Righteous Path

PATH – People Assisting the Homeless – hit a definite home run with its second Making It Home tour, a sell-out event with 260 supporters taking a tour in eight trolleys – two more than last year – of four of our rarefied enclave’s toniest properties and raising around $75,000 for the nonprofit formed three years ago when Casa Esperanza, started in 1998, joined the 34-year-old Los Angeles-based charity as PATH Santa Barbara.

“It continues to have great success,” says Jennifer Hark Dietz, chief operating officer of PATH, which, since 2015, has helped more than 2,000 individuals find shelter, housing for more than 300 and employment for 400.

The three-hour tour, which started at the First Presbyterian Church and had food and wine stations along the route, allowed guests access to a 7-bedroom, Mediterranean-style villa on Sycamore Canyon, owned by artist Simon and writer Diana Raab, the rustic Mission Canyon home of symphony supporters Denny and Bitsy Bacon, the Balinese-style Hot Springs oasis of Kim and Soren Kieler, and the Riviera home of Johnny and Jodi Goldberg.

The Goldbergs also showed their home, Shangri-La, last year, but it was sadly destroyed in the January mudslides. Their charming new residence was the site of the event’s closing reception

Red Rocks

Supporters of the Santa Barbara Symphony were definitely seeing red for the final program of its current season at the Granada.

The performance of Francois Girardi’s 1998 Oscar-winning film The Red Violin, postponed from January because of the mudslides, had guest conductor Carolyn Kuan taking the helm with acclaimed Canadian violinist Lara St. John, playing a 1779 Guadagnini instrument in sync with the film, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Greta Scacchi.

The movie follows the violin’s history from Italy in the 17th century to a Montreal, Canada, auction house, with stops in China during the Cultural Revolution, Vienna and Oxford.

Although it was the 47-year-old’s third time playing with the film, it was her debut in our Eden by the Beach and it was an extraordinary performance to wrap up the symphony season.

Hide in Plain Sight

Author Tina Alexis Allen‘s latest book Hiding Out: A Memoir of Drugs, Deception and Double Lives, is quite a page turner.

The 275-page book by Allen, who is also an actress, producer, and scriptwriter, recounts her life as the youngest child of 13 in a devout Catholic family near Washington, D.C., and the extraordinary father/daughter relationship that occurred when both admitted to being gay.

Her next book is a work on the Vatican, she told me at a bijou book bash at Tecolote, the bustling bibliophile bastion in the upper village.

Hope appropriate…

Motherly Love

TV talk show titan Oprah Winfrey has just revealed all about her six-hour meeting at her Montecito estate with Doria Ragland, the Los Angeles-based mother of Prince Harry‘s new bride, Meghan Markle.

The encounter at her East Valley Road spread, just three weeks before the globally televised nuptials at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, prompted rumors that Oprah might be interviewing her for a segment on the CBS show 60 Minutes or even her OWN TV channel.

But nothing could be further from the truth, she tells Entertainment Tonight. The afternoon was spent bonding, practicing yoga, and eating kumquats.

“The story was that Meghan’s mom had come to my house and left laden with gifts,” says the 64-year-old broadcaster. “You know what the gifts were? First of all, she’s great at yoga, so I said, ‘Bring your yoga mat and your sneaks in case we just want to do yoga on the lawn.’ So, one of the bags was a yoga mat and the other was lunch.”

And Oprah’s appearance at the Royal Wedding in a Stella McCartney pink creation accompanied by a Phillip Treacy hat prompted speculation that Ragland was giving a tell-all interview. She says that is not the case, and no interview is in the future.