Monte ito Miscellany
Katy Perry hits the jackpot in Las Vegas (photo: Greg2600)
by Richard Mineards
Richard covered the Royal Family for Britain’s Daily Mirror and Daily Mail, and was an editor on New York Magazine. He was also a national anchor on CBS, a commentator on ABC Network News, gossip on The Joan Rivers Show and Geraldo Rivera, host on E! TV, a correspondent on the syndicated show Extra, a commentator on the KTLA Morning News and Entertainment Tonight. He moved to Montecito 13 years ago.
Hey, Neighbor
T
ech investor and hedge fund manager Philippe Laffont is the latest billionaire resident in our rarefied enclave, I can exclusively reveal. Laffont, founder of Coatue Management and ranked at No. 1513 on the Forbes rich list with $2.1 billion, paid $11.7 million for a Mediterraneanstyle estate on nearly two acres with the two homes on the sprawling property oozing period charm. It was built in 1924 with the houses collectively containing six bedrooms and five bathrooms and the grounds boasting a pool, clay tennis court, and a bocce ball court. Laffont, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded his company in 1999 and focuses on technology themed investing. Welcome to the ‘hood...
California Gurl Heads to Vegas
Having just splashed out $14.2 million on a new nine-acre home with six bedrooms and 12 bathrooms on Park Lane with fiancé British actor Orlando Bloom, Santa Barbara warbler Katy Perry looks like she won’t be spending too much time there. The former Dos Pueblos High student, currently worth around $330 million from her hit records and world concert tours, is adding to her hefty coffers having just signed a reported $168 million contract for a twoyear residency at the new $4.9 billion Resorts World complex in Las Vegas, the biggest in casino history. Katy, 36, who earns a reported $25 million annually as a judge on ABC’s American Idol, is expected to start her lengthy stint at the 3,500-room mega
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16 MONTECITO JOURNAL
International artist Allison Armour
hotel, owned by the Malaysian hospitality group Genting Berhad, later this year. It will run through 2022 and will be a circus-themed performance. Katy joins Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, and Celine Dion as female megastars who have signed up for long-term deals in Sin City. The new luxury hostelry also boasts one of the biggest casinos in town with 117,000 square feet of gambling space.
It’s for the Birds Ariana Katovich, executive director of the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network
Santa Barbara’s Wildlife Care Network has just broken ground on its new state-of-the-art $6 million, 5,400-square-foot hospital in the Goleta foothills. “It will allow us a greater capability to save and serve thousands of wild lives,” says Ariana Katovich, executive director. “Current conditions have staff working out of old, meager facilities. Diets are prepared in a shed. Surgeries have been taking place in a trailer.” The new hospital, run by Dr. Avery Berkowitz, director of animal care, includes a baby bird nursery, an intensive care unit, and surgery and radiology suites, among a host of other facilities. The 33-year-old organization, which serves Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, serves 4,500 animals annually. So far $4.5 million has been raised for construction, so if you’d like to help with the outstanding $1.5 million, give them a call.
Call it a Comeback
Montecito artist Allison Armour, whose huge global figures have been collected by former Beatle Ringo Starr and even Russian President Vladimir Putin, is getting back to prominence
“Avoid fruits and nuts. You are what you eat.” – Jim Davis
in Goleta, and I’m delighted to hear it. Eight years ago, Goleta Valley Hospital held a competition for a new art installation outside the complex and Allison’s work won, with it being duly installed with its water feature for the opening ceremony. But the same year California went through a devastating drought and the hospital felt that it couldn’t be seen to be wasting water, so it was turned off and the sculpture consigned ignominiously to the basement. In October, Allison had surgery for breast cancer at the hospital and asked about her sculpture while undergoing treatment. “The nurses clamored around me asking ‘Is that beautiful piece yours?’ and told me of its fate in the cellars,” says Allison, who was born in Paris and studied at New York’s Parsons School of Design. “I thought it quite ridiculous and called Arie Dejong, the hospital’s vice president. I explained that Putin had come to the unveiling of my piece in Moscow, President Erdogan of Turkey had two of my pieces in his palace, as did the King of Denmark. “Ringo Starr was one of my first clients and I have just been asked to quote a 35-foot piece to be exhibited in Tel Aviv with a budget of $1.2 million. He totally agreed that it certainly shouldn’t be languishing in a basement, but he was worried about health and safety, which I totally understood. “I then explained how to make it safe and he said he would meet up with his maintenance crew and see about resurrecting it.” Allison, who is an active board member of Sarah House, a home for end-of-life care for low-income residents, hopes her piece will be back on display any moment now. Brava!
Music to our Ears
Former Music Academy of the West fellow Jacopo Giacopuzzi is using his keyboard skills in his new profession as a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway in Montecito. Jacopo, who hails from Verona, Italy, moved to the Left Coast in 2013 to start his master’s degree at USC after being a fellow at the Miraflores campus. Since then, he has performed around the world, from the Hamptons to Hawaii, and of course Europe where
Miscellany Page 284 25 March – 1 April 2021