Mattei’s Exhibit

It was a double header at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum when the august institution hosted its annual holiday party for 275 guests, as well as opening its latest exhibition, “Clarence Mattei – A Portrait of Our Community.”

Mattei, whose parents owned the eponymous Mattei’s Tavern, was sponsored to attend the prestigious Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco after millionaire philanthropists Herman and Ellen Duryea saw his work while staying at the hostelry – founded in 1886 as a hotel and watering hole for stagecoach travelers coming and going through San Marcos Pass.

Among the guests noshing on comestibles from The Catering Connection while dancing the night away to the Konrad Kono Trio were Gretchen Lieff and Miles Hartfeld, Rick Oshay, Brenda Blalock, Dacia Harwood, Michael and Hattie Beresford, Hilary Burkemper, Garrison and Kathleen Bielen, Missy DeYoung, Jim Garcia and Erin Graffy, Rhonda Henderson, and George and Laurie Leis.