Careful Planning Really Pays Off

It’s disappointing when the chairwoman plans a posh party, then is confined to the hospital and misses the affair. That was Judith Farrar’s fate for the Huntington Library’s Huntington Ball. She was home soon after, but not in time.

That evening at the Huntington, sculptor Chauncey B. Ives’ “Pandora” was unveiled in the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art before 300 black-tied and gowned trustees, overseers and members of the Society of Fellows.

Farrar had planned well and the committee carried on. The night was bliss. The Shakespeare Garden at twilight was scattered with tables crowned by garden roses intertwined with honeysuckle, opal basil and purple oregano blossom.

The profusion of long ball gowns indicated that the social city can’t wait for the season’s formal parties. The Bill Blasses, Michael Novareses and Oscar de la Rentas were flouncing.

Mixing with the American impressionist art were some of the city’s works of art--George and Mary Lou Boone, Larry and Mary Tollenaere, Ed and Ruth Shannon, John and Diane Cooke, Michell and Margot Milas, Bill and Barbara Steele, Jo and Bob Kroger, Bill and Noel Wade, Peter and Robin Barker, Maria and Richard Grant, Lois and Bob Erburu, Nadine and Robert Skotheim, Sally and William Wenzlau, Don and Suzy Crowell, Jim and Linda Dickason, Imi and Masatake Yashiro and the chairwoman’s husband, Stanley, who accepted kudos for her.

Glamour: In most major American cities, the opening of the winter season of the orchestra is one of the most glamorous events of the year. Festivities are bubbling forth in Los Angeles.

Recently Mary Hesburgh hosted the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Committee’s patron party at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

The opening week of the winter season will culminate Oct. 9 with a concert and gala fund-raiser. Champagne will be served before the Beethoven concert in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Later, gala guests will attend a dinner honoring Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen in the Grand Hall. In its 60-year history, the committee has raised more than $4 million for the orchestra, said Junior Philharmonic spokeswoman Rebecca L. O’Neill. Gala tickets are $300 per person.

Ribbon-Cutting: All sorts of festivities surround the opening of Sotheby’s major new space at 9665 Wilshire Blvd. (opposite Saks Fifth Avenue). On Oct. 5 Andrea Van de Kamp, managing director of Sotheby’s, West Coast, hosts a reception and a preview of the Jewelry West and Fine Arts Auction, which will be held Oct. 11-12 at the new facility.

Then, the opening of the new space, which includes an auction facility, viewing rooms, offices and International Realty office, will take place Oct. 18 with a ribbon-cutting. That night, Sotheby’s will host a thank-you for major CalArts supporters. And on Oct. 20, it will host Music Center Groups--the Blue Ribbon and the Fraternity of Friends.

Upper Echelons: Dallas Price rides a Harley-Davidson, has climbed the world’s highest summits and has been a pilot for 20 years (husband David gave her flying lessons one Christmas), so she’s super-qualified to chair “Into the Unknown,” the Museum of Flying’s major annual fund-raiser Oct. 6. Last year, the party honored Southern California founders of early airplane factories.

This year it honors the test pilots who flew those planes--16 of them.

At DC 3 Restaurant in Santa Monica the other day, Price said the goal is $200,000, twice last year’s net.

A week on Jim Kilroy’s Kialoa III yacht is expected to go for $12,000 in the live auction. No one can predict what the white flight helmet, signed by the 16 test pilots (most in the National Aviation Hall of Fame), will bring.

Don’t Blink: Campaign chairman Kenneth Leventhal announced USC is targeting $1 billion for increased endowment by the year 2000. A few balmy nights ago at an ambitious gala for 700 alums, donors and friends, he questioned his sagacity in accepting such a responsible position--just when he and wife Elaine should be smelling the flowers.

But, seriously, Leventhal said, he could not decline the job because of his belief in education and in USC. The campaign is called “Building on Excellence.”

Elsewhere on the Social Circuit

* The sunset’s pink and purple hues against the Mediterranean pink villa made a colorful setting. The site was Molly Munger and Stephen English’s Reginald Johnson-designed home overlooking the Pasadena Arroyo. The occasion was the prelude reception for the Pacific Asia Museum Festival of the Autumn Moon set for Oct. 7 at the Biltmore. Indian foods--samosa, pakora, spicy meatballs--were consumed in huge quantities.

In the crowd: Lynne Beavers and Laureen B. Chang, festival co-chairwomen (they plan an auction of Asian artworks selected by museum executive director David Kamansky); Peg Palmer, patron chairwoman; Barry H. Taper, festival honoree (his wife, Louise, was out of town). More were trustees president Anna Bresnahan, Marilyn and George Brumder and Gordon Pashgian with Nancy Davis, who is working on the Pacific Asia Museum’s 25th anniversary next year.