Photo by Paul O'Connor

Dedicated to Saki

Saki Karavas was my best friend. He was born in Taos, New Mexico, in the early 1900s. His parents were Greek immigrants who had the vision to establish the first hotel on the Montana-Texas cattle drive. They built the "La Fonda of Taos" which became a cultural center for the southwestern literary movement.

D. H. Lawrence stayed there with his family when he was on his way to Australia after being exiled from Britain. After Lawrence's death, Saki purchased the complete collection of paintings of D.H. Lawrence from the estate of Lawrence's widow, Baroness Frieda von Richthofen, after she died in 1956.

This collection had a prominent place among other paintings that Saki had purchased from many artists. He was an avid reader of literature and history and a renown art collector. He was fluent in Greek, English, French and Spanish. He had fought many wars on behalf of the Native Americans of the Taos Pueblo and he was part of the force that brought President Richard Nixon to Taos for the signing of an agreement that protected the religious rights of the local Native Americans.

At the entrance to his hotel, he had placed a large photograph of Emiliano Zapata to whom he always referred as "the last real man". When asked about the hotel's charms and his collection of art and artifacts, he would say, "Every spider has its web." He believed in destiny and he spoke in aphorisms which was the influence of the Greek culture that was passed on to him by his parents.

He was a romantic and a great lover of the Tango, one of the last Don Quixotes of our times, and he had a great influence in my personal development. He was a great friend to me.

Saki was a gracious host. Gary Cooper, Judy Garland. Tennessee Williams, Virginia Mayo, Rock Hudson, Perry Como, Vivian Vance, Norman Feldman, Peter Fonda, Julia Roberts, Nicholas Cage, Patty Arquette, Geraldo Rivera, Robin Strausser, Tyrone Power and his first wife Annabella, Dorothy Mcguire and Ray Milland, Cloris Leachman, Dennis Weaver, Frank Waters, Robert DeNiro and his wife Diane Abbott, Paul Newman, Barry Tubb, Dennis Hopper and Larry Cisneros were a few of the many friends of Saki.

On April 16, 1996, after a long illness, the tango music stopped at the Hotel La Fonda de Taos. At Saki's funeral, people stood in the back of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Taos for the first Greek Orthodox service ever conducted there.

Saki died the week after Easter. The time when the soul of the deceased rises directly to God.

I dedicated my web site to Saki so that his memory lives.