You can’t tell that I’m an heiress.  Not really, not any more.  You could once.  We’re old money – not Long Island Gold Coast old money – but there was once enough dust on the coffers to make you sneeze comfortably.  I have a pedigree that has, more than once, made someone green with envy.  I can trace my ancestors back from the Mayflower to Charlemagne and beyond. I am pretty sure I am entitled to wear the royal tiara in at least one or more, small and long forgotten, duchy. While my grandfather, the head of a motion picture studio and theme park empire, was alive I actually qualified as Hollywood royalty.  I used to be listed in the Southwest Blue Book, the social register for Southern California. Once we lived in a nice house in an affluent neighborhood overlooking the golf course of a prestigious country club.  Our neighbors were debutantes, captains of industry and Hollywood’s elite.

Nothing dramatic happened, and in fact, we’re not yet down and out.  No need to take up a collection. My mother’s generation is doing quite well.  They are all, in essence, trust fund baby boomers.  They still get the monthly checks from the oil rights we own, dividends from investment properties, and a hefty monthly rental income from our beachfront home in Malibu.  The summer before I got married we rented the place out to David Hasselhoff and he pretty much paid for my wedding.  However, despite trickle-down economics and maternal generosity, I’m now living in a bungalow in the barrio, have traded in my Armani for Target and my Land Rover for a Honda with 140,000 miles on it.  No, I’m not throwing a pity party, this is really just back-story for your benefit.

The real “clout” in my family comes from my maternal grandmother’s side of the family.  In the 1930’s the gossip columns frequently included tidbits about my grandmother.   They reported where she went, what she wore, and who she danced with.  She was no Paris Hilton (thank God!) but she got pretty decent coverage. She was the daughter of a respected oil man and the granddaughter of the 14^th president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Her grandparents had a mansion in Santa Barbara where the guest book was signed by at least one former president and a variety of dignitaries who traveled on his railroad.  In other words, my grandmother was born a class act.  She didn’t flaunt her heritage and was, in fact, more down to earth than many of her peers.  She preferred that my grandfather buy her pristine pieces of California’s landscape than diamond necklaces, and at the end of her life only ever wore jeans, which she owned in every color of the rainbow.

Having lived with my grandparents for much of my life, I grew up in a house chocked full of history and antiques.  Our floors were covered in antique Persian rugs and our walls adorned with 19^th and 18^th century artworks.  Japanese block prints by Hiroshige, oils by Montague Dawson and California artist (and distant relation) Charles Rollo Peters.  Portraits of long dead ancestors presided over all formal family dinners, and we ate off antique fine china with highly polished sterling silver cutlery.  The cupboards in our kitchen were filled to the brim with copious amounts of china, crystal and my great grandmother’s pressed glass collection. In fact we had enough inventory for me to host my grandmother’s 80^th birthday luncheon for 50 with plenty left to spare.  When my grandmother passed away in 2002 a significant amount of the booty wound up in my home and my garage currently resembles the storeroom at Gearys.  This is something we try not to advertise to our crack dealing gang banger neighbors. They are suspicious enough of the gringo couple with the Smart Car. But I digress, this story is not, after all about me. I'm here to talk about my mother.

 My mother was raised in the same house that I described above and her life was far more heiress-eque than mine.  When she was young they traveled through Europe for months at a time and met all kinds of chic people and members of the international elite.  Heck, Salvador Dali made a pass at my aunt at a party.  When my mother was engaged to my father they went to Paris to go shopping for her trousseau. We shopped for mine at Walmart.

 For most of both of her disastrous marriages (all proper heiresses marry the wrong sort of man), our family resided in single family homes.  I mean real free-standing structures.  In my youth it was a solid Spanish style 5 bedroom villa, designed to withstand California earthquakes.  When I was a teen it was my family’s Cliff May ranch house in Malibu.  Later it was back to my grandparent’s home.  Full circle.

After my grandmother's death the family homestead was sold to a developer who turned it into a Cape Cod McMansion and we all went our separate ways.  I went to the barrio, and my mother went back to Malibu.  Not to the family home on the beach but rather mom bought herself a little manufactured place of her own.

 The park where my mother resides is not your average trailer park, excuse me, mobile home park. Forget the Chevy's up on blocks parked alongside rusted out Camaros.  Nearly every driveway sports a German import or an eco-terrorizing SUV (except my mother and sister's matching Honda hybrids.) In the last few years the price of ownership of one of these little portable castles has run in the high six figures, there's even one on the market right now for $1.7 million!

A few years back my sister Helen and her family moved in with my mother.  To make room for everyone my mother has converted her double-wide into a double-and-a-half-wide by adding on an in-law suite where she will reside.  On the blue-prints it looks like a quaint little studio with a walk-in closet and a kitchenette.  In real-life, well, frankly words fail.

Helen trying to hide

Antique stained glass windows from my great grandmother's house

Would you believe that this mirror used to hang in the White House?

Like I said you can't tell that I'm an heiress. Not really, not any more.