Rocker Pat Benatar entertained about 650 area guests on Aug. 3 at the annual Hot Summer Nights event, which raised more than $2.7M for Vera’s Sanctuary, a program of the Teen Project, that serves local victims of human trafficking. The event had 98 sponsors.
Stacy and Steve Jones, global chairman and CEO of Irvine-based security giant Allied Universal, hosted the Aug. 3 event at the Giracchi Vineyards in Silverado. Their work for Vera’s Sanctuary earlier this year earned the couple inclusion in our latest edition of the OC50, which this year highlighted locals making a difference in the philanthropic community.
Notables attending the event included OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer, R.D. Olson’s Bob Olson, Stradling partner Shawn Collins, and the Business Journal’s Richard Reisman and Peter J. Brennan.
The evening event, organized by Christina Garkovich of Charity Coach Inc., was previously held at the Jones’ home in Coto de Caza, and formerly known as Hot August Nights, until the organizers were informed by lawyers that the name was trademarked.
Wine and food aficionados visiting the Napa Valley town of Yountville can now count another business with OC ties in the area.
Laguna Beach’s Steve Contursi, who runs Arrow & Branch Rare Coins, one of the country’s larger investors and traders in ultra-rare United States coins, and wife Seanne Contursi recently opened their new winery and tasting salon a few miles south of Yountville. The couple previously had their wine operations elsewhere in Napa Valley.
Initial plans for Arrow & Branch Estate Vineyard are “to produce 30,000 gallons a year for our vintages and custom crush production for several of Napa Valley’s finest small-production brands,” Steve Contursi said. “We already are looking at expansion plans to eventually produce 45,000 gallons, the equivalent of about 20,000 cases annually.”
Yountville is home to Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, and the town’s biggest property owner is Lido Island’s Gary Jabara, whose holdings there include luxe resort The Estate Yountville, which has gotten a major overhaul since getting purchased by the telecom entrepreneur and real estate investor a few years ago.
Dick Marconi, the namesake of Tustin’s Marconi Automotive Museum, passed away last month at age 89.
The onetime Golden Gloves winner in Indiana, despite being blind in one eye, moved to SoCal in the 1950s and made a fortune in the nutraceutical world, co-founding Herbalife.
In the 1990s, he started the local car museum just off the 5 Freeway, which is reported to count over 100 historic race cars, muscle cars, motorcycles and other vehicles with a total value of more than $60 million. Money from admission to the museum went to numerous kid-focused local charities, including Covenant House California, Orangewood, CHOC and Juvenile Diabetes Research.
Marconi also owned one of the area’s most distinctive properties, a sprawling 1,200-acre ranch estate on the outskirts of San Juan Capistrano, which includes a 51-acre exotic animal reserve featuring a giraffe, zebras, African antelopes and more, according to reports.
The Tuscan-inspired estate has been on the market for a few years, with a most recent reported asking price of $33M.