Sunday Reads: Get to Know One of TIME’s Most Influential People Eli Broad & Wife, Edythe

Like many couples, Eli and Edythe Broad finish one another’s sentences, love to travel and appreciate nothing more than a quiet evening in. And that’s where the similarities end. Together for more than 60 years, Eli and Edythe share a love of art, a belief in the healing possibilities of science, and philanthropic hearts. And the results of their generosity have made an enormous impact on the cultural environment of downtown L.A.

Unlike most other couples, when the Broads travel, they visit the likes of the (now-deceased) Maharaja of Jaipur in his Indian palace. ‘Home’ is a two-story, 13,000-square-foot Brentwood behemoth designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry; the three-acre estate is dotted with works by Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly. Their home away from home is The Broad, the $140 million free-for-all (general admission), 120,000 square-foot, downtown contemporary art museum that officially opened late last year. What the couple wanted, admits Eli, was something different. “Most museums are not welcoming frankly—they’re sort of dark and so on. We wanted something that would attract people who never go to museums.”