Hall of a Time

It was a very in-tents occasion when the Belmond El Encanto hosted a socially gridlocked lunch at the Santa Barbara Polo Club when the tony hostelry held its annual Robert Skene Trophy match when the Lucchese team beat Restoration Hardware 14-13, thanks to three consecutive goals by Jeff Hall.

More than 350 guests attended the fab fete on a perfect day – low humidity, bright sunshine, and cool Pacific breezes – as the Riviera hotel’s head bartender, Pedro Chavez, popped open a Nebuchadnezzar of Taittinger champagne, four gallons or 20 ordinary-sized bottles of bubbly.

I also had the onerous task, for the 11th consecutive year, of judging the mélange of magnificent millinery on display for the occasion, with our rarefied enclave’s Carol Marsch winning for the largest tete topper made six years ago for the Kentucky Derby, Blair Eadie from New York with the most colorful creation designed by an old friend, Manhattan milliner Eric Javits, and Santa Barbara Terri Tokar‘s seven-year-old frothy creative confection, also made for the Kentucky Derby.

Among the horse and hat fans gathering next to the hallowed Holden Field were Richard and Annette Caleel, Charles Ward, actress Kelly LeBrock, Charles de L’Arbre, Brooks Firestone, Glen Holden, Cat Pollon, Mindy Mahy, Beverley Jackson, Diana Starr-Langley, William Tomicki, Robert and Robin Fell, Debbie Kass, Ben Soleimani, Brian Fagan, Nigel Gallimore, Robyn Geddes, Rita Hortenstine, Pat and Ursula Nesbitt, James Lindenberg, and Chip Lawson.

What Goes up…

TV talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres first listed her Montecito estate, the Tuscan-stye former home of international interior designer John Saladino, for a hefty $45 million.

Now the multi-Emmy winner has finally found a buyer – but at a considerable discount.

The beautiful estate, which Saladino spent five years restoring and where I have dined a number of times, has been bought for $34 million by Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, who intern just sold him 21.3 million dollar Malibu mansion to singer Robbie Williams.

Ellen and her partner, actress Portia deRossi, dropped the asking price to $39.5 million, but still couldn’t shift the 17-acre estate, Villa di Lemma.

There 60-year-old former Oscars host and her 44-year-old wife purchased the property for $26.5 million in 2013 from Tom and Heather Sturgess and subsequently bought two adjacent properties.

The primary residence boasts 6 bedrooms and 6 full and 2-half bathrooms spread across 10,500 sq. ft.

The original home was designed and built in the 1930s by architect Wallace Frost.

Sightings: Actor Christopher Lloyd basking in his Vilebrequins poolside at the Coral Casino…Comedian Steve Martin noshing at the Padaro Beach Grill…How I Met Your Mother actor Jason Segel checking out the Bluewater Grill

Pip! Pip!