7/17/10 - Chapel Hill, Shandon CA

Tonight's concert was the Best of the Baroque with the Festival Chamber Orchestra at Chapel Hill. We didn't think anything could top the Hearst Castle but we were terribly wrong. What a special place this is. The history of it will be at the end of the post.

This shot was taken from the parking lot and does not do justice to the structure. It was a very steep long walk so we opted for the shuttle which turned out to be a very good idea.

The program was Handel's Concerto Grosso in F major, Bach's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Corelli'a Concerto Grosso in G minor "Chirstmas Concerto" and Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in B minor. It was EXCELLENT!






A view of the vineyards and glowing hillsides.












I meant to include another photograph but erroneously selected this one. It is taking from the chapel looking down the path between the vineyards. I hope you enjoy it.
















A large portion of the audience who sat outside on the piazza. It was amazing.











The chapel's interior with the chamber orchestra seated in the nave.

Now for your history lesson.

On a spring day in 1988, William P. Clark--known by friends and associates as "The Judge"--taxied into position on the dirt landing strip of his thousand-acre ranch near Paso Robles, the heart of California's Central Coast wine country. At age fifty-six, he was substantially finished with government service and looking forward to life at the ranch, working cattle, planting olive trees, and developing a vineyard. Both orchard and vineyard would complement a Spanish mission-style chapel--at this point no more than a dream, yet to be designed. Judge Clark, whose request to be called Bill goes mostly unheeded, had left the Reagan administration three years earlier.

He had served Ronald Reagan for more than twenty years, beginning when Reagan ran for governor of California. During his two years as Reagan's national security advisor, Clark was--next to the President--probably the most powerful man in America, and thus among the most powerful men in the world. Though no longer a regular presence at Reagan's side, Clark continued to serve his country from the background and to advance causes he had been unable to address during his public life.

On this day, as he prepared his tandem-seat Super Cub for takeoff, his public career was mostly behind him. The night before, Clark had returned from a trip to Europe. He felt jet-lagged, not especially sharp, but his desk at the office in town was piled high with work.

Early into takeoff, the plane got caught in a crosswind. "I knew right away that I was in trouble", says Clark. "I lost control." At about sixty miles per hour, the plane veered into a supply building to the right of the runway, missing the above-ground fuel tanks outside the building. Clark slumped unconscious in a mangled mess of smoking metal. Ribs broken, shoulder separated, skull fractured, and soaked in blood and fuel, he was alive but hardly out of danger. The engine, simmering hot, was pushed back against his legs, while fuel from the fractured wing tank sprayed onto the unconscious pilot. For some reason, the plane failed to burst into flames. "It should have lit up", Clark says, pausing. "Statistically, it should have lit up--but it didn't."

A briefcase on the seat next to Clark contained a Dictaphone somehow activated in the course of the crash. The audiotape still survives; Clark and his sons have listened to it, but wife Joan refuses. On the recording, listeners can hear the unconscious Clark groaning and calling for help. Clark's only coherent plea, "God, please help me!" is followed by the sound of ripping metal.

Jésus Muñoz, longtime ranch hand and friend, had happened upon the crash and yanked the door from its hinges. Clark's feet were entangled in the two rudder panels, jammed beneath the engine. As Muñoz struggled to pull Clark free, fuel spilled over both men. Finally, pulling with all of his strength, Muñoz tugged Clark from the wreckage.

Clark remained unconscious for an hour-and-a-half before waking in the intensive care unit at a hospital forty-five minutes from the scene. While his sons watched, he cautiously moved his legs and feet, rotated his fingers and arms, and winced at the sharp pain in his shoulder and head. He offered thanks to God that he had survived, that he had been alone on the flight, and then he made a decision: He would no longer delay building the chapel.

That brush with death, said Clark, was "a little wake-up call in my life.... God's wake-up call." [1] "Look," he says, "I'm no Saint Paul, but the incident helped me decide to go ahead and build the chapel." Within a few years, the chapel, financed solely by Clark, was completed on top of a grassy hill at the entrance to his ranch. Incorporating a surplus ceiling and stone remnants from the William Randolph Hearst collection at nearby San Simeon and containing sacred art collected by Bill and Joan from fourteenth- to seventeenth-century European monasteries, the chapel hosts a number of religious services and cultural events throughout the year.

"Chapel Hill", as it is known locally, is open to those of all faiths and is the pride of the local community, to which Clark has donated it.