Palladian Days Read Online Free

turn the pages in awe. Richard talks easily about the works as we move through the album. The sculpture for the lobby of the Pan Am building, the five for the shah of Iran, the first sculpture ever commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum, the seventeen-story-high sculpture to sit outside a Seoul, Korea, office building. “Actually,” Richard says, “that was designed as an eighteen-story sculpture, but the developer had a multifloor tenant lined up who didn't want the sculpture to block the view from his personal office on the eighteenth floor. So the developer begged me to let it be executed just seventeen floors tall. I try to be practical, so after some thought I finally agreed.”
    I can see Richard's mind thinking back over the episode as he speaks. “You know,” he adds wistfully, “it really should have been eighteen stories.”
    On our long flight home to Atlanta a few days later, Carl and I are both pensive and even moody for most of the trip. As our plane banks to enter its final approach to Hartsfield, I reach for Carl's hand. “We've got to keep Italy in our lives, Carl.”
    “I wonder if Dick Rush has sold Villa Cornaro,” he replies. “I think I will write him and ask.”
Note to diary: Beware! Carl knows your thoughts
.
    Whatever brought you to buy a Palladian villa in Italy?
    I haven't answered the question at all. In realistic moments, such as when I'm wide awake in bed in the first light before dawn, I can see that.
    Growth, I tell myself. I'm looking for personal growth.
    What kind of answer is that? my other, more cynical self responds. You might as well say it was a full moon. I mean, it's not as if you were some underdeveloped potted plant! You have twenty-five years of friendships in Atlanta, three wonderful children out of the nest and on the wing, three church choirs eager to respond to every twitch of your upraised hand. Most people would say that's growth enough for a lifetime.
    Maybe, I have to admit, “a search for growth” doesn't really explain it. As I turn in my bed, letting sleep engulf me again, a subversive new thought teases my mind.
    Maybe the best word is “escape.”

4
Destiny
    Karma is afoot. Carl learns that Dick Rush took Villa Cornaro off the market after our earlier negotiations broke off. He arranged to donate it to his undergraduate alma mater, Dartmouth College, to use as a center for Renaissance studies. The transaction had awaitedonly the funding of an endowment promised by another alumnus for its maintenance and operations. But, Dick explains to Carl, the other alumnus has died before arrangements could be completed, the project has collapsed, and Dick has just put the villa back on the market, listing it for sale through Sotheby's real estate arm. Other news: The price has gone up.
    Carl returns to the hunt! A new contract is drafted; clauses are hammered out. Carl retains a Venetian lawyer for advice on exchange controls, taxes, insurance issues, and the like. (Real estate conveyance itself is a matter for notaries, not lawyers, in Italy.) Gradually, most issues are resolved, generally through more risk taking on our part. Then, frustratingly points that we thought were resolved begin to arise anew. Carl suspects that Julie Rush's fine hand may have returned to create confusion and concludes that a face-to-face meeting between himself and the Rushes is required. The Rushes are in residence at the villa, so in July 1989 Carl extends one of his regular business trips to Europe in order to visit them.
    By happy coincidence, our son “young” Carl is also in Venice; he is traveling briefly through Europe after completing his summer job in Sweden. Father and son are greeted by the Rushes at the villa, treated to an elaborate lunch set in the center of the grand salon itself, and led through a meticulous tour of the villa. Carl and Dick proceed to a flurry of negotiations, punctuated by comments from Julie. Young Carl, clearly the artist among our three children,