A Skid Row Beacon Asks for Help

In its six years, Transition House, the place that provides the homeless with support and tools to make the transition to mainstream society, has had a 63% success rate in its program graduates. Thus, the Skid Row Development Corporation and Charles C. Reed, president of Ahmanson Services, are asking for greater support Feb. 23 at the party they host at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

Skid Row chairman Alden McKelvey and president Martha Brown Hicks hope for generous donations, pointing out that Transition House is a permanent solution to homelessness, not astopgap.

The cocktail affair will honor Ralphs Grocery Co. Mayor Tom Bradley and Councilman Gilbert Lindsay are honorary co-chairmen. Sue Laris, Bruce Corwin, Andrea Van de Kamp, Catherine Hearst, Charles Hathaway, Jim Hill, Hugh Loftus, Morris Newman, Stephen Mellinger and Norman Dreyfuss are expected to be on hand.

DOWN-HOME: Italian opera will be followed by an “Americana Party” (Virginia ham, Vermont turkey, apple pie and cherry cobbler) at the black-tie opening of the Music Center Opera’s “Tancredi” (all-American cast) at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Feb. 17. That evening, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera’s 1988-89 season resumes with Marilyn Horne the star in her debut with the company.

Gala and Patron subscribers including Doug Cramer, Tara Colburn, Nicholas and Sandra Costla, Nicholas and Janet Ciriello and Milt and Rosemary Okun are expected for the party in the Pavilion Restaurant.

DRIVING FORCE: For two decades customers and friends alike have dashed to San Juan Capistrano to see Gep (G. R.) Durenberger’s new antiques shipments and have tea with the popular antiquarian. When he established Gep’s Folie at his residence, a folly of a building where he brought the decorative arts leaders of the world together for seminars, supporters flocked to his lectures.

Then Durenberger was asked to establish the cultural support for San Juan’s Michael Graves-designed library; he formed the support group Libros Y Artes (Books and Arts). Now, he has given his incredible antiques shop to the city of San Juan Capistrano for the new Center for the Study of Decorative Arts he’s directing.

Friends from around the United States and all over California were in San Juan Capistrano last weekend to celebrate with Gep at a black-tie gala and to premiere the inaugural exhibition, “California Style: Collectors and Collections,” which is open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays until May 6, when the exhibits change.

Leading the admiring crowd at the opening was Stanley Barrows of New York, dean emeritus at Parsons School of Art and former chairman of Interior Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Gep’s old pal from Notre Dame, New York and Montecito, designer John Saladino, was in the crowd, bringing Lyn and Norman Lear, whose house he’s redesigning. Gothic collectors and former Pasadenans Jack and Jody Pike, now of San Juan Capistrano, beamed over their decorative contributions to the evening.

Party chairman Electa Anderson and Gaye Birtcher, Joyce MacRae, Kay Evans and Bettie Auerbach made sure the overflow crowd got juggled. Philip and Sandy Jacoby, who are building the Marbella Golf and Country Club, donated $25,000 to underwrite the night, creating a lot of fun for everyone including Kay (she was chairman of exhibits) and Don Evans, Bud Sampson and Freda Weegar, Tom and Lucy Hartford, Harrison Negley, Judy and Steven Smith of La Jolla, Sandi and Tom Ewing, Dorothy and Don Koll, Gavin and Ninetta Herbert, John Benecke, Barbara and William Steinwedell, Marily and Schuyler Haskell and Bob and Lori Warmington.

SOCIAL SCENE: Lee Minnelli hosted a luncheon at the Bistro Garden for her New York friend Mary Lou (Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt) Whitney. Lee was matron of honor when Mary Lou married “Sonny” Whitney. Chums gathering included Betty Wilson, Giney Milner, Betsy Bloomingdale, Erlenne Sprague, Harriet Deutsch, Carolyn Singleton, Frances Bergen, Laura Mako, Rosemarie Stack, Jayne Berger, Nancy Denny and Mary Anne Mobley. Bob and Betty Strub also entertained Mary Lou at the races at Santa Anita. . . .

When Austine Hearst (Mrs. William Randolph Jr.) headed the Winter Festival dinner dance for the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York Tuesday, she sent for L.A.’s Father Maurice Chase to deliver the invocation . . .

Shell and Sandra Ausman hosted a dinner at Chasen’s to honor Ambassador Crispin Tickell, ambassador to the United Nations from Great Britain, and Lady Tickell. The ambassador was also introduced by Lester Korn to business leaders at a luncheon at the California Club . . .

Ramon Pajares, general manager of the Inn on the Park, London, and his wife Jean host a dinner tonight in the Ballroom of the Four Seasons. The five-course affair and auction will benefit the Starlight Foundation and will be prepared by the Inn on the Park’s executive chef, Eric Deblonde and Bruno Loubet, chef de cuisine of the hotel’s Four Seasons. Sotheby’s senior vice president Robert C. Woolley will preside over the auction with items from famous British companies including Harrods, Wedgwood and Burberry’s.

AGENDA: The Natural History Museum opens its doors for the annual members open house Friday . . .

At Geary’s Beverly Hills “Bridal Fair” Saturday, the top 10 wedding gifts for 1989 will be revealed as the shop tells brides everything about weddings . . .

Jill St. John will be at Villeroy & Boch this afternoon to celebrate the new Beverly Hills store at 338 N. Rodeo Dr.

IN THE BANK: Chairman Pat Smith says Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in La Canada is richer from the Mardi Gras fund-raiser at La Canada Country Club.

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CELEBRATING LIFE: The late Joan Orr, wife of Verne Orr, former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, succumbed in 1988 to Lou Gehrig’s Disease, but before she died, she discovered a passion for creative dance--and its therapeutic value. She reassembled the dance class she had led before the Orrs’ departure to Washington. She also had been president of the Pasadena Arts Council and became the first chairwoman of the famed Bella Lewitzky Dance Company.

Thus, the Light-Bringer Project, in association with the Pasadena Arts Council, paid tribute to her at Polytechnic School’s Garland Auditorium last week, documenting her work on videotape (“A Question of Balance: The Life of Joan Orr”), showing her conducting classes from her wheelchair just two weeks before her death. Jess Marlow, Mrs. Lewitzky, Scripps College President John Chandler and Carole Babcock were all on the program.

KEEPING UP: Paulist Boy Choristers of California benefited from the California wine festival this week at St. Paul’s in Westwood. Funds are for their June European tour . . .

Jennifer Goddard and Sylvia Greenspan Lowe chaired the Rainbow Guild’s luncheon today at Century Plaza Tower . . . Bette L. Smith hosted the late supper after the Founders of the American Cinematheque private screening of “Cousins” . . .

Betty White addressed the Intersorority Mothers’ Club of UCLA at its scholarship benefit luncheon . . . Prof. Haim Harari, new president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, was honored at a dinner dance headed by Gerald M. Lushing at the Century Plaza Tower.