I went to work for Jann Wenner in the 1970s to help him launch a new magazine called Outside. Our startup team was housed in the Rolling Stone office in San Francisco, so we were surrounded by the staff and culture of that publication.
When you go to work for a new boss, you want to learn how they think and what they believe in—and in this case, how they think a magazine should work.
The very first issue of Rolling Stone, which was published in November 1967, featured John Lennon on the cover, even though the name of the magazine might today be more associated with Mick Jagger. I concluded that Jann was very deliberate. He had wanted the cover image of the debut issue to be of somebody who represented and inspired what the magazine was going to be about.
To be honest, I never asked anybody about this. I didn’t know if the magazine drew its name from Bob Dylan, or Muddy Waters, or other people who used the rolling stone metaphor. But I assumed that the first cover of a magazine ought to show somebody who symbolized what the publication was all about.
Some decades later, in 2017, when I was launching my own periodical—which we call Alta Journal—I wanted the first issue’s cover to feature somebody who symbolized what we were going be about: arts and culture, invention, innovation, design, exploration, discovery…with an emphasis on the Western states. I thought of that famous New Yorker cartoon depicting the United States, but I envisioned the reverse. We were looking distantly toward the East—New York as the faraway place. The vantage point from here, the land of the West under our feet, was what mattered most.
The person we chose to be on our first cover was the architect Frank Gehry, because we thought that Frank was an original designer—more like an artist than an architect—who was an inspiration to many other people. He was a Los Angeles transplant, but symbolized exactly what we wanted to explore and report on.
A few months ago, following our eighth anniversary, we decided to go back and talk to Frank, to see what he was up to. I had a very long conversation with him, trying to pin down his work philosophy, his inspiration, and what he was thinking about. For that issue, we again turned to Frank for the cover. This time as David Hockney had painted him.
Today, we learned of his passing with great sadness. Frank was not just a celebrity or a cover subject for a magazine. He was a true original genius. Somebody whose work and teachings will be celebrated not for years but for centuries. Those of us who knew him also knew what he stood for, and knew what he wanted us to stand up for, and we are going to keep doing that.
Meanwhile, there are his buildings, which will last for a long time…and they are so charming to be in.
So, if you don’t know Frank Gehry, or his work, or his biography, it doesn’t matter. Just visit one of his buildings and ask yourself how you feel after you walk 10 feet in from the front door.
I think you’ll feel better.•
Will Hearst is the editor and publisher of Alta Journal, which he founded in 2017. He is the board chair of Hearst, one of the nation’s largest diversified media and information companies. Hearst is a grandson of company founder William Randolph Hearst.
