of the hand carved moldings, added grand marble lions to match missing originals, and much much more.
Most recently there was an extensive overhaul of the backyard landscaping, which included installation of a new, enlarged parking lot at the back of the property. The new lot adds considerably to our total parking capacity, and will allow for more cars to be parked on-site for large events. The new landscaping in the back yard includes reflecting pools on two levels, a lovely fountain, and a world-class marble labyrinth, handcrafted on-site by a French artisan. The labyrinth at Prana is well worth a visit. It’s modeled on the famous labyrinth built in the cathedral at Chartres, France, around 1220AD. The labyrinth is a kind of archetypical design that has been in existence for hundreds — perhaps thousands — of years as part of mystical and religious traditions throughout the world. A labyrinth differs from a maze in that there are no dead ends, only a single path in and out.
The peaceful elegance of the just-completed courtyards will soon be matched by a newly beautified and landscaped front yard. It’s in the process of construction right now — don’t let the brown dust fool you! The landscaping and design will reflect the grandeur and style of the building and provide a fitting, welcoming, and peaceful introduction to the Home of the Traveler. There will be over 20 new trees and dozens of plantings interspersed between the parking areas, a charming fountain aligned with the fountains intersecting the back yard, and a pedestrian gate and walkway leading right up to the front porch. When completed, the front yard parking area will not only be functional, it will be gorgeous! Add to that, the old orchard area at the very rear of the property is being restored into a stunning meditation garden, with meandering walking paths, benches, fountains, hundreds of plants and flowers, and a few surprises you’ll need to come see for yourself when we’re done.
The completion of the structural beautification and landscaping for the whole property will culminate with the current front yard and orchard projects, which should be finished by years end. It’s going to be awesome when the entire property is completed, and we’d like to take this opportunity now to invite you to come see it! Just give us a couple of months to wrap up the loose ends — and we’ll be welcoming you with open arms! God bless us all, and come see us.
