Luce and Seuss Were a Dynamic Duo at Luncheon

SAN DIEGO —  Karon Luce cooked dinner at home Sunday evening for her husband, Gordon; several other relatives, and close pals Charles and Susan Edwards.

This news, which on its face sounds somewhat less than earthshaking, gains more than a little interest from the fact that one of the relatives--albeit a quite distant one--was Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, the author, playwright and former congresswoman who was Dwight D. Eisenhower’s emissary to Italy.

(Karon, by the way, whipped up the carte du jour using just one hand, her left being encased in a plaster cast after she took a tumble in a mini-bike accident while vacationing in Bermuda. “I like to live dangerously,” she joked, adding that she intends to stick to four-wheeled vehicles from now on.)

In town to speak to a convention of Catholic Health Care Assn. executives, Clare Boothe Luce was treated to a luncheon Monday noon at the San Diego Museum of Art, over whose board of trustees Gordon Luce presides. The select guest list ran to just over 40 souls, including the ambassador’s granddaughter, Clare Luce; U.S. Rep. Ron Packard; federal Judges Gordon Thompson Jr. and J. Lawrence Irving; Brute Krulak, and John and Sally Thornton.

The moment was relaxed and casual, the ambassador having been promised that the luncheon was merely for pleasure and that there would be no speeches. She arrived early to tour the museum’s current exhibit, “Dr. Seuss: From Then to Now,” and had the pleasure later of finding herself seated next to Seuss himself, Ted Geisel, who presented her with a copy of his latest book, “You’re Only Old Once!” On the inside cover, Geisel wrote, “To Clare Boothe Luce, who is much too young to be reading this book,” a sentiment much appreciated by the sprightly Luce.

When Lee Cox noticed that this pair had been seated together, she turned to a companion and asked, “Isn’t it fun that we have two legends seated next to one another? You can tell San Diego is growing up when you can attend a luncheon and find Clare Boothe Luce lunching with Dr. Seuss.”

Gordon Luce, who made the day’s only speech (a 30-second address in which he announced that no speeches would be made), teased the ambassador, who was his house guest: “I know Clare isn’t a living legend because I saw her this morning with her hair curlers on.” She led the laughter that followed.

Present to share in the luncheon of potage St. Germaine and tropical chicken salad were Ed and Barbara Luce, Carma Luce, Audrey Geisel, Dagmar Brezzo (museum director Steven Brezzo was in Washington on museum business), George and Alison Gildred, Bennett and Helen Wright, Ed and Helene Muzzy, Louis and Jane Metzger, Larry Cox, Frank and Jane Rice, Barbara Walbridge, Bill and Mim McKenzie, and Dan and Yvonne Larsen.

Some new names pushed their way into the city’s society vocabulary over the weekend.

Not the names of people, but of streets, downtown streets that have existed for a century or more but have not been fashionable for decades, if ever. Streets like Island Avenue and Martin Luther King Way (until recently called Market Street), famous for their warehouses but not for their social pedigrees.

But a Sunday party filled these once-dowdy thoroughfares with a classy crowd that seemed delighted by the chance to pioneer the return to grace of these historic byways.

The crowd, more than 200 strong, dolled itself up in its Victorian best for “The Grand Celebration,” a party that both benefited St. Paul’s Manor and Health Care Center and rejoiced at the opening of the new (and very old) Horton Grand Hotel, which occupies the Island Avenue frontage between 3rd and 4th avenues.

The party marked the 100th birthday of the hotel. Although it is a restoration of two vintage hotels originally situated closer to Broadway, it was justified in lighting the candles for its centennial, and the celebration progressed in style.

The high jinks started with a late-afternoon parade that was as unusual as the institution it honored. A “stationary” parade composed of horse-drawn carriages, classic cars, clowns and a calliope, it parked on 3rd Avenue and allowed spectators to pass by it, rather than the other way around. Later, however, the parade did circle the block and pull up to the hotel’s front door, where guests waved and cheered and Flanagan’s International Band played ragtime.

Hotelier Dan Pearson, accompanied by his wife, Gaslamp Quarter Theatre director Kit Goldman, served as the parade’s grand marshal. Just behind their carriage followed a second bearing Anne and Michael Ibs Gonzalez; Anne is president of LUV (Love Uniting Volunteers), the St. Paul’s Manor auxiliary that sponsored the benefit.

Moments after the carriages drew away, gunshots erupted in the street, deafening sounds that once were not unknown in the Stingaree (as this neighborhood was called in more colorful days), but were somewhat unnerving to the revelers. The trouble started when a gang of cowpokes, saloon girls at their sides, strode around the corner, six-shooters blazing. A couple of marshals paced down the street from the opposite direction and insisted that the cowpokes knock it off, a suggestion that led to harsh words and, finally, a shoot-out. When the smoke cleared, the scoreboard read Marshals 4, Bad Guys 0. (Hotel manager Robert Earp, a descendant of Western legend Wyatt Earp, did not participate in the gunplay.)

The excitement over, the guests retired inside to inspect the hotel, the buffets and one another. And the guests were a sight--most of them--the invitations having requested Victorian dress, a request that resulted in handsome weekend profits for several local costume shops.

Party chairman Mim Sally complained that her hat, a classic pancake laden with fruit and feathers, was giving her a headache. When an admiring guest gestured at co-chair Alma Spicer and asked, “Doesn’t Alma’s bustle look great?” one was forced to agree; but then all the ladies looked lovely in their period finery, and their husbands, dandified in frock coats and the like, cut rather dashing figures themselves.

The hotel being new, guests did not know quite which way to head first, although it seemed imperative to see everything before leaving. The inner courtyard, which boasted a seafood buffet brimming with Victorian prodigality, was one favorite gathering spot; another was the Ida Bailey restaurant, named for a famous turn-of-the-century madam whose brothel (called the Canary Cottage) stood on exactly the same site.

Toward the close of the party, the guests returned to the courtyard for a champagne toast offered by Pearson, and then joined in singing “Happy Birthday” to the Horton Grand. This scene capped a round of entertainment that included music by the Wayne Foster Strings and a soft-shoe routine performed by Bob Johnston and his daughter, Dee Ann. Johnston’s Palace Bar, long a downtown watering hole, has been rebuilt inside the hotel.

The guest list included Bishop C. Brinkley Morton, Marjorie and Richard Mitchell, Merrilyn and Sam Arn, Debbie and James Frampton, Sharon and John McColl, Luba Johnston, Shirley Rubel, Eleanor and Art Herzman, Barbara Krepps, Laurie and Douglas Wilson, Lenore and John Witt, Mary and Bruce Hazard, Bill Spicer, Al Sally, Sandra and Douglas Pay, and Mary Burcham.

Members of the San Diego Yacht Club lately have been repeating “Bring Back the Cup!” with as much fervor as Americans in 1898 chanted, “Remember the Maine!”

“The Cup,” of course, is the America’s Cup, yachting’s greatest trophy and one that the United States surrendered, for the first time ever, to the Australians in 1983. But like the good Americans they are, the yacht club members are putting their money where their collective mouth is by raising millions for the club’s challenger, the Stars and Stripes, skippered by San Diego’s Dennis Conner. Many yacht club members will journey to Perth this fall, and again in January, to watch Conner and crew attempt to regain the trophy.

A major contribution to the fund-raising effort was made by “A Challenging Occasion,” a fashion luncheon last Thursday given by the Sail America Foundation (which sponsors the Stars and Stripes) at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Conner and much of his crew were present, and the scene was thick with yacht club members and other sons and daughters of the briny deep.

Co-chairman Phyllis Parrish was feeling naughty (as in wickedly pleased about the over-sold attendance of 580), while looking natty and nautical in a white sailor’s suit trimmed with enough gold braid to qualify her for flag rank, at least. Her co-chair and husband, John Parrish, chose the official yacht club uniform worn by most of the men present, a blue blazer worn over white ducks and a tie splashed with sailboats.

“We’re going to bring the cup back to where it really belongs, America’s Finest City, San Diego,” said John, glaring like an old salt as he said it.

The committee made quite a production of the day, starting with an elaborate luncheon and continuing with a speech by Conner, a video of the Stars and Stripes crew practicing off Hawaii (16 hours a day, seven days a week--it looked like fun, but can it be?), and a Saks Fifth Avenue fashion show that included much entertainment and a celebrity models segment. Most guests agreed that the show probably set a record for length that future events will be hard-pressed to match.

Participating were Dick and Windie Knoth, Fred and Joy Frye, Michael O’Bryan, Judy Conner, Ray and Dian Peet, Dorene Whitney, Fran Golden, Celeste Trepte, Kate Adams, Jim Mulvaney, Alex and Elizabeth Campbell, Sandy and Kathy Purdon, Gloria Melville, Leonor Craig, Rose Mary Taylor, Betsy Tharp, Lyn Shinn, Pat Keating, Jack and Jean Morse, and Jim and Irmtraud Bass.