Lyon Makes His Arts Center Debut

Dressed in a superbly cut double-breasted tux, Gen. William Lyon made his formal debut as chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Sunday night.

Lyon, owner of the nation’s largest home-building company, mingled with underwriters of the Center’s Candlelight Concert during a private reception at the Hyatt Regency Irvine before joining more than 700 guests for dinner and a concert by the Harlem Boys Choir.

From the dais, Lyon explained that he was without his lovely wife, Willa Dean, because she had “the bug.”

Talk about the who’s who of the local arts scene. Everybody was there. Sitting at the center of things in the ballroom were Henry and Renee Segerstrom (wearing Santa-red and toting a sable jacket), Roger and Janice Johnson (in glimmering brocade), Gus Owen and Kathryn Thompson Owen (in a jacket dripping with baubles), Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom (in black and gold), Thomas Kendrick, Judy Morr, Elaine and Bill Redfield, Mary and James Roosevelt, and Peter and Mary Muth with their son Rick and his wife Nancy.

As underwriters schmoozed in the Zot nightclub before the black-tie gala, sipping bubbly bobbing with fresh raspberries, Lyon gave his Center forecast for next year: “We’re going to balance our budget. The Center and other community activities are not going to be exempt from what appears to be the beginning of a recession. It’s going to affect everyone in the country, in California, in Orange County. But we’re going to pull through. We’re working very hard at it.”

Hotel catering director Katharyn Sherman and gala chairwoman Ciel Woodman dreamed up one of the most elegant menus ever to hit the local social scene: pasta with salmon in a lemon cream sauce, baby field greens with goat cheese in filo, petite filet mignon and shrimp, and Dutch chocolate ice cream truffles presented in a sea of cherry sauce. (The ice cream--hidden inside a paper-thin chocolate shell--had melted by the time it reached most of the guests. But no problem. It was still to die for. “Maybe it’s less fattening this way,” teased one calorie-conscious guest.)

Decor, provided by Tiffany & Co. under the direction of Tiffany Vice President Jo Qualls, included huge billowing “kissing balls” (pearlized poufs of net and open silver ribbon) dangling from the ceiling beside swags of twinkle lights. At the center of each table were glowing votive lights amid glittering pine cones, ribbon and white amaryllis.

Walter Turnbull, who founded the Harlem Boys Choir in 1968, led his bright-eyed ensemble in a medley that included selections from Mozart, Berlin, Gershwin and Ellington.

Also on the scene: Al and Deeann Baldwin, Jim and Nancy Baldwin, Joan and Donald Beall, Hyla and Dick Bertea, Martha and Bob Fluor, and Woody Woodman.

Proceeds from the $250 per-person gala are expected to reach $120,000, making the gala “the most successful Candlelight Concert ever,” Ciel Woodman said.