Charles Mureau opened his party house and began to reclaim his chits.

Charles Mureau, bachelor, artist and devotee of the hunt, was driven by a peculiar blend of joie de vivre and guilt to build the Victorian party house whose octagonal white walls and cupola stand out smartly for all to see beside the Ventura Freeway in Calabasas.

In his 80 years, Mureau has gotten a lot out of life. He founded an art school in Omaha. He wrote a book on fox hunting. He invented things and made his fortune manufacturing them when nobody else would do it. He acquired an estate in Calabasas and filled it with art works he made himself. The road in front of his house even bears his name.

But he feels that, along the way, he’s accumulated debts.

“I was a bachelor,” he said. “I was entertained all my life. I didn’t reciprocate in the manner I would like to.”

So, when time and chance fell into the right alignment, Mureau built a party house to reciprocate. It’s on his estate, down the hill from the main compound.

“I just wanted to be able to invite my friends to a place I wouldn’t have to apologize for,” he said.

On Sunday, Mureau began to reclaim his chits.

He invited about 60 friends over for his first party, which he called “A Day in the Country.” The party never got inside the party house. It was built around genteel outdoor sports.

At the gate each guest received a handout, under the letterhead of the Calabasas Croquet Club, outlining the day’s activities with special attention to the wager.

“To make the games more interesting and to provide a bit of incentive,” it said, “those who wish may, upon paying an entry fee of $10, participate in the JACKPOT EXTRAVAGANZA.”

The team with the the highest score at four games--horseshoes, shuffleboard, croquet and golf--would win the jackpot.

The games were to commence after a demonstration of croquet on the regulation green Mureau installed at the center of the two-acre garden and sporting field surrounding his party house.

Mureau and his instructor, Nat Linden, gave the demonstration.

Linden wore white slacks, white shoes and a white sweater. Mureau wore the same but was just a little more striking, also having white knit gloves and a white scarf knotted around his neck and his gray-white hair carefully coifed.

As the two of them rapped balls around the court, Vern Benfer, the owner of the Calabasas Saddlery, used a wireless microphone like an NFL referee to give a commentary over the public-address system.

The demonstration soon turned competitive, Mureau and Linden crisscrossing the court to slam each other’s balls to the far corners.

Some of the spectators lost interest.

“The more I watch, the more confused I get,” a woman in a pink dress said. “They seem to be going all over the place.”

After half an hour of announcing, Benfer gave up.

“We’re going to dispense with the jackpot,” he said, in a bit of a huff. “Never get Charles off the goddamn court.”

Maybe the day was too warm for sports anyway.

Most of the guests made only tentative efforts at pitch and putt, horseshoes or shuffleboard, then contented themselves with conversation and wine and hors d’oeuvres served by men in tuxedos and women in candy-stripe coats and straw boaters.

Everyone made at least one tour of the whimsicals, as Mureau calls the dozen or so scrap metal statues mounted around the estate.

One of them consisted of an automobile muffler rearing toward a flywheel with an angle-iron man frowning upon the scene. It was called “Sexual Restraint.”

While the game went on, Mureau’s secretary, interior decorator and friend, Holly Hoffman, who was also dressed all in white, moved among the guests, playing hostess and taking pictures.

Eventually, Mureau and Linden left the green to the amateurs.

Linden used the break to tell me about the virtues of croquet.

“They’ve maligned the game because they think that’s croquet,” he said, pointing toward a group of young women who giggled as they hit balls through the rough grass using the lightweight mallets of the familiar backyard version.

“It’s really a strategy game,” he said. “It’s like playing chess on the grass.”

Soon he began to watch the green.

“Charles, it looks like the court is open,” Linden said at last. “Let’s play.”

He recruited me and a young woman named Ann Chevrefils to make it a foursome.

While we played, smoked salmon and sirloin were served at tables around the ballroom.

Mureau and Chevrefils got well ahead, mostly because of Mureau’s clever use of the mallet. He would knock his own ball through a wicket, then return to hit hers through like a pool ball, always waltzing to and fro gracefully and leaning up to his partner to give instruction.

“I’m going over there,” Linden announced at last, showing a little angst. “They’re too close together.”

Just before dark, Mureau decided it was time for dinner.

At the table, he chatted happily about times past and the friends who had entertained him in his life.

At last, Mureau had nothing to apologize for. Still, the party hadn’t been everything that he had imagined when he built his party house.

“My original idea here to entertain my friends who, for all these years, have entertained me,” he said. “But you see, the thing is, most of my friends are gone. I lost 10 in the last year.”