Love Letter to Montecito

Montecito-based artist and Grammy winning producer Rich Jacques has written a “love letter” to our rarefied enclave.

Rich has had more than 300 placements in film and TV such as Grey’s Anatomy and The Breakup, and his songs have been heard in many major commercials including Honda and Xbox.

At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, he had an unrelated health scare and moved out of his home in Los Angeles to live with friends in our Eden by the Beach.

“I created a lot of new habits and got back to health,” says Rich. “It was really a life-changing experience. Montecito really is one of the most beautiful places in the world and now has a whole new meaning to me. This is my love letter to all who helped me,”

“Being in a new space in my friend’s guest house really afforded me the opportunity to take a step back and only focus on taking care of myself in ways that I hadn’t in years.

“It had a profound effect. Within three months I lost about twenty-five pounds and friends I hadn’t seen since leaving L.A. were always shocked at how different I looked.”

He also became an avid cyclist riding up to mountains or down to the beach daily, eating regularly at Oliver’s on Coast Village Road and shopping at the Montecito Village Grocery.

“I love the small-town feeling,” says Rich. “It’s a bit of a time capsule from the ‘50s. Hiking the trails up to Hot Springs, having Lotusland round the corner, and, of course, my favorite Butterfly Beach. There’s really no place like it. Montecito literally saved my life.”

If you care to tune into the work, the video link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HeUo2a_f3c

Madness at Mortimer’s

Memories galore of my days in Madhattan have been evoked with the publication of a new 240-page coffee table tome Mortimer’s: Moments in Time by writer-documentarian Robin Baker Leacock with an absolute feast of ephemera, including innumerable photos, menus, recipes, and anecdotes.

The iconic Eurotrash boite on 75th and Lexington, owned by the mercurial Glenn Bernbaum, was a magnet for the world’s movers and shakers from when it first opened in 1976, when I first dined there as a tourist, until its closure in 1998 when Glenn died at the age of 76.

On any given day, be it lunch or dinner, you could see Jackie Onassis, who lived a few blocks away in her 1040 Fifth Avenue penthouse, the King of Spain, Karim Aga Khan, CBS founder Bill Paley, Queen Elizabeth’s photographer brother-in-law Lord Snowdon, Greta Garbo, designers Valentino, Hubert de Givenchy and Oscar de la Renta, former president Richard Nixon, author and Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne – who I got to know at the late publisher Malcolm Forbes’ legendary 70th birthday bash at his Palais Mendoub in Tangier, Morocco, in 1989 – Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis – who I would sail with regularly on his 160-foot schooner Aiglon, even spending time on the late President Fidel Castro’s private island –, international Greek society scribe Taki Theodoracopulos, and the infamous Claus von Bülow, as well as socialites Nan Kempner and Pat Buckley, wife of political publisher Bill Buckley, who became good friends.

And it certainly wasn’t the inexpensive, relatively bland food of crab cakes, chicken paillard, and Twin Burgers Mortimer, that attracted them. But for people power the eatery couldn’t be beaten.

At the time I lived at 66th and Madison, opposite the late artist Andy Warhol’s townhouse, toiling as an editor on the Intelligencer column of New York Magazine, and it was a short nine-block walk to the society hangout, which used to stage its Fête de Famille annually, taking over the 75th Street block between Lexington and Third Avenues, which raised more than $7 million for the AIDS Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

One of my abiding memories was a dinner organized for the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, who, as usual, was staying at soup heiress Drue Heinz’s Sutton Place penthouse. As she entered the dining room the pianist started playing “God Save the Queen” on the upright piano, which did not amuse the notoriously cantankerous HRH.

Quick thinking Bernbaum, however, saved the day when he explained it was being played for confirmed bachelor Jerry Zipkin, better known as the late First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “walker.”

When Bernbaum died he instructed the restaurant should be closed immediately, with all monies going to AIDS charities.

Former maitre d’ Robert Caravaggi, along with partners, opened a similar boite two blocks south named Swifty’s after Bernbaum’s pet pug that been a gift to him from another regular, talent agent and dealmaker Swifty Lazar, known for his oversized spectacles and Oscar parties at Spago.

The old Mortimer’s space was bought by another old friend, restaurateur Jean de Noyer, owner of another Eurofluff hangout, La Goulue, in 2000 and renamed Orsay.

Both Swifty’s and La Goulue now boast outposts in Palm Beach, where many of the former Mortimer’s habitués have homes.

It may have closed more than two decades ago, but the colorful memories live on…

Hearst House Sells

Publishing heiress Virginia Hearst Randt has sold her trophy Montecito estate, albeit at a hefty discount.

It was first offered in November for nearly $9 million, but last month was snapped up for $7.5 million in an all-cash deal.

Even so, the sale gives her a nice $2 million profit on what she paid for the property in March 2012.

The buyer is veteran Broadway producer and philanthropist Thomas Perakos, known as the primary financial backer of The Band’s Visit, winner of a 2018 Tony Award for Best Musical.

Randt, 72, is the second of Randy Hearst’s five daughters – five years older than her sister Patty Hearst, infamously kidnapped in 1974 – and a granddaughter of media baron William Randolph Hearst.

The 2001 property over 3,500 square feet features two en-suite bedrooms and a detached cottage with another bedroom and bathroom. It is on 4.3 hilltop acres with spectacular all-around views.

Double the Fun

Real estate tycoon Franck Ruimy has been splashing out the cash!

Ruimy, 50, former CEO of Arizona-based Silver Creek Development, inked two major deals totaling nearly $40 million over the past 12 months.

Having spent more than $22 million on a 9,000 sq-ft six-bedroom, one-acre home in the achingly trendy L.A. community of Brentwood, three months later he paid $15.8 million for a stately Mediterranean-style home in our rarefied enclave.

Known as Casa Leo Linda, it was built in 1998 on three acres near Ty Warner’s San Ysidro Ranch. It has six bedrooms and ten bathrooms in just over 8,500 square feet with sweeping mountain and ocean views.