Bilt to Last
Karen Earp, manager of the Biltmore, hosted a media bash at the beachside hostelry’s Ty Lounge for local scribes to welcome the Four Seasons hotel’s re-opening after five months of closure due to the catastrophic mudslides in January.
“It is so good to be back!” enthused Karen. “There was a lot of cosmetic damage, and everyone has worked so hard to bring the Biltmore back to what is was.”
Among the journalistic scrum were KEYT-TV tony twosome Joe Buttitta and Kelsey Gerckens, Bill and Barbara Tomicki, Joan Tapper, and John Dickson.
Hot Wheels
Cellular phone billionaire Craig McCaw, who paid a world-record price of $35 million for a rare Ferrari 250 GTO six years ago, obviously made a good investment.
Chicago-based David MacNeil, founder of WeatherTech, just paid a hefty $70 million for a model, of which only 39 were built between 1962 and 1964, and now joins an elite club of owners including Polo fashion tycoon Ralph Lauren and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.
McCaw’s 1962 Ferrari formerly belonged to British race car driver Stirling Moss.
Curious George(s)
It will be a stylish July 4 village parade when Santa Barbara Polo Club promoter Charles Ward and I don our costumes as George Washington and King George III.
This year, the dynamic duo will be riding in a $400,000 Rolls Royce Dawn convertible lent by the O’Gara Coach Company in Westlake.
TV personality Tara Gray, a former Miss Alabama, will also be joining us.
In Memoriam
On a personal note, I mark the passing of chef and masterful storyteller Anthony Bourdain, who died in Paris at the age of 61 after committing suicide.
Bourdain, who was the culinary star of CNN’s award-winning series Parts Unknown, who used to date an old friend New York Post writer Paula Froelich, visited our tony town just last month to speak at a UCSB Arts & Lectures gala at the Museum of History.
A sad end to a glittering peripatetic career.
Sightings: Actor Ryan Gosling at Lotusland…Actress Janelle Odair Bottleson at the Santa Barbara Polo Club…Dennis Miller at Starbucks on CVR
Pip! Pip!
Readers with tips, sightings and amusing items for Richard’s column should email him at richardmineards@verizon.net or send invitations or other correspondence to the Journal.
