We asked these locals how they met. Here are their stories…
These two storytellers met when internet dating was in its infancy
Seth and Damona Hoffman were young, but online dating was even younger when the two met on a website called Nerve.com in 2003.
THE NEWLYWEDS at their ceremony at the California Club.
At this time, Damona Hoffman, née Resnick, already had a system and a dating plan she called “Operation Date Nice Guys.” She was working as a television casting director, which she felt gave her an advantage for online dating: she knew how to make her photos stand out from the crowd and how to tell her story. She met her match in Seth Hoffman. Seth was an aspiring writer who also had a knack for storytelling. He spent two days crafting his perfect opening message to Damona.
Damona took one look at Seth’s profile and threw all her rules out the window. “When can we meet?” she hastily typed. She tossed out the idea of mini golf at Castle Park in Sherman Oaks. Seth quipped back, “If you’re used to kicking guys’ butts, I’d hate for your winning streak to come to an unceremonious end.”
They settled on drinks, and Seth unknowingly suggested Damona’s regular dating spot, Lola’s, which used to be on Fairfax Avenue. They were off to an aligned and intriguingly competitive start.
The first date went well, Seth was (and still is) the epitome of nice, and Damona broke her next rule by having two martinis (her usual limit was one). Finally, on the fifth date they made it to mini golf and exactly tied.
NINETEEN YEARS LATER the Hoffmans pose for a photo.
Photo by Thomas Pantaleo
Nearly four years later, they were married at The California Club. They now live in Windsor Square with their two children, Addie, 15, and Julian, 11.
Damona stuck with her online dating winning streak and became a dating coach, TV personality, and the bestselling author of the dating advice book “F The Fairy Tale.” Seth continued storytelling and is now the showrunner of “The Walking Dead: Dead City,” and has a long list of writing and producing credits, including “House,” “Prison Break,” and the original “Walking Dead” series.
After 19 years of marriage, their happily-ever-after Hollywood ending is still being written.
Her hazel eyes sealed the deal for this cinematographer
By Crescenzo Notarile
I, Crescenzo, work in the motion picture industry as a multi-award-winning director of photography. I am a member of the American Society of Cinematographers and of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
NEWLYWEDS Cary Trampf and Crescenzo Notarile during their recent nuptial celebration.
My now wife, Cary Trampf, works at home as a recruiter for a large corporation.
We got married this past August in Beverly Hills, after being together for 15 years! Ha…It was time we tied our knot into an eternal bow of ‘till death do us part.’
I’ve been a member of the Larchmont community for 38 years, most of which has been bicoastal—New York City’s SoHo, and here.
I am a quintessential Brooklyn Boy, while my wife is from Wisconsin and a Green Bay Packer diehard stockholder—aka, a Cheese Head. Ha.
When I met Cary, she was an executive for Banana Republic, and I used to see her often at the stores.
What attracted me to Cary initially were her eyes! They bolted out of her face, and I loved the hazel color. That, against her porcelain flesh tone, attracted me as a photographer.
After talking to her, I was very intrigued by her high-pitched voice. Often, she sounds like an 8-year-old girl, and it is such an unexpected contrast to her stature. To this day, I still chuckle at times, listening to her.
One day, I had the nerve to ask her out, and she accepted. That changed our lives forever!
We went to Le Pain Quotidien, had a wonderful lunch, and our conversation was filled with comfort and laughter. She was impressed with all my world travels from shooting, and I was impressed with her hazel eyes and porcelain skin. Ha… Wink wink…
I did get a very quick taste of her personality when I took her out on our first date to see Cheech Marin do a one man stand up at Universal City. I was comped tickets and had VIP treatment. She was very uninterested in the show; it was written all over her face. She was squirming in her seat, and it was clear she was not having a good time. I took note of this, made up for it with a romantic dinner, and kept it simple from that moment onward. Ha.
The rest is history, and now in the books.
We live in Larchmont as solid pillars of the community and are involved and participate in everything.
Our pooch, Kodak, is well known on the strip, and everyone knows her by her name. Kodak is half Akita and half Jindo. She is 25 pounds small because she is the runt of her litter of six. She was born on Valentine’s Day and is now 16 years old. I got her on Larchmont at the Sunday adoption day when she was one month old. I walked past her, she gave me a look, and I proceeded to walked 10 steps more, then walked back. She came up to me immediately. I picked her up, and three minutes later she came home with me and now has been a very important part of my family! I am a cancer survivor, so I was unable to have children, so to have my Kodak is a gift and a blessing. I have learned so much from her, mostly through the observation of unconditional love and how meaningful that is.
As a cinematographer, we are visual people, and a picture is worth a thousand words [in reference to the photo]. Our expressions and smiles say volumes!
Some things are just meant to be
By Barbara Sueko McGuire
It’s easy to remember how long Darin and I have been together. Take our son’s age, 7, and add nine months. But while that equation is simple, the story of how we came to be a family is anything but.
THE MCGUIRES were on a road destined to be together!
It begins a decade earlier, when I moved back to Los Angeles from New York and started working at Swingers Diner on Beverly Boulevard. Darin was living in San Francisco working as a manager of a skateboarding team. He was often in L.A. for skate trips and stayed in the hotel adjacent to Swingers. I knew him as the kind of guy who tipped well. Fast forward eight years, and after not having seen him for a while (Darin left skateboarding for photography), he showed up one day at the diner for lunch as he was in town for a wedding.
The connection was immediate. We both felt it—and were both awkward about it. I remember telling my coworker, “Table 205 is so handsome,” and feeling disappointed when he didn’t ask for my number. Darin later told me he wanted to leave his number, but worried about being a creeper.
An Instagram message later, we were texting all day for weeks. Unbeknownst to Darin, I had been planning to have a baby on my own—by the time we met, everything was lined up. When he booked a trip to come down, I thought it’d be a last little “que sera” before I was off the market.
AND NOW they are three with their son Otis.
But as the weekend approached and our connection grew stronger, I realized I couldn’t omit this information. I picked up the phone and explained everything. His reaction: “Cool, I’ve raised a kid who wasn’t mine before.”
His visit was a blast—we walked my dog to Larchmont every morning, hiked Griffith Park, and ran into his friends everywhere. We weren’t sure what was happening, but I postponed my insemination and decided he should visit again.
As his second trip approached, I realized my period was mysteriously absent. On a whim—and only because I happened to have one—I took a pregnancy test. When I glanced at the stick minutes later, I froze. What the…! I had to lay down. Not only had we used protection, but I was 36 and Darin was 41—young fertile teenagers we were not.
And the rest is history. Darin moved to the neighborhood a couple months before Otis was born, and now helps run a golf brand, Metalwood Studios, while you can still find me at Swingers Diner. We love the neighborhood so much, we moved from my studio on Saint Andrews Pl. two buildings up to an apartment that fits us all, and have been raising our son here since, continuing our daily walks to the Boulevard, now as a family.
How I met my husband: The Love Hangover Ball
By Brian Curran
I met the love of my life in early 1992. I was in the second half of my freshman year of college at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. Looking for love at Fordham, a Catholic Jesuit school, wasn’t so easy. There were not many “out” gay students and no apps with which to find each other, leaving the gay bars in Manhattan as my only option. There was a slight hitch though, as I was 19 and did not yet have a fake ID to get past the bouncers on the lookout for underage posers like me.
BRIAN CURRAN AND KEVIN MACLELLAN together in 1992.
One cold February day, I found a flyer for a gay singles dance called “The Love Hangover Ball,” set for February 15 the night after Valentine’s Day. I was in luck! As it was a sober event, I was able to attend.
That Saturday, hair gelled and in my best ’90s boy band fashion, I hopped on the subway down to 13th Street in Greenwich Village. The dance was held in the basketball court/theater of the former St. Bernard’s Grammar School. Decorated with streamers, a disco ball, and rotating lights, it had the look of a sad high school prom!
My now husband Kevin, a new college grad who had just turned 25, was heading to the Village bars with some of his friends when they saw some guys entering the school. One of his buddies turned and said, “Let’s check out what kind of losers go to an event like this!” They entered and headed to the snack bar first to check things out. As they headed up the stairs Kevin looked up and saw the back of me climbing up ahead of them. He pointed and said to his friends, laughing, “I’m gonna marry that one.”
Later, in the auditorium, I noticed him leaning against the wall staring at me. When our eyes met, he walked right over to me and asked me to dance. I managed to cough out, “I’d love to!” The DJ was so bad, and our dancing with it, that we retreated to a nearby hallway. To me, he was the most attractive man I’d ever met, and I couldn’t believe he was talking to me, much less had danced with me! Kevin’s friends had left, but he stayed the rest of the event talking to me. When the night ended, we exchanged numbers and decided to meet the next evening. Cake, coffee, and a kiss on Christopher Street, and the rest is history…
TOGETHER today.
Category: News
