Cocktails on the Coast

Dean and Susie Spanos' La Jolla home provides the perfect setting for parties

By MARIA C. HUNT

MOST HOSTESSES WOULD BE nervous at the prospect of entertaining Preston Bailey, the country’s foremost floral and event designer, who traverses the globe planning parties for the rich and royal. But not Susie Spanos. When the wife of San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos convinced Bailey to speak at a benefit for the Village Garden Club of La Jolla, she immediately opened her posh La Jolla home for that intimate cocktail party.

“Now that I’ve met him, I see him on TV all the time,” Spanos says. “It never occurred to me that I was having a party for the premier event planner in the country.”

Entertaining comes naturally to Spanos, who for years has been an active member of the community as San Diego’s first lady of football. Nestled in the hills overlooking the ocean, the home she shares with Dean is expansive and blessed with many areas ideal for throwing parties for close friends or for the couple’s many charitable interests.

After chairing Art Alive one year for the San Diego Museum of Art, Spanos decided to take her love of nature one step further by joining the Village Garden Club of La Jolla. Founded in 1974, the club works to preserve the county’s natural habitats, fund school garden projects and beautify the city. As with her other charitable involvements, it’s a role she puts her heart into.

“The biggest coup was getting the city to name the jacaranda tree the official tree of the city of San Diego,” Spanos says of the club’s achievements. Today, the group continues to plant the lavender jacaranda trees that line many of San Diego’s thoroughfares.

Spanos also let nature be her guide as she and her interior designer, the late Arthur Porras, planned the décor for the house she and Dean purchased in 1997. Designed by architect Bill Hayer, the home embraces its location above the Pacific. A vivid swath of blue ocean vista greets visitors as soon as they step through the modern blond-wood pivot door.

The contemporary interiors are tone-on-tone shades of bone, tan, oatmeal and taupe — a subtle backdrop for the ever-changing shades of blue. The living room holds a telescope for viewing the stars, surrounded by inviting custom sofas and armchairs. Angels are a motif throughout: A bronze cherub pauses by the door; a 16th-century carved wooden angel from an Irish monastery hangs near the home office.

“We don’t compete with nature; we com plement nature,” Spanos says. “There’s nothing jarring about our house. Everything is in harmony, and it’s a great place to entertain.”

The couple uses the ocean-view front deck for cocktails nearly year-round. But Spanos’ favorite place for parties is an inner courtyard with a swimming pool lined by white azaleas, camellias and ivy.

“We can tent it and have a hundred people at an indoor party,” she says. “We cover the pool and make that a dance floor.” For New Year’s Eve 2007, they covered the atrium and transformed it into a James Bond–style casino that sparkled with diamonds, martinis and dancing.

For the Bailey party, Robin Dietsch of Red Floral Designs created elegant displays of white roses, calla lilies and tulips accented by green cymbidium orchids. Giuseppe Ciuffa of Giuseppe Fine Catering crafted a menu of breezy but upscale California cuisine including spiny-lobster BLTs, slender as paragus bundles wrapped in cured bresaola, and tiny fish tacos made to order with local sea bass. Champagne flowed, solo and in a custom-designed cocktail called Perfect Beauty that features fresh strawberry juice and rose geranium syrup, topped with edible flower petals. (Recipes can be found here.)

Spanos says throwing a good party is simple if you invite diverse and interesting people and just imagine what you would have fun doing. In this case, guests included event planner Anseth Richards, Garden Club grand dame Adrienne Green and Diane McIntosh, a singer who flew from Atlanta to meet Bailey.

“I think my favorite moment is when I see everyone having a good time, engaged and talking and enjoying themselves,” Spanos says. “Then I feel good.”

Apparently her guest of honor was impressed with an event he had no part in planning. “Preston was really happy,” she says. “I got a thank-you note from him. It’s a gesture that shows a lot of class.”