Tag archives: Penny Bianchi

An Event of Elegance
By Richard Mineards   |   November 19, 2024

Social gridlock reigned at the charming Provençal-style Montecito estate of international interior designer Penny Bianchi when more than 200 guests attended a sunset soirée for Santa Barbara-based designer Wade Weissmann’s new 260-page plus coffee table tome Homes of Quiet Elegance: A Collection of Recent Works. Wade, who splits himself between our Eden by the Beach […]

Penny Bianchi At Large – and in The Riv
By Jeff Wing   |   October 1, 2024

Legendary Decorator, beloved villager, and Charlie Munger muse Penny Bianchi is herself a striking figure – a living, breathing design element in her own right. The indescribable Bianchi casually radiates charm, wit, joy – and the fauvist Je ne sais quoi one experiences when falling into a painting by Chagall. To madly understate it, there […]

Diamonds Full of Penny
By Richard Mineards   |   February 21, 2023

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 […]

Local Lotus Star
By Richard Mineards   |   December 27, 2022

Yes, that was Montecito interior designer Penny Bianchi in the HBO Emmy-winning satirical comedy hit series The White Lotus that just wrapped its second successful season at the 111-room historic Four Seasons’ San Domenico Hotel in Taormina, Sicily, perched over the glittering Ionian Sea and below the fiery Mt. Etna volcano. Penny, a near neighbor […]

The Bear is Back. Time for Montecito to Get Serious About Co-Existence — or Euthanasia.
By Sharon Byrne   |   May 20, 2021

Our autumn bear has made a roaring spring appearance. Sheriffs saw him on Romero Canyon Road at the end of April. Neighbors reported the bear hit chicken coops in the Oak Grove area at the beginning of May, where he also dined on guinea pigs. He hit our board member Penny Bianchi’s place at East […]

Letters to the Editor
By Montecito Journal   |   September 5, 2019

Going Around That intersection at Coast Village-Olive Mill-North Jameson looks so good, but the intersection just requires manners to navigate. And the collision stats are not at all negative. If the southbound entrance to the 101 near Cabrillo Blvd. was never blocked in the first place (and will be for many more years), the traffic […]

Going for Gold
By Richard Mineards   |   August 22, 2019

Peripatetic Summerland twosome Marv and Gray Bauer are looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics next year with special interest. Their granddaughter Miki Dahlke, a senior at Harvard, has just qualified for the Olympic trials in the 200-meter freestyle at the Phillips 66 National Championships at Stanford University. Hailing from Mill Valley, where she attended Tamalpais […]

Party at Penny’s
By Richard Mineards   |   August 15, 2019

King Charles II was nowhere to be seen when Montecito interior designer Penny Bianchi hosted a bustling Restoration party at her charming Provencal-style home, next door to the sprawling estate of TV talk show titan Oprah Winfrey. The property suffered considerable damage in the mudslides after the Thomas Fire, so much so that when I […]