Meet the Fruit Juice Baron Who Conquered L.A.

Rising up in Mexico Metropolis, Eugenio López Alonso’s path was preordained: He was destined to change into the fruit juice king of Latin America.

As the one youngster and sole inheritor of beverage billionaire Eugenio López Rodea, he was anticipated to take the reins of Grupo Jumex, the household’s mammoth empire, the most important purveyor of fruit juice in South and Central America. Not precisely glamorous, however it certain was a whole lot of guava.

In the end, although, López selected a unique path, and as we speak, at 56, he’s one of the outstanding, well-connected figures within the L.A. art scene, the place for the previous three many years he’s not solely championed rising Latin expertise within the U.S., he’s additionally assembled one of the in depth personal fashionable collections on this planet, constructed himself considered one of L.A.’s most iconic fashionable properties, befriended a few of Hollywood’s largest stars and, maybe most impressively, thrown some legendary, celebrity-soaked events in a city that is aware of a factor or two about partying.

“After I got here right here in 1994,” he says, “all the things modified in my life. It was a turning level. Right here, there was freedom.”

Whereas nonetheless in his 20s, López had made a minimum of a half-hearted try and fall according to the household enterprise, accepting a place as head of selling at his dad’s firm. Nonetheless, he was not often discovered at his desk doing a lot advertising. As an alternative, he was quietly pursuing his true ardour — artwork, a love he first acquired when his dad and mom took him on a grand tour of Europe. Again then, although, he needed to discover inventive methods to indulge himself. “I lied to my father about going to the manufacturing facility for equipment in Dallas once I was actually going to the Menil Assortment opening,” he remembers.

Each time he may, López would fly to L.A., the place he started to steer one thing of a double life — juice marketer by day, artwork obsessive by night time. After assembly artwork adviser Esthella Provas, he hatched an concept to assist her finance a gallery specializing in Latin American displays, which they have been about to open in January 1994 when the Northridge earthquake hit. In a panic, he practically backed out. “I bear in mind driving round on a wet day considering, ‘Now shouldn’t be the second.’ Then, we determined, we will do that!”

For the following decade, Provas and López ran the Chac Mool Gallery on Robertson Boulevard. It offered an excuse for him to gather in addition to a motive to stay outdoors Mexico Metropolis and to lastly exit the household juice agency: “I may persuade my father that it was a enterprise,” he explains.

In 2001, he persuaded his dad once more, this time to let him convert a 15,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at a Jumex plant north of Mexico Metropolis into an exhibition house. He had been impressed after a go to to the Saatchi Gallery, which British collector Charles Saatchi opened in a former industrial house. “If individuals have been coming to an previous manufacturing facility on the outskirts of London, they might come to mine in Ecatepec,” López reasoned.

Artwork experts from all around the world quickly have been flocking to La Coleccion Jumex, the place, adjoining to pulping and pasteurization vats, López confirmed his quickly rising assortment of works by Mexican in addition to American and European artists.

By now, López had joined the ranks of the world’s tremendous collectors. He had the style, and he had the money, and he had no compunction about spending. Says one outstanding curator: “A variety of collectors get nervous. They find yourself shopping for the cheaper factor, the smaller model. Then, 20 years move, they usually’re like, ‘Why didn’t I purchase the massive one?’ Eugenio buys the massive one. He spends cash.”

However he didn’t spend all of it on artwork. In 2001, López noticed a home tucked within the hills of Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates that he knew would make the best residence for himself and his assortment — a low-slung ranch designed in 1957 by architect Wayne McAllister, set on a verdant acre of land. However the place was dilapidated. “Are you loopy? It’s a teardown,” his father informed him. Nonetheless, López took the plunge. When he closed escrow three days after 9/11, he was once more beset with misgivings. The renovation that adopted, overseen by architect Ron Radziger of Marmol Radziger and inside designer Vance Burke, was painstaking and prolonged.

In fact, probably the most beautiful a part of the completed home is what’s hanging on its partitions, which incorporates (ultimately rely) six works by Cy Twombly and different works by Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Damien Hirst, Brice Marden, Gerhard Richter, Bruce Nauman, Bob Gober and Ed Ruscha, whose 1973 phrase portray, Advantage, bought pleasure of place above López’s mattress.

“It’s the best home on the planet. It’s an absolute gem, very suave,” says vendor Larry Gagosian, citing its ” ’60’s Rat Pack vibe” and “organically flowing rooms.”

Phrase about the home bought round. One night time at Spago, Betsy Bloomingdale and Princess Ira von Fürstenberg cornered López to ask about it, then made him take them residence for an after-dinner tour.

He unveiled the home extra correctly in summer season 2004, when he threw a dinner for 300 to rejoice the UCLA Hammer Museum exhibition “Made in Mexico.” Artists, L.A. collectors and socialites mingled as go-go dancers paraded across the pool. “It was magical,” remembers Hammer director Ann Philbin.

The following occasions López hosted at his Trousdale digs — in addition to at different venues — shortly turned legendary. “They have been unbelievable,” one collector remembers of the fetes López held in Mexico Metropolis. “These events may final 20 hours. You have been invited for lunch, and folks can be there till 6 the following morning. Events like most individuals have by no means been to.”

One main New York artwork vendor attended a López dinner within the early 2000s and to today remembers it as “one of many nice events of all time,” recalling that as a substitute of floral centerpieces, the tables featured terrariums full of scorpions and tarantulas: “It was very Mexican.”

The visitor lists of those occasions have been as eclectic because the names have been glamorous. “From Ed Ruscha to [Mexican pop star] Paulina Rubio and all the things in between,” says one common at López’s L.A. home events. Recollects one other, “Salma Hayek and Wendy Stark have been at all times there. There was at all times a film star, a giant producer, the CAA group, together with artists, collectors and society individuals. It was actually a mixing place.”

Provides Kevin Huvane, one member of that CAA group: “His home in Los Angeles is the closest factor to a modern-day Renaissance salon. Eugenio has a present for bringing individuals collectively.”

López himself, nevertheless, was generally not seen at his personal events, a minimum of not till later within the night. His late, dramatic entrances solely added to the mystique round him, the enigmatic Latin playboy artwork collector. Nonetheless, there have been unseen depths: Hidden away in the home, seldom visited by partygoers, was an infinite library stocked with books on historical past, artwork and different topics. Notes Jeffrey Deitch, the artwork vendor and former director of Los Angeles’ Museum of Up to date Artwork, López has learn just about each quantity. “Sure, you see him out,” says Deitch, “however he’s a really, very severe individual, he’s extraordinarily refined, actually exceptional.”

A number of years after transferring into the home, López closed the Chac Mool Gallery and joined the board of MOCA at a time when the modern artwork scene was changing into a robust pressure within the metropolis’s rise on the worldwide stage (he’s now the museum’s vice chair). “For the primary time in my life, I used to be doing one thing I used to be certain was not going to be a failure,” he says, “as a result of I had executed my analysis, and I used to be captivated with what I used to be doing.”

What he’s particularly captivated with doing is advocating for rising expertise. “There was such an absence of help for younger artists,” he goes on. “If a younger artist got here to a possible sponsor and mentioned, ‘Pay attention, I’m going to refill a Volkswagen with water and lower it in half and I want $10,000,’ they might have mentioned, ‘Get this loopy individual out of right here!’ However then I got here alongside and mentioned, ‘Come to me!’ ” Certainly, due to a grant from López, Cosmic Factor, Mexican artist Damián Ortega’s set up of a dissembled 1976 VW Beetle, is likely one of the defining items in MOCA’s assortment.

In 2014, López opened a everlasting museum, the Museo Jumex, for his assortment in Mexico Metropolis (the place he owns one other sensational modernist home filled with fashionable masterpieces). The 43,000-square-foot, four-story museum with its distinctive sawtooth roof was designed by British architect David Chipperfield, who subsequently was awarded a Pritzker Prize, structure’s highest honor.

“What’s fantastic about Eugenio López Alonso is his love of artwork and his need to make artwork accessible to everybody,” says Jeff Koons, whose works are on show at Museo Jumex. “Eugenio has been making enormous breakthroughs in sharing modern artwork with the general public in Latin America. All the things that he brings forth by means of Museo Jumex and his different philanthropic endeavors reveals his love of individuals and his need to share the constructive facets of humanity so our lives can flourish together with future generations.”

As of late, López events much less often than he did in his youth, and a tad much less boisterously. One is extra more likely to spot him on the Polo Lounge, eating with such buddies as Joan Collins, Sweet Spelling and Nikki Haskell. As one other acquaintance observes, “He loves the gays and the grays — all these previous society women,” maybe as a result of these women have much more life of their night time than many youthful Angelenos.

“I name them for dinner on Monday night time,” López explains. “Eight o’clock? Too early? 9-thirty? ‘Good!’ “

“There are two sorts of individuals on this planet: ovens and fridges. Ovens heat you and fridges depart you chilly. Eugenio is considered one of life’s ‘ovens,’ ” Collins emails from Saint-Tropez. “He loves bringing disparate individuals collectively, is a beneficiant, gregarious host, and he likes giving a celebration as a lot as I do. Furthermore, I’ve at all times been impressed by his deep data of present enterprise. “

Provides Haskell: “There isn’t something I wouldn’t do for Eugenio. He’s probably the most fabulous of all. There’s no person like him. He has that playboy fame. I’m not saying he’s not a playboy — however he’s a playboy with a objective. He’s probably the most caring and type individual I do know.”

Haskell nonetheless raves in regards to the eightieth party he threw for her on the home three years in the past, a Studio 54-themed fete that includes dozens of drag queens, a few of whom regarded strikingly related to a couple of the well-known company.

Says the octogenarian birthday lady, “At Eugenio’s home, you meet all people.”

This story first appeared within the July 22 problem of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click here to subscribe.