Festival was his life

The life of David Young will be celebrated at 10 a.m. July 27 at Tivoli Terrace on the Festival of Arts grounds, to which he gave his heart, his intellect and his time for more than five decades.

Young died Monday of natural causes. He was 96.

Best known for his leadership in promoting the arts, Young was also a pillar of the business community, a builder born and bred.

A soft-spoken, courtly gentleman who never lost the gentle accent of his Tennessee birthplace, Young joined the festival board in 1954 and served more than 50 years, with one brief hiatus when he quit to protest efforts by the board majority to relocate the festival and Pageant of the Masters to San Clemente.

He was instrumental in creating the festival’s scholarship program for graduating Laguna Beach High School seniors in 1957.

In 1989, Young helped form the Festival of Arts Foundation as a separate entity from the festival to ensure the future of the scholarship program and underwriting the activities of other arts organizations in the area.

“He could be stubborn, but he was usually stubborn about the right things,” said artist Scott Moore, who served on the festival board with Young and succeeded him as president of the foundation board.

“He could give you pause, but when the smoke cleared, he was usually right.”

Young always made himself available when Moore sought his advice — and sometimes when he didn’t.

“I go for runs in Bluebird and I’d stop by his office and ask if there was anything I needed to know,” Moore said. “David was a straight shooter and sometimes he stopped me and would lay it out — then I’d have to start my run over.”

Besides the scholarship program, Young was dedicated to the Pageant of the Masters production team and served as chairman of the committee for decades, lending his support to the show director and staff.

“David dearly loved the production team,” said pageant Director Dee Challis Davy. “He was like a father figure to us. Even in his last years, he always insisted that the team maintain its camaraderie. It soaked in. That is his legacy to us.”

Young was a mentor to Challis Davy when she became the pageant director.

“He gave me moral support ands good advice,” she said. “It was a friendship I will always treasure.”

It was a friendship that survived union negotiations and some of the most dramatic events in the festival history.

The sitting board was determined to move the festival out of town in 2000, which Young vehemently opposed. That board was subsequently recalled and Young was restored to the board in 2001.

“While he was off the board, he continued to work behind the scenes to protect the festival,” Challis Davy said.

Challis Davy’s history with Young began when she was a child.

The Youngs loved Laguna Beach watercolorists and he got the notion that local artists needed a place for professional training.

Prodded by Young, the festival founded the Laguna Beach School of Art, now the Laguna College of Art and Design, in 1962.

The festival donated $5,000 to start the school and Young rounded up 20 friends who each kicked in $1,000 to build the first studios on the festival grounds.

Young served on the school’s board for 25 years until he was turfed off by a president in retaliation for his successful objections to her plan to paint the buildings pink.

”I learned of David’s passing on Monday, and it felt like a cornerstone had been removed from a house,” said LCAD President Dennis Power. “The college was built on his original vision.

“When I first came to Laguna, I went to David and Roger Armstrong [longtime instructor at the school] and told them I wanted to learn all about the history of the school — all records prior to 1979 had burned in a fire.

“David was very free with his time and information and he had a little gathering at his home to introduce me to some of the people who were still around that in the early days of the school.

“What more could a new president want than someone who said I’m so glad you care and let me introduce to...”

Early years

David Young was born May 3, 1913 in Memphis, Tenn., where his grandfather had started a construction company in 1884. He attended the University of Texas, where he was on the championship swim team, said his cousin Joan Kling.

“My dad and he used to just swim across the Mississippi River — and its real wide — just for the exercise,” said Kling, who still lives in Memphis, along with Young’s nieces and nephews.

Young met Mary Williams while still in school and married her in 1937.

After graduating with a degree in civil engineering, Young joined the family business.

In 1943, responding to the need for war workers, Young went to work for Douglas Aircraft and moved his family to California.

The Youngs paid their first visit to Laguna Beach in 1945 and immediately knew it was where they wanted to raise their family.

David Young Builder Inc. opened the same year. The name changed in 1984 to Young Building Corp. and is still in operation. Young’s son Robin serves as president. His son Michael serves as chief financial officer.

“But my dad was still coming into the office until last year,” Robin Young said.

The company is known for the construction of such well-known Laguna landmarks as the Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America and Royal Hawaiian.

The Youngs bought a lot in Emerald Bay in 1948, a year after he began serving on the Laguna Beach Unified School District Board of Education

His political career ended when he resisted pressure to fire a principal who allegedly had been a member of the Communist Party. Opponents found a candidate who campaigned in a flag-draped car and characterized Young as a Communist dupe.

The Patriots Day Parade Committee chose him as Laguna’s Citizen of the Year in 2001. In 2004, he received the Orange County Arts Cultural Legacy Award for Community Visionary presented by Arts Orange County and a Spirit of Volunteerism Award from the Volunteer Center of Orange County.

Young retired from the board in February 2006 and was named director emeritus of the Festival Foundation.

“It’s been his life,” Mary Young said at a reception in honor.

The Laguna College of Art & Design also honored him at the LCAD 45th anniversary gala in October.

Young is survived by his three children: Robin Young of Laguna Beach, Nelly Bly Cogan of Oxford, Ohio, and Suzy Papanikolas of Hilo, Hawaii; eight grandchildren, and 15 great grandchildren.