Meet Leslie and Richard Karliss and their 12 year old goldendoodle Henry who are residents of the West Hollywood West Neighborhood since 2011.
Where do we begin to tell the sweet love story of this happy couple. They met on the beach in Malibu almost 47 years ago. Leslie was 17 years old and Richard just turned 20 and they have been together ever since. They have one son named Conrad who lives in Austin, Texas and is an architect. Recently the Karliss’s became grandparents to a new granddaughter named Bianca. Henry the couple’s goldendoodle has his own instagram account ‘Henry Visits” to show off his travels about town.
Richard is a landscape designer and serves on the Public Facilities Commission as an at-large appointee. An at-large appointee is selected by a majority consensus of the city council. Richard uses his expertise to input into our parks and green spaces. Leslie is the President of the West Hollywood West Resident Association. She serves voluntarily advocating for her neighborhood issues concerning noise, or traffic or developments.
Leslie also has an interesting career as an attorney. She graduated from Loyola Law School and is an Indigent Criminal Appeal Attorney. Leslie is appointed by the State of California to the most heinous of crimes to make sure convicted criminals have had their due process, including their right to a fair trial and effective counsel. And her job is to find errors to protect our legal system against abuses.
Richard’s career included decorating the Universal Studios Theme Park in Osaka, Japan. He recalls fondly how ‘everything you see, we sent the street lights, stage coaches, boats, we shipped everything over for the New York streets, San Francisco Bay section and Amity Island from Jaws. And prior to that Richard art directed features for music videos, for groups like Fleetwood Mac, the Police, Toto, and Olivia Newton John.
They moved to West Hollywood West from Malibu after their son graduated college and found themselves attracted to our neighborhoods and the open and diverse community. “We have developed many close friends in the gay community!” “Everybody made us feel so welcome”. “When we moved to West Hollywood we felt like we had a voice and a city that was responsive”.
And their favorite places to go out to eat.. “We miss Ed’s Coffee Shop, La Conversation, and Cafe De’Toile.. but we love Rosalines Peruvian on Melrose and Pizzana on Robertson.
Thank you for sharing this story and Henry. Andy Warhol would be proud. Perhaps a Henry book?
Anyone having these three as neighbors is very fortunate……Someone give Henry a treat!
Henry has an international following on IG. Some of my friends in the Classical Architecture community follow him. I would be willing to bet that Henry is a storehouse of information and could be a valuable asset sharing his observations with our historic preservation and planning department. It would be easy…all they would need to do is give him a treat. But then the question would be, would they take Henry”s valuable observations to heart. Henry looks like a fun, discriminating and serious doodle.
Very sweet. If you look carefully it seems their Doodle child seems to have inherited their attributes
Great story – glad to learn more about you guys!!
What a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing and thank you wehoville.