Local Air Support

Larry Feinberg, president of Santa Barbara Museum of Art, must be thanking his lucky stars he lives in our Eden by the Beach.

Late last year, his wife Starr Siegele fell off a ladder at their Manhattan apartment breaking her pelvis in two places, shattering her left elbow, and breaking two arm bones.

“She lay there, unable to move, for ten hours calling for help until fortunately a downstairs neighbor, [former Balanchine prime ballerina] Antonia Franceschi, who had just returned from choreographing an opera in Pittsburgh, heard her yelling and came to the rescue.

“Starr was rushed to an emergency room and operated on two days later at Mount Sinai Hospital followed by three weeks of rehab at the Mary Manning Walsh Center.

“In her fragile state it would have been impossible to bring Starr back to Santa Barbara on a commercial flight. Fortunately, some dear friends here who travel to New York for theatre had access to a private plane and offered to bring us back to town with them.”

A special ambulance service was arranged with the aviation company to transport Starr on and off the plane at each end of the trip and the couple went to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to catch the private flight back here. But all did not go as planned.

“The ambulance crew came to the gate looking disturbed,” recounts Larry. “It seemed their equipment was too large for the ramp and the door of the plane we were supposed to board. For liability reasons the pilot wouldn’t let me and my friend carry Starr on to the plane.

“We were in a major conundrum with no place to go. Just then I got another e-mail from another dear Santa Barbara friend who happened to be in Manhattan. They needed to return here a couple of days early and said they were on their way to Teterboro to board a private Gulfstream plane.

“I asked if they might have room for us. It turned out their plane was parked just 200 yards from the other jet and was scheduled to leave a half hour later. Once the ambulance crew received permission, they loaded Starr into the larger plane and we were able to return home.”

It’s not often friends have private planes leaving just 30 minutes apart from the East Coast to the Left Coast. Only in Montecito…