Surviving the Test of Time : La Estrella Dance Club, founded in 1913, attracts a loyal following of folks who like to dress up and hit the ballroom floor.

The cars rolling up the hill to the Poinsettia Pavilion in Ventura tote gals in glitter, guys in tuxedos and feet itching to dance. It’s the monthly Friday gathering of La Estrella Dance Club, started back in 1913 and going strong.

Ron Harrington, club member and legal adviser, says it’s like going to the prom. Remember those streamers, bands and balloon decorations?

Not only does this dance club offer those amenities, it also has The Unforgettables, with their 17-piece, big band sound; a catered buffet dinner; and, occasionally, as in January, some entertainment to get the evening started.

When you first arrive, as a guest of a member if you’re not one yourself, you find your name on a card in the brightly lit foyer. You glide through tinsel streamers into a dimmer ballroom where the orchestra is busy setting up on the stage, and you put your card at one of the tables.

Colorful balloons trail from chandeliers and there’s a table tucked away in a far corner of the room where champagne as well as fruit punch are served. Jeanne Colborn, club secretary, points out that the members are there to dance, not drink. Actually, they’re there to eat, too.

The lineup for the buffet-style dinner has begun to assemble, one table at a time, and moves smoothly. Coffee is served at the tables. Dessert is available for the holdouts who didn’t add dieting to their New Year’s resolutions.

But the biggest draw is the music.

Couples leave half-eaten dinners and drift on to the dance floor, and the room starts to look like a dancing club. Among the cummerbunds and sequins, George Kukachek is resplendent in his colorful kilt. In March, you’re apt to see Richard Colborn in his Irish hat and tie. Formality and fun are definitely compatible here, and members say that’s always been so.

Nene Murray can tell you how it’s been since the beginning. Her father, Richard Haydon, founded La Estrella in 1913 when the speed limit in town was 10 miles per hour, the fox trot had just become the rage and people needed a social life.

Murray was 8 years old when her father started the club, and she eventually became co-president, along with her husband, William Murray. Charter members read like a who’s who of local dignitaries with such familiar names as the Drapeaus, Hathaways, Chafees, Blackstocks and Peiranos.

Murray remembers that the first meeting was held at the old Athene Club House on California Street with 120 members and a waiting list. The last dance she attended was the 80th anniversary celebration in 1993. Today those memories keep her company at The Californian-Ventura Convalescent Hospital.

“I went to all of the dances. The women wore long dresses and men suits and ties. My husband always wore a tux,” she said proudly.

On this evening, the floor is still dotted with tuxedos until it is cleared for seven fresh-faced teen-agers in white pants, red or green tank tops and suspenders. They are the wildly energetic dance troupe the Pure Joy Moving Company, here courtesy of the Mackinnon Dance Academy. Introduced by Joy Mackinnon, they perform a six-minute routine, a real crowd pleaser.

After the performance, the dance floor fills up again.

“The music is so good that people dance almost every dance and you can tell who took lessons,” says Ed Warner, club president, who is on the floor with his wife, Betty.

“This is the band that I sit in with once in a while,” says Bill Schneider, who along with his wife, Norma Jean, is an eight-year club member. Bill plays the trombone and subs when one of the regular band members is sick or traveling. Schneider is another who took lessons, or the lessons took him.

“My wife drags me to lessons, but I could have them every day for six weeks and I’d forget them,” he says with a laugh.

Not everyone appreciates the big band sound that replaced the three- and four-piece groups of the past. Apparently, even at a dance club, some people prefer to talk.

“Jeanne went out and got a back drop, a sound detonator for the stage too, and that did help quiet it down a bit,” Schneider says.

Though the club has been around a long time, La Estrella’s image had lost some of its shine. In fact, it had fallen on hard times. But in the last three years the club has rebounded, growing from 40 to 80 couples. Most people give Colborn the credit.

When she was co-president with her husband Richard in 1991, she changed the music, upgraded the meals, decorations and the formal invitations. “The club had a reputation as being sort of boring,” says Colborn.

She also dispensed with dance cards, much to the relief of newer members. The cards, a relic from the past, had men going around asking other men if they could dance with their partners and then trading by adding the man’s name to their own partner’s card.

But longtime member Virginia Lindsay says she loved the dance cards. She dropped out of the club after her husband, former Ventura City Councilman Gordon Lindsay, died but has fond memories.

“Your evening was fixed up just like that,” she said recently while thumbing through old clippings. “Of course, you could give your husband heck if he didn’t get you any good dancers.”

A few old-time members are still active today. In fact, one couple who recently dropped out had been members for 40 years, sparking the rumor that they rode in wagons to get to the dance. As for the age of members, Colborn estimates most to be in their 50s with some in their 60s and 70s.

“At our age, when you finally get the kids raised, you have time in the evening where you’re not going to football games and things like that,” says Ed Warner, adding that a large contingent comes down from Santa Barbara and claim it’s the best dance in the area.

As president, Warner inherited old records and memorabilia. He notes that in 1944, a couple paid a dollar to bring in a guest. And in 1940, Frank Catron got three months free membership for auditing the books. The club paid Frank Umbro $99 in 1963 for the music at the October dance. Ah, the good old days.

Ron Harrington sees a resurgence of interest in ballroom dancing as many people are opting to leave their cozy nests and remote controls to get dressed up and go out in the evenings. “I think maybe the baby boomer generation that was into rock ‘n’ roll and the twist, as they’ve gotten older, have decided that ballroom dancing isn’t so bad after all.”

They might not be twisting, but as Harrington--the club’s legal adviser--knows, aficionados of ballroom dancing still can slip, slide and fall down. So Harrington put his expertise to work and made the club a nonprofit, mutual benefit corporation to protect the group from liability.

“It’s not charitable, it’s not public benefit. It’s mutual benefit and the only thing we do each year is have the dances,” he says.

The club might seem like an anachronism, but La Estrella is popular enough to have spawned two other clubs over the years: the Ventura Dance Club and El Cien. Venturans Bob and Carol Cole belong to one of them.

“When we came back to Ventura after college, my folks were in La Estrella and the Ventura Dance Club started up because they were thinking La Estrella was for older folks,” said Carol. They looked over the new club, but the members seemed just as ancient to the Coles, so they formed El Cien. That was 32 years ago.

“At first, you had to be 35 or under,” said Carol, laughing. El Cien meets five times a year on random dates.

Teddi Gray, a charter member of El Cien, is active in the Ventura Dance Club, which meets every two months. Of the six dances a year, two are formal.

“When you get a little bit older, people don’t want to do things with costumes. But years ago we used to have absolutely fabulous costumes,” she said. And, yes, Ventura Dance Club has stuck with the dance cards, which Gray swears that everyone loves.

Back at the dance, the evening is winding down and men have shed jackets for serious movement. Tables are deserted except for a few people engaging in conversation or catching a second wind. Beyond the patio doors, the few smokers left on the planet are indulging their habit. They’re compensated for the chill in the air by a dazzling view of the city.

On the dance floor you watch the smiling couples moving gracefully to the mellow sounds and think Richard Haydon had a great idea when he started this club in 1913.

There may be more sophisticated entertainment available in 1995, and a faster speed limit, but there’s no substitute for the feel of someone’s arms around you on a dimly lit dance floor, especially if it’s that someone special.

Now, if I could just get my husband into a tux.

Ann Shields is a local free-lance writer.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MEMBERS-ONLY DANCE CLUBS

* La Estrella. Founded in 1913. Meets first Friday of the month, June through September, at Poinsettia Pavilion, Foothill Road, Ventura. Membership is limited to 80 couples, sponsored by active member. Cost is $80 per couple per year. Dinner costs $35 per couple. Single memberships are available at the cost of a full membership. Contact Jeanne Colborn, 525-0120.

* Ventura Dance Club. Founded in 1953. Meets every two months at the Saticoy Country Club. Both formal and informal dances. Membership at 60 couples, sponsored by active member. Cost is $120 per year, with dinner extra. Contact George or Gwenn Billinger, 648-4246.

* El Cien Dance Club. Founded in 1963. Meets five times a year. Dates and locations vary. Mostly semi-formal. Membership at 50 couples, sponsored by an active member. Cost is $100 per year, with dinner extra. Contact Mig Stork, 642-4393.

OTHER DANCES

* Beginning Israeli Folk Dance Classes. 497-6891.

* Classical Dance of India Classes. 646-4977.

* Clogging Classes. Call Conejo Valley Cloggers, 495-3193.

* Country Western Dance Club. At the Fellowship Hall of the College Methodist Church, Ventura. 647-1893.

* Dance Brazil. Traditional Samba and Afro-Brazilian dance. Mondays at the Arts Council Center in Thousand Oaks. 492-2540.

* 50 Plus Dance Club of Oxnard. 487-7418.

* Ripsnorters Square Dance Club. 482-3201 or 482-2436.

* Seniors Dance. The Western Aires Band, the second and fourth Fridays at the Senior Recreation Center, Ventura. 648-2829.

* The American Legion. Fridays, 7 p.m., Band starts at 8 p.m., at Post 48 main hall, 3410 S. A St., Oxnard. 483-8158.