Bank on it

To mark its 43rd anniversary, Montecito Bank & Trust hosted a grants reception at its magestic State Street headquarters when president and CEO Janet Garufis handed out checks worth $20,000 to 10 local charities.

Along with the checks, the nonprofits also received a short video professionally produced by cable giant Cox to promote their work.

Employees of the bank, which since its founding in 1993 by the late philanthropist Mike Towbes, has grown to 11 branches and $1.4 billion in assets, also provided more than 1,800 hours of volunteer work last year.

More than 110 guests turned out to witness the bank’s largesse, as well as quaff the wine and nosh on the Omni comestibles, with charities receiving checks including Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue, Court Appointed Special Advocates of Santa Barbara County, Solvang Theaterfest, and the Wilderness Youth Project.

Wine of the Times

The Nocking Point vineyard in Walla Walla, Washington, owned by actor Stephen Amell and Andrew Harding, has produced two wines, First Responders red and rose, to raise monies for the recent disasters that have beset our rarefied enclave.

The winery will donate $20 per new member who signs up with the referral code FIRSTRESPONDER to charity, with half the money going to RAKlife-Help California, a new disaster relief and restoration charity based in Santa Barbara and Ventura, and the other half going to First Responders Outreach through the Gary Sinise Foundation.

I’ll drink to that.

On the House

Bubbly entrepreneur Nina Terzian is selling her imposing oceanside property on Miramar Beach.

The 7-year-old, 3,531-sq.-ft. estate, composed of a 3-bedroom, 4-bathroom main house and 3 cottages on 0.65 acres, is just a tiara’s toss from the home of Dolly Granatelli, widow of the Indy 500 legend Andy, and the new house of Tom and Heather Sturgess. 

The property with extensive ocean frontage, which I have visited many times, is being sold through Berkshire Hathaway Home Services and is priced at $25 million.

Nina, who has a more rustic home on the beach just a few hundred yards away, says: “Someone will continue to have the reverie I’ve had while living there. My shabby chic beach house is more than enough for me!”