Meet our Tennis Club President for 2025, Gene Mariani. Gene and Shirley moved to Verano Village in December 2021 from Los Altos Hills. Gene has had a multi-layered career and while having several hobbies.
Gene was born in San Francisco, but grew up in Burlingame in an Italian family and speaks Italian. He entered Berkeley at 18 and spent two years majoring in architecture. He interrupted his Berkeley education and moved to Florence, Italy for two years and studied sculpture at their Academy of Fine Arts. When he came back home, he worked for his father in his company and eventually took it over and grew it to be Western Art Stone, Inc. a manufacturer of Architectural Precast Panels. You can see some of his work in San Francisco at the Moscone Center and the Transamerica building. And in Burbank, California you can see his work on top of the Disney headquarters. He did the Seven Dwarfs on their roof!
In his early years, Gene was a race car driver driving his own formula car at Laguna Seca and other tracks in the state for six years. He then slowed down and owned horses to ride when he lived in Woodside. And then he had to take up tennis when he met Shirley who was a serious tennis player. He told me Shirley and her high school daughter Kelly won the national Mother/Daughter tournament at the U.S. Open in New York. For many years Gene and Shirley traveled a great deal, especially to Italy, but prefers to stay home these days enjoying life at The Villages.
Be sure to sign up for the Prescott tournament for Saturday, March 15. Watch your email for Prescott information and a button to the registration form.
