Mark Loving helps run the pink-colored shop after his father, Tom, started the business in 1964. The pink was recoated as a sign to Mark’s grandmother’s favorite color. (Photo by Rasy Ran)
Nobody had an opinion about what color Mark Loving should paint his automotive shop until he painted it pink.
“Everyone was like, ‘Why’d you paint it pink?’” he recalls. “I just said, ‘Well, why not?’ ”
The truth is White Rock Automotive Garage on Garland was already pink. His grandmother, Ruby Loving, painted it pink decades ago when the shop belonged to Mark’s grandfather, Thomas Earl Loving, Sr. Today it belongs to Mark’s father, Thomas Earl Loving, Jr. The building had faded to almost white, but Mark found a chip of paint that hadn’t seen sunlight, took it to a paint shop and found a color to match.
Some people complained about the paint, but Mark just shrugs.
“I asked them what color I should paint it,” he points out. “They just said, ‘Well I don’t know.’ It’s like asking your wife what she wants for dinner.”
Ruby’s favorite color was pink, and if it was good enough for Mark’s grandmother, it’s good enough for Mark.
“She was quite a woman,” he points out. “She was a pretty strong-willed individual.”
The color of the automotive shop wasn’t the only influence Ruby had on the neighborhood, Mark says. His grandparents built the Spanish style, two-story house on Buckner between Redondo and Hermosa in the ‘30s.
Mark remembers seeing an old black and white picture of the house when it was first built (he tried to find it for this story but couldn’t), and at the time there was nothing around it — no other houses, no buildings or even trees, just land.
Casa Linda Plaza, which first opened right after WWII, took its name from that same Spanish Revival style architecture.
Mark says his grandparents owned a shop in Casa Linda called Mr. and Mrs. Gifts. His family still owns the property where the old Loving Oil & Gas building sits on Garland.
