There are now more billionaires than ever, 2,781 in all, 141 more than last year and 26 more than the record set in 2021, according to the new 38th annual Forbes magazine Rich List. They’re also richer than ever, with $14.2 trillion in aggregate, up $2 trillion from 2023 and $1.1 trillion more than the […]
To Caruso’s, the five-star Forbes Travel Guide-rated oceanside eatery at the Rosewood Miramar, named after the Los Angeles billionaire and developer Rick Caruso, to try out a new three course menu for gourmands in a hurry. Although why you’d rush given the idyllic location and culinary excellence of Chef Shibani Mone is quite beyond me. […]
After postponing their concert in February given a mandatory evacuation warning because of heavy rain, the charmingly named Grammy Award-winning octet Roomful of Teeth with pianist-guitarist Gabriel Kahane, performed in a UCSB Arts & Lectures show at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall. The tony troupe is dedicated to reimagining the expressive potential […]
Santa Barbara resident and fellow MClub member Bobbie Kinnear gave a riveting talk at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum about her father, Col. Robert Ernest Evans, a highly decorated B-17 and B-29 pilot, who flew more than 50 combat missions over Europe and Japan in World War II. In 1943 he famously served as […]
Terry Pillow, who runs the charming leather goods boutique Homer on Coast Village Road, now knows what brown can do for him! Terry, former head honcho of Ralph Lauren, Tommy Bahama, and Coach, is headlined in an eight-page feature in WM Brown magazine, a quarterly men’s lifestyle glossy, with photos taken by Montecito’s Dewey Nicks. […]
Santa Barbara Symphony maestro Nir Kabaretti hosted a Jazz & Juice party at the Montecito aerie of Chuck and Merryl Zegar. The sunset soirée featured New York-based singer Kristen Lee Sergeant, a certified sommelier working in Manhattan’s top eateries who founded a wine label with Grammy Award winning saxophonist Ted Nash, called Two Notes, now […]
Meghan Markle is going to the dogs! The Riven Rock resident’s new lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, has listed a range of items in documents sent to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which includes dog food, bath soaps and blankets. The 42-year-old Duchess of Sussex also wants to market fragrance sachets, hand soaps, bath […]
There was a great deal of sole searching going on at the Lobero when State Street Ballet performed a highly entertaining version of Cinderella, choreographed by the company’s founder Rodney Gustafson. State Street Ballet’s Cinderella at the Lobero was celebrating its 20th anniversary. The production, with its stirring music by Sergei Prokofiev, was written in […]
The phone at Maison Mineards Montecito was red hot after Kate, the Princess of Wales, posted her candid video revealing she was being treated for cancer after visiting the London Clinic for major gastro-intestinal surgery. It finally put to rest the scurrilous rumors circulating fueling endless speculation about her long absence from royal duties which […]
Montecito winemaker Gretchen Lieff was awarded Woman Business Owner of the Year at the 10th annual BRAVO Awards lunch at Goleta’s Hilton Garden Inn. Gretchen, owner of the La Lieff winery in the Funk Zone and an avid animal activist, exclaimed: “A great surprise! But a nice honor.” The event, with the theme Rising Together, […]
Santa Barbara Revels’ 16th annual Pub Sing on St. Patrick’s Day was really up the creek! More than 60 warblers, including founder Susan Keller, joined in the merry mayhem at the Creekside Restaurant & Bar in Goleta singing a selection of Irish tunes, sea shanties, familiar folk songs, traditional favorites, and novelty ditties with Andrew […]
Social gridlock reigned at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall when VIP donors got a sneak peek at this year’s 77th annual summer festival “The Magic of Music.” Featuring 150 performances with more than 137 fellows between June 12 and Aug. 3, new academy president and CEO Shauna Quill outlined the many programs […]
Just four months after moving into Casa Dorinda, artist Victoria Furst Hines has lost no time in making her mark. Victoria, who with her late husband Carter ran a popular Montecito drapery business, has displayed 36 of her colorful works in oil, acrylic and watercolor, just a tiara’s toss from the home’s capacious dining room […]
Bobbi Abram is Santa Barbara City College Foundation’s new chief executive officer, starting May 1. Abram has spent most of her career as a leader in nonprofit and higher education fundraising and administration, and has served as executive director of the Pasadena City College Foundation since 2012. “This is an exciting time to be joining […]
The stars were out in abundance in our Eden by the Beach when perpetually youthful actor Rob Lowe celebrated his 60th birthday with a host of Hollywood stars who traveled up the 101 to help the 9-1-1: Lone Star star celebrate until the early hours with a live band. “I love the milestone birthdays because […]
Kenny Lee Lewis, bassist and backup singer for the Steve Miller Band since the early 1980s, has put together a five-piece band called THE FRENZ and secured half a dozen special guest singers and musicians with decades of combined rock history for a tribute show at the iconic Fillmore West in San Francisco and its […]
A tidal wave of generosity enveloped the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper’s sold-out 22nd annual Blue Water Ball at the Cabrillo Pavilion with more than 200 guests raising around $170,000 for the popular nonprofit. The boffo bash was emceed by the ubiquitous Andrew Firestone and 14 paintings by local artists, including Kelly Claus, Benjamin Anderson, Eric Foote, […]
Oscar winning actor Kevin Costner is again lending his oceanside estate on Carpinteria’s Padaro Lane for this year’s One805Live fall concert, which last year raised around $1 million providing equipment not available in normal budgets for first responders, including mental health support. At a socially gridlocked Honorary Board cocktail reception at the Montecito Club the […]
Society gadabout Rick Oshay and La Boheme dancers founder Teresa Kuskey teamed up with Scott and Karen Davis to host an Oscars bash at Rick’s Montecito estate while the 96th annual event was shown on giant TV screens around the gardens decorated with giant figures of the awards trophy. Among those noshing on the canapés […]
The Golden Days of Hollywood were remembered when the Santa Barbara Symphony under guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, general director of the New York Grand Opera, performed an Oscar-themed concert at the Granada hosted by the vivacious Leslie Zemeckis. Leslie, a bestselling author and award-winning documentarian, as well as being a near Montecito neighbor and fellow […]
It was close, but there were more than enough cigars when golfers competed at the Sandpiper golf course, just a tiara or two’s toss from the Ritz-Carlton Bacara. Afterwards competitors adjourned to the tony hostelry’s Cohiba Lounge, which opened last August. There they not only partook of the pricey Cuban tobacco, they quaffed Johnny Walker […]
Montecito Bank & Trust celebrated its 49th anniversary by gathering with 11 local nonprofit representatives at the bank’s annual anniversary grants reception. Michael Towbes, the bank’s late founder, first started the anniversary grant program in 1993 to give back to the community. He wanted bank employees to have a voice in the direction of the […]
CAMA, the Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara. hosted its last concert of its current Masterseries with the 18-member Sphinx Virtuosi at the Lobero. The talented ensemble was founded in Detroit in 1997 to champion black and Latinx composers and musicians to bring more diversity to the arts. The tony troupe performed four commissioned […]
An old friend Ingrid Seward – longtime editor of the U.K’s. Majesty Magazine and prolific royal author/TV commentator – sends me her latest book My Mother and I: The Inside Story of the King and Our Late Queen, which has reached Number 4 in the British bestseller list. Ingrid who has written innumerable bestsellers on […]
Jim Morouse and Peter Schuyler have been selected as the 81st Persons of the Year, hosted by the Santa Barbara Foundation and chosen by past recipients. The dynamic duo will be honored for their volunteer contributions and service to the community at a lunch at the Hilton next month. “Jim and Peter exemplify what we […]
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum was even more magical than usual when it hosted the “Heist at the Harbor: An Evening of Mystery and Intrigue” gala for 120 guests, which raised around $100,000 for the harborside institution. The boffo bash, co-chaired by immediate past president Sigrid Toye and Cindy Makela, also celebrated benefactors Robyn Parker and […]
Lotusland – Montecito’s 37-acre botanical paradise which is limited by a conditional use permit to just 20,000 visitors annually – is going global thanks to a free arts and cultural app from Bloomberg, joining 380 cultural partners worldwide with an astonishing 29 million users. “It will certainly bring Lotusland to a considerably larger audience,” Executive […]
Just six weeks after its disastrous sprinkler mishap the venerable Granada Theatre was back to its sparkling self when the 27-time Grammy winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performed as part of the CAMA Masterseries. Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, music director since 2022 and only the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra, joined Chinese […]
Neo-cabaret diva Meow Meow, who has performed to sold-out to audiences worldwide including the Sydney Opera House and Lincoln Center, was in outrageous form when she sang at the Lobero as part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures series. The show Sequins and Satire, Divas and Disruptors: The Wild Women of the Weimar Republic […]
The star-ridden oceanside hostelry Rosewood Miramar celebrated its fifth anniversary with a socially gridlocked champagne-fueled bash on the Great Lawn with billionaire owner Rick Caruso describing the event as “a flash of the eye.” I reminded the Los Angeles real estate developer of the time he was in a Sikorsky helicopter hovering over the Pacific […]
Former TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres just signed off on one of Montecito’s biggest property sales this year, selling the iconic 1919 villa Pompeian Court on San Ysidro Road for $32 million, shy of the original $46.5 million asking price. Less than one year prior the eight-acre estate traded hands for $22.5 million. During […]
Former TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey is leaving the board of WeightWatchers and will donate her stake in the company “to eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight loss medications,” according to the company, also known as WW International. Shares in WW International fell by 27% in extended trading following the […]
Rain certainly didn’t stop play, nor pulling, when the Alpha Resource Center hosted its third annual Plane Pull at Santa Barbara Airport, raising more than $72,000 for the popular 70-year-old nonprofit, which empowers individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Teams of ten in four divisions, including schools and public safety – military, EMTs and firefighters […]
Santa Barbara’s Turner Foundation, which since its founding 65 years ago has provided 3.3 million nights of accommodation for low-income individuals and families, has opened its latest outpost, Dunamis House – Greek for strength – at De La Guerra Street and Marilla Avenue. It’s the fifth property the organization has purchased with the first in […]
To the Arlington Theatre for the one-night only revival of the folkloric ballet Seraglio, an Eastern version of Romeo and Juliet, written, choreographed and produced by Santa Barbara’s Alexandra King. The colorful three-act, two-hour production was first presented in 1989 in our Eden by the Beach, Ojai, Culver City, and Salt Lake City, featuring Greek […]
How fitting that on the 60th anniversary of The Beatles “invasion” of America, an old friend, Ivor Davis – who toured with the Fab Four as an “embedded” correspondent for the London Daily Express, one of the world’s largest newspapers at the time with five million readers – should give a fascinating talk at the […]
Montecito animal rights activist Gretchen Lieff didn’t have to look far when she moved into a new estate. The property, built in 1964 and designed by architect Carl Hillmann, was right next door to her former Arcady home! To mark the occasion Gretchen, owner of the La Lieff vineyard and Funk Zone tasting room, hosted […]
Lotusland, Montecito’s 37-acre botanical paradise, is now even more fragrant than usual! In collaboration with Heretic Perfume, the estate has launched its second limited-edition organic scent inspired by Ganna Walska, the avant-garde Polish opera singer and designer, and her colorful creation. More than 90 years ago the opera singer created a line of perfumes in […]
Yours truly was front and center on TMZ Investigates on Fox regarding Carpinteria actor Kevin Costner’s divorce war with his wife Christine Baumgartner. A crew of seven visited Maison Mineards Montecito two weeks back to shoot a half hour interview with TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who was on Zoom from Los Angeles. The hour-long show […]
It’s undoubtedly one of our Eden by the Beach’s most expensive properties. An 11-acre Hope Ranch oceanside estate, consisting of three parcels, is up for grabs for $88 million. It was formerly owned by an old friend, Betty Stephens, whose husband founded Jonny Cat litter, and has a 7,265 square foot main house built in […]