Garages

A Healthy Obsession

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Not everything went as planned with construction. Gold recalls, “The floor is very big Italian ceramic tile, and there was an odd batch. So my wife told the workers the tiles didn’t match. They said ‘This is a garage, lady.’ She said we paid for matching tile so they pulled up the tiles and sent them back.”

“We didn’t want lifts because this is a big rumpus room,” continues Gold. So to allow access for working on the cars, Gold designed a basement room with a grease pit opening. “We needed the neighbors to sign off because the pit is non-conforming. One guy asked: ‘What are you doing, building a bomb shelter?’ Another asked, ‘What are you making, a ritual bath tub?’ and I said, ‘Stop it. This is a pit to change oil.’”

The kitchen lines the back of the garage under the loft lounge and office. Next to it is a wine cellar, a cigar humidor, and a cache of champagne magnums. A staircase leads down to the oil change pit, which is full of cases of oil and tools. Not many working garages have the attraction of this much champagne on hand.

Gold also has central air conditioning in the garage. “For years we never had air in our house down the street,” he says. “When I built the garage, my wife said ‘You mean the cars get air conditioning and I went all those years without it?’”

Over the years, Gold has acquired a museum-level collection of more than a dozen special Porsches. In his garage there’s a 911 police car, a rare Swiss four-seat roadster with 911 driveline, an equally rare Abarth Speedster, as well as special edition 911s, a Boxster, and a 1964 904 ex-factory racer that ran in the 24-hours of LeMans, the Targa Florio in Italy, and the Monte Carlo rally in the 1970s

Gold also has a string of experiences driving them. “I started off slowly in tours and rallies, and the next thing I know, we’re at 150 mph down the Mulsanne straight in the 904.”

Gold and his team crossed the finish line second in the inaugural Petit LeMans, a vintage endurance race held just before the famous 24-hour race. But that was the team’s “raw” score. When the scores were corrected, Gold’s 904 finished first. The trophy is in one of several large display cases in the garage, and the 904 sits over the grease pit.

Stanley Gold is an example of what can happen when car enthusiasm grabs hold like an obsession.