By JAN HOGAN
VIEW STAFF WRITER

Original article located at: Summerlin Views

She could have rented it out or sold it. Instead, Camille Duskin turned her mother's house into a place where music and art flourish.

"What would we do without the arts?" she said. "It's incumbent upon us to pass it on, especially to the children."

To that end, Duskin and her husband, Gerald, who are Summerlin-area residents, set up a nonprofit called Gateway Gallery-A Public Art Collection nearly four years ago. Part of the organization looks to turn the blight of downtown Las Vegas into an explosion of art with murals on buildings. The other part is Camille Duskin's late mother's home, called Hattie's House.

Opened in 2008, Hattie's House hosts recitals, gives music teachers a place to conduct lessons and offers various community events that deal with the arts. It's all done on a small scale.

"This is a residential area," Camille Duskin said. "We're very cognizant of that."

Use of the venue is offered free to those who qualify. The 2,600-square-foot, single-story home is located in Peccole Ranch and holds three pianos and an organ, which recently was donated. For special situations, the foundation will purchase an instrument for students to use.

The house needed little done to it to make it into a recital hall. The furniture was put in storage, the floors were tiled for acoustics and 40 upholstered chairs were bought at auction and lined up.

Isaias Urrabazo, known as the Singing Dresser because he is the costumer for "Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular," as well as a singer in his own right, used the house to rehearse for a show. He said he liked the idea of holding recitals there.

"Hattie's House can do a lot of good for a lot of young performers," he said. "It's a way to let them get their feet wet without being intimidated by a large audience."

Norman Vito, a pianist and a teacher at College of Southern Nevada, agreed.

"The acoustics are perfect," he said. "The ambience and the paintings, it all lends itself to such endeavors."

A full-length photo of Hattie McGuire watches over everything from atop the fireplace.

To understand why Duskin is so passionate about music, one need only look to her past. As a child growing up in Southern California, she danced on local TV shows that were filmed at MGM studios.

She called Harold Adamson, a songwriter known for tunes such as "Around the World in 80 Days" and "An Affair to Remember," her uncle. Adamson included her when his friends -- including Johnny Mercer, Sammy Kahn, Henry Mancini, Martha Raye, Steve Allen and Jay Livingston -- came over to socialize.

"It was a magical time," she said.

She later owned and operated three restaurants, all while maintaining her link to the arts. In an affiliation with Anheuser-Busch, for example, she helped organize outdoor music events that saw as many as 15,000 attendees.

When she and her husband retired to Las Vegas 17 years ago, her parents moved at the same time. They intentionally bought houses next door to one another. Duskin was close with her mother and went over every day to have coffee in the house that has now been transformed into Hattie's House. She and her mother collaborated on various social events.

So far, Hattie's House has hosted an opera singer's Thanksgiving time performance, a quick-draw auctioned art event in April, where the artisan's paintings were done to live music as the audience watched, and a violin recital in March. The foundation provides scholarships for promising students of the arts.

The next event is being planned for the fall. For more information, contact Duskin via e-mail at camille@gatewayartsfoundation.org or call 255-0695.

Contact Summerlin View and South Summerlin View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.