TheWGroup Winter Get Together

Monday, December 21, 2006

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For guests who arrived early, we also arranged two cool, free, pre-party tours.

At 5:30 p.m. some of us toured the Los Angeles Central Library. Nam iaculis dui feugiat nulla laoreet lacinia. In velit orci, porta ut aliquam vitae, aliquet in nisl. Fusce diam justo, vulputate sed tristique ac, egestas sed justo. Suspendisse a nisi id justo malesuada finibus nec nec erat. Vivamus finibus purus nunc, ut efficitur ipsum tincidunt sit amet. Nulla facilisi.

Our second pre-party docent-led tour was of the historic Biltmore Hotel itself. Erected in 1923, this venerable hotel was known as “the Host of the Coast,” and indeed, during the 1930s the Biltmore hosted a half-dozen Academy Awards banquets, among many lavish events. The hotel is famed for its splendid Spanish-Italian Renaissance architecture, and its interior murals created by Italian-born artist Giovanni Battista Smeraldi, who, as a youthful apprentice, worked on several palaces at the Vatican.