New Chief Artistic Officer Appointed

Montecito’s Music Academy has appointed Nate Bachhuber as Chief Artistic Officer.

He is recognized for his collaborative and strategic approach to artistic planning with prestigious performing arts organizations, including the L.A. Philharmonic, and St. Louis and Cincinnati symphony orchestras.

Bachhuber has wide experience in public relations and digital strategy at New York’s Carnegie Hall and degrees in voice and opera from the Curtis Institute of Music. His career has been marked by creativity and thoughtful innovation.

Welcome to the ‘hood…

New Series and Names Drop

Diminutive author Truman Capote was a decidedly mixed up but adored character, amply exemplified in FX’s current eight-part series Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, his female New York socialite followers.

As it happens, I knew Capote, who died in 1984 aged 59, and a number of his society beauties including C.Z. Guest and Lee Radziwill, Jackie O’s sister, quite well.

C.Z., who lived in great splendor at Templeton in Long Island’s Old Westbury and tooled around Manhattan in her Jaguar with the license plate CZ1, was a good friend of the late Joan Rivers, whose TV talk show I appeared on for many years as resident gossip.

C.Z.’s daughter Cornelia, goddaughter of the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII), was dubbed ‘Deb of the Decade’ in the late ‘70s when I moved to New York from London to become gossip columnist on Rupert Murdoch’s newly-launched entertainment magazine Star.

We would have fun partying at the legendary nightclub Studio 54 and I vividly remember the Breakfast at Tiffany’s author, drunk as a skunk, attempting to vigorously tango with me as I looked for help from his good friend the late producer Lester Persky, who made Equus, Yanks, and Hair.

Persky lived luxuriously in his penthouse at the Hampshire House on Central Park South opposite the apartment of opera legend Luciano Pavarotti.

Persky’s L.A. home in the ritzy enclave of Bel Air had one of British artist David Hockney’s designed swimming pools, one of only two in the U.S., after bidding $110,000 at a charity auction in 1991 for the privilege.

By coincidence the other pool is at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, the site of the first Oscars ceremony, where I would stay on occasion when I would fly out from Manhattan to do talk shows on the Royal Family, including The Leeza Gibbons Show at Paramount Studios.

Capote, played superbly on the FX series by British actor Tim Hollander, with C.Z. acted by Chloë Sevigny, and Radziwill played by Calista Flockhart, were joined by other members of the cast including Demi Moore, Diane Lane, and Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, wife of CBS founder Bill Paley.

Radziwill was escorted around town by Lord Eddie Somerset, brother of Bunter, former Marquess of Worcester and now Duke of Beaufort, who lives on his sprawling 52,000-acre Gloucestershire estate, Badminton House, where the racquet sport originated.

And I would often see them together at Mortimer’s, the Upper Eastside society watering hole.

Many of the TV scenes take place at La Côte Basque, another society hotspot on East 55th Street owned by Henri Soulé, which closed in 2004 after nearly half a century in business.

I remember fondly one time when I was having lunch with Chicago store and newspaper magnate Marshall Field’s daughter, Phyllis, and his grandson, Maldwin Drummond.

Phyllis was on crutches with a broken leg in a plaster cast and we got stuck in the eatery’s revolving door, being extracted after a few minutes by helpful staff.

As they say at Disneyland, a small, small world.

Local House Off the Market

Telecom billionaire Craig McCaw, ex-husband of Santa Barbara News-Press owner Wendy McCaw, has finally sold his 14,200 square foot Tuscan estate for $36.8 million.

The property includes a guest house, pool cabana, and tennis court on 3.31 prime acres.

It was originally listed for $43.5 million with two properties in October 2023, with 875 Park Lane listed separately for $37 million.

The buyer, according to Siteline, appears to have acquired the four-bedroom house next door as part of the deal.

Off to Invictus Celebration

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are jetting to Canada for Valentine’s Day.

The Duke of Sussex returned to Montecito following a whirlwind visit to London’s Clarence House for a 45-minute visit with his father, King Charles III, due to his cancer diagnosis, after which the monarch helicoptered with Queen Camilla to Sandringham House in Norfolk to immediately begin his medical treatment.

The dynamic duo are attending the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 One Year to Go celebrations, according to Hello! magazine.

The forthcoming Invictus Games, which take place Feb. 8-16, 2025, is an international multi-sport event for wounded, injured and sick active servicemen and veterans.

The Many Stars of the Miramar

Billionaire property developer and hotelier Rick Caruso is seeing stars!

His 158-room hosiery, the Rosewood Miramar, has been raking in the star ratings in the 2024 Forbes Travel Guide.

The ritzy hostelry, which celebrates its fifth anniversary next month, has been named a five-star property with Senso, dubbed a five-star spa, and Caruso’s, with chef Massimo Falsini, a five-star restaurant.

It is one of only 15 properties globally and one of only five in the U.S. with the coveted triple Five Star title.

Well deserved…

Lowe’s Lament

Actor Rob Lowe left a film crew feeling “rather embarrassed” when he let out a “loud passionate groan” during a racy sex scene with Demi Moore, only later revealing he had torn his ACL during a passionate clinch.

The Montecito resident, 59, and Moore, 61, played onscreen lovers in the 1988 hit About Last Night, which sees the duo trying to navigate a serious relationship with little support from their friends, played by James Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins.

As with most romcoms, the film had several saucy sex scenes – one of which left Rob with a ligament injury so painful he groaned loudly and didn’t stop until director Edward Zwick said “Cut.”

Zwick, 71, share the anecdote in his new memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Forty Something Years in Hollywood.

Sightings

Prince Harry in Las Vegas presenting an NFL award… Oprah Winfrey at the Grammys in L.A… Orlando Bloom, fiancé of warbler Katy Perry, shooting a new film Deep Cover in London.

Pip! Pip!