R S V P / ORANGE COUNTY : An Elegant Mercy Mission in Santa Ana

Although it had the festive feeling of a holiday open house, this get-together had serious intentions: To raise funds for Mercy House, a shelter for homeless AIDS patients that is scheduled to open in Santa Ana in 1997.

More than 175 guests gathered Sunday for the inaugural Mercy House fund-raiser at the 1922 Georgian-style mansion of Judy Fluor Reynolds and her husband, Dick Reynolds, in Santa Ana. Although donations to attend were $25 per person, additional contributions from many guests put the net proceeds at more than $10,000, which will support the shelter’s operating costs.

A Home for the Holidays

This was the kind of elegant holiday soiree that home entertaining guru Martha Stewart would have approved of. The home looked gorgeous, with its many tall arched windows, sparkling Christmas tree and massive bird cage in the foyer that housed two white doves. Throughout the evening, waiters and waitresses from Pennington Catering circulated with silver platters of hors d’oeuvres, including artichoke frittata and spinach and feta streusel.

Judy Fluor Reynolds proved a gracious hostess, leading guests on a tour of her favorite room--the library with its crackling fire in the fireplace, copper ceiling and hunter green walls lined with hundreds of blue and gold ribbons she won at horse shows.

“Ballet and horses--those are my passions,” she said. It was a ballet dancer who inspired her to get involved in the fight against AIDS. Gregory Osborne, a Newport Beach resident and dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, died of AIDS in January 1994.

“My friend had a place to go [when he got sick]. Mercy House will be for people who have no place,” Fluor Reynolds said.

Gregory’s parents, Matthew and Lois Osborne of Balboa Island, attended to lend their support to Mercy House.

“I never thought of my son as being lucky, but he had a home, a family and friends. There are so many out there who don’t,” Lois said. “This is a new beginning.”

Open Houses

Mercy House will have 24 beds and be open to homeless people who have HIV.

“A lot of times they end up on the street because their families disown them and they have no health insurance,” Fluor Reynolds said.

Larry Haynes, executive director of Mercy House, said he’s been pleased by the positive response to the shelter:

“Usually projects like these are torpedoed by the NIMBY syndrome--Not in My Back Yard. But we’ve had incredible support. This is a true community project.”

Among those helping Mercy House is the city of Santa Ana, which purchased the property for the shelter, as well as corporations and individuals who have made cash donations.

Father Jerome Karcher, pastor of the St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church in Huntington Beach, founded Mercy House Transitional Living Center in 1988. The nonprofit corporation already runs Regina House for single mothers and their children, and Joseph House for single men, both in Santa Ana.

“This evening is about building relationships and interest in this issue,” Karcher said.

Among the supporters were: Bradd Linn, Marian Knott, Robert Ricker, Greg Patterson, Mark and Janelle McLoughlin, Jim Kendrick, Chip Butera, Richard and Mary Estes, and John Koll.