Newlyweds Are Bringing the Salon Out of the Closet
Salon: a fashionable assemblage of notables (as literary figures, artists or statesmen) held by custom at the home of a prominent person.
--Webster
Maximillian and Ellen Dreksler Lobkowicz aren’t promising literary lions, heads of state or Andy Warhol, but in a city where, they have observed, “If you see anybody different, you tend to cross the street, or call the police,” they are “bringing the salon out of the closet” as a way of stirring together intriguing people with wildly diverse experiences and inclinations.
They consider one of their art salons a success if “a woman in a mink jacket finds herself standing next to a man whose coat lights up.” If there is a common bond, Michael, as he prefers to be called, said, it is “that childlike feeling for adventure and discovery.”
Newlyweds Michael and Ellen are themselves in a bit of an adventure. Michael, 42, a self-described “artist and adventurer” and onetime “hip, cool radical” was born in Rome and lays claim to the title of prince--his father, a Czech, is titled but the Hapsburgs, who they claim as kin, haven’t had a reigning monarch since 1918. Ellen, 34, “a nice Jewish girl from New York” with a background in fashion and in public relations, was for a time a professional hypnotist and, she asks, “What was a retired hypnotist going to do?”
They met--how else?--when she answered a newspaper ad for an introduction service. “I was the matchmaker,” he recalled, the one who did the interviewing of prospective match-ups. She talks about “love at first sight”; he reminds her, grinning, “You paid $300 for me, and never paid the balance.”
The Dreksler and Lobkowicz Art Salons were born, said Michael, who professes to be “extremely shy,” as “a place where we could find some friends. It blossomed into a full-time business.” Today, that business--now the Dreksler, Lobkowicz and O’Keefe Art Salons, with the addition of partner Christine O’Keefe--operates out of a Beverly Hills office with a satellite magazine enterprise headquartered in the Lobkowiczes’ Brentwood penthouse apartment.
That magazine, Meetings with Remarkable People, which debuted Oct. 1, is what the Lobkowiczes call “a salon on paper” and is, they boast, “America’s first reader-written magazine” and, perhaps, the first with no editing--”We don’t even correct the spelling.” Its arrival was celebrated at a salon where guests were asked to read original poetry and prose aloud and to explain why they believed it should be published.
An art salon is not just a cocktail party, nor is it tickets for two on the aisle. Rather, Ellen sees it as “a private performance for a small group of people. It’s one time, and then it’s gone.” And, she added, “They’re not very viably commercial. Once you bring them above 40 people, what you have is a party, hundreds of people and you say hello and you nod.”
The salons were born about two years ago when, with $180 in start-up funds, Dreksler and Lobkowicz installed a telephone and placed an ad in the L.A. Weekly. Michael recalls, “Our first member was a psychic who said everything was going to be fine. It’s the first time I’ve gone to a psychic and she pays me. “ She is still a member.
If the salon concept is a bit unclear, well, Michael said, “We’re trying to keep it as confusing as possible.” Consider some salons past: A ‘50s theme “hip hop” in a vacant warehouse in Marina del Rey, complete with bubble gum, resident bats and an art exhibit of ‘50s cars; a weekend motor tour to that celebrated Southern California resort, Piru (which is somewhere near Fillmore). A private Orient Express tour has had to be postponed because of Middle East violence.
Coming attractions: A “Fears and Tragedies” salon, at which everyone will be encouraged to divulge their worst, and, in February, a Valentine’s salon for which guests will be asked to write personal ads describing themselves and to try to match other guests to their own ads.
The Lobkowiczes emphasize, however, that although there have been matches made during two years and 15 salons, and although the majority of the salons’ 250 members are single, “This is not a dating service.” They look on it as a fraternity of sorts for “people who want to venture out of their own worlds. Not only single people are bored to death.”
Sharing the Talent
Venturing out does not come cheaply, with salon memberships starting at $650 (plus average tabs of $35-$85 for each salon). But, in order to achieve diversity, they “trade out” with struggling artists and others who share talent. Without this bartering, Michael explained, “the outrageous artist and the international banker” would never cross paths.
Put another way, the salons, said Ellen, are “an opportunity for artists to meet the people who have the money to buy.”
“We tend to have separated the society into careers,” Michael said, and the end result is “people who live in $60,000-a-year developments send their kids to $60,000 schools.” At a salon, he says, a socialite might “build rapport with a guy who sells heavy equipment.”
The key to a successful salon, Ellen believes, is a mix of people who “are not afraid of meeting life, embracing it.” Controversy and debate are encouraged. “You can’t hide,” she said, “you can’t say, ‘I never have to see these people again’.”
Today, she said, people ordinarily see art in a romp through a gallery--no emotional commitment required, little or no exchange of ideas with others at the gallery. At the salons, Michael said, those who never would have believed they could communicate discover that the other person “talks just like me when I’m at home.”
Scheduled for late January is The Great Motor Tour, a rerun of last January’s overnight adventure wherein 22 people paid $800 apiece to climb into their great motorcars (Maseratis, Ferraris, etc., theirs for the day) and be led via cassette by Dutch-born performance artist Willem de Ridder, with whom Michael once did salons in Europe, along highway and byway to downtown Piru.
“Just lean back . . . and listen,” purred De Ridder. “You have no idea what is going to happen to you . . . “ “I hope you’re not driving too fast,” cautioned De Ridder as motorists navigated Routes 126 and 150 “into the unknown” en route to exotic destinations such as Santa Paula and Solvang. “Together, we are going to drive away into another time . . . “
As the adventurers moved along, De Ridder asked that they take time to see--really see--the wrinkles on the oranges and he regaled them with fantasies about “alien trees” and about the Danes of Solvang who, in his version of history, came not from Denmark but from “the Dananian galaxy.” Gentle nonsense from a seductively mysterious voice.
It is not everyone’s idea of a big time but, then, Michael and Ellen are quick to say that their salons are not for everyone, only for those who are “not afraid of embracing life,” and that they go out of their way to discourage those who want to “sit around talking business and passing out their cards.”
Membership Roster
Their membership roster includes people in the film industry, writers, lawyers, bankers, doctors and, of course, starving artists. They consider it a haven for those who, like one actor-member, told them the salons are his only social outlet where “everyone I come in contact with doesn’t want to give me their picture” in hopes of being discovered.
Basic salon membership includes the new magazine, published in partnership with screen writer Larry Brothers. This is one magazine, Michael observed, where the publisher asks the writer, “What would you like to write? How many pages do you need?” The debut issue included a feature on 78 things to yell at Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese in a crowded restaurant and a fashion guide to customizing one’s Birkenstock sandals.
And “I have a great story from a wrong number who called,” Michael said. There are personal ads, dubbed the “purple pages,” but other advertising is discouraged. At $10 a copy, Michael figures, “we don’t need to sell many magazines” to cover printing costs. (“Meetings with Remarkable People” is available at selected newsstands.)
Coming in future issues: Baseball cards of the top lawyers of the decade, with their won-lost records.
The salons, like the magazine, are unencumbered by formality or censorship. The one thing they promise each time, Ellen said, is “our usual unusualness.” Eclectic, and then some.
What with the Hapsburg connection and with his mother being an Italian countess (one of the Filangieris), Michael said, “I grew up with the tradition, whatever you do just do it in great style.” That does not necessarily mean money, he added, noting that his grandfather “sold and spent everything that was passed onto him.”
Out of Curiosity
At a salon, participation is not mandatory but, Ellen said, “We make it almost impossible for you not to.”
Joan Stevens, 55, a writer and shoe salon manager who lives in West Hollywood, found the Lobkowiczes through a newspaper ad and replied strictly out of curiosity. “I didn’t know what it was about,” she said. “I thought they were attorneys--Dreksler and Lobkowicz--and an attorney with a sense of humor is a find altogether.”
She has been to three salons and, she said, each has been “an incredible evening. Everyone is so diverse and interesting. They don’t have any sleepwalkers.” She added, “I meet people all the time. In fact, sometimes I think I meet too many people” but that has little to do with “really knowing another person.”
Tim Timmermans, who is a photographer and also plays keyboard and drums in a band called “Windows,” said the salons are “fascinating experiences, to say the least--a great exchange of ideas and views and perceptions of the world.”
Timmermans, single and 34, said Dreksler and Lobkowicz are “two of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.”
Upcoming salons will include an animation salon with working animators--”Maybe we’ll make those characters come alive,” Ellen said. An erotica salon, featuring New York performance artist Annie Sprinkle, is already sold out.
For a fee, the Lobkowiczes will do special-request salons. One they did was for actor Jon Cypher (Chief Daniels on “Hill Street Blues”), who had always wanted to meet radio psychologist Toni Grant. Another was a private performance by Jim Turner of Malibu, who plays a glass harp (60 brandy snifters).
“Of course,” Michael said, “if it’s not interesting for us, we won’t even do it.”
Network Envisioned
Michael and Ellen also hope to expand existing affiliations abroad into a worldwide network of clubs and to establish residences available to traveling members. “Not a Club Med,” Michael emphasized, but private retreats, castles and mansions, offering an alternative to hotels.
He tosses out yet more ideas. “We’re going to have a dinner aboard a 747. I think you could do an incredible theater piece. And we want to do a series on buses, on trains . . . “
When people become salon members, he reiterated, they must understand that “we’re going to present them to some strange people and strange things. If you just want to meet other bankers, you join the ABA.”
