Montecito Magazine Spring 2019

26 Montecito Magazine Spring–Summer 2019 second marriage, in 1962 to Gerald Lanning, pro- duced two more children, Bryan and Marisa, and lasted until Gerry’s death in 1995. Meanwhile, at El Mirador, Lolita finally built the big house she had always wanted, although it was neither as big nor as grand as the one Arthur Heun had envisioned for the property almost half a cen- tury earlier. Lolita and Tita had reconciled by this point, so when Lolita moved into the new house in 1966, Tita and her family became part-time resi- dents of the old Main House. Th y became full- time residents in 1976 when Lolita died, and Tita and her brother divided the estate between them. (Three years later they sold Lolita’s 1966 house to Princess Shams Pahlavi, sister of the recently deposed Shah of Iran.) John kept the Daisy Cottage but sold off the rest of his share of El Mirador, including the Italian Garden with its steps leading up to the site of that never-built mansion designed by Arthur Heun. “We sold the formal gardens to [Montecito designer/builder] Bobby Webb,” John says. “He sold it to Ivan Reitman.” Hollywood producer-director Reitman, of Ani- mal House and Ghostbusters fame, built a mansion Painting © Meredith Brooks Abbott Painting © Meredith Brooks Abbott

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