Paul Makarechian’s St. Regis Monarch Beach enters the holidays with bragging rights. The resort has received its first five-diamond rating from the Auto Club. Combined with five stars from Mobil earlier this year, it’s the only OC hotel with both the prestigious five-star and five-diamond ratings, notes Sandi Cain. The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel and the Island Hotel Newport Beach (formerly the Four Seasons) continue their long runs of five diamonds from AAA, but have just four stars from Mobil. Montage in Laguna Beach has four diamonds and four stars, but its spa is only one of two in North America with five stars (the other is the Mandarin Oriental in New York) …
Maestro Carl St. Clair, under prodding from EE RR, said he thinks the Pacific Symphony has moved into the “top 25” of U.S. orchestras …
More fun with Garden Grove’s Dr. Richard Frankenstein (pronounced Frankensteen), new prez of the California Medical Association: He lives on Castlegate Lane and was inducted two days before Halloween at the Disneyland Hotel …
It’s not every ad guy who gets named Professional Member of the Year by the OC chapter of the Building Owners and Managers Association. But then there’s only one Sheldon Ascher of the OCBJ …
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Separated at birth: Robert Brunswick (left), CEO of Newport Beach real estate investor Buchanan Street Partners (anticipating growth under new majority owner TCW Group), and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. |
A younger OCBJ ad guy, Steve Gall, has turned 50 …
UCI’s Merage School slipped a bit in the recent Wall Street Journal b-school rankings, to 42nd place from 38th last year. School officials shrug it off, citing fluctuations in the Journal’s recruiter-based ratings. And they remind that Merage jumped 22 places, to No. 31, in the Financial Times ranking earlier this year. Meanwhile, Chapman U’s Leatherby Center shined in the Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review’s ranking of entrepreneurship programs, placing sixth nationally for undergraduates (highest in California) and eighth for graduates …
New arrival: To new Ernst & Young OC managing partner Mike and Carol Bertolino, Enzo Bertolino, emulating his fast-moving dad by being born three weeks early.
