Lifestyle
How to tour a haunting Santa Barbara estate that's been frozen in time for half a century
The house, a French palace on a Santa Barbara bluff, stands as undisturbed as a crime scene, a pair of unstrung harps in the music room, china laid out on the dinner table, waves crashing on East Beach below.
This is the mansion that heiress Huguette Clark left behind — well, one of them. For half a century, as Clark (1906-2011) paid an estimated $40,000 per month to keep it unchanged, the coveted estate known as Bellosguardo remained no livelier than the cemetery next door.
A tour group waits to enter Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
But now outsiders trickle in. For the last year and a half, the Bellosguardo Foundation has been quietly offering ground-floor tours for $100 a head, and it may soon open up more of the long-idle estate to visitors.
For anyone fascinated by great estates, robber barons, generational wealth or just human psychology, the tour is a chance to see territory that’s been off-limits for decades. It’s also a haunting illustration of what money can buy and what it can’t.
“We used to come to the cemetery and peek over the wall,” confessed Patti Gibbs, a longtime Santa Barbara resident who was among those on hand for the 10 a.m. tour one recent Wednesday.
“I’ve been waiting for them to let me in since I read the book years ago,” said visitor Peggy Simmons of Ojai.
The book she mentioned is “Empty Mansions,” by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr., which lays out the history of the Clarks and their homes in California, New York and Connecticut.
But stepping into the story is different from reading it. With docents Susan Bush and Cindy McClelland leading the way, Gibbs, Simmons and a handful of other visitors entered the front door.
The dining room, set with dinnerware. One of many custom chandeliers — this one hangs in the mansion’s art studio. A portrait in the estate shows heiress Huguette Clark, who died in 2011 at age 104. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The music room of the estate.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
They examined the telephone room to the left, then the coat room to the right (with a portrait of a French World War I hero on the wall) and the Steinway piano at the foot of the spiral staircase. And they listened closely as the docents addressed the morning’s central questions:
Where did the money come from? And why did Huguette Clark put the mansion on pause?
The first answer is copper, mined, sold and leveraged by a slight, bearded man named William Andrews Clark.
Clark (1839-1925), born in a Pennsylvania log cabin, got rich in copper mining and built his first mansion in Butte, Mont. Later he built a railroad from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, opened banks, mined more copper in Arizona, co-founded Las Vegas (seat of Clark County) and built another mansion, a 121-room behemoth on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. (It has since been razed.)
Clark and daughters Andrée, left, and Huguette visit Columbia Gardens, which he built in Butte, Mont. It was about 1917.
(Montana Historical Society)
“He’s one of the richest men that nobody’s ever heard of,” McClelland told the visitors.
Along the way Clark got married, fathered seven children, lost his first wife to typhoid fever, remarried in his 60s and fathered two additional daughters. He also got caught bribing Montana state legislators, yet served a term as U.S. senator from that state. And his name does endure here and there.
His son, William Andrews Clark Jr., made the donations that started UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Also, you could say the senior Clark inspired Mark Twain.
Clark, Twain wrote, “is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs.”
Much of the Bellosguardo story, however, is about the next generation of Clarks. As the group advanced through the house, admiring custom chandeliers and golden bathroom fixtures, the docents pushed the narrative forward.
A custom-made chandelier dangles in the library of the Bellosguardo Estate in Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
By summer 1923, when Clark and his second wife, Anna, arrived as renters at this 23-acre property above East Beach, he was one of the world’s wealthiest men. But he was in his mid-80s, 39 years older than Anna. Four years earlier, the couple had lost their older daughter, 16-year-old Andrée, to meningitis. Their surviving daughter, Huguette Clark, was now 17.
The Santa Barbara summer went well. By year’s end, the Clarks had bought the place for $300,000. But less than two years later, Clark died, leaving Anna and Huguette with a chunk of his fortune, the Santa Barbara property and the Italianiate villa that stood upon it, nicknamed Bellosguardo, or Pretty View.
So why, then, do visitors today walk through a French palace and not an Italian villa?
Because in 1933, as the country struggled with the Great Depression, Anna and Huguette Clark decided to level the villa (which had been damaged by a 1925 earthquake) and start over. Since they had lived several years in Paris and often spoke French to each other, they liked the idea of something French — a notable change from the Spanish Colonial projects popping up all over Santa Barbara.
Architect Reginald D. Johnson, designer of the Biltmore hotel in Montecito, delivered a rigorously symmetrical gray stone building (including one door that opens to nowhere) that paid minimal attention to ocean views. Two stories, 27 rooms, 13 fireplaces.
A sculpture in Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate shows Andrée Clark, a daughter of copper mogul William Andrews Clark who died in her teens. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate include an art studio full of paintings by and of heiress Huguette Clark, who is seen in the work on the easel. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Grounds, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
It’s subdued, but not dull. As visitors see, there’s a circular women’s powder room. Carved maple panels line walls in one room, while 160 carved oak panels dominate another. The building wraps around a stately pond, much of the furniture dates to the 18th century and the walls are hung with paintings of the French countryside and, in just about every room, portraits of Andrée and Huguette as doe-eyed girls.
“Reminds me of Hearst Castle,” said visitor Cherie Visconti, eyeing the dining room.
On the library shelves, Voltaire and George Eliot are joined by Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner, the Ventura lawyer and author who created Perry Mason.
The Clarks never lived here full time. By the foundation’s estimation, the mother and daughter made 14 visits (by train) between 1936 and 1953, staying about 18 months in all.
On those stays, Huguette, known for being shy but smart, played piano and violin, collected dolls and painted, including many portraits and still lives now hanging under the high ceilings of the mansion’s art studio. Having been married and quickly divorced in her 20s, Huguette didn’t date much.
Anna, an accomplished musician, played the harp and sponsored a string quartet (whom she outfitted with Stradivarius instruments).
Dining room, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Portraits in the Music room of Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate include a piano-top photograph of heiress Huguette Clark. She is also shown in the oil painting in the background. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
But by 1953, Anna Clark’s health had become too delicate for the train ride west, and Huguette stayed east as well. After Anna Clark died in 1963, Huguette, now in her 50s, continued to stay away. Later, she said that Bellosguardo held so many reminders of her absent mother that it made her sad. But not sad enough to let it go.
Now without her sister, father, mother, partner or a job, Huguette kept more to herself. She took pleasure in commissioning dolls and dollhouses, sending gifts to artisans, employees and their children. She checked photographs to make sure that staffers were keeping Bellosguardo unchanged, from the doghouse (whose occupant had died years before) to the 1933 Cadillac limousine and Chrysler convertible in the garage.
Then, one day in 1991, after a long spell without medical care, she summoned a doctor to her 42-room New York apartment (which was really three apartments combined). He arrived to find a wraith in her 80s, down to 75 pounds, suffering from multiple cancers that had disfigured her face.
Yet she survived. Once Huguette had been transported to a New York hospital, she responded well to surgeries. Choosing to remain in the hospital and rejecting all suggestions that she move home, she regained her health and lasted until her death more than 20 years, shortly before her 105th birthday.
For all those years, she not only left Bellosguardo empty but also a Connecticut mansion and the Manhattan apartment. From her hospital room, she bought more dolls, commissioned dollhouses, bid at auctions and rebuffed hospital officials when they pressed too often for donations. Meanwhile, she traded calls and letters with friends and employees, showering gifts on her favorites.
Grounds, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Over those last 20 years, authors Dedman and Newell write, Huguette spent an estimated $30 million on gifts (including six homes) for her day nurse, Hadassah Peri, who routinely worked seven-day weeks.
In many respects, they wrote, the Clark family saga is a classic folk tale — “except told in reverse, with the bags full of gold arriving at the beginning, the handsome prince fleeing and the king’s daughter locking herself away in the tower.”
The fighting over her estate persisted for years (she left two wills). In time, the Bellosguardo Foundation was created to operate the Santa Barbara mansion as an arts center. To some degree, this is par for the course in the neighborhood. Casa del Herrero in nearby Montecito has been hosting visitors for years, as has Lotusland, renowned for its gardens. But years passed before the first Bellosguardo tours happened, a delay that sparked complaints from some in Santa Barbara.
Now, the foundation director and docents say, an expansion of the tours is at hand.
Foundation Executive Director Jeremy Lindaman estimated that 100 to 150 people take tours each week. Others visit as part of occasional special events, such as a flamenco dance presentation that took place on the grounds last month during Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta.
Bellosguardo tours
What: 90-minute tours led by a volunteer docent. Visitors must be at least 14, and no indoor photography is allowed.
When: Usually offered Wednesdays through Sundays, two or three per day.
Where: Bellosguardo, 1407 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara
Cost: $100
Info: For details and to sign up to be notified of tour openings, visit the Bellosguardo Foundation website
By late fall, Lindaman said, he’s hoping to add a second tour that covers the mansion’s more intimate quarters, including bedrooms and service areas. A coffee-table book is in the works, as well.
“Everything that was here when she died is still here,” Lindaman said.
But booking a tour is a two-step exercise. Instead of offering direct booking through the Bellosguardo website, the foundation asks would-be visitors to sign up for notification. Every two months, an email goes out and tour slots fill quickly.
Thanks in part to this process and the price, Bellosguardo remains a well-kept half-secret. For many in Santa Barbara, the family’s most visible legacy is not the mansion but the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge, a 42-area city park and lagoon just north of Bellosguardo, that Huguette Clark paid to create and maintain in her sister’s name.
Yet among those who get inside Bellosguardo’s gates, Huguette Clark and her family are still sparking speculation.
Walking the rooms, “You just feel that family,” said Penny Simmons. “Sad things happened around here.”
“I didn’t know she was such a fine artist,” Patti Gibbs said at the end of her tour.
“We think she lived the life she wanted to live,” said her docent guide, McClelland.
“She was not crazy,” said Peter Higgins of Oxnard. “She knew what she was doing right up until the end.”
Kylie Jenner
Cosmic Cleavage …
Flaunts Boobs While Pushing New Fragrance
Published
Kylie Jenner‘s full-bodied new fragrance is out … and, she’s using her bust to promote it — pushing up her cleavage for the ad.
The model posed in the sleeveless red leather top which perfectly matched the fragrance bottle she held against her head.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
The star’s looking away from camera … though we imagine if she could see fans looking at the pic, she might tell them her eyes were up about a foot or so!
She captioned the post by telling fans the new smell is called COSMIC INTENSE … a spin-off of her original “COSMIC” which feels “warmer, creamier, and even more addictive.”
KJ’s gotta promote the perfume now because she’s not going to have much time to work on her business in upcoming weeks … as we imagine she’ll attend every awards show with her man, Timothée Chalamet.
As you know … Chalamet got handsy with Jenner shortly after winning the Critics Choice Award for Best Actor — grabbing her backside while sitting in the audience. He’d just said he loved her in his acceptance speech as well.
Maybe Chalamet will grab a bit of her cosmic cleavage if he wins a Golden Globe this weekend!
A view of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which the current board is calling the Trump Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC, on Dec. 26, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
The Washington National Opera is leaving the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, its home since 1971.
Friday’s news, shared with NPR in a statement via email from the opera company, comes in response to new policies which the 70-year-old performing arts group said strain its financial model.
The Washington National Opera stressed the “amicability” of its decision to end its longtime residency at the Kennedy Center. But it said the center’s new business model, which requires productions to be fully-funded in advance, is incompatible with the usual mix of ticket sales, grants and donations that cannot all be secured ahead.
“Opera companies typically cover only 30-60% of costs through ticket sales, with the remainder from grants and donations that cannot be secured years ahead when productions must be planned,” the statement said.
The company added the model also does not accommodate its artistic mission, which aims to balance popular works such as West Side Story, slated for May 2026, with more obscure and experimental operas, such as the little-known Scott Joplin work, Treemonisha, scheduled for March. “Revenue from major productions traditionally subsidizes smaller, innovative works,” the statement said.
Artistic director Francesca Zambello, who has led the company for 14 seasons, shared her regrets in a statement with NPR, while also looking to the future.
“I am deeply saddened to leave the Kennedy Center,” Zambello said. “In the coming years, as we explore new venues and new ways of performing, Washington National Opera remains committed to its mission and artistic vision. Our repertory will continue to include diverse offerings, from monumental classics to more contemporary works, presented in bold visual productions with first-class musical values.”
In addition to a continued presence for now on the Kennedy Center website, the opera company launched its new independent website within a few hours of its announcement.
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the Washington National Opera due to a financially challenging relationship,” the Kennedy Center wrote in an email to NPR on Friday. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
On social media, Kennedy Center executive director Richard Grenell said it was the center’s decision to sever ties with the opera company — and not the other way around.
“The Trump Kennedy Center has made the decision to end the EXCLUSIVE partnership with the Washington Opera so that we can have the flexibility and funds to bring in operas from around the world and across the U.S.” Grenell said. “Having an EXCLUSIVE relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety.”
Grenell reposted his message on Saturday after he was alerted that his X.com account had been hacked and the original message had been removed.
President Donald Trump was named chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board in February 2025. His name was added to the Kennedy Center in December following a vote by the Trump-appointed members of its board. Since the power of the venue’s board to rename the center is currently in dispute, NPR continues to refer to the Kennedy Center using its legal name.
A string of exits
The Washington National Opera’s departure is the latest and perhaps most significant in a string of artist exits from the cultural institution since Trump took over the institution.
Backlash from ticket-buyers, slated performers, and certain board members—including Shonda Rhimes—was swift.
Artists are continuing to cancel performances. But one of the first to do so was a touring production of the musical Hamilton. In a statement on X in March 2025, producer Jeffrey Seller said he opposed the Trump administration’s ousting of many Democratic board members.
“The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national center represents,” wrote Seller.
Actress and writer Issa Rae followed suit with a post on Instagram, cancelling her sold-out March performance.
A slew of additional artists and performance companies canceled after the board’s vote to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Congress has not yet authorized the name change.
Grenell has responded to many cancellations on social media, condemning the artists. After Banjo player Béla Fleck canceled his performance because he said the center had become “political,” Grenell wrote on X, “You just made it political and caved to the woke mob who wants you to perform for only Lefties.
“This mob pressuring you will never be happy until you only play for Democrats. The Trump Kennedy Center believes all people are welcome—Democrats and Republicans and people uninterested in politics. We want performers who aren’t political—who simply love entertaining everyone regardless of who they voted for.”
Find a running list of these cancellations below.
Sonia De Los Santos
On Jan. 8, singer-songwriter Sonia De Los Santos announced on Instagram that she was canceling her upcoming February concert at the Kennedy Center. “As an artist,” wrote De Los Santos, “I treasure the freedom to create and share my music, and for many years I have used this privilege to uplift the stories of immigrants in this country.”
De Los Santos, who was nominated for a Latin Grammy for best children’s album in 2018, stated that “I do not feel that the current climate at this beloved venue represents a welcoming space for myself, my band, or our audience.”
Béla Fleck performs onstage during the 67th Annual Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony at Peacock Theater on Feb. 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.
Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Béla Fleck
Performing at the Kennedy Center “has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music,” wrote American banjo player Béla Fleck about his scheduled appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra in an official statement posted to Instagram on Jan. 7. “I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center,” he wrote. “I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art.”
The 18-time Grammy winner has performed at the Kennedy Center in the past.
Stephen Schwartz
The composer and lyricist for the beloved musicals Wicked, Godspell and Pippin was expected to host a gala fundraiser for the Washington National Opera in May 2026. On Jan. 2, Schwartz announced his withdrawal. According to NBC News, Schwartz reflected that the Kennedy Center was “founded to be a political home for free artistic expression for artists of all nationalities and ideologies.” Today, he said, making an appearance “has now become an ideological statement.”
Richard Grenell quickly responded to Schwartz’s withdrawal, calling it a “bogus” report in a statement posted on X and saying reporters were plagiarizing a “fake @RollingStone story.” Schwartz was “never signed,” Grenell wrote.
Reports from NBC and other outlets, including Variety, have refuted this claim, publishing screenshots showing that Schwartz was promoted on the Kennedy Center’s website prior to his cancellation.
Stephen Schwartz attends the 2025 Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Marriott Marquis Times Square on Jun. 12, 2025 in New York City.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame
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Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame
The Cookers
The seven-piece band of veteran jazz musicians announced shortly before Dec. 31 that they would not perform at the Kennedy Center for “A Jazz New Year’s Eve:”
“We know this news is disappointing,” reads the statement on their website. “We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it. Our hope is that this moment will leave space for reflection, not resentment.”
The statement went on to say, “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”
Chuck Redd
The American jazz drummer and longtime host of the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Jazz Jam chose to cancel his 2025 appearance when he “saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building,” according to a statement sent to the Associated Press.
On Dec. 27, the Kennedy Center announced its plan to file a $1 million lawsuit against Redd. “Any artist canceling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people,” said Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi.
In a letter shared with NPR, Richard Grenell condemned Redd: “Regrettably, your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances at our national cultural center.”
Doug Varone and Dancers
“The renaming for me has kind of pushed me off a cliff,” said choreographer Doug Varone on Dec. 31, when he spoke with NPR’s Morning Edition. Varone, who was set to showcase members of his Doug Varone and Dancers company at the Kennedy Center in April 2026, pulled the performance.
John F. Kennedy, for whom the Kennedy Center was established as a living memorial, “believed in the arts as kind of the beating heart of our nation,” said Varone.
“I believe that the level of artistry has dropped drastically since the administration change, and the employees that were responsible for the quality of the work at the center have all been let go.”
After canceling, the company started a crowdfunding campaign to help offset its financial loss. It raised over $42,000, exceeding its $40,000 goal.
Magpie
In a statement posted to Facebook on Jan. 5, Greg Artzner of the American folk duo Magpie announced the decision to pull their Feb. 28 concert, set to play on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage.
“There isn’t really anything defensible” about Trump, said the statement from Artzner and Magpie’s Terry Leonino. Although they had planned an evening of songs with messages of unity and hope, “We are personally and philosophically in agreement with the belief underlying the growing boycott,” they said. “The stand being taken by fellow artists we respect and admire has created a moral picket line. We stand with them in solidarity.”
An update on Jan. 9 said that Magpie would now be performing a longer version of that concert on Feb. 21 at Seekers Church in Washington, D.C., now called, “The Traveling John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restoration Roadshow.”
Kristy Lee
Folk singer Kristy Lee canceled her Jan. 14 Kennedy Center performance due to “recent efforts to impose political branding on the Center,” according to a statement posted on her website.
“Public arts spaces should be free from political influence,” Lee said in her statement. “I step back out of respect for artistic freedom and the Kennedy Center’s founding mission, not in opposition to its staff, artists, or audience.”
On Jan. 14, Lee plans to host a live-streamed concert instead, titled “Showing Up: From the Kennedy Center to the Couch.”
Low Cut Connie
Philadelphia rock and roll band Low Cut Connie pulled their concert, set for February 2025, “Upon learning that this institution that has run non-partisan for 54 years is now chaired by President Trump himself and his regime,” according to a statement posted on their Facebook page.
“Maybe my career will suffer from this decision,” wrote band frontman Adam Weiner, “but my soul will be the better for it.”
Rhiannon Giddens
In Feb. 2025, folk singer Rhiannon Giddens announced her departure from the Kennedy Center lineup in a social media statement. “I cannot in good conscience play at The Kennedy with the recent programming changes forced on the institution by this new board,” wrote Giddens.
Giddens transferred her May 11 concert, “Old-Time Revue,” to The Anthem concert hall, also in Washington, D.C.
Balún
The Puerto Rican band, based in Brooklyn in New York City, canceled their Kennedy Center performance, which had been set for Feb. 27, 2025.
According to a statement posted to Balún’s Instagram account, “recent events made it clear that the space no longer aligns with our values. Our safety, integrity, and commitment to justice come first.”
Issa Rae attends HBO’s final season premiere of “Insecure” at Kenneth Hahn Park on Oct. 21, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.
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Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Issa Rae
“Thank you so much for selling out the Kennedy Center for ‘An Evening With [Me],’” wrote Issa Rae, the acclaimed star and creator of HBO’s Insecure, on her Instagram stories page in Feb. 2025. “Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue.”
“Hamilton”
In March 2025, Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller announced on X that the Tony-award winning musical phenomenon would no longer run as scheduled at the Kennedy Center. According to the statement, the decision was made both for political and for business reasons. Not only was there “a new spirit of partisanship,” the statement read in part, but “it would be “financially and personally devastating to the employees of Hamilton if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or re-negotiated our engagement. The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted.”
The Kennedy Center was swift to respond to Hamilton‘s cancellation. On X in a now-deleted post, Richard Grenell accused Hamilton star and creator Lin Manuel-Miranda of being “intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically,” and stated that the decision was “a publicity stunt that will backfire.”
In the months since the show’s cancellation at the Center, Hamilton has continued to sell out theaters on Broadway and in venues nationwide who host its North American touring company.
U.S. Marine Band
The U.S. Marine Band announced in February 2025 that the Marine Band would not perform in the Equity Arc Wind Symphony event, a collaboration between Marine Band members and selected high school musicians.
The U.S. Marine Band, known also as “The President’s Own” was founded by an Act of Congress in 1798, making it the country’s oldest professional music organization.
Composer Kevin Charoensri, whose music had been scheduled to be performed by the band at the event, stated in a Facebook post that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) orders resulted in the cancellation of the Equity Arc concert:
“It has come to my attention that the program, one based on equity and diversity of voices, is no longer supported at the federal level under this administration,” Charoensri wrote. “It was for this reason that the program and performance were canceled.”
The U.S. Marine marching band performs in the 120th Tournament of Roses Parade January 1, 2009 in Pasadena, California.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
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Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story.
Happy new year! I’m Jaclyn Cosgrove, an outdoors reporter at the L.A. Times.
The deluge of rain and snow has paused, and the sun is out in Los Angeles. It’s a beautiful time for a winter hike in L.A. County.
I’d love for you to join me and Times wellness writer Deborah Vankin, alongside our friends at Zócalo Public Square, at 9 a.m. Jan. 31 as we hike through Placerita Canyon Natural Area, an east-west canyon east of Santa Clarita with lush oak woodland, chaparral and a seasonal creek.
We will start our trek with a gentle stroll to the Oak of the Golden Dream, where the first authenticated gold discovery by colonizers took place in California in 1842.
Then Vankin and I will lead 40 hikers along Canyon Trail, which will be 3.6 miles round trip. The hike includes an area where natural “white oil” bubbles up from the earth, which locals reportedly used to collect to fill their Ford Model T fuel tanks.
Parking is free and easy. We will meet in front of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center (19152 Placerita Canyon Road in Newhall).
We will have water bottles and snacks for attendees, but you’re also welcome to bring your own. You must be 18 or older and will be required to sign a waiver prior to attending. (Please consider arriving 15 minutes early to leave time for waiver signing.)
Grab a spot on Tixr.
Note: The hike will be rescheduled if rain is in the forecast.
A winter hike with the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square
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