Around Town - Hearst The Collector With Victoria Kastner

Last night I had the privilege of attending a lecture sponsored by the Royal Oak Foundation given by architectural historian Victoria Kastner, the preeminent scholar of Hearst Castle.  The lecture was held at the Beverly Hills Women's Club, an organization with many members who have an interest in decorative arts and the architectural preservation of important local buildings and landmarks.
Kastner, who has been the official historian of Hearst Castle for 30 years, has written these two amazing books.

 Hearst Castle:  The Biography of a Country House

Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and The Land

The lecture focused on Hearst as a collector, the construction of San Simeon, and use of the property as a country house.  Hearst typically entertained the Hollywood set at the Castle, but he also hosted George Bernard Shaw, PG Wodehouse and Winston Churchill. 

I won't go into to details of the hour long lecture but I will post this short interview with Kastner who explains some of the wonder that is Hearst Castle.

Julia Morgan Architect

Of course no lecture on this topic could be complete without a description of Julia Morgan, the greatest female architect...ever.  Julia Morgan, who graduated with a degree in civil engineering from UC Berkeley in 1894, was the first female student to graduate from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  After studying in Paris she returned to California and built the first bell tower or campanile on a college campus in the US, which housed bells that had been cast for the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. The campanile, which was the first reinforced concrete structure on the west coast, withstood the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and she became sought after to rebuild important structures that had been damaged, including San Francisico's Fairmont Hotel. Then in 1919, after some 500 commissions, she became the architect of Hearst Castle and Wyntoon, Hearst's other fantasy property.

In her long career she was the architect of some 700 buildings.  

Imagine that for a woman who died in 1957.

OK, I can go on and on about Julia Morgan but she deserves her own post.

So instead I'll write about something really important...like what I wore.

As I've mentioned before, navy is my neutral 

so voila, a  navy blue suit and sapphire and diamond estate jewelry from Beladora.com

Naturally, I had to wear that sapphire cuff bracelet because it was all things wonderful

But instead of the mother of pearl and diamond earrings I kept with a cabochon sapphire story with these earrings

Sapphire and Diamond Earrings in 18K $4950

and this gorgeous ring

Sapphire and Diamond Ring in 18K $2850

How is it possible that as a lifelong Californian, I've never been to Hearst Castle?

Obviously after last night it is high on my agenda for a future road trip after I get my new car.

Now....If I can only finagle a private tour of the house and grounds by Victoria Kastner...

So lovely...California at its best

No wonder Hearst loved it so.

Friday Night Dinner Chez Amis

For a while now I have been thinking that, except for large holiday parties, entertaining at home was a thing of the past.  Most people I know meet for dinner with their friends at restaurants instead of hosting dinner parties.  Who has time for all that organizing, decorating, cooking and serving anymore.

Well apparently a few still do, and thank god for that.

Reggie Darling recently hosted an Autumn black tie dinner party and posted about the planning and the execution of it here and here.  Note how elegantly his table is set. 

And Privilege hosted a virtual housewarming dinner party on the patio to celebrate the launch of her new blog.

A posts about holiday table settings showed up at Greige and A Gardner's Cottage.

Am I sensing a stay at home and entertaining trend here?

 Of course the recipe for successful home entertaining calls for delicious food and charming guests. 
An awesome home is not required, but certainly adds the special je ne sais quoi to the party.

Last night I attended just such a soiree, a sit down dinner party for 25.
The Thanksgiving inspired meal, prepared by a talented young private chef was delicious and healthy, a soup course to start, a salad, turkey roulade for the main course and cold lemon souffle sided by a brownie for dessert.
The guests, friends and neighbors of the hosts, were an eclectic mix from young couples in their 30's to couples in their late 60's, or maybe even early 70's, I didn't ask.  But the mix in age and backgrounds made for lively conversation.

And the house was perfect for entertaining. 
A 1960's California ranch house, up in the hills, remodeled and decorated with perfect 1960's style.
It was uber groovy.
From the city view to the sunken bar, to the open fireplace, to the step up dining room, to the earth colors and patterns of the fabrics and wall coverings, to the palos verdes stone, to the outdoor fire pit...
it was like stepping back in time to a house from my early Southern California childhood.
Classic California architecture.
I could have imagined my parents and their friends sipping cocktails, smoking cigarettes and partying it up in such a house...because that's what they did back in the day.

Am I inspired get out my china and crystal and start entertaining?
No not really. Not only do I not have the house for it, I don't have energy with my day job and all that. 
I will leave the sit down dinner parties to the ladies and gentlemen who can host them with the proper savoir faire. 
Hopefully though, I will remain on their guest lists, because I do so appreciate being invited.
Are you inspired to entertain at home this season?

Road Trip - Stanford Style

It's rare that I would take a weekend road trip, because there is so much to do here in LA. But last weekend I had the opportunity to attend an event in Nor Cal in the Palo Alto area, an area which I haven't visited since I was a sophomore in college, decades ago. I was curious to see how much it had changed, especially after the rise of tech power in Silicon Valley and the uber wealth of Sand Hill Road. Surprisingly, Palo Alto hasn't changed much. It is still a charming little town nestled against the foothills and dominated by the amazing Stanford campus.

Is Stanford the most beautiful school in California? Probably. Planned by the great Frederick Law Olmstead, the Italianate architecture with it's open colonnades, carved arches, balustrades and tiled roofs, makes you think more of Renaissance Italy, than post gold rush California.

And, unlike Southern California which is infected with urban sprawl, pretty much wherever you look you find a verdant view. It's a little hard to imagine the enormous advances in science and technology that have come out of such a peaceful pastoral place.

I'm still not sure what's up with the the need to put a giant bell tower on what seems, every college and university campus in Northern California.

Mills has its elegantly simple campanile designed by the brilliant Julia Morgan in 1904.

Berkeley has its beautiful Beaux-Art Sather Tower constructed in 1914.

So of course Stanford has its "mine is bigger and better than yours" fabulously phallic Hoover Tower built in 1941.

(Yes, I could make some inappropriate architectural double entendre remarks here but I'm just going to let it go)

From the architectural to the political, has anyone besides me wondered what happens to all that brain power that emanates from Stanford? Why are the highest offices in our federal government disproportionately stocked with Harvard and Yale grads? Is there something specific about Stanford that sends graduates off to do, or to create, rather than to govern? I'm just curious.