Copter Makes Benefit a True Social Whirl

Talk about a social whirl: A hovering helicopter spilled 2,000 orchid and plumeria blossoms on a crowd mingling at Twin Points Estate in Laguna Beach.

“I wanted my party to smell fabulous,� said Pam Goldstein, chairwoman of the Saturday night bash, which raised an estimated $90,000 to $100,000 for the Art Institute of Southern California in Laguna Beach.

As the blossoms fell, Goldstein threw up her arms and closed her eyes, hoping the petals would graze her golden skin. “You know, some parties smell simply terrible. . .�

Never mind that the copter’s whirling blades snuffed out tiki torches and sent fanned linen table napkins spinning inside the wine goblets. And never mind that most of the blooms hit the beach illuminated in hot-pink for the occasion instead of Phyllis and Raymond Contino’s cliff-side estate above.

The flower-shower was just for starters. Before 490 guests disappeared into the night, they’d been serenaded by Mariachi Del Sol, served icy margaritas beside a lighted gazebo (perched on the estate’s North Point, where host Raymond Contino, a dentist, tees up golf balls and sends them sailing onto the putting green beside his home); bid on auction items arrayed on the 1.5-acre estate’s South Point; dined on peppered filet mignon, drunken beans and Kahlua mousse cake; watched fireworks explode over the Pacific; posed for souvenir photos with chatty macaws; viewed Aztec-costumed dancers gyrating atop a custom-built stage, and danced by the light of the silvery moon.

Some guests described the event as the “kickoff of Orange County’s social season.�

“Pam’s a genius, that’s all,� said Muriel Reynolds, founder of Designing Women, the Art Institute support group, which sponsored the $150-per-person affair. “We have the greatest chairman in the world. She gets the right people on her committees and follows through.�

‘We’ll Hold It Here’

In fact, Goldstein, who attended with husband, Sam, was already dreaming up next year’s party: “We’ll hold it here, call it Fantasy Island, and people will meet at a park, be taken by limousine to the beach and then by canoe to the party. . . . I can just see it!�

Goldstein’s silk Jacquard and chiffon dress, done in hot, bold colors to match table decor, had been created by Laguna Beach designer Jennifer Blue and hand-painted by Laguna artist Jim Nussbaum. “It took Jim two weeks to paint it,� said Goldstein, sweeping about the estate, her Rapunzel-length locks brushing her back. “I’d have to say the dress is priceless.� A hot-lavender petticoat peeked from beneath her skirt’s poufed hem. The creation was signed (inside its matching jacket) by its creators.

The Continos, married for 41 years with six children and 10 grandchildren, met on the Twin Points property when they were teen-agers. “The property belonged to my grandmother, and I was just about raised here,� said Phyllis Contino, who wore a blue-and-pink sequinned silk with Brazilian blue topaz earrings and matching, 27-carat ring.

“One day a friend brought Ray over, and I didn’t think too much about it. But a year later, he sent me a letter from Pasadena (where he lived), telling me he thought it would be nice if he had an invitation to visit the beach.�

The estate had once been the site of an Indian kitchen, she said. “With the cove for refrigeration and the hills across the way for deer, it was a natural for the Indians. . . . When I was little, I used to come in black from playing here. And, when I raised my children, they used to come in black. We could hardly get the dirt off.�

End of Summer Season

Among those enjoying the social splash marking the end of the summer season were Art Institute director J. Thomas Reeve; Beverly Thompson Coil, fretting that her plastic banana necklace would melt in the sun; Nadine Hall, jacketed against ocean breezes in an embroidered creation purchased in Nice, on the French Rivera; Designing Women President JoAnn Killingsworth, her white gauze gown trimmed with ribbon streamers that matched the decor; Maggie Murdy, a study in multicolored ruffled silk and rubies and diamonds; Bari Tulving, sporting a clingy black silk mini that kept guests gawking, and Betty Kemp, who, with husband, Tom, had just returned from campaigning in South Dakota for her brother-in-law, Jack Kemp, the Republican presidential hopeful.

Committee members included Shelly Adermatt, Herta Anderson, Mary Lee Beck, Susan Beechner, Vickie Broadhurst, Nancy Bushnell, Anne Colin, Mary Lou Delaney, Doretta Ensign, JuinForesman, Barbara Gage, Nadine Hall, Gloria Hassett, Mary Lou Hornsby, Jackie Jacobson and Mary Jeffries.

Also on the committee were Janice Johnson, Betty Kemp, Nancy Lawrence, Susan McFadden, Connie Morthland, Maggie Murdy, Jackie O’Hara, Joleen Parham, Marie Pezzlo, Claire Robinson, Patty Smith, Nancy Snyder, Jane Ward and Jean Wetmore.