The Grande Dame
Celebrating the life and legacy of Elizabeth Skene
Celebrating the life and legacy of Elizabeth Skene
Polo great Robert Skene and his wife, Elizabeth, arrive in Los Angeles after a match in Argentina in 1949.
Written by Joan Tapper
When Elizabeth Skene passed away on January 16 at the age of 104, it marked the end of an era at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club. She was a familiar figure at Sunday games throughout the season—lovely, gracious, and ever attentive to the action on the field. And as the widow of famed polo player Robert Skene, she was a link to the club’s history—to some of its darkest, most precarious days and also to many instances of world-class games and glittering renown.
Skene and teammates get the winners’ trophy after a tournament in 1959.
Born in Australia, Elizabeth was the daughter of a sheep and cattle rancher. She met Robert—son of an 8-goal polo player and horse breeder—at a country dance when they were both 16. One circuit on the dance floor led to a lifelong romance that spanned four continents and nearly seven decades.
Robert’s talent as a polo player took him to India and then to England in 1937, where Elizabeth soon joined him. They had a fashionable wedding there in 1938 and got their first glimpse of Santa Barbara the following year, when “Hurricane Bob,” as he was known, had a practice match here as a member of the English team bound for a tournament on the East Coast.
“Elizabeth and Bob Skene brought even more fame to the Santa Barbara Polo Club than the club’s recognition as having arguably the best playing fields in the world.”
Glen Holden, SBPRC trustee of distinction
Difficult days were ahead, however. Robert enlisted in India’s Gurkha cavalry, was posted to Singapore, and after that city fell to the Japanese, was incarcerated in the notorious Changi prison. A single postcard was the only word Elizabeth had of him for three and a half years.
They were reunited in 1945 and eventually moved to California, where Robert took over as manager of the Santa Barbara Polo Club in 1960. He won the Argentine Open twice in 1954 and 1956 with team El Tebol and was on the Santa Barbara team that won the U.S. Open in 1962. These were just some of many trophies and honors for a player who held a 10-goal handicap for 17 years. He left for several seasons but returned in 1969 as changes in ownership and dwindling memberships made the club’s future uncertain. Robert’s determination and tireless hard work—with Elizabeth’s help and that of three generous and visionary trustees—saved the club. When Robert died in 1997, SBPRC’s future was secure.
: Robert Skene and a British team vied against the American Texas Rangers at the Santa Barbara Polo Club in March 1939.
Elizabeth continued to attend games and hand out trophies for the tournament that bore her husband’s name. “She lived for the polo season,” says Paige Beard, a friend and longtime polo player. “It was a highlight of her year.”
“She had a remarkable life,” adds her son, Curtis. “She had kept a diary through various periods of her life and had intended to publish it.” She became increasingly frail, however. After being safely evacuated during the Thomas Fire, she moved to Serenity House on January 8 and was unaware that the house she had lived in for decades was inundated by the subsequent mudslide. She passed on as gracefully as she led her life, in her sleep, a week later.
The Skenes in 1985.
Says Curtis, “She would want to be remembered for three things: First, she lived life to the best of her ability, always guided by her spiritual beliefs. Second, she was a steadfast partner in life to my father. And third, the tremendous efforts she and my father made to save the Santa Barbara Polo Club.”
“Elizabeth and Bob Skene brought even more fame to the Santa Barbara Polo Club than the club’s recognition as having arguably the best playing fields in the world,” says Glen Holden, an SBPRC trustee of distinction. “As a polo couple, they were invited to England by Queen Elizabeth for special recognition in 1992. And when I invited Prince William and Kate for the club’s 100th anniversary, Prince William asked to meet Elizabeth. She looked beautiful that day. She was elegant. She was a wonderful lady, and we’ll miss her.”
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Polo Pioneers
The evolution of women players in Santa Barbara.
The Evolution of Women Players in Santa Barbara
Elaine McInerney started playing polo at age 9 in Los Angeles and was called in to play practice rounds with Walt Disney and Spencer Tracy, who admired her ability so much he loaned her some of his horses from his string.
Compiled and Written by Nigel Gallimore
Inside the 1937-built vintage cottage-style Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club clubhouse, the hunter-green walls are lined with decades’ worth of photos of teams accepting the silver cups, bowls, and trophies locked in glass-fronted cases. The beginning of the club’s story, however, predates that building, the trophies, and even the adjacent fields.
From the start of polo in Santa Barbara, the sport was peripatetic from 1899 until it found a permanent home in 1926 at the current location in Carpinteria. Polo in Santa Barbara has a long heritage starting on April 27, 1894, when an exhibition match was played at the Agricultural Park’s Flower Festival (now the location of the Lower East side between the freeway and East Beach). This match encouraged sufficient local interest in the sport, and the first organized polo game in Santa Barbara was played on May 19, 1899, by a team formed of members of the Santa Barbara Country Club. By 1902, the fledgling polo club boasted a 40-member roster and interest in the sport had increased tremendously.
The first purpose-built skin (dirt) polo field was in 1901 on the Westside at the foot of the Mesa, where the players leased 22 acres. It was not until 1916 that the first grass field was built on Middle Road in Montecito and where, on April 1, four women made their first appearance in a mixed polo period. The red team: Dorothy Tweedy, Ruth Peabody, Charles Dabney, and Elmer Boeseke Jr. played against the blue team: Katherine Harvey, Lorna Tweedy, Graham Miles, and Frederick Leadbetter. This is also where local estate owner and socialite Esther Fiske Hammond was among the women players.
On March 27, 1931, the Girls’ Championship of Santa Barbara was played on Fleischmann Field. It is significant that this particular game was included in the United States Polo Association’s yearbook, as this mention is perhaps the first acknowledgment by the USPA that women played polo in the United States. By 1932, many women in California were forming their own polo teams. Local player Ann Gavit Jackson (of the Palmer Jackson family) had a team in Santa Barbara. Dorothy Wheeler of Santa Cruz wrote to the USPA in New York for some help in organization, and secretary/treasurer Mr. F.S. O’Reiley replied that the general opinion was that “polo is not a women’s game!” The women in California knew this was nonsense and successfully formed their own organization with the help of the male players in the state.
In June 1934, the first tournament of the Pacific Coast Women’s Polo Association was held. Two years later, it became the United States Women’s Polo Association. At one time there were 130 women players up and down the California coast.
In late summer 1937, club owners Ann Jackson—with husband Charles “Pete”—took a women’s Santa Barbara polo team to play in Long Island. Unfortunately, the association came to an end at the start of World War II. In the same year, Ann Jackson went on to build the cottage-style polo clubhouse still standing to date. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were married in Santa Barbara in 1927 and lived in Montecito until their deaths (“Pete” in 1978, Ann in 1990). The Jackson family eventually sold the polo club in 1963 to Rudy Tongg of Hawaii.
Today, along with the many other decades of contemporary women players who have closed the gender gap on the field, there are two women patrons (Leigh Brecheen and Dawn Jones) on the club’s board of directors, and nationwide, women’s polo is the fastest-growing sector in the game. ●
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Heading for the Hills
If the Busch name reminds you of a certain beverage, it’s time to think again, as polo patron Andy Busch debuts Folded Hills wines
If the Busch name reminds you of a certain beverage, it’s time to think again, as polo patron Andy Busch debuts Folded Hills wines
Andy Busch walks his horses—including those iconic Clydesdales—around his 600-acre Folded Hills ranch.
Written by Joan Tapper
Photographs by Erin Feinblatt, Edward Clynes
Tucked between Santa Barbara’s mountains and the Santa Ynez Valley, Folded Hills is a postcard of ranch life. White fences edge sprawling lawns and a plantation-style estate house is outfitted with a long deck and rocking chairs. Heritage pigs play near the chicken coop—where fresh eggs are gathered each morning—and those iconic Clydesdales roam the fields.
Riding on the ranch.
Owner Andy Busch—who, as a 5-goal player, served as captain for the U.S. World Cup team for the Federation of International Polo—retired from professional-level polo after 28 years and loves his horses. Looking forward to the high-goal games this season, he says, “I plan to be there watching friends compete. I love to see the professional players and the incredible horses perform on the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club fields—there’s nothing like it.”
The table is set for dinner alfresco with wildflowers and wineglasses.
Now, the patron of Grant’s Farm polo team is devoted to life on the farm. He and his wife, Kim, have poured love into every inch of their property (which a few lucky guests get to visit each year), and a vineyard seemed like a natural extension of the land. “When we started working on wine five years ago, we put together a team of professionals to assess the soils and ocean-influenced microclimate,” he says. The environment proved to be well suited to Rhône varietals, which was “a perfect fit” for Angela Osborne, the New Zealand-born winemaker and general manager who is known as a “guru of Grenache.” The grapes are grown with a common interest in sustainability, adds Busch, who has planted the vineyard organically, just like his row crops.
Busch’s organic vineyards.
“Angela Osborne, the New Zealand-born winemaker and general manager is known as a “guru of Grenache.””
A winery and tasting room are envisioned for 2018, set near the Farmstead, an idyllic produce stand that sells organic crops grown on the ranch along with baked goods. In the meantime, the first vintages include Lilly Rosé, an estate rosé that’s an homage to Busch’s great-grandmother, Lilly Anheuser Busch and six generations of family women down to his granddaughter Lilly; Grant Grenache, which recalls President Ulysses S. Grant, previous owner of the ancestral home, Grant’s Farm, where Andy grew up and was manager for two decades; and August Red, a blend of Grenache and Syrah, named for his father and grandfather. Ballard Canyon Grenache and Syrah are following in late summer with more estate wines planned for 2018. Each bottle is a true reflection of the ranch and a tribute to the family and the legacy.
Close friends gather for dinner among the grapevines.
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Great Shot
Polo—in one form or another—has historically been what I do when I am not shooting or making art.
Photographer Catherine Erb’s eye on the ball
“Polo—in one form or another—has historically been what I do when I am not shooting or making art. For years, the polo photos I took were for fun, family, and friends. I didn’t realize I was capturing that much information. One day I realized I had a decade of polo photography that told countless stories.”
“The summer of 2017 will mark the 15th I have spent in Santa Barbara. They’ve become special markers by which I measure my own and my children’s growth both physically and spiritually,” says Erb. “I use my time in Santa Barbara to reconnect and center, and more often than not I leave with a wave of new ideas, with new work already started, or ready to begin as soon as I get to the studio.” Michalita #1, mixed-media photo encaustic, 36 x 48 in. Opposite: Untitled polo #15, photo encaustic, 48 x 36 in.
“I began experimenting and replaced my sharp Nikon lens with homemade lenses that allowed me to capture the sport in an ethereal, layered, painterly manner. Some of the photos have made it to the studio, where I print them on watercolor paper, attach them to birch panels, and then apply layers of oil pigments and encaustic wax. Each finished panel represents a memory or dream of Santa Barbara, polo, and our special summers spent here.”
Clockwise from top: Untitled polo #18, mixed-media photo encaustic, 24 x 24 in.; Untitled polo #17, mixed-media photo encaustic, 36 x 36 in.; Untitled polo #20, mixed-media photo encaustic, 40 x 40 in.; Untitled polo #16, mixed-media photo encaustic, 24 x 24 in.
Untitled horse study, black-and-white pigment print, 17 x 22 in.
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Young Americans
Old school meets new school with Jake and Luke Klentner teaming up with Kasimira Miller
Old school meets new school
with Jake and Luke Klentner teaming up with Kasimira Miller
Photographs by Michael Haber
Styled by Shadi Beccai
Elisabeth Franchi jumpsuit, $735, Allora by Laura. Closed belt, $125, Whistle Club. Boots, $295, ROMP. Hoops, from $70, silk ribbon, $8, bracelet, $225, bangle, $200, and rings, from $60, Kendall Conrad.
Luke Klentner, 16, attends Bishop Garcia Diego High School and is a 0-goal on grass and a 1-goal in the arena. Luke balances playing high school football, volleyball, and polo with his family—his father is Justin Klentner, a 1.5-goal player and patron of the Klentner Ranch team.
Model: Kasimira Miller, Next LA. Makeup by Geoffrey Rodriguez using Chanel Beaute. Hair by Dritan vushaj. Interns: emily Calkins and Meghan Campbell
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Divine Discontent
Annette Bening is an earthy, funny, and wise 21st-century woman. A four-time Academy Award nominee, she stars in the upcoming 20th Century Women—a multifaceted, heartwarming love letter to the complexities of women, family, time, and the connections we look for our entire lives. Set in Santa Barbara and written and directed by Mike Mills…
Annette Bening at a private George Washington Smith estate.
Annette Bening is an earthy, funny, and wise 21st-century woman. A four-time Academy Award nominee, she stars in the upcoming 20th Century Women—a multifaceted, heartwarming love letter to the complexities of women, family, time, and the connections we look for our entire lives. Set in Santa Barbara and written and directed by Mike Mills—who was raised here—the film follows Dorothea Fields (Bening), a single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son during a turning point in California marked by cultural, political change and rebellion
Photographs by J.R. Mankoff | Styled by Linda Medvene | Interviewed by Roger Durling
What ultimately attracted you to the character of Dorothea?
I’m 58, so I’m the same age as the young girl in the story would be. That’s how I was at the time, and so for me it resonated and told me things about my life and the context of my life in a way that I had never really understood.
Dorothea is so full of contradictions—she’s open and guarded at the same time. What was it like inhabiting her?
You’ve put your finger on the very thing that was so tricky, difficult, fascinating, and exhilarating about playing her. I guess this is true when you’re probing into something and you find you get far enough in where there are contradictions to things that absolutely deny the other. You’re getting to something true. The problem—of course the dramatic problem, the creative problem—is to get that across without being unclear. And that’s often always the knife’s edge because you don’t want to be too literal and you don’t want to be fuzzy. You want to be somewhere in the middle—like life is. Mike Mills was very cognizant of that. I was very cognizant of that. And of course, Dorothea is based on his mom, so we talked a lot about her. I found myself endlessly asking him questions. That’s why so many characters in films can come across as not being multidimensional because it’s very tricky to get those kinds of layers. Movies come down to moment-to-moment interaction. I trusted him, and he was honest with me. It was that kind of day-to-day probing. In writing, and certainly in acting, you are constantly in a place where you’re slightly uncomfortable.
Can you elaborate on that notion of being uncomfortable as a performer?
First of all, it’s hard to describe, and number two, part of me is trying to protect what I do because I need to keep some of it private. When I go and speak to students I really get into the nitty-gritty of it all and what the process is like because when I was a student that was very valuable to me. But all I can tell you is that I don’t know anybody that is a performing artist who doesn’t have fear and insecurity. So you have to live with that feeling.
“All I can tell you is that I don’t know anybody that is a performing artist who doesn’t have fear and insecurity. So you have to live with that feeling.”
I had a professor who said it’s okay to have those butterflies in your stomach as long as they fly in formation.
I knew an English actress—Fabia Drake, she was in her 80s—on my first movie, Valmont, and she was a real character. I was completely terrified, and I felt like a stage actress just doing a movie—I didn’t know what I was doing. I must have been talking to her about how nervous I was, and she said, “Darling, divine discontent. Divine discontent.” It is divine, and you need it. It may take you somewhere that is outside of what you’re imagining in the moment, but that’s where you need to go. You want to get to a place where you don’t know what you’re doing, you want to get to a place where it’s just coming out and you’re not monitoring it. But of course, the psyche is organized to protect the self. So the psyche doesn’t want to do that, the psyche says, “Wait, you know you’re Annette, you’re not this other person. Just pretend.”
You were raised in California in the 1970s. Did it help you understand Dorothea’s world—caught somewhat off-guard at a turning point in our history?
My parents are from the Midwest and I’m the youngest of four. We moved to San Diego when I was 7, so I think that was helpful to me. Dorothea is my parent’s generation, although she’s in a very different world than my parents inhabited. Nonetheless, it’s in the same ballpark, and I think that was of value. I can remember having a conversation with my mom when I was a teenager and sort of discovering the feminist movement. That topic was hot and heavy at the time and we started to have an argument. I was talking about feminism in some sense, and she said, “Well I just want you to know if I were your age I would be exactly like you.” And I thought that was so interesting, having been raised in the Midwest, getting married in 1950, having four children pretty quickly all before she was 30.… She was someone who very much embraced being a homemaker and doing everything and living that busy life. And of course, not all women were. So that’s kind of more where Dorothea landed for me.
“You want to get to a place where you don’t know what you’re doing, you want to get to a place where it’s just coming out and you’re not monitoring it.”
How did it feel to shoot in Santa Barbara?
Oh, it was great! We had taken a trip up to see all the specific places that are referred to in the script. So when we were actually there, it was extraordinary, heavenly—such a beautiful place. We felt like we were in the real spot, so it was extremely helpful, and we were immersed.
You’re also ending the year by starring in Rules Don’t Apply, produced and directed by your husband, Warren Beatty. What was it like working with him again?
I’ve been in movies with him but never been directed by him. It was exciting on so many levels, because I was so glad he was making the film. I didn’t know if he was going to end up actually doing it—he worked on it for so long, and so I loved it. He’s a very enthusiastic director. Loves actors. He makes you feel like you can do anything, and it was really a joy. Also, the days that I was working on the film, he was not acting, so it was easier for him. So, yeah, it was very, very special for us. ●
Hair by Philip Carreon. Makeup by Carissa Ferreri. Photo Assistants: Jason Cook and Brian Bree. Digital tech: Paul Carter. stylist’s assistant: Sapreet Gill.
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Feats of Clay
From his breathtaking mountaintop aerie, Ojai ceramicist Chris Brock fashions timeless vessels for discerning urban tastemakers
From his breathtaking mountaintop aerie, Ojai ceramicist Chris Brock fashions timeless vessels for discerning urban tastemakers
A dapper Chris Brock in his studio with one of his rose and gray snow glaze pots with hole handles.
Written by L.D. Porter | Photographs by Dewey Nicks
Sometimes, having exquisite taste means you can’t find exactly what you want. But if you’re lucky enough to have talent as well as taste, you can try to create what you want, and after that, if you’re lucky, people with taste may want what you’ve created. Exhibit A: Chris Brock.
One of Brock’s Topa blue glaze pots with shoulder handles nestles between a purple salvia bush and the artist’s bright-orange ceramics studio, brockpottery.com.
Brock, a former private florist/estate gardener, and his husband, renowned interior designer Paul Fortune (he designed Marc Jacobs’s Paris apartment), could never find ceramic vessels massive enough to match their creative vision. The couple’s move from metropolitan Los Angeles to bucolic Ojai—home to legendary potter Beatrice Wood—propelled Brock out of retirement and into the studio of master local potter/instructor Larry Carnes. After a brief fling with the potter’s wheel (“I didn’t need things spinning out of control in front of me,” he says, “so I asked, ‘How else do you make a pot?’”), Brock adopted the ancient technique of clay coiling as his own; the rest, as they say, is history.
A collection of Brock’s ceramic vessels stand guard outside his studio, a converted vintage trailer gifted by husband Paul Fortune.
“A pot is usable and if it approaches art, it’s a win-win. If it crosses that line, it’s heaven.”
Toiling away (usually to the strains of one of his beloved operas) in his mountaintop studio—a kitted-out colorful 1940s trailer Fortune installed on their property as a surprise—Brock produces glorious large-scale ceramic vessels that manage to appear ancient and modern at the same time. Bearing a sophisticated palette of glazes, the pieces are iconic and strong, a testament to Brock’s impeccable taste and knowledge of classical forms honed through years of experience in the design world and on museum-going travels with Fortune.
The interior of Brock’s vintage trailer/studio with works in progress.
The trifecta of taste, technical acumen, and monumental scale embodied in Brock’s work has not gone unnoticed by design cognoscenti. His recent debut show of 33 pieces at the Rick Owens boutique in L.A. was a resounding success: Only two pieces remained, all the others having been snapped up by notable tastemakers, including Amy Astley, Joel Chen, Alix Goldsmith, Joel Silver, and Mario Testino. “Who knew the world was so hungry for a few fancy pots?” Brock quips modestly as he acknowledges the acquisitive desire his newly minted creations have inspired.
Brock outside his studio where he builds pots by hand using an ancient technique he learned from local master potter Larry Carnes.
Brock is endearingly humble, crediting Fortune’s “impossible eye” and aesthetic sensibility as the impetus behind his burgeoning creative talent and well-deserved renown. “I want to cross that line from craft to art,” Brock says, in a tone that reveals he’s genuinely uncertain whether his current efforts qualify. “A pot is usable, and if it approaches art it’s a big win-win. If it crosses that line, it’s heaven.”
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Coast to Coast
You can’t pick up a magazine these days anywhere in the world without Nacho Figueras staring right back at you.
You can’t pick up a magazine these days anywhere in the world without Nacho Figueras staring right back at you. As the face of Ralph Lauren since 2005, the Argentine polo player has seduced us into a world of luxury...tony field-side matches, high-performance European cars, private jets, bespoke suits, and expensive fragrances. Paired with his soul mate—a proverbial force of nature—his equally stunning wife, Delfina Blaquier, this Latin duo is traversing continents and going for goal on the Left Coast
Written by Gina Tolleson | Photographs by Dewey Nicks
Styled by Lindsay Pogemiller and Alyssa Sutter/starworks
Nacho Figueras is polo’s answer to David Beckham. The 6-goal professional player is the whole package. Married to his teenage sweetheart, photographer and model Delfina Blaquier, the jet-setting father of four travels the globe with his picture-perfect brood in tow. The handsome Argentine rose to fame playing on the fields of the Hamptons, where he just so happened to be discovered by fashion photographer Bruce Weber at a dinner party. He’s that enviable trifecta—with the look, the family, and the accent to boot. And now they’ve set their sights on the sunny sands of California as a new seasonal hub.
“A mission in my life is to bring polo to the world a little more,” says Nacho, who has saddled up with both Prince William and Prince Harry and cohosts the annual bicoastal Veuve Clicquot Polo Classics on Manhattan’s Governor’s Island and at Pacific Palisades’s Will Rogers State Park. The 38-year-old is as comfortable straddling a horse and hitting the game-winning goal for his Black Watch team as he is in front of the camera modeling for major designers, most notably with Ralph Lauren for the past 10 years.
He couldn’t have a better teammate in Delfina. They are the real deal, a modern fairytale in the making. From love at first sight in their native Buenos Aires to a wedding on the family’s estancia in 2004 and whirlwind trots around the world, the charming couple even starred together in Ralph Lauren’s Romance campaign in 2011, aptly titled “A Love Story.”
No one knows the glamorous polo world like “Delfi” (as Nacho calls her), who’s watched four generations of players—her grandfather, father, husband, and son—play in countless matches. The striking mother of Hilario, 15, Aurora, 11, Artemio, 6, and Alba, 2, is a force to be reckoned with on a horse as well. A fluid and fearless rider (yes, she is commanding the reins bareback and barefoot in beaded gowns and swimsuits in the preceding pages), the 5’11” stunner is just as passionate about the game and the life they have created in Argentina and abroad.
The Latin power couple has built a modernist manse outside of Buenos Aires that contains an art studio for Nacho to paint his colorful abstract canvases and to house Delfina’s oversized black-and-white photographs. The concrete and wood barns host more than 500 horses with an adjacent breeding facility and turn out prize-winning ponies at world-class prices. “Horses are a very important part of the game. Without good horses, you can’t win. It’s like race-car driving. You could be the best driver in the world, but if I give you a 1964 Oldsmobile, and I drive a Ferrari, you can never beat me,” remarks Nacho. “With polo, it’s more or less the same. If you have great horses and are playing someone who is as good as you but doesn’t have good horses, 99 percent of the time you will win.” Delfina adds, “When you see the horses race down the field, it is very emotional. You know the grandmother and the aunts of those ponies. It’s even more special to watch our own horse, because it’s like having your own child.”
Nacho and Delfina at Loon Point in Summerland. On Nacho: Michael Kors coat, Levi’s jeans. On Delfina: Givenchy dress, brixton hat.
It’s no surprise that they’re keeping their eyes on the ball rolling toward the West Coast—fashion, art, entertainment, music, food, film, and even the luxe biz of polo—layering into the cultural zeitgeist of the new California. New Yorkers are moving to the City of Angels in droves, and our American Riviera is seducing Hamptonites. We also happen to have one of the finest polo clubs in the world. John Muse, president of the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club adds, “Nacho is a brand of his own in fashion and the equestrian lifestyle. He is one of the most effective promoters of the sport of polo.”
“Santa Barbara has a very special vibe,” says Delfina. “I could make it my home very fast.” This past summer, the Figueras tribe road-tripped up the 101 and made camp at Tom Barrack’s Piocho Ranch in Santa Ynez. Nacho played in casual games at the Happy Canyon farm while the children and Delfina took in trail rides in the valley, sunsets at Santa Claus beach, and ice cream at Rori’s Creamery. “We love it as a family here,” says Nacho. “The beach, the horses, the people, the polo club, and every once in a while an In-n-Out burger!”
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Catch the Wind
Wet Wednesdays are booming up and down the West Coast, and nowhere more so than in the Santa Barbara Channel
Wet Wednesdays are booming up and down the West Coast, and nowhere more so than in the Santa Barbara Channel
Written by Charles Donelan | Photographs by Michael Haber
Warrior’s Crew on the Rails
It should come as no surprise that Santa Barbara, city of superlatives, takes the fullest possible advantage of daylight saving time. When that extra hour of sunlight kicks in every year in March, our waterfront comes alive. At the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, daylight saving means it’s time for Wet Wednesdays, a popular event that routinely involves more than 60 vessels and hundreds of sailors. From mid-March until the beginning of November, SBYC members, their families, and friends gather on Wednesday afternoons to prep their boats, gauge the wind and tide, check the course, and make it across the line as close as they can to the sound of the starter’s air horn signal.
Affectionately dubbed “beer can races” by yachting insiders, weeknight races like Wet Wednesdays are booming all up and down the West Coast, and nowhere more so than in Santa Barbara, where the mix of serious racing and casual socializing brings out the fun in a sport that can otherwise be forbiddingly competitive. The unique venue—provided courtesy of the yacht club’s observation deck and the nearby Channel Islands—renders this picturesque setting ideal for spectators. At most yacht clubs, you have to go out on the water to really see the action; here it’s as easy as climbing a flight of stairs. Spectators are so close that the race committee—ordinarily holding down one end of the starting line in a launch—can run the entire event from the second-floor deck.
For race director Brad Schaupeter, who is also the head coach of the UC Santa Barbara sailing team, Wet Wednesdays are a test of concentration and focus as he stands on the second floor of the yacht club building with a pair of binoculars and a laptop, calling out the names and times of the finishers to a waiting team of club members who assist him by writing down the order and blowing the horn to signal to the boats that they have crossed the finish line. “Razzle Dazzle, Shantih, Grappa,” Schaupeter calls out, “Arrivederci, Free Enterprise.”
These are the fanciful names given to the latest in high-performance racing yachts by their equally high-performing owners. For example, when he’s not at the Neal Feay factory creating one-of-a-kind anodized aluminum projects for clients such as Louis Vuitton, Alex Rasmussen can be found on the water, skippering Free Enterprise, his 35-foot J/105. Radio host Dr. Laura Schlesinger is a regular at Wet Wednesdays, where she races Warrior in the club handicap division.
The big news of the summer is that the Santa Barbara Yacht Club was serving as headquarters for a new event, California Offshore Race Week, which took place from May 27 through June 4. The first leg took sailors from San Francisco Bay to Monterey, and the second from Monterey to Santa Barbara. When the offshore racers dropped anchor in Santa Barbara Harbor, they were invited to participate in Wet Wednesday, thus setting up the beer can race to end all beer can races. After that, it was on to San Diego, where the weeklong series finished.
“It should come as no surprise that Santa Barbara, city of superlatives, takes the fullest possible advantage of daylight saving time. When that extra hour of sunlight kicks in, our waterfront comes alive.”
When it comes to offshore racing, one yacht stands out from the rest of the Santa Barbara fleet—that’s Taxi Dancer, the bright yellow, 68-foot custom “sled” owned and raced by Tom Parker, Jim Yabsley, and Dick Compton. Always a threat to win Southern California’s top ocean contests, Taxi Dancer placed third in the Maxi division of this season’s Newport to Ensenada race that took place on April 25. Yabsley grew up sailing in the Santa Barbara Harbor, and he’s proud of the all-volunteer crew that keeps Taxi Dancer competitive against the hired guns who man archrival Roy Disney’s maxi-yacht Pyewacket. Defining the Santa Barbara style of community sailing against Disney’s more commercial approach, Yabsley says, “The day I start having to pay people to sail is the day I stop racing.”
Of course there’s more to sailing than just going fast. At Skip Abed’s Santa Barbara Sailing Center, you can charter everything from stand-up paddleboards and kayaks to ocean-worthy cruisers with comfortable staterooms, professional skippers, and even a sea-going chef. For Abed, it’s having the Channel Islands so close by that makes exploring our coast “like stepping back in time.” Whether you go for a day or a week, Abed assures that setting out from Santa Barbara means “sailing the best cruising grounds on earth.”
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Rincon Classic
Surf’s up at this ultimate family beach house
Surf’s up at this ultimate family beach house
Surf in Rincon
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer | Photographs by Michael Haber
When photographer and ocean-lover Michael Haber had the chance to create a nautical-inspired family home on Rincon Point, he dove in headfirst. Having dreamt for years of a light, airy, midcentury beach home where his three sandy-footed surfer kids could run wild, this 1965 original post and beam fit the mold. Since it needed a ton of TLC, he turned to his lifelong partner and coparent, Eileen Cavanaugh of CH Design, to help upgrade the home and give it heart. “We went for the Streamline Moderne look,” says Eileen. “And with the help of the talented Mark Shields from Design Arc, we took that seed and carried it up to this century.”
The team was able to make the house much more contemporary without it turning too cold or sterile. The goal was a light, open concept without compartmentalizing every room; by popping in skylights and knocking down interior walls, they made it happen. Thousands of pounds of new 25-foot-long support beams were added in the attic to simply get rid of numerous posts and dividing walls cluttering the first floor. This gave them a clean slate, which eased the interior flow for an active family who loves to entertain. “Beach houses should be indestructible. Kids and animals track in sand, tar, and wet bathing suits,” says Eileen. “I love when a home feels like it’s lived in and not too precious. It should reflect the souls of its inhabitants.”
Open shelving is filled with Michael’s favorites, including a 12-string guitar, an early 1900s pond racing boat, and a photograph by his mentor, Jacques Henri Lartigue. maison k pillows and throws add texture.
While bringing the home into the Art Moderne realm, Michael also wanted to give it a nautical spin and make people feel like they were standing on a boat. To emphasize this, he used fabricated polished stainless steal stanchions with teak rails inside and out. “My heart lies deep with the ocean and sailing the seas!” he says, adding that a few round windows lend peekaboo water views and a nautical look that comes off authentic and not contrived since they were placed strategically and used sparingly.
The kitchen—which Michael calls “the helm of the ship”—became much larger, gaining a five-by-ten-foot marble island. White walls throughout give a clean backdrop to colorful surfboards, guitars, Art Deco furniture, and Michael’s collection of original photographs from his “heroes” such as Henri Cartier- Bresson and Herb Ritts. Most surfaces are simple and low maintenance—from the graphic Moroccan encaustic cement tiles in the bathroom to the wide plank oak floors that were bleached to a beachy white. “My children are avid surfers with a propensity to have their bodies wet and their toes sandy on a regular basis,” Michael adds. “Here, you can be barefoot with sandy feet or play a role of Mad Men and have a martini soirée.”
In the dining room, Michael repurposed a mid-19th century carpenter’s work bench found in Montecito into a console able. A steel statement mirror from Cabana home and succulents in bamboo from millworks.
“Here, you can be barefoot with sandy feet or play a role of Mad Men and have a martini soirée.”
Atop the house, he built a third-story tower, where tons of light, ocean views, and salt air abound with two decks on either side for taking in the sunset from the couch and teak side chairs. During construction, a dumb waiter was integrated to send cocktails up to the tower for happy hour.
In the backyard, 25 bamboo trees were planted along with two 25-foot-tall queen palms. For nighttime lighting, Michael strung Edison bulbs throughout the yard and put in low-profile lounge furniture and an iconic round Gordon & Grant cedar hot tub, which he says is usually full of exhausted surfers.
Whether kicking back outside or watching the waves from the deck, this streamlined surf shack is everything the family wanted it to be. Adds Michael: “The house feels like my dream ship permanently moored on land with ocean views throughout.”
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The Ambassador
Nacho Figueras, the Argentine polo player who has seduced us into a world of luxury… Paired with his soul mate—a proverbial force of nature—his equally stunning wife, Delfina Blaquier, this Latin duo is traversing continents and going for goal on the Left Coast
Nacho Figueras, the Argentine polo player who has seduced us into a world of luxury…Paired with his soul mate—a proverbial force of nature—his equally stunning wife, Delfina Blaquier, this Latin duo is traversing continents and going for goal on the Left Coast
On Delfina: Michael Kors Collection gown. On Nacho: Ralph Lauren Purple Label sweater.
Written by Gina Tolleson
Photographs by Dewey Nicks
Styled by Lindsay Pogemiller and Alyssa Sutter/Starworks
“A mission in my life is to bring polo to the world a little more,” says Nacho Figueras, who has saddled up with both Prince William and Prince Harry and cohosts the annual bicoastal Veuve Clicquot Polo Classics on Manhattan’s Governors Island and at
Pacific Palisades’s Will Rogers State Park. The 39-year-old is as comfortable straddling a horse and hitting the game-winning goal as he is in front of the camera modeling for major designers, most notably with Ralph Lauren for the past 10 years.
“When you see the horses race down the field, it is very emotional” says Delfina. “You know the grandmother and the aunts of those ponies. It’s even more special to watch our own horse, because it’s like having your own child.”
Nacho Figueras is polo’s David Beckham. Married to his teenage sweetheart, photographer and model Delfina Blaquier, the jet-setting father of four travels the globe with his picture-perfect brood in tow. The handsome Argentine rose to fame playing on the fields of the Hamptons, where he just so happened to be discovered by fashion photographer Bruce
Weber at a dinner party. He’s that enviable trifecta—with the look, the family, and the accent to boot. And now they’ve set their sights on the sunny sands of California as a new seasonal hub.
He couldn’t have a better teammate than Delfina. They are the real deal, a modern fairytale in the making. From love at first sight in their native Buenos Aires to a wedding on the family’s estancia in 2004 and whirlwind trots around the world, the charming couple even starred together in Ralph Lauren’s 2011 Romance campaign, aptly titled “A Love Story.”
No one knows the glamorous polo world like “Delfi” (as Nacho calls her), who’s watched four generations of players—her grandfather, father, husband, and son—play in countless matches. The striking mother of Hilario, 16, Aurora, 11, Artemio, 6, and Alba, 3, is a force to be reckoned with on a horse as well. A fluid and fearless rider (yes, she commands the reins bareback and barefoot in beaded gowns and swimsuits in these pages), the 5’11” stunner is just as passionate about the game and the life they have created in Argentina and abroad.
“He’s that enviable trifecta—with the look, the family, and the accent to boot. And now they’ve set their sights on the sunny sands of California.”
The couple is currently building a modernist manse outside of Buenos Aires that contains an art studio for Nacho to paint his colorful abstract canvases and to house Delfina’s oversized black-and-white photographs. The barns host more than 500 horses with an adjacent breeding facility that turns out prize-winning ponies at world-class prices. “Horses are a very important part of the game. Without good horses, you can’t win. It’s like race-car driving. You could be the best driver in the world, but if I give you a 1964 Oldsmobile and I drive a Ferrari, you can never beat me,” remarks Nacho. “With polo, it’s more or less the same. If you have great horses and are playing someone who is as good as you but doesn’t have good horses, 99 percent of the time, you will win.”
On Delfina: Cali Dreaming top, on Nacho: Brunello Cucinelli sweater, Levi’s jeans.
It’s no surprise that they’re eyeing the ball rolling toward the West Coast—fashion, art, entertainment, music, food, film, and even the luxe biz of polo—layering into the cultural zeitgeist of the new California. New Yorkers are moving to the City of Angels in droves, and our American Riviera is seducing Hamptonites. We also happen to have one of the finest polo clubs in the world. John Muse, president of the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club, adds: “Nacho is a brand of his own in fashion and the equestrian lifestyle. He is one of the most effective promoters of the sport of polo.”
“Santa Barbara has a very special vibe,” says Delfina. “I could make it my home very fast.” The Figueras tribe loves to road-trip up the 101, take trail rides in the Santa Ynez Valley, and watch sunsets at Butterfly. “We love it as a family here,” says Nacho. “The beach, the horses, the people, and of course, the polo club.”
Photographer’s assistants: Henry Han and Albert Fu. Hair by Eric Gabriel. Makeup by Christy Coleman. Production assistant: Charlotte Bryant.
Interns: Catherine McFarland and Kara Pearson. Follow on Instagram: @nachofigueras @delfinablaquier #wearefigueras
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Shape Shifter
The otherworldly dreamscape of the DIVINE EQUINE captured through the lens of artist Tasya van Ree
The otherworldly dreamscape of the DIVINE EQUINE captured through the lens of artist Tasya van Ree
by Gina Tolleson
“Tasya Van Ree’s untitled photograph series Equine Intelligence was shot in Santa Barbara and Joshua Tree.”
“The double-exposed photographs juxtapose the horse with nature. “I wanted to create a world where the two existed in a single space of time, in another dimension.”
“A horse is like a painting of infinite dreams, profound and beautiful.”
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Town & Country
Famed decorator Ruthie Sommers unwinds at her ranch retreat
Famed decorator Ruthie Sommers unwinds at her ranch retreat
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer | Photography by Coral Von Zumwalt
Ruthie Sommers wears a lot of hats. Like maybe five in a given day. She and her three daughters—
Eloise, 9, Bailey, 5, and Posey, 4—started a collection of vintage top hats, Mexican wedding hats, and cowboy hats they found together at Goleta thrift stores. The fact that all these hats would inherently set the decor tone at their Santa Barbara ranch house should come as no surprise to those who recall the iconic debut Domino magazine cover featuring Ruthie snuggling her dog and rocking the design world with her have-fun, can-do, “fast and fearless” decorating attitude.
Rolling hills along the coast.
While that cover is now 10 years old and Ruthie has since racked up a long list of celebrity clientele, she still finds great joy in affordable design and people who are proud of their homes. Steering away from the sense that everyone has to be a brand these days, she sticks to her instincts and seeks solitude on her ranch as many weekends as possible.
“We live for the weekends.” She loves the rustic, authentic vibe in Santa Barbara and the spiritual feeling she gets walking around the hills. “I can’t help but be in awe of the land.”
The shingled home with hunter green trim sits on 90 acres in a canyon amid Gaviota’s stunning coastal locale. When she and her husband, Luke, bought it four years ago, it was basically move-in ready, however they remodeled the kitchen with a large island, white cabinetry, brass hardware, and cottage-
industrial sconces. Then it was all about the hats. “I wanted to keep it ranchy, not decorated,” Ruthie says. “I didn’t want it to look like a photo shoot, I wanted to fill the house with local things and make it a place where we could come and take a deep breath.”
True to her words, everyone literally has to unplug on the property—there’s no cell reception. Plus, Ruthie is a no-screens mom, therefore the kids rarely have TV or tech time so she compensates with all the dress up. Friends are always welcome but kids have to trade up their iPads for magnifying glasses and nature walks. She sees most kids, including her own, have a fit of anxiety for about five minutes, then it ends and they play together. Painting alfresco, carving out trails, and hitting the beach—especially with dad, who always dreamed of having a place to surf—are among the big days of ranch life.
Ruthie mixes vintage chairs and china around an antique table in the dining room, surrounded by windows, which bring the outdoors in.
“We live for the weekends,” she says. While weekdays are spent in their East Coast-style house in Los Angeles’s Hancock Park and summers are spent with family at their home in Newport, Rhode Island, she loves the rustic, authentic vibe in Santa Barbara and the spiritual feeling she gets walking around the hills. “I can’t help but be in awe of the land.”
On any given weekend, the crew is outdoors with their five dogs. If L.A. is about tennis clubs and trimmed boxwoods, the ranch is her place for mixing vintage Playboys with pretty pillows. A free spirit with a wild sense of humor, Ruthie is known for her nonstop tangents on all topics and there’s no telling what she’ll say or where she’ll go next. She and Luke love the quiet as much as a good party—they’ve hosted huge birthday fetes under twinkly lights and roller skating nights after the kids have gone to bed. While she laughs and chocks this all up to ADHD, it’s her sense of adventure and how she never takes herself too seriously that translates into her whimsical, approachable design mentality.
As she layers on more local finds to her mix on the ranch—Ronald Regan plates, vintage saddles, surfing photos, and old black-and-whites of the Santa Ynez Valley—it’s a reminder that good design isn’t always at a high cost. As she says, “You’re only as good as your smile when you open the door.” ●
Ruthie’s Black Book
A gem-toned guest room complete with toile paneling and a four-poster bed.
For paint: Benjamin Moore Ivory White and Farrow & Ball Wimborne White.
Children textiles: Raoul’s sample sale. 805-899-4947, raoultextiles.com.
Old town Antiques in Goleta: Great inexpensive finds for original and cute gifts, barware, and kitschy items. 805-967-2528.
Summerland Antiques: Outdoor, china, stools. 805-565-3189, summerlandantiquecollective.com.
Belle du Jour salon: Color and a blowout by Michele Mallet. 805-845-7000, bdj-salon.com.
Maverick Saloon: Get your cowboy on! 805-686-4785.
New Frontiers Solvang: Hollister Ranch beef stew. 805-693-1746, newfrontiersmarket.com.
Kendall Conrad dog collars: I dress my dogs better than myself. 805-886-8344, kendallconraddesign.com.
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Behind the Hedges
At home when the dust settles on the Klentner Ranch.
At home when the dust settles on the Klentner Ranch
Polo is all in the family with Amanda, Luke, Jake, Valentina, and Justin.
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer
Photographs by Michael Haber, Kate Ayrton, Paige Keyser
Make-Up by Tomiko Taft
Three years ago, Amanda Masters and Justin Klentner were living in Los Angeles above the Chateau Marmont and realized their kids would grow up playing on Sunset Boulevard. They decided to make a change and found a 40-acre spot just above the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club in Carpinteria. It offered sweeping views of the polo fields, ocean, and 20 acres of avocado orchards, but the ability to see the scoreboard from the backyard was what ultimately made Klentner say, “I’ll take it!”
The Masters-Klentners used local Santa Barbara stone stairways to connect the barns to the main house.
For Klentner, polo is more than a hobby. It’s a passion that Masters teasingly calls an obsession. He grew up on a horse farm in Michigan with a polo-playing father. After moving his city kids to what is now their own full-scale polo operation, he was eager to teach them responsibility. Jake, 16, Luke, 14, and Valentina, 8, all care for a number of horses, and last summer, the boys were up before 7 am every day tending to the horses. “It’s not all glamour,” Masters says, with her quick British wit. “There’s a lot of poop.” And dust, which kicks up twice a day when the horses go out for a jaunt.
“Polo is a lot of hard work and commitment whether you’re an amateur or a pro,” Klentner says. “The dream is to play with your family.” Now, this crew competes in leagues together while caring for their 30 horses. A true polo family, they practice at home and host parties and fund-raisers—recently they held a cowboy barbecue with an acoustic performance by Candlebox to raise money for the Santa Barbara Youth Polo Association, helping more kids get a chance to be on the field.
“By day, Klentner is a builder and Masters an interior designer, so unlike many traveling polo players, this family stays put, minding their careers and school-age children. So it was even more important to make Klentner Ranch a forever home, built for entertaining and family dinner every night.”
By day, Klentner is a builder and Masters an interior designer, so unlike many traveling polo players, this family stays put, minding their careers and school-age children. So it was even more important to make Klentner Ranch a forever home, built for entertaining and family dinner every night. The home sports French limestone floors and tall, wide hallways that you could almost imagine a horse walking through (they don’t, however once or twice a deviant horse has wandered into the avocado orchards). Polo nods abound, from brass horses to a boot room to the clubby stag bar downstairs. Artisan details are throughout, but especially on the ceilings in the brick herringbone barreled wine cellar and intricate woodwork with inlaid design in the living areas, enhanced by one-of-a-kind doors from Bali.
“There were sweeping views of the polo fields, ocean, and 20 acres of avocado orchards, but being able to see the scoreboard from the backyard was what ultimately made Klentner say, “I’ll take it!””
Luke and Jake hit the practice field in the backyard with Justin looking on.
For the two barns, they sourced local Santa Barbara stone, making them as gorgeous as possible since the home, guesthouse, and pool area all overlook them. The couple keeps horses there March through December when the animals take a break to go rest at pasture in the desert. “The game is so physical, with contact with one another—they need decompression,” Klentner says. “And I do too,” Masters winks. And what a perfect place to take a breath from it all.
Game On
Summer blacks + whites score high on goal
Summer blacks + whites score high on goal
Photographs by Michael Haber
Produced and styled by Gina Tolleson
Models: Natalia Bonifacci/Ford L.A. and Sebastian Tkacik. Hair by Paul DesMarre/Opus Beauty using Pacifica products. Make-up by Debbie Gallagher/Opus Beauty using Pacifica beauty products. Assisting stylist: Jennie Stierwalt/Your Best Self Stylist. Production assistant: Charlotte Bryant. Interns: Taylor Johnson, Laura Lewis, and Kara Pearson.Polo players : Michael Esparza and Tony Uretz.
Field of Dreams
Every Sunday afternoon from April through October, just inland from Highway 101 in Carpinteria, you can see eight riders wearing white breeches and colorful jerseys, helmets and polished riding boots.
A historical look back at the sport of kings and the legendary lawns of the Santa Barbara Polo Club
Spectators enjoying polo in the 1930s.
By Joan Tapper
Photographs courtesy of the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club
Every Sunday afternoon from April through October, just inland from Highway 101 in Carpinteria, you can see eight riders wearing white breeches and colorful jerseys, helmets and polished riding boots. They gallop across a manicured field in a dazzling display of horsemanship, athletic skill, and hard-driving competition while family and friends watch from the grandstands and grooms tend horses on the sidelines. It’s a festive scene: tailgate picnics beforehand, mid-game interludes when spectators stamp down divots in the grass, and postmatch socializing.
This summer, the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club—the third oldest in the United States—celebrates 104 years of larger-than-life characters, triumphs and losses, family ties, desperate times, and new heights of achievement.
A team stands ready to play.
Inside the vintage clubhouse, the hunter-green walls are lined with decades’ worth of photos of teams accepting the silver cups, bowls, and trophies locked in glass-fronted cases. The club’s story, however, predates the building,
the trophies, and even the adjacent fields. It begins on April 18, 1894, when Santa Barbara’s first exhibition polo match took place at the foot of a Garden Street racetrack as part of a spring flower festival.
Gradually, a local contingent managed to learn the game, which had its roots in Central Asia. Polo owes its modern form and popularity, though, to mid-19th-century British Army officers who learned to play in India and subsequently brought their skills home to England. By 1902, Santa Barbara had its own club with 40 members who played for hundreds of spectators. In those early days, there were enough serious riders—including the town’s mayor, Dr. Elmer Boeseke—to have the group recognized by the United States Polo Association in 1911, marking the official birth of the Santa Barbara Polo Club.
The years between World War I and World War II were Santa Barbara’s golden age for the sport. The mayor’s son, Elmer “Long Legs” Boeseke Jr., was emerging as a nationally known player, and as teams arrived by train, grooms walked their horses through town to fields from the Mesa and Hope Ranch to Montecito. Max Fleischmann, heir to a Cincinnati yeast company fortune and an avid player, moved to Santa Barbara, where he’d visited while in California during World War I. In 1923, he bought a burnt-out eucalyptus grove and began to put in a polo field. After three years of nurturing the turf, the first chukker was played. In 1928, Fleischmann added an adjoining 40 acres with two partly developed polo fields. Though games were played elsewhere on occasion, the SBPC had found its home.
And what a home it was—backed by mountains and near a beach where horses could be exercised, Fleischmann’s fields were blessed by unparalleled weather. The club’s fashionable social scene drew players from Hollywood and beyond. Will Rogers, Spencer Tracy, Walt Disney, Darryl Zanuck, and Jack Warner all took to the field for Sunday games, as did banker Averell Harriman, who owned an East Coast stable.
Changes were underway, though, by 1939, when a British team—including future Polo Hall of Famer Robert Skene—played a practice match in Santa Barbara en route to the celebrated Westchester Cup tournament in New York. Fleischmann had already sold off the fields, and after the United States declared war, the club was transferred
to the Jackson family, who would own it for almost two decades. A year later, all play was suspended as soldiers
were stationed on the grounds.
Lance Reventlow (right)
Polo revived after the war, and in 1948, Santa Barbara became home to the prestigious Pacific Coast Open tournament and its coveted five-foot-high silver and gold trophy. In the years that followed, a new set of personalities entered the scene: team sponsor Vic Graber, future Polo Hall of Famer Billy Linfoot, and the Walkers of Long Beach.
“My whole family was involved in polo,” remembers Daniel Walker, now a club trustee. “Grandfather started
playing after World War II. Father came to Santa Barbara in 1958 specifically to play polo.” There’s a picture on the clubhouse wall, he adds, showing four generations of his family on the field decades later: his grandfather still playing at 90; his father, Kenneth; his brother, Henry, who subbed a few chukkers for their grandfather; himself; and son Matthew.
At the time, Santa Barbara was the place to play in the winter. Robert Skene, an admired 10-goal player, took over as manager in 1960, and his athleticism, knowledge of horses, and strategic acumen inspired and attracted top teams. A year later, there was a new owner, too, when Aloha Airlines founder Ruddy Tongg acquired the club. He was determined to bring the country’s top tournament westward, notes his son Ronnie, who played as a student at UC Santa Barbara and later in 1962 won the U.S. Open with teammate Bob Skene. “The politics in those days were really something,” adds Ronnie Tongg. But somehow his father “was able to swing it and brought the Open to Santa Barbara, not only in 1963 but in 1966.”
Charging the field in the ’20s.
Yes, Santa Barbara polo was glamorous again, with movie stars like Jayne Mansfield and Zsa Zsa Gabor driving up the coast to hand out the trophies. Fess Parker played. So did actress Stefanie Powers. “One of the real characters was Barbara Hutton’s son, Lance Reventlow,” says Joel Baker, who remembers playing as a teenager.
This being the 1960s, there were wild parties in the clubhouse, too, where the dancing would spill out onto the fields. As the decade ended, though, the music stopped, and the silence was deafening. Ruddy Tongg sold the club to the Azusa Citrus Company, which was eyeing the green fields for a supermarket site. It wasn’t the first time the club had been threatened. Carpinteria High School had almost moved to the grounds, but in 1969, with memberships dwindling, the situation looked dire. Bob Skene, who’d been away for a few years, was called back to manage the club. Though Azusa owned the polo fields, it couldn’t get permission from the county to develop them and couldn’t sell as long as the club kept up rent payments on its month-to-month lease—something Skene made certain. “Father said, ‘We have to save the club,’” recalls Skene’s son, Curtis. “He drove around and got checks for dues to pay the rent.”
The Skene’s arriving in Los Angeles from a match in Argentina, 1949.
“Bob Skene kept the club alive,” says Baker. “He and his wife, Elizabeth, put their own money and time into it.” The world-famous polo player attended county supervisors’ meetings to convince them of the club’s value to Santa Barbara. The supervisors had little interest in polo but even less in a supermarket development. Finally, in the early 1970s, club members devised a plan that won county approval: A polo-playing builder named Harry Hicks would put up condominiums on eight acres of the property, generating money for the club to buy the remaining 60 acres from Azusa. Cheers all around…until a real estate downturn sent Hicks into bankruptcy.
Heroically, Ambassador Glen Holden, Dr. Norman Ringer, and Kenneth Walker picked up the flag. Working with the bank that was foreclosing on the condos, in December 1975, the three established a trusteeship in perpetuity, as long as the field is used for polo activities. Holden, a polo player since the mid-1950s and former ambassador to Jamaica, was in charge of operations, essentially paying the bills until the club began to break even. Walker, a banker, supervised the development of tennis courts and 350-stall stables. “Dr. Ringer was president,” Daniel Walker says, adding that even his mother was involved in improving the grounds. “If it’s not a eucalyptus, my mother planted it.”
They set up the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club to manage the property, renovated the clubhouse, refurbished the Pacific Coast Open trophy, and laid the groundwork for the renaissance of the sport.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attend a July 9, 2011, event benefitting the American Friends of The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.
“You can’t beat Southern California, the ocean and mountains, and the weather. People love to come here, and the fields are the best in the world,” insists Holden. “Professionals promote it to their patrons, and the best polo players in the United States play here.”
“Polo is about the intersection of passion for horses, speed, danger, strategy, teamwork, and a life built around one of the most complicated sports in the world,” says Montecito resident Tom Barrack, who has brought his Piocho team to club tournaments for the last 20 years. He adds that the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club “is a sanctuary for horses, players, and fans.”
“It’s a meeting place for the world’s most prestigious men to compete at a sport that they love,” agrees Daniel Walker. “At the end, they’ll shake hands and share a drink at the bar.”
“I have to give credit to God for giving us this place,” says Glen Holden. “But we’re keeping it up. It’s one of the best clubs in the world…a jewel of polo.”
Immortal Glamour
The Four Seasons Resort Biltmore Santa Barbara celebrates 90 years of style, luxury, and fortuitous escapades
The Four Seasons Resort Biltmore Santa Barbara celebrates 90 years of style, luxury, and fortuitous escapades
Guests meandering through 22 acres of lush “jungle gardens.”
Vintage sign off Highway 101 and Coast Village Road.
Written by Katherine Stewart | Photographs by Santa Barbara Vintage Photography, Courtesy of The Four Seasons Biltmore, Beverley Jackson
“In the 1950s, the resort hosted the most glamorous parties of the season, including a fashion show by Louis Vuitton. ”
In the early days, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Bing Crosby, and Lana Turner could be seen lounging by the pool at the Santa Barbara Biltmore. That was in the roaring ’20s and dapper ’30s, around the time the Odell family added the Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club to its stable of properties, which included the Clift Hotel in San Francisco.
In the 1950s, the resort hosted the most glamorous parties of the season, including a fashion show by Louis Vuitton, where ladies in white gloves and Jacques Fath evening gowns consorted with the kinds of people who wanted to keep their names out of the papers.
“There was a rumor that Jack Lemmon was having an affair in Santa Barbara,” recalls Beverley Jackson, the longtime guardian and chronicler of Santa Barbara society. “He was a big star at the time. So one day at the hotel I ran into him and said, ‘I have to ask you, Jack, is this rumor true?’ He said, “It is true, I am having a love affair. I love my Rolls Royce more than anything in the world! And the only person I allow to touch it is a mechanic in Santa Barbara. So that’s why I’m here once a month!’”
Jackson smiles at the memory. “Of course,” she adds, “Red Skelton was having an affair in Santa Barbara. I ran into them at the Biltmore, too.”
But there were rules, after all, and they were not to be flouted. Men with hair longer than an inch above the collar were refused entry into the restaurant. “One day Grace Dreyfus, who was the wife of Louis Dreyfus, the ambassador to Afghanistan, happened to have the heir apparent to the throne of Afghanistan with her,” says Jackson. “He was the son of the king, and she wanted to take him to lunch. And he wasn’t allowed in because his hair fell a half inch afoul of the rule.”
The resort continued to play a vital role in the ceremonial life of the city. The parties here have always produced stories retold long after the guests go home.
“The night before Christmas, they organized a posada, where you do a procession and knock on the doors and ask for room at the inn,” Jackson says. “Back then, the dining room kind of looked like Maxim’s in Paris in the old days: beaux arts decor with red velvet banquettes. The dinner guests were given candles, and a man who worked at the hotel led the procession. We ended in the lobby, where we were entertained by professional flamenco dancers, and there was a giant piñata with long sticks for the kids. It was great fun, and they did it every year.”
The big names have all stayed here, but the hotel will never tell you who they are. Here, at least, they take security seriously. Still, we know that Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges have graced the property’s 22 acres of landscaped pathways. And when Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen stayed at the resort in anticipation of a joint appearance at the Arlington Theatre, they crashed a wedding party, posing for poolside photos with the bride and groomsmen.
“We are entering our 90th year with a whole new perspective—keeping luxury at the forefront, sharing anecdotes from our past, and welcoming the future with new and exciting endeavors.”
The property’s grand ballrooms, lido decks, and moonlight-filled courtyards have long served as settings for Santa Barbara’s most important social events and celebrations. Merryl Brown, creative director of the Montecito-based Merryl Brown Events, chose the resort as the site for the Pacific Pride Foundation’s Royal Ball and United Way Red Feather Ball. “It is my absolute favorite venue for event design and production in Santa Barbara,” she says. “It is consistently excellent. Their service and catering are top-notch. It is a beautiful representation of all that our city has to offer.”
The Biltmore has always taken its position in the community seriously. After the Thomas Fire and subsequent debris slide, it played a key role in the recovery efforts, providing a staging area for fire fighters and other first responders. More than 45 employees within the Four Seasons company volunteered to serve as members of a task force, participating in cleanup efforts and fund-raising and working with the United Way of Santa Barbara and The American Red Cross Central California.
The property, which reopens this summer, is commemorating its 90th anniversary with some unique partnerships, including Sunstone Vineyards & Winery, which is producing two varietals blended by the resort team; the award-winning photographer Gray Malin, who created a series of photographs at the Coral Casino with a 1960s resort vibe (a portion of which is being donated to the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade); and OPI Nail Polish, which is creating a resort-themed collection of colors.
“We are so proud and excited to celebrate our 90th year,” says general manager Karen Earp. “We are keeping luxury at the forefront, sharing anecdotes from our past, and welcoming the future with new and exciting endeavors.”
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Happy Kids, Happy Wife, Happy Life
Kevin and Christine Costner cruising through their years together
Kevin Costner Sails Into A Milestone Year—Three Movies, Seven Children, and Six Decades Of Living True
Written by Gina Tolleson | Photographs by Dewey Nicks
“I was at your 40th birthday party, you know...” I reminded him recently at his 60th.
“Wanna go back?” he chuckled. We both thought about it for a second, and both shook our heads no, laughing in relief. He immediately asked, “You alright?”
And that’s the moment. The moment when you feel like you are the only one in the room, and he connects and listens. That’s Kevin’s real talent. You aren’t star struck, and he isn’t acting. Be prepared for a blunt yet thoughtful, straightforward response or advice. You won’t get patronized or an “everything will be okay.” But, somehow, just his authentic intent of looking out for you makes everything okay.
It’s a story that runs through most of the toasts and conversations from friends and family that evening, an intimate circle of an unexpected familial entourage. There are no other celebrities, actors, high-octane entertainment executives (his lawyer and agent did make the cut), or up-and-comers in the room, instead, it’s his three younger ones—Cayden, 7, Hayes, 5, and Grace, 4—gallivanting freely through a maze of balloons with people gathered from all stages of his life, including his high school baseball coach, elementary buddies, former assistants, his three oldest—Annie, 30, Lily, 28, and Joe, 27—and his wife of 10 years, Christine. He genuinely seems happiest and more interested in hanging out with this gang more than anyone else in Hollywood.
“I want my kids to see
that sometimes, you
have to put what you have
on the line when you
really believe in something.”
Fatherhood the second time around for Kevin isn’t much different than the first. The kids have always been a priority while he was making his career in film, whether it be coming directly off set and serenading Annie in an Elvis costume for her 16th birthday to showing up to every game, championship or performance for Lily and Joe, teaching Cayden and Hayes how to fish in the streams at their Aspen home or making coffee every morning and watching Frozen a hundred times over with Grace. “It’s not about if I have more or less time to spend with them at this phase in my life,” he says, “it’s more about can I still get on the ground and play just as hard and take them to do the fun stuff. It’s my children that are the ones who sacrifice when I go away to make movies. I’m proud and respect them for that.”
It’s his children that he wants to know that their dad wasn’t afraid of anything. And his latest project might prove it more than others. Black or White is based on the experience writer/director Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger) had in helping raise his biracial nephew. It’s Kevin’s second collaboration with Binder, and even though early on Kevin recognized the quality of the script, it became obvious that the movie was not going forward unless he stepped up and paid for it himself. “My problem is I don’t fall out of love with something, and when it looked like the movie wasn’t going to get made, I went to Christine and we made a family decision to back this movie from our own pockets,” he says. “I want my kids to see that sometimes, you have to put what you have on the line when you really believe in something.” The movie takes contemporary racial divides head-on, and Kevin doesn’t play it safe in character or at the box office. “We aren’t having real discussions about race in real life or in our culture,” he says. “I’m not going to run away from it, I’m running right toward it. There are things that get said in this movie that a lot of us wish we could say. It was important to me and Christine for it to be an authentic look at where we are with race issues today, and I think we did that.”
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Fate & Fortune
Interiors guru Paul Fortune and husband Chris Brock create their well-designed destiny in the mountains of Ojai
Interiors guru Paul Fortune and husband Chris Brock create their well-designed destiny in the mountains of Ojai
written by GINA TOLLESON | photographs by DEWEY NICKS
Since moving to Ojai last October, Paul Fortune and Chris Brock have by all means gotten back to the basics. Albeit, basics for this interior design icon (Fortune has spruced up Marc Jacobs’s New York townhouse, Aileen Getty’s Los Angeles palatial home, art world It Girl Dasha Zhukova’s Saint Bart’s compound, not to mention reviving Hollywood’s deco landmark Sunset Tower Hotel) is a picturesque two-bedroom bungalow and a vintage Rolls-Royce up a dusty trail while drinking in the “Pink Moment” sunsets on the Topatopa Mountains. A far cry from the starlets and stimuli of Los Angeles, where the recently married couple of 14 years lived the luxe life in Laurel Canyon, and lead successful design, floral, and garden businesses. “After 30 years, we needed somewhere that felt restorative, not redundant,” says Fortune. “We found that Ojai fit the bill.” And did it ever. While both practice yoga and meditation daily, Brock is now exploring large ceramic forms with art deco influence, and Fortune continues consulting with clients and is considering opening a gallery for “really rare and beautiful art, ceramics, and antiquities,” he says. Herewith, we had the fortune (pun intended) to spend a day with the sartorial duo, indulging in opera, paying homage to David Hockney, and discovering that a Paul Fortune-decorated aluminum trailer might just be the chicest guesthouse ever.
What was the final or definitive push to leave Los Angeles? We found that the things we liked about L.A. were fast disappearing and we didn’t like what they were being replaced with. After Les Deux Cafes closed (where we met in fact, and which I designed and was a partner in), we didn’t really have a place to go. We like tablecloths and a place where the noise level doesn’t make your ears bleed. The Sunset Tower Hotel was a final try at restoring some of the old Hollywood glamour we loved, but it was overrun by the new Hollywood and that was that!
What’s a typical day for you both now that you’re off the beaten path? We do yoga and qigong classes with Ingrid Boulting at The Sacred Space, lunch at Farmer and the Cook, and gardening. I still work on projects and have an office in L.A. We tootle around in our 1967 Rolls-Royce and visit the amazing nurseries. We love going to the opera in Santa Barbara and Music Academy of the West concerts and visit mystics and sages for chakra cleaning. We have no television and catch up with tons of books and periodicals.
Your approach and aesthetic for your current cottage? Pared down and easy. Just the basics but with a touch of California glamour.
Any particular pieces that you will never get rid of? My Charlie Fine painting, which got a new lease of life here and some early Roy McMakin pieces that are very Ojai. Also, our giant staghorn ferns.
What is your design signature? The not-done no-particular-period look. Considered and comfortable. Refined. What’s wrong with a little refinement?