Socialite Enlists Aid of Maui Mayor : Schuller Estate Party Sparks Flap

The gurus had been invited, the champagne ordered and the almond and mushroom pate planned for the menu. Then suddenly, Barbara Glassman, the Maui publisher who had rented the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s Hawaiian retreat for what she just knew would be one of the hottest art festivals that the island had ever seen, was told to call the whole thing off.

Four days before Glassman’s party was scheduled to take place, the Maui Planning Commission--at the urging of neighbors who complained about traffic--had limited functions at the retreat to no more than 100 people. Glassman was expecting 450.

On July 20, the very next day, the Maui News ran two articles side by side: one announcing the party on July 23, the other announcing the new restriction on Baldwin Manor, Schuller’s 14-acre estate. It was, in a word, a scandal.

And one which on Thursday prompted Schuller to bounce the blame from his Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove back across the Pacific to Glassman.

“If they (Maui officials) were upset, it would have to be with the person who hosted the event, and not with us, because it did not happen with our approval or consent,” Schuller said Thursday. The Hawaiian retreat made mainland news in recent reports that reduced contributions might force Schuller to sell the property.

Schuller maintains he had no idea that Glassman’s party would be so big. According to Kevin Cartwright, a Schuller aide, that is why Schuller never mentioned it at the July 19 Planning Commission meeting he attended in Maui where he received permission to operate the retreat for three more years. Cartwright said Schuller only found out what Glassman was planning when he read about it in the Maui News. He promptly ordered the director of the estate to cancel the event, Cartwright said.

Glassman, however, said Schuller’s organization knew about the party a year in advance. They should have known exactly what to expect, because they had previously allowed her throw one just like it.

“I think Rev. Schuller and (Baldwin Estate director) Tony Virginia basically ought to have told the commission on the 19th that this was planned and asked for special permission,” Glassman said. “The commission probably would have let them do it.”

For Glassman, Schuller’s veto was the entertaining nightmare of a lifetime. She had invited a senator from Indonesia, an Indian holy man, a dozen Soviet Youth Ambassadors for World Peace and the creme de la creme of the Maui art world.

“I said to myself: ‘Oh my God! I have all of these people showing up from literally all over the world in tuxedos and evening gowns. What am I going to do? Have little guys with white flags directing them away from the Schuller mansion to the outdoor pavilion?’ ”

As it turns out, Glassman got her party, but not without a fight that took her all the way to Mayor Hannibal Tavares’ office. She intercepted him there at 7:45 a.m. on the Friday before the party and pleaded for an exemption from the Planning Commission’s restriction.

Finally, Glassman said, the mayor overrode the objections of the director of Maui’s Planning Commission and ordered him to call the director of the Schuller estate to relay special permission for the party.