Seen Around Town

from Congratulations, Class of 2020

Laughing Matters Local Business Directory

by Lynda Millner

The Wildest Place In Town

Ms Millner is the author of The Magic Makeover, Tricks for Looking Thinner, Younger and More Confident – Instantly. If you have an event that belongs in this column, you are invited to call Lynda at 969-6164.

The hobo encampment on Ms Child’s property T he wildest place in town has to be the Santa Barbara Zoo and certainly a child’s favorite. When I moved here in the ‘70s I thought the Child Estate related to children because the Zoo was there. I soon learned it had once been Lillian Child’s property. When she passed away it eventually became a very small petting zoo. Certainly nothing

to brag about, the way we do now.

Lillian lived in a grand mansion at the top of the zoo hill for almost 45 years. She was born Lillian Bailey on January 15, 1866 in New England living on Staten Island and attending parties in New York City. She was exceptionally beautiful and had three wealthy husbands – one divorced and two died. She loved to give soirees in both Santa Barbara and New York. In May 1891 she married D. Wheeler Brown who was from a prominent banking family. The New York Times wrote it up as “a smart suburban wedding with a large, fashionable crowd.”

The plot thickens. In April 1903 the Chicago Sun reported that D. Wheeler Brown had not been murdered as friends feared, but turned up alive after a three-day absence. Interestingly he didn’t explain but did divulge that he and his wife had been “separated for four months.” Lillian soon arrived in Santa Barbara and met John Edward Beale, a retired tea and coffee merchant who had never married and lived in a two-story pink stucco mansion on a hill overlooking the “salt pond” we now call the Bird Refuge.

Beale loved horses and used to race around the pond on the race track that was there while wintering in Santa Barbara. In 1896 he purchased 20.33 acres of the nearby Nidever Hill for $25,000 and called his new estate Vegamar (star of the sea). The three-story tower on their home above Cabrillo Boulevard became a landmark.

Beale was a ladies’ man and was smitten with Lillian. In June 1906, just days after her divorce was final, they married in St. John’s Church in New York. She was 35 and her groom was 68 when they set sail on the Teutonic for a European honeymoon.

Lillian was known for her flamboyant outfits which always had a silk scarf draped around her neck. “She said it was for a conversation piece and that there was nothing wrong with her,” recalls Albert de L’Arbre,” whose mother was Lillian’s friend. “This was a kind of a uniform which she had devised so that she would stand out among other people anywhere she went.”

Back home Lillian was the “hostess with the mostest,” entertaining Vanderbilts, Carnegies and others from New York, plus local society. Beale was 76 and in ill health so they closed Vegamar, and spent several months in Ojai hoping the climate would help but he died July 21, 1914. Beales’ nieces and nephews contested his will which left his California property to his widow and New York holdings to his brother. Lillian ultimately

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THANK YOU FIREFIGHTERS AND FIRST RESPONDERS

This weekend, you stopped the fire and saved lives.

We are forever grateful to the Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara City, Montecito Fire Departments, Five Cities Fire Authority, Cal Fire as well as the U.S. Forest Service Fire Division for your service, and continue to be inspired by your sacrifice.