A renewed legal and political firestorm is brewing off the Central Coast as federal authorities and fossil fuel companies push to restart oil production at the long-shuttered Santa Ynez Unit (SYU), while local environmental groups and Santa Barbara County mount legal resistance. The U.S. Department of the Interior has hailed the project’s revival as a […]
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It was a very in-tents occasion when Santa Barbara Polo Training Center hosted its 9th annual gala dinner for 120 all-white clad guests at the Carpinteria locale – which enabled the purchase of a much needed $77,000 John Deere tractor. Each year, the 13-year-old organization makes $10,000 grants to UCSB and Westmont College polo team […]
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Social gridlock reigned at the charming Casa del Herrero’s second annual Fiesta fest. More than 75 guests, numbers limited by local ordinance, crowded into the East Valley Road estate, which is also celebrating its 100th anniversary. The sunset soirée, chaired by David Bolton, Gonzalo Sarmiento, and Jenna Jobst Reichental, starred ubiquitous classical guitarist Chris Fossek […]
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Social gadabout Rick Oshay and Teresa Kuskey, bubbly founder of the popular La Boheme Dance Company, hosted their fifth annual Viva La Fiesta at Casa de la Guerra, with more than 350 guests. Flamenco and salsa were provided by the Laura Garcia dance group, and other performances from Danza Folklórico and the Zermeño Dancers. Mezcal […]
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Animal activist Gretchen Lieff and my trusty shutterbug Priscilla co-hosted a birthday bash for yours truly at her La Lieff tasting room in the Funk Zone for the 22nd anniversary to my half century. The sunset soirée attracted quite the crowd including Wayne and Sharol Siemens, Joel and Jamie Knee, Caren Rager, Linda Rosso, William […]
Lea másTennis ace Maria Sharapova, who bought a five-acre ocean view retreat in Summerland for $8.6 million in November 2020, has put her Los Angeles mansion on the market for $18.5 million with her British fiancé Alexander Gilkes, 46. The Japanese-inspired home has sweeping views to Catalina. Sharapova won her first Grand Slam at 17, winning […]
Lea másAfter the extravagant production of the doom and gloom-infused morality and reckless wreckage-and-punishment tale of Don Giovanni at the Granada in mid-July, things turn a bit frothier and lighthearted with the Music Academy of the West Lehrer Vocal Institute’s performance of one-acts. Stripped down to the bare essentials and staged much more intimately at Hahn […]
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The early morning king tide was surging up to the base of the wave-battered bluffs along the Central California coast. At several gullies I waited for sweeping surges of tide to recede outwards so I could run to the next big rock to balance myself above the ebbing tide. When I reached the wide-open beach […]
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John James Audubon’s painting of the American Bald Eagle feasting on a catfish was made in 1828. It was originally engraved for his famous work, The Birds of America, by Robert Havell in London. In 1858 the work was printed in New York by means of chromolithography for the Bien edition. Audubon described the bird plummeting to […]
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