GILDING THE LILLY: It’s true I haven’t played
baseball in a long time, but I still know a bean ball when I see
one. And that’s exactly what Beanie Baby billionaire Ty Warner is
throwing these days. But that’s to be expected, I suppose. I am
referring to Warner’s latest and greatest public tantrum in which
he threatened to sell Montecito’s abandoned and dilapidated Miramar
Hotel rather than renovate it, as he recently promised. That’s
because — we are told — Warner has become fed up with the incessant
and sniping demands of the jackals and Lilliputians sitting on the
Montecito Planning Commission and the Montecito Association. These
self-important, self-inflated petty tyrants have the gall to
express opinions contrary to Warner’s about his plans for the Coral
Casino and the Biltmore Hotel — which he also owns. In a word, they
are out to get him. As a result, Warner announced he is selling off
the Miramar, the once beloved dowdy dowager of waterfront hotels.
Naturally, we hear none of this from Warner himself.
Instead we hear it all from Warner’s right-hand man, Greg Rice,
and that’s just the problem. Although Rice clearly deserves an
Oscar for delivering so masterful a performance, much of Warner’s
difficulties derive from his peculiar style of communicating. Which
is to say, he doesn’t personally communicate at all. While Warner
will on occasion mingle anonymously with the little people, it’s
clearly beneath him to engage in any kind of verbal give-and-take.
To do so, presumably, would imply some remote aspect of equality,
and this would not mesh with his carefully cultivated
kooky-but-brilliant-billionaire mystique. In most places, such an
attitude would cause friction; but in Montecito this is especially
true, as its occupants suffer no appreciable shortage of
self-esteem.
Ty’s whole Miramar gig has been an act from the start. When he
first bought it, Warner was trying to secure final approval to
renovate the Coral Casino and he was facing some stiff opposition.
He bought the Miramar in part to win friends among the Montecitans,
many of whom felt angry and betrayed regarding the broken promises
made by developer Ian Schrager — of Studio 54’s disco-decadence
fame — to refurbish the blue-roofed hotel. Schrager and his
jet-setting rock-star architect Philippe Starck had charmed the
pants off Montecito to win support for his plans.