Tag archives: gossip

TV Santa Barbara and our Eden by the Beach hosted the two-day Alliance for Community Media (ACM) Western Region conference and trade show, with events at the station’s South Salinas Street studio, the Mar Monte Hotel and a welcome reception for 100 guests which I attended at the Cabrillo Pavilion. The conference, which attracted 168 […]

Aging Cossack Taras Bulba reigned supreme when Filharmonie Brno Philharmonic, the Czech orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, performed at the Granada, part of CAMA’s international series. The Leoš Janáček work, a three-part rhapsody for orchestra based on the 17th-century historical novella, concluded the first half on a high note after Martinu’s “Sinfonietta ‘La Jolla’” […]

To the historic Santa Barbara Club for a talk by local writer Lorie Dewhirst Porter, author of the fascinating coffee table tome Montecito Style: Paradise on California’s Gold Coast with 250 colorful photos by Firooz Zahedi, whose work has been seen in Vanity Fair, Interview, Town & Country, Time, and Architectural Digest. Zahedi, a 74-year-old […]

The former Birnam Wood home of uber philanthropist Leslie Ridley-Tree, who died in October at the age of 98, has hit the market for $7.95 million. The 4,900-square-foot, single-story home on 1.06 acres, which I last visited for Leslie’s Christmas party, is just a tiara’s toss from the tony enclave’s clubhouse. Her extensive 700-piece wardrobe, […]

Prince Harry and former actress wife Meghan Markle are eyeing entering their two children, Archie and Lilibet, at a local private school, I can exclusively reveal. The Riven Rock twosome were spotted inspecting an institution’s campus last week, bringing them one-step closer to a decision. School fees in our area range from $6,000 to $50,000+ […]

Social gridlock reigned when retired technology executive Howard Cannon opened the doors of his George Washington Smith home, just a tiara’s toss from the estate of singer Katy Perry and her British actor fiancé Orlando Bloom, for more than 90 guests for his sixth annual Super Bowl party. With commercial time during the Fox broadcast […]

Hearts Aligned, the two-year-old Santa Barbara charity which supports critically ill children, threw its first Hearts to Hearts Valentine’s lunch with 156 guests at the Cabrillo Pavilion, raising around $100,000 for low-income youngsters. The ubiquitous Janet Garufis, chairman and CEO of Montecito Bank & Trust, emceed the fun oceanside fête, as well as acting as […]

Nearly half a century ago the society glossy Town & Country featured Montecito interior decorator Penny Bianchi in a cover article with the late comedy legend Bob Hope on the backlot of Universal Studies in L.A. in an iconic pose à la America Gothic, the 1930 painting by Grant Wood now in the collection of […]

Investec Real Estate Companies’ founding principal and president Kenny Slaught is stepping down as Dream Foundation’s board chair after a decade at the helm. He will continue to serve as vice chair under the organization’s newly appointed chair, Mario Muredda. Muredda is currently a member of the foundation’s board and was formerly co-chair of the […]

The sixth annual FestForums, which serves the festival industry from ticketing, sponsorship, programming, sustainability, and marketing, hosted a boffo bash at MOXI for 300 guests to mark the launch of the two-day event in Santa Barbara. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams,” said Laurie Kirby, co-founder and president. “It is a magical event and the first […]

UCSB’s popular Arts & Lectures series has been working overtime with three major shows in the last week, two at the Granada and a third at the more intimate Lobero. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato’s EDEN, a call to action to build a paradise for today fertilizing, nourishing, and protecting the pure bliss that is Earth, with […]

CAMA’s first concert of the New Year and its 104th season at the Granada was an absolute cracker! Chicago’s 132-year-old symphony under renowned Italian maestro Ricardo Muti, which first visited our Eden by the Beach at the Arlington 58 years ago, was in rare form with not a single seat available in the 1,553-capacity auditorium. […]

Social gridlock reigned when the ubiquitous Andrew Firestone and his partner Jess Parker threw an opening bash at their new 122-room State Street hostelry, Courtyard by Marriott, formerly a La Quinta Inn. After imbibing wine, beer, and specialty cocktails on the roof, guests headed downstairs to Saint Remy, the Cearnal Collective-designed hotel’s new poolside eatery […]

Carpinteria actor Kevin Costner, 68, is renting out his 160-acre Aspen, Colorado, home for a hefty $36,000 a night. The Oscar and recent Golden Globe winner’s property has 12 bedrooms and eight bathrooms, with it spread over nearly 6,000 square feet and accommodating up to 27 people. Known as the Dunbar Ranch, it is described […]

Santa Barbara Symphony was clearly on the right track with its first 70th anniversary concert of the New Year! Plains, Trains, & Violins at the Granada under maestro Nir Kabaretti was a celebration of the influence of music of the Americas with local ties to our Eden by the Beach. The entertaining performance included Uruguayan-born […]

I remember King Constantine II, the last King of Greece. Monarch for nine years until the abolition of the country’s royal family in 1973, we met at the legendary three-day 70th birthday party thrown by New York publisher Malcolm Forbes at his Palais Mendoub in Tangier, Morocco, in 1989 for 800 celebrity guests, including Elizabeth […]

Restoration Hardware, the upscale home furnishing emporium, is coming to town! The chain, founded in Eureka in 1979 with 100 stores in 31 states and 6,500 employees, now rebranded RH, is taking over the old Lucca Antiques space in the Old Fire House building on East Valley Road. Its former longtime store on State Street, […]

Larry Feinberg, president of Santa Barbara Museum of Art, must be thanking his lucky stars he lives in our Eden by the Beach. Late last year, his wife Starr Siegele fell off a ladder at their Manhattan apartment breaking her pelvis in two places, shattering her left elbow, and breaking two arm bones. “She lay […]

As usual, tout le monde was at the New Year’s Day lunch thrown by affable gardening guru George Schoellkopf and international artist Gerald Incandela at their magnificent Summerland aerie. The tony twosome, who fly between their estates here and Washington, Connecticut, kicked off 2023 in splendiferous style with free-flowing vintage Bordeaux and Moët champagne, beef […]

Christmas came early for Montecito’s Turner Foundation when president Dean Wilson was presented with a check for $175,000 by polo playing Farmers & Merchants Bank president Dan Walker at the financial institution’s annual Yuletide fête at its East Carrillo Street branch. The 100-guest bash, which featured Dickensian-costumed carol singers and comestibles from Rincon Catering, attracted […]