OUR LAGUNA:Lagunans celebrate 50 years of Hospitality Night

Laguna’s annual holiday party was a trip.

From Santa’s ride through town on the 1931 Seagrave Fire Engine, to the parade down Forest Avenue to his holiday house, to the stroll to South Coast Cinema for a free showing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the night brought the town together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hospitality Night.

“Everyone I have talked to said it was the biggest and the best Hospitality Night ever,” said Rose Hancock, executive director of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the annual celebration in conjunction with the city.

Maria Vallee took her Hospitality Night trip in a Mini Cooper. Vallee, who owns Crystal Image in downtown Laguna, wonthe car, which was an opportunity prize arranged by the chamber with Crevier Motors, with a ticket purchased for her by husband, Butch.

And Kathy Conway’s trip will take her halfway around the world.

Chamber President Dave Sanford and board members drove in two of the display Minis to Javier’s restaurant, where Conway was having a meal and called her to meet him in the alley to tell her who won the Mini.

“It wasn’t you,” Sanford said when Conway emerged. “But you are going to Fiji.”

Annaliese Schimmelpfennig, who owns Papagano Resort in Fiji, donated the week’s stay as an opportunity prize. The chamber negotiated a reduced air fair with Air Pacific.

A trolley filled with Hospitality Night sponsors, business community notables and their families trailed Santa through town.

On board: Sanford and partner, Steve Dotoratos — with Rocky, their beloved petite chou; chamber board members Michelle Clark, Shaun Tabor, Ibrahim Guirguis, Kimberly Stuart, Dave Hicok, Chris Lange, Tom Simpson and Debbie Santoro of South Coast Bank, which sponsored Santa’s House on the corner of Glenneyre Street and Forest Avenue. Also Kay Kearney, Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman and her son, Nicholas, Jeff and Kerri Redecker, Ernest Stuart and Jane Hicok. Visitors Bureau board President Karen Philippsen rode behind Santa’s fire truck in a Mini Cooper driven by chamber past President Dennis Junka.

“We had so much fun,” Clark said.

Mayor Steven Dicterow, his wife, Catrina, and daughter, Taryn, arrived with Santa.

The slight problems with the stage where festivities were held at City Hall, which caused Santa to momentarily lose his balance, and glitches the sound system didn’t even qualify as a bump in the road on a night to remember.

“There are going to be minor glitches with any event,” Hancock said. “You just don’t let it spoil a good time.”

Even the People’s Council got into the spirit — the surfer sported Santa’s fur-trimmed hat. Barbara Painter took it a step further: She dressed in red for the occasion — from tam to toes — and joined the crowd jammed into Cedar Creek Inn for Hospitality Night libations and dinner.

“Isn’t this what brings us all together?” said Anne Morris, executive director of Laguna Beach Senior Center.

Morris was celebrating with her husband, Mike, their son, Blake, daughter-in-law, Linda, granddaughters Alexis, 2, Jordan, 4, and Sabrina, 7, and Carolyn and Laguna Beach Community Clinic Director Dr. Thomas Bent.

Lyn and Tim Carlyle haven’t missed a Hospitality Night since they moved to Laguna 30 years ago. The kids grew up and moved away — their daughter is in San Francisco, their son in Boulder — but that’s no reason for the Carlyles to miss the fun.

City Arts Manager Sian Poeschl popped into the restaurant for a glass of wine, and Bill Rihn was seen at a cozy table for two. Laguna Concert Band founder Carol Reynolds came in out of the cold after the band’s concert at the Peppertree parking lot.

“I had on three jackets and a shirt, and I am still so cold,” Reynolds said.

But not so cold as where she used to live, northern New Jersey. “We had to blow on the instruments so our lips wouldn’t freeze to the mouthpieces,” she said.

The band played from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Another performance is set for 3 p.m. Sunday at the Artists Theatre on the Laguna Beach High School campus, 625 Park Ave. Admission and parking are free. For more information, call (949) 497-2658.

Also at Cedar Creek: Ernie and City Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider dined with Laguna Niguel Councilman and Orange County Transportation Authority board member Paul Glaabe, his wife, Janice, and their daughter Molly, 5. Jill Lockhart stopped by to say hi. Her kids rode on the fire engine with Pearson-Schneider in 2005 when she was mayor. The Lockharts are a Bluebird Canyon landslide family.

Another landslide family, Jim Moore and John Gustafson, hosted a pre-Hospitality Night get-together at the Third Street cottage they vacated this weekend. This was the couple’s fourth move since they lost their home June 1, 2005.

“We lived with Steve Parks for a month — Patricia Twitty fed us,” Gustafson said. “Then we lived in the trailer at El Morro, then this cottage and now we are back in a trailer at what I call the Villas at Canyon Acres.”

Gustafson’s baby portraits and his mother’s high school graduating class picture were the last personal belongings to be taken from the cottage.

The couple will be living until August in the trailer the Meister family moved out of when their Bluebird Canyon home was ready for occupancy.

“I think most of occupants of the cottages are moving this weekend,” Gustafson said.

Architect Horst Noppenberger is working on the plans for Moore and Gustafson’s replacement home.

Friday’s festivities also included the annual Tarnished Treasures luncheon at the Laguna Beach Woman’s Club.

It was one-stop dining and shopping for City Treasurer Laura Parisi and City Clerk Martha Anderson, Planning Commissioner Anne Johnson, club President Peggy Ford, and club members Anne Wood, Louise Buckley, Beverly Hine, Penny King, Friends of the Library President Martha Lydick, recently reelected Festival of Arts President Anita Mangels, Veronica Nice, Nadine Nordstrom, California NOW President Kimberly Salter, the Rev. Karen Polek, Realtor Audrey Prosser, Birgetta Schoen, Laguna Beach County Water District General Manager Renae Hinchey, Realtor and luncheon coordinator Gayle Waite, Pauline Walpin and, of course, Sande St. John, wearing the red sequined shoes she trots out only for Hospitality Night.

Proceeds from the luncheon benefit club programs.

To echo Rose Hancock: “It’s a wonderful life in Laguna.”