A Man of the Street

Rick Caruso's office is palatial--that's the only way to describe it. Walk in and it stretches before you like a stage set: one vast room, subdivided into areas (a bar, a desk, spaces for conversation), with framed family photos on nearly every surface and a conference/dining room off to one side through a set of double doors. Outside Caruso's third-floor windows, the Grove stretches like the boulevard he means for it to be; noise drifts up from the sidewalk, a low-grade conversational buzz. Across the street, Barnes & Noble and Victoria's Secret feel so close they're almost part of the decor here, making for an odd dichotomy. The Grove, after all, is planned, designed, controlled down to the smallest detail; it is a development with a motif.

"The premise has always been," Caruso explains, "that we are building a great street." To pull that off, not only is it essential to replicate, in some sense, the dynamic of an urban pedestrian environment--curbs and gutters, street lights, a variety of storefronts--but also to build on a distinctly human scale. "The dimension of that building across the way," Caruso says, "was driven by King Street in Charleston. Charleston, I just felt, had a great sense of scale to it."

At 48, Caruso may be the Donald Trump of Los Angeles, a developer who defines not just his city but his time. There's a lot less glitz and bluster here, but the comparison seems apt. Like Trump, whose father was also a developer and gave him a leg up, Caruso has business in his bloodlines; his father founded Dollar Rent-a-Car in the 1960s and has influenced his career in many ways. In the late 1990s, when Caruso was seeking approval for the Grove, it was then-City Councilman John Ferarro, a longtime friend of his father, who came to the council chambers in a wheelchair and helped to push through the project. Like Trump, Caruso has surpassed his father, yet his presence continues to linger, a shadow he can't quite get beyond.

Caruso and Trump do differ in terms of style. It's hard to imagine Caruso having a TV show or engaging in public sniping with celebrities such as Rosie O'Donnell; that would be a waste of time. Confident, measured in his conversation, immaculately coiffed and dressed in silk ties and expensive suits, Caruso exudes a different kind of power, an air of focused grace. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is that for Trump, it's always about . . . well, Trump, while Caruso has a bigger vision in mind.