Frederick & Laurie Samitaur Smith

Owners and Founders of Samitaur Constructs

Since the mid-1980’s Frederick and Laurie Samitaur Smith have been developing the Conjunctive Points urban redevelopment project in Los Angeles and Culver City, California. Internationally recognized as a unique urban experiment in the fusion of art, architecture, and technology, Conjunctive Points has received numerous awards and extensive worldwide press coverage. Over the years, Samitaur has attracted a prestigious tenant roster that includes Nike, Ogilvy, Sony Pictures, WPP, Aegis Media, Delta Apparel and Red Bull, among many others. Through their company, Samitaur Constructs, the Smiths have fostered an economic and cultural renaissance in what was once a defunct industrial tract.

Frederick Samitaur Smith first experienced his passion for building when he worked himself through college in construction. He then spent several years in Europe working as a writer and journalist, where he was greatly influenced by his association with Picasso, Madame Braque, and contacts with other key members of the European arts community such as Ionesco, Jacques Brel, Simone de Beauvoir, Chagall and Miro.

Moving back to California in the 1970’s, fortuitous circumstances brought Frederick to the Silicon Valley, where he built several high-tech facilities at the dawn of the high-tech industry. These experiences, combined with a love of cubism, modern literature and higher math, have formed the basis for his ambition to create a community that brings together in symbiosis technological advancement and the arts.

Laurie Samitaur Smith has an extensive theatrical background. As a young teenager she began 8 years of training with the protégé of the renowned Russian actor and director, Michael Chekhov; she also spent many years of intensive study with a disciple of “La Argentina”, history’s greatest exponent of Spanish Classical Dance. She went on to play leading roles in films, T.V., and on the stage, where she had the ingénue lead in the opening production of Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum. With this background, Laurie easily identified with Frederick’s desire to integrate the arts and culture into the daily life of a community.

Besides conceiving the Conjunctive Points urban philosophy, since coming together both Laurie and Frederick have been actively involved in promoting change in the L.A. area: Laurie founded and led a citizens movement comprised of a quarter of a million people seeking to preserve L.A.’s public park system, for which she was named L.A.’s first Honorary Park Ranger. Together the Smiths founded the support group for the L.A. Police Department’s Juvenile Division, and Laurie led the organization for 12 years, organizing large community events and doing major fundraising to provide the officers with the latest equipment and training in the field of crimes against children. Sharing a great appreciation for art, the Smiths donated a new gallery space to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Frederick founded the fundraising arm of the L.A. Free Clinic, garnering much support for that organization for many years; it is now the preeminent free clinic in the State of California, and has served as a prototype for all the other free clinics in the State.

Since the beginning of their work in urban development and construction in the 1970’s, the Smiths have always had a strong sense of responsibility to protect the physical structures – frequently built of no-longer available materials – that came into their hands. Although most developers typically raze old buildings to make way for new, the Smiths have instead been committed to preserving what is significant in these older structures, and if necessary have taken additional steps (and incurred additional expenditures) to maintain or restore these important elements from the past, while weaving them into the exciting modern architecture for which Samitaur has become famous.

Also in the 1990s the Smiths began to develop a serious interest in historic preservation on an international level, coupled with theories as to how to create economic redevelopment at the same time as preserving historic structures. This led to their being invited to attend numerous UNESCO World Heritage meetings and conventions, both as attendees as well as speakers, in several different countries.