45th SARA Convention - 2001
“Just What The Doctor Ordered”

If there ever was a time for this organization’s theme of “Architect helping Architect”, that time is now and it was very visible at this year’s Convention.

Plagued by the recent terrorist attack on our great country, the group attending this year’s event was smaller in size, but closer knit than ever. It’s sad that we have to go through a tragedy of this magnitude to wake our personal selves up and realize what to us is most important in life. True we need our work to keep everything going, but there can be no value placed on the friendships we have in this great organization. And oh how apparent this was at this year’s Convention.

From the moment you touched down on Cleveland’s soil, you felt the warmth of being welcomed by this year’s host and hostess, Celso and Miriam Gilberti. And then to be joined up with our dear friends from near the tragedy, the Angelo’s, the Bonsignore’s, Robert and Kathy Firneis, Adriana Garcia, the Macaluso’s and the Milowitz’ to name a few. To hear their stories first-hand and know what they were going through made everyone realize how lucky we all are to have what we have and to appreciate what we have.

But this Convention wasn’t meant to bring us any sadness from recent events, it was meant to bring us new experiences that will live in our thoughts forever.

Our first bit of culture came on Wednesday evening where we were invited to the Gilberti’s firm where we had a catered dinner and a private piano concert on one of the floors of his office. The pianist added an extra attraction to his concert by performing a duet with his lovely wife. The music was simply beautiful and very relaxing to hear. After the concert we were treated to a viewing of artwork on display in the gallery located at GSI, Inc. What a beautiful office environment to work in! His employees are so lucky.

On Thursday, we were all treated to an opening night of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra playing in the beautiful theatre that was recently refurbished. We also had dinner in one of the rooms at the theatre. Seeing the theatre was part of our theme of this Convention on Urbanization and we all could appreciate the efforts being done in Cleveland to preserve the past but make these buildings usable for the future. The Symphony was magnificent and so appreciated by our entire group! Bravo again to the Gilberti’s!

The “Lolly the Trolley Architectural Tour during the day on Friday was a big hit with everyone, especially the stop at the West Side Market, what an incredible place! Friday evening’s Professional Design Awards banquet at Sammy’s restaurant in the Flats of Cleveland was a showstopper. We were treated to the first ever PDA Power Point presentation by Co-Chairs, Bob Firneis and Rick Holden. We had a record number of award recipients in attendance and a good time was had by all.

But wait, there’s more….on Saturday night the President’s Dinner and Award celebration was held in a former Bank Vault at the Hyde Park Chop House, a local steak house, and then we headed over to a private suite for the official swearing in of next year’s Board. The room was absolutely gorgeous—an antique lover’s marvel! It was just the icing on the cake for the whole trip.

All of us were equally exposed to a good dose of music, art, friendship and an appreciation of each other in the work we do. You can’t hope to get much better than that when a Convention comes around. Everything just seemed to go together so well this year. The only unfortunate part of this whole Convention was the members who were unable to join us.

May the goodness and friendship that came out of the 2001 SARA Convention spread throughout this organization and bring more members to share in it for 2002 in San Antonio at the La Mansion Del Rio Hotel.

Bette Addington