A Healthy Obsession

The Ultimate Porsche Garage.

by Phil Berg

Stanley Gold and a friend were jogging on the beach in 1990 when the shape of a Porsche 356 under a car cover made him stop.

“I was too embarrassed to ask about the car, but my friend knocked on the door,” he recalls. “The guy’s wife shouted ‘Yes, it’s for sale.’”

The car was a 1964 red coupe which Gold had restored to concours quality.

Gold has always had a passion for Porsches: “When I was first married, we had a 1972 Porsche. But the kids started getting bigger, so we had a Mercedes, or station wagons. Then the kids were off to college and I bought a new 911 Carrera.” Gold began to go to club events. “I quickly learned that the people having the most fun were the 356 guys.” That’s when Gold went on his fateful jog. “I found out it was a nice 356 but there were more desirable cars, Speedsters and Carreras.” His passion became an obsession, and his collection grew.

“My neighbor was walking his dog one night and I told him I had a new car to show him,” recalls Gold. “He said it was a beautiful car, but the garage was junk. I had two or three cars here, and I kept a couple in a garage in Malibu. I had a mechanic, too, and he always had a couple of my cars in somebody else’s garage,” he recalls.

Gold told his wife that he’d like to get an architect and build a proper garage for all his Porsches. She wanted to add a game room onto the side and it became clear that they didn’t have enough property. Then his current house came on the market. It had a much bigger backyard, so the Golds moved.

Gold remembers telling his wife that he could fit ten cars into the new garage. His wife answered that she could get 75 for dinner in it if the cars were moved onto the lawn. “She told me, ‘There’s a full kitchen in it. There’s a bathroom in it. We’ll have parties out here.’”