When we talk about segregation, we usually think about the American south... not Venice, California.

When Abbot Kinney was carving out his Italian fantasyland, he hired one of the young men working on the boardwalk as his chauffeur. Over the years, Irving Tabor drove Kinney all over the U.S. In the south, when the African-American Tabor was refused admission to a hotel, he and Kinney spent the night in the car. After his death, Abbott Kinney left his Venice home to Irving Tabor. Unfortunately, the other residents of Grand Canal Street refused to let the Tabor family occupy the house.

Artist J. Michael Walker says, "Irving Tabor exercised the wisdom of Solomon, and sawed his house in two, hitched it up to his mules, and drove it home across the same canals he'd helped build several decades before to its present location at 6th and Santa Clara Avenue."

Santa Clara – or St. Clare – was famous for holding up the Blessed Sacrament to repel invaders at her convent. In this case, Walker says, Santa Clara was holding up a beacon to welcome the Tabor family.

(Airdate: 3/22/2008)