Time to celebrate

Those WHO DON’T KNOW LOS ANGELES WELL rant about this young city’s lack of tradition or wax philosophical about it as the last frontier, the place where wannabes reinvent themselves. Yet there is another L.A., where continuity is treasured, manners and roots respected. That’s where Karen Hudson lives, in a 1950s house in Lafayette Square, a block away from the one where she was raised.

This is not just any 1950s house, it’s Paul Williams’ own house, one he designed and lived in. Hudson is the granddaughter of the renowned architect whose 3,000 public and residential buildings shaped the look of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. She is the keeper not only of his house, but also of the gracious customs valued by her grandparents and her parents.

As twilight fell one day last week, a steady column of guests approached the deep-green front door, their way lighted by tiny bulbs bordering the long stone walkway. Inside, amid voluptuous displays of food, flowers and heirlooms large and small, they could see her favorite needlepoint pillow, one bearing the legend, “The Most Valuable Antiques Are Old Friends.”

“The book is done and I’m ready to party!” their invitations read. “Please join me for dinner.” The book in question, to be published by Simon & Schuster next year, is, fittingly, a guide to entertaining, and it consumed Hudson’s attention for the last few years. “I decided to have a party to thank my friends and family who put up with my driving them crazy while I was writing,” Hudson said. “I feel like I’ve been underground, and now that I’m finished, I want to celebrate.”

Standing in the foyer wearing a chartreuse Chinese silk jacket over a black shell and slacks, Hudson didn’t look like a woman who’d been hibernating.

“My grandmother’s motto was, ‘A little powder, a little paint, make you look like what you ain’t,” she said. Maybe it was following her grandmother’s counsel that gave Hudson her glow, but more likely it was the pleasure she derived from bringing friends together.

For many in the group, being there awakened memories of parties past, when Hudson’s grandparents were the hosts. The interior, which Hudson describes as “I Love Lucy goes to Hollywood,” is virtually unchanged since her mother and aunt were children there. The dining room is an intact museum of Paul Williams furniture and, except for two armchairs, so is the living room. It is possible to imagine him walking through the door and pouring his wife, Della, a glass of sherry.

On one side of the circular foyer, three golden metal gazelles gambol up the lyrical stairway railing he designed, and it was here, unexpectedly, where Hudson placed a small table laden with desserts; she wanted her guests to see what they had to look forward to as soon as they entered. Their expectations would have been high even without the sweets in view.

“At Karen’s parties, the food is always off the chart,” said her brother, Paul Claude Hudson, president and chief executive of the family-owned Broadway Federal Bank, “and the details are always perfect.”

And the guests are on time. The party was called for 7, and by a quarter after the hour, the living room was packed, the pleasant din of voices overwhelming the sound of Motown oldies. The conversation couldn’t have been more spirited if there was a sign hung on the door warning, “No wallflowers allowed.” The sparsely furnished living room, with soft green carpeting, fireplace of light green flagstone and a curved seating unit hugging the rounded wall, is where Williams celebrated family Christmases. Hudson’s plan was for the cocktail hour, or 45 minutes to be precise, to be contained there. Glass doors to the lanai, where four tables for eight had been set with dishes, silver and glassware from her grandmother’s collections, remained closed until dinner was announced.

Hudson’s parties are a blend of the ceremonious and the informal. Guests drank apple martinis or champagne and nibbled seared ahi tuna on wontons, brie canapes with toasted pecans and crab salad wrapped in endive. But despite the fact that a few of the six helpers from Robin’s Nest Catering manned the bar and passed the hors d’oeuvres, television director Oz Scott felt at home enough to pick up a tray and urge actress Denise Nicholas to have a taste. “Karen makes everyone feel special, and comfortable,” said Gayle Harvey Beavers, a cousin. “She’s relaxed when her guests arrive. You can relax because she isn’t running around.”

Any party performance anxiety Hudson feels is dispensed with early in an elaborate planning stage. She’s highly organized, relying on a battery of lists. Lists on index cards. Lists in notebooks. “My lists have lists,” she said. “The hard part is decision-making -- figuring out the menu and deciding how many people to invite.” Yet every decision is governed by the same criterion. “When I plan a party, I think about what would make me happy. I figure if I’m happy, my guests will be happy.”

So the menu reflected that Hudson likes to eat “a little of this and a little of that.” The main course featured raspberry-glazed salmon, marinated jumbo shrimp, Cajun tenderloin of beef and herbed lamb, grilled and served on skewers. “Presentation is a big deal to me, but so is having what my guests like. The caterer thought roasted red potatoes would look pretty on the buffet table, but I knew my friends would be happier with mashed potatoes.”

In 1952, a hostess didn’t have to worry about which of her guests were down on carbs, as Hudson does. Diets may come and go, but the fundamentals still apply. Golden coffee cups that belonged to Hudson’s grandmother looked festive then and still do.

“My grandmother approached entertaining as an art,” Hudson says. “She taught us that no matter how beautiful the table or how wonderful the food, our first concern had to be our guests and their enjoyment. In party giving, the little stuff matters. Guests appreciate that you’ve taken care with special favors or remembered what they don’t eat.”

Before tackling the party planning primer, Hudson produced a coffee table book on her grandfather’s body of work and a biography of him for children. Nowhere in the etiquette manual she wrote with Karen Grigsby Bates, “Basic Black -- Home Training for Modern Times,” does it say that manners and a sense of fun are incompatible.

Having standards doesn’t equate with being stuffy for Hudson, who can’t understand fearful hostesses for whom perfectionism is a killjoy. Her strategy is to plan ahead carefully, then let the good times roll. So even when dinner was ready nearly 45 minutes after she’d wanted to serve, she didn’t panic.

She has learned that living in a home that is part architectural shrine has its limitations. The original St. Charles kitchen, for example, hasn’t been replaced and contains only one small oven.

The caterer set up grills in the backyard, but anything that had to be oven-heated had to wait its turn. Dinner was set out in the formal dining room, atop a lacy cloth. Hudson spent a few evenings before the party cleaning her grandmother’s glasses and polishing silver, so they sparkled like well-chosen jewels in a glass-doored, pale wood credenza her grandfather designed.

In the lanai overlooking an outdoor patio and garden, place cards and small white votive candles marked each setting. Green damask napkins were wrapped in gauzy green ribbon, and individual party favors, gold mesh bags filled with chocolate-covered mints, rested atop Hudson’s grandmother’s gold-rimmed plates. Centerpieces of white roses in clear globes filled with plump green grapes sat on circular mirrors.

“Green was my grandfather’s favorite color,” Hudson said. “It’s a soothing color. He taught us that there can be a thousand shades of green in a garden, and because they’re natural, you don’t get tired of them.”

Williams, the first African American to become a member of the American Institute of Architects, designed thousands of structures in Southern California from the 1920s into the 1970s, including landmarks such as the theme building at Los Angeles International Airport. Although the house Hudson inherited is of its time, it is less angular than many mid-century modern designs, and it incorporates the curves her grandfather featured in homes of the ‘30s. Clever surprises appear throughout -- an enamel birdcage encases the mirror in a powder room, and the backdrop of a small bar is a mural that depicts high points in Williams’ career.

Hudson bought yards of a sheer beige fabric printed with tropical leaves to layer over plain tablecloths and took a piece along to Beverly Blooms to show the florist the evening’s green, gold and white color scheme. She counted on borrowing large, round tables stored in her mother’s garage, but gold chairs were rented from L.A. Partyworks.

“My mother had enough tablecloths for me to use as under cloths,” Hudson says, “but they’re too nice. It’s cheaper to rent plain cloths than it would be to have my mother’s fine linens cleaned.

“I wanted fabric overlays for the dinner tables because I like changing the look of my home slightly,” she explains. “I just cut the fabric to size and got the effect I wanted. The banana leaf pattern reminds me of the wallpaper my grandfather used at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

She has a budget for every party, but Hudson admits to going overboard on occasion. Experience has taught her how to cut corners without appearing to scrimp. She found blank invitations that slip into leafy green paper sleeves at Party On La Cienega in Los Angeles, then wrote and printed them herself, using an elegant computer font.

Once the makeup of each of four tables of eight had been decided, she called a few family members to ask if they would head a table.

Her brother, cousin and parents agreed to serve as deputized hosts, knowing the job entails making conversation flow and every guest feel included.

“I’m expected to keep things lively at my table,” said Glenn Harvey, a first cousin. The strategy assured that the tradition of graciousness that had long been the family norm would be upheld through another memorable evening.