Barrick epitomized elegance, imprinted herself on Las Vegas

Thursday, May 3, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.

A memorial service for Marjorie Barrick, a founding trustee of the UNLV Foundation, funder of the Barrick Lecture Series and other programs, will be at 11:30 a.m. May 22 at UNLVs Artemus Ham Hall. The service is open to the public.

Cars breeze past the red brick house on Alta Drive, the one with the white columns and lush lawn. Inside, a ticking clock is the only sound.

But the photographs on the walls tell countless stories of a life well lived, of a society woman who arrived in town with her husband during a formal and elegant era when women with impeccable hairdos wore neatly fitted dresses and a string of pearls clutching their tiny necks.

Marjorie and Edward Barrick were philanthropists who moved in high society. When he died, the lecture series that Marjorie Barrick founded in his memory embedded their name in the Las Vegas consciousness and became an extension of her intellectual pursuits and passions.

Not only did she fund the series, she helped handpick the journalists, politicians and writers who came to town. It was integral to her life. The guests live in the photographs framed and hanging on walls, Scotch-taped to walls and doors, and set on shelves and end tables.

Barrick posing with Mikhail Gorbachev. Barrick standing with Arthur Ashe shortly before he died. The refined Barrick trading smiles with nattily dressed Tom Wolfe.

The same photograph of Barrick with Bob Dole makes an appearance on three walls in the stylish home.

A picture taped to a bedroom door shows Barrick standing next to Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel Prize winner in literature, whose engagement at the Barrick series prompted his move to Las Vegas.

Barrick had her pick. The sprawling home's back hallway features rows of framed posters announcing different speakers: Ralph Nader, Carl Sagan, William F. Buckley, Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite. The list goes on.

The photographs, however, were more personal and mixed with numerous plaques and recognitions she received over the years. It blends with the eclectic decor: unframed wildlife posters, embroidered artwork, paintings of European street scenes, figurines, photos and paintings of animals, illustrations, stuffed animals, pillows with slogans and other knickknacks and memorabilia.

The photos continue. Her whole life is on the walls for everyone to see. A picture on the bedroom wall shows Barrick, a stunning beauty wearing a white mink shawl at a showroom with her husband and friends. On the night stand is a framed photo of Michael Gaughan, the son of the Barricks' longtime friend Jackie Gaughan.

Bob Breen, Marjorie Barrick's longtime friend and personal assistant, was left the home in her will. Photos of his wife and family also cover the walls.

The last two weeks of Barrick's life, cut short by a broken hip, were spent at home.

Before her injury, Breen says, they went to lunch every day. Dinner every night. Lonestar, Tony Roma's, Red Lobster and Applebee's were her favorite haunts, and she showered her favorite waiters and waitresses with watches and jewelry.

Standing in the foyer of the home, Breen's wife, Sherrie, chokes up when she thinks of the future without Marjorie, the closest thing she had to a mother-in-law.

She sums up the strong-willed woman with a sharp intellect perfectly:

"The old days were so glamorous. She maintained that glamour to the end. The lady in her never left."