Candlelight Ball Was a Beacon in the Night

CORONADO —  Those guests who followed directions to the letter and cruised down San Diego Bay to Buoy 26--after which it was necessary to “make good a course of 155 degrees magnetic”--hardly needed a channel marker to find their mooring at the new Loews Coronado Bay Resort, since the hotel’s Bay Terrace erupted in a 50-foot bonfire of light at precisely the moment a few tardy yachts neared the shore.

Marie Olesen, chairman of Saturday’s Candlelight Ball, joined hands with Loews’ President and CEO Jonathan Tisch to throw the switch that lit the official “Bay Tree,” a 4-story fir strung with about 5 miles of lights. Intended as a beacon to be visible from the Coronado Bridge, the tree was also billed as a symbolic link to the community that will be revived every holiday season.

Although most guests drove rather than sailed to the hotel, the nautical “StarBurst Regatta” theme chosen for the 62nd anniversary of the first Candlelight Ball was stressed through the location, the Commodore Ballroom and through a guest appearance by the America’s Cup trophy, flown in from Paris specially for the occasion, gleaming (and discreetly guarded) in the hotel lobby.

The ball served multiple purposes that resulted in a record draw of more than 800 people, of which all but the 150 guests of Loews Hotels were fervent supporters of Scripps Memorial Hospital-La Jolla and its new parent, the Scripps Institutions of Medicine and Science. The event, which earned some $175,000, benefited the Cardiac Treatment Center, Whittier Institute and Community Resource Library at Scripps Memorial, and also marked the grand opening of the luxury resort. The hospital’s La Jolla Auxiliary sponsored “StarBurst Regatta.”

The turnout comfortably surpassed the usual Candlelight Ball attendance and was particularly notable in a year that has seen smaller-than-usual crowds at a number of prestige events. Chairman Olesen credited the lengthy guest list partly to regular prayer and also to the creation of the new Scripps Institutions.

“What we’re really celebrating tonight is the reaffiliation of the two Scripps (Scripps Memorial and Scripps Clinic), and I asked a lot of people who support both to attend,” she said. “When this party began, the hospital and clinic were one entity and the ball was given as a thank-you to volunteers. Now, for the first time since 1948, the two institutions are coming together again.”

“Tonight didn’t just happen,” said Virginia Monday, who shared honorary co-chairman duties with Joseph Jessop Sr. (represented at the ball by his son Joe Jr.) and Marianne McDonald. “There are so many here tonight because we got the juices flowing early, way back in June.” Among practical enticements were the raffle of a 1992 Cadillac, a pair of luxury watches and trips to Monte Carlo and elsewhere.

There is also, however, a very long, strong tradition behind the Candlelight Ball, which began in 1930, was suspended during the war years (when tickets to a “phantom ball” were sold to maintain fund-raising levels) and resumed in 1953; only the Charity Ball is senior among local social events.

While candles typically have been the lead motif at Candlelight Balls, stars replaced them this year, in the form of 2-foot, glitter-covered ornaments suspended on the Bay Tree, and in various shapes and sizes floating above the tables in the ballroom. Even the party favors were star-shaped silver paperweights. The lavishness of the flowers and the menu--chubby crab cakes, grilled quail salad, veal medallions and Christmas tree-shaped desserts--owed in some degree to the fortunate marriage between ball and grand opening: The hotel spared no effort in producing a splashy impression. Best of all was the massive and spectacularly realistic stage backdrop of the San Diego skyline (complete even to the curving towers of the competing San Diego Marriott) and of the Coronado Bridge, the latter intended to signify the hoped-for link between the city and the new resort.

Between courses, guests alternated between dancing to the Tony Marillo Orchestra and watching the occasional numbers of an ongoing floor show that featured a black-light, neon-bright staging of dancing fish, mermaids and octopuses from the “Under the Sea” number in the Disney film “The Little Mermaid,” and an amusing Latin routine in which a convincing Carmen Miranda-like singer was joined on the floor by tap-dancers in flamingo costumes.

In what may have been a subtle reference to the fact that the day marked the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the show closed with a uniformed trio of Andrews Sisters imitators whose rendition of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” had toes tapping vigorously all over the room.

Guests included Scripps Hospitals President and CEO Ames Early and his wife, Beryl, and Scripps Clinic board chairman Gordon Luce and his wife, Karon; Midgie and Gary VandenBerg; Alexis and George Wesbey; America 3 sailing syndicate chief Bill Koch; Carrie and Pete Rozelle; Cindy and Martin Buser; James Bowers; Jane and Tom Fetter; Rae and Frank Merhar; Pat Wade; Carol and Harold Shively; Cathleen and Colin Haggerty and Rosemarie and Rick Haggerty; Christine and Fred Stalder; entertainment producer John Vosburgh; Michele and Paul Ellingsen; Randy Gantenbein; Alice and Michael Cavanaugh; Audrey Geisel; Dixie and Ken Unruh; Barbara and Jim Sherrill; Marilynn and Roger Boesky; Gretchen and Gus Colachis, and Melesse and Bob Traylor.

SAN DIEGO--Wet footprints formed postmodern patterns on the concrete floor of the space soon to be occupied by the new San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art branch at American Plaza downtown.

Museum director Hugh Davies led residents of the Meridian tower and selected pals of the museum on a Sunday afternoon tour of the two-story structure, which curves along the adjacent tracks of the San Diego Trolley on the east and looks west to the towers of the Santa Fe Depot.

The day’s unexpected rainstorm struck just as guests left for the event, with the result that, by the time they arrived, the bare, gray concrete floors and wallboard effortlessly managed to mirror the slate skies hovering above the ceiling-height windows in a manner that would have pleased a contemporary-art purist.

According to Davies, the majority of those windows will be covered over before the museum opens, but the concrete flooring will remain. “We like the roughness of the concrete, it’s sort of like in a generic Los Angeles gallery,” Davies said. He added that he hopes to open the space in July, if all the details can be worked out by then--”Don’t mark your calendars yet,” he warned guests--and said he would like to open with an exhibition assembled from the museum’s permanent collection.

After the tour, guests returned to the Meridian for an open house in the residence of art dealer Michael Krichman and his wife Leslie Simon--whose contemporary-art collection of giant pieces prompted them to relocate their bed to the living room--and a buffet reception in the penthouse of collector and performing-arts patron Danah Fayman. Among the guests for pastries and white wine were Liz and Mason Phelps, Annette and Dick Ford, Pauline and Stan Foster, Emily and Dean Black, MaryAnne and Arnold Ginnow, Susie and Rob Lankford, Crystal Merryman, Mary and Walter Smyk, Kay and David Porter, Olga and Al Krasnoff and Edith and Leonard Tessler.