Polo Party a Heavenly Attraction
“I think this is as close to heaven as most of us are going to get,” said Katherine Abercrombie (her husband, Stewart, was in polo whites) as she and her co-patron chairwoman Cecelia Dalsemer, wearing a Faberge gold double-horse pin, looked about at the beauty of the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club in Carpinteria.
Skies were blue-blue, mountains purple, grass Van Gogh green, the polo ponies playful, and chairman Tommie Spear was putting the finishing touches on the Braille Institute Auxiliary of Santa Barbara gala luncheon before the Robert Skene Invitational Polo Match.
The party brings out Santa Barbara bluebloods. Some had attended Una Noche de Gala, the 29th traditional Fiesta Ball planned by Beverly Jackson a few nights earlier at the Coral Casino in Montecito, and some had been to the Amy and Bob Adams Fiesta dinner at Hope Ranch.
That’s the good life in Santa Barbara. Joan Neville came up from Newport Beach to house-guest with Tommie and Kellogg Spear. Winslow Maxwell’s house guests were John and Jeannette McCarty of Pasadena.
Prominent in the crowd, too, were newly appointed Ambassador to Jamaica Glen and Gloria Holden, Harold and Annette Simmons (he’s making the move to buy Lockheed), Molly Danielson of Hope Ranch, Bob (the famous 10-goal polo player) and Elizabeth Skene, Francis and Patty McComb, Richard and Rosemary Bergen, Frank and Katharine Miller, Frank and Jean Mallory, Dulce and James Harris and Adele and Bob Mairs.
Auxiliary president Eunice Fly, whose husband, Tom, is president of the Bank of Montecito and knows everyone, did the honors when it was time to award the crystal trophies to the polo players. Among recipients was three-goal player Greg Araneta, who was joined by his wife Irene (daughter of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos).
PLAUDIT: Just when we think Rockwell A. Schnabel, U.S. ambassador to Finland until last February, and his pretty wife, Marna, are coming home to roost in the contemporary home in Brentwood designed for them by architect Frank Gehry, it’s necessary for them to do double residence in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown. That’s because he’s been named undersecretary of commerce for travel and tourism. The former ambassador is former president of Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards Group, Inc. and former deputy chairman of the board of Morgan, Olmstead, Kennedy & Gardner, Inc. (now Wedbush Morgan Securities).
TRAVEL WINDS: What a reunion. Jane and Bill Petersen (she’s the former Jane Browne of Los Angeles) invited longtime pals back to Lake Geneva, Wis., and a party at their Victorian estate, Black Point, the highest point on the south shore of the lake and in the Petersen family since it was built in 1888.
Among those having a perfectly wonderful time were Mary Morton, retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard L. Wells, Kilbee and M. L. Brittain, Gene and Daphne Kurchak and Rose Fox Noll, who came from San Francisco. They climbed to the fourth story tower to watch the white sailboats on the lake. . . .
Lee Minnelli, back from Paris, says the fashionable Hotel Plaza Athenee “was like Beverly Hills on the Seine.” Jayne and Henry Berger (en route to Monte Carlo) were entertaining Beverly Morsey (in Valentino yellow silk), Amen Wardy (with a Nice tan), Lee and Franco Cozzo and Della Koenig, who was en route to London for Dr. Armand Hammer’s soiree for Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
KUDOS: To John E. Anderson, president of Topa Equities Limited and leading benefactor ($15 million) of the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, named president-elect of the UCLA Foundation. To maximize volunteer power in campus activities, there are 15 new members of the board of trustees including James Miscoll, Dallas Price, Lester B. Korn, Edgardo Acosta, Morgan Harris Jr., Wayne Ratkovich, Paul Griffin Jr. and William Finestone. . . .
To Roberta Schulman Holland, Los Angeles native (daughter of Esther and Mark S. Schulman of Beverly Hills), newly installed in New York as the national Women’s Division Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal. She lives in Providence, R.I., and in Palm Springs. . . .
To interior designer John Saladino, whose retreat for Paul Junger Witt and his wife Susan Harris (he just produced “Dead Poets Society”) is showcased in the newest Architectural Digest.
SUMMER CIRCUIT: A black-tie reception launched the “Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the 15th Century” opening this week at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. . . .
Sid Adair and Doyle Kutch, new co-chairmen of Los Angeles Friends San Diego Opera, were in the spotlight at the Hancock home of Veneita and Macklin Butler where KUSC’s Jim Svejda’s opera parody “The Barber From Nuremberg Strikes Back” was the attraction. . . .
UCLA Chancellor Charles and Sue Young entertained at their residence to celebrate Ralph and Goldy Lewis’s $5-million gift to establish the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA. . . .
Marlene Billington, two-year president of Encore (170 former presidents of the Affiliate Committees of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra), hosted Encore’s incoming and outgoing boards for a Basque luncheon at the Pioneer Boulangerie. Now, Jan Corey of Claremont takes over.
FANDANGOS: The historic Gilmore Adobe at Farmers Market has seven gardeners, and the grounds, we hear, were meticulously groomed the other evening for the waltzes and fandangos at the home of the late Arthur Fremont Gilmore, who lived there 125 years ago when the land was still called Rancho La Brea.
His great-grandchildren--Henry Hilty, Virginia Krodell (party chairwoman) and Kathy Laritson (immediate past president of the National Charity League of San Fernando Valley)--opened the Adobe and its patios for the debutantes of the league for their summer waltz party, a prelude to the Debutante Ball Nov. 25.
