HEIDT LIVED HIS LIFE ON AN UP NOTE

If Horace Heidt were planning his funeral at Forest Lawn today, friends would hear no gushing eulogies. Instead, the bandleader who died Tuesday at age 85 probably would have them hear a little Chopin, sip a bit of his favorite German wine and trade a lot of memories.

“I had thought many times how I would spend the rest of my life,” he once said of his decision to become a real-estate developer after giving up his career in music, “and I wanted to do something that would involve people.”

Active and ambitious, Heidt was a proud, determined man who thrived on challenges. While he gained fame in the ‘30s and ‘40s as the leader of his Musical Knights orchestra and later became a successful real-estate developer, he was not content to sit back. Mastering the piano was his final challenge. He practiced for hours daily, memorized a number of difficult Chopin excerpts and, finally deciding he was ready, invited close friends to his home for a concert.

It was not unusual to see Heidt roaming the grounds of his 10-acre, 170-unit complex in Sherman Oaks behind a wheelbarrow, sprucing up the 18-hole pitch-and-putt golf course that snakes through the property, or tending to the 50 or more exotic pheasants he raised.

The complex--patterned after a typical Hawaiian village on one side, a Palm Springs resort on the other--originally was built for his discoveries who came to California to perform with his band, and has since been home to ex-show-biz professionals.

Heidt lived alone in a spacious, low-slung house opposite one of several spectacular waterfalls that dominate the tropical surroundings.

Once during an interview, he explained the terrible odor in his living room with characteristic frankness: He had left the house with a pot of eggs boiling on the stove--food for his birds.

He was particularly proud of his enormous trophy room containing items he had collected over half a century. But his living room sparked more conversation than any trophy he displayed--especially if you visited him in July.

The room was always colorfully decorated for Christmas--flashing lights, glittering garlands strung over doorways, a pinata and a large plastic Santa resting against the fireplace.

He explained the year-round decorations simply.

“It’s cheerful,” he said, “so I leave them up all year.”