Carnegie Hall Interior to Be Restored

Carnegie Hall--commissioned by industrialist Andrew Carnegie as a temple of culture almost a century ago--is about to be restored on the inside.

The facade of the famous, New York music hall got a face lift last year, and now, plans are being made to work on the interior this summer.

“We were just retained with James Stewart Polshek & Partners of New York to do the redecoration and restoration of the lobby and 2,600-seat auditorium,” Dawn Heinsbergen of the 63-year-old Los Angeles firm A. T. Heinsbergen & Co. said. “Joseph L. Fleischer (of the New York firm) is the partner in charge.”

Known originally as A. B. Heinsbergen & Co., the Los Angeles company designed the interiors of many fine old theaters and other buildings across the nation and in Canada and Mexico, and it has been restoring some of these, re-creating the ornately painted, often Art Deco-like ceilings and wall decorations. In Los Angeles, it has been working on the interior of the Wiltern Theater, which it first designed in 1931. After being closed for five years, the renovated Wiltern is due to re-open in May.

Carnegie Hall will not be closed for restoration, said Heinsbergen, because the work will be done over two summers, when the place is closed anyway.

“Our first assignment is to get control of the budget and determine how to break down the costs,” she explained. “We’ll probably have the plain painting done by a local contractor so we can get a low bid, and then we will teach them how to do the glazing, and we will do the decorative painting.”

Carnegie Hall took seven years to build, but the interior is what Heinsbergen describes as “quite plain.” “There isn’t much there (in the way of decorative painting),” she said, “but acoustically, it is probably the best in the country.”

Good news for Hong Kong! At least one wealthy fellow who wants to remain anonymous has changed his mind about fleeing the colony when Britain returns it to China in 1997.

At least, that’s the reason he gave for wanting to sell a vacant, Beverly Hills site he bought about four years ago for a massive home he had planned to build.

As Sherwin Swartz, who has the $4.95-million listing with Jack Hupp & Associates Realtors of Beverly Hills, explained it: “He was going to make his home here. He was even going to get U. S. citizenship, because he thought he would have to move when China takes over, but he’s not alarmed anymore.”

The 2.2-acre Beverly Hills property was Sam Goldwyn’s croquet court before it was split from the late movie giant’s estate behind the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sam Goldwyn Jr. now owns what is left of his father’s estate--the house and about five acres, worth “in the neighborhood of $10 million,” by Swartz’s estimate. The croquet-court site is also adjacent to the former home of actress Marion Davies, who died in 1961. Her home is now owned by financier Leonard Ross.

Some San Diego architects have been busy designing a two-story mansion in Singapore with a piano room large enough for a chamber orchestra.

Ground breaking is planned in June on the $2-million, 6,400-square-foot house, designed by Pacific Associates Planners Architects for a young Indonesian couple with business interests--primarily real estate development--in the United States and abroad. “They develop housing but not on a great scale,” Richard Dalrymple, principal of the architectural firm, said, “and most of their business is overseas.”

Although the couple has two children, their life style is what Dalrymple calls “formal with frequent entertaining.” The dining room in their new Singapore house will be a distance away from the living room “to allow for anticipation and to reinforce the special experience of dining,” he said.

Last year, his firm received an American Institute of Architects citation of recognition for design of the residence, which is pavilion-like with a surrounding, black granite-lined pool intended, he explained, “to cool the house walls and create shimmering light under extensive overhangs.” The house is expected to be completed in about 18 months.

All you need is a toothbrush and some deep pockets to move into one of S&S; Construction Co.’s new houses in Rancho Palos Verdes.

There are sheets on the beds, towels in the bathrooms and even champagne glasses in the cupboard.

This isn’t unusual in a resort area, but for a primary residence in the luxury home market? It’s being called “revolutionary.”

Known as Rancho Palos Verdes Estates, the three- and four-bedroom, 1,274- to 4,067-square-foot homes, on Paseo de Pino, off Crest Road, are priced from $850,000 to $995,000.