“It’s really about coming together at the table and exchanging culture through food,” says Anne Rowe, director of Heritage at Sunnylands, the former Rancho Mirage estate of Walter and Leonore Annenberg. “The Annenbergs gathered people, disparate people, across the aisle, around their tables and broke bread together. They set beautiful tables. They loved art, and they applied their love of art and artistry to how they set their tables. It’s setting the table for diplomacy.”

“A Place at the Table: Dining at Sunnylands” is an exhibition that showcases the history and pageantry through the display of material aspects such as the china, flatware, and linens, but also through a carefully curated photo archive that vividly illustrates how the Annenbergs brought together some of the most extraordinary people of their time.

The couple were both ambassadors — he was ambassador to the Court of St. James from 1969 to 1974 while she was Chief of Protocol during the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1982 — and intuitively understood that cultural barriers tend to evaporate and civil discourse made possible somewhere between soup and dessert.

Walter Annenberg’s 75th birthday party. Annenberg meals always took place on round or oval tables to facilitate conversation. | Courtesy Photo

As Rowe writes in the detailed and beautifully photographed catalog that accompanies the exhibition, “Dining with others is the beating heart of every culture. The primal power of sharing culture through food (what Secretary of State Hilary Clinton called the oldest diplomatic tool) can accelerate meaningful connections. The Annenbergs recognized this, and the tradition of cultural exchange through food continues at our retreats today.” One Queen of England, a couple of English princes (one of who is now king), U.S. Secretaries of State, countless ambassadors, actors and entertainers (from Frank Sinatra to Bob Hope to Kirk Douglas), CEOs, fashion designers, artists, writers, and seven U.S. presidents (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Rochard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush senior and junior). 

The tradition continued after the Annenbergs passed away. Sunnylands was left to the Annenberg Foundation with the Sunnylands Center and Gardens open to the public and the couple’s former home now a private, high-level retreat and conference center. President Barack Obama met there with Chinese Premiere Xi Jinping for their famous “shirtsleeves summit” in 2013. The idea was to meet informally and forge a personal relationship. In fact, the precedent for such a meeting was created by President George H.W. Bush. He had already accepted an invitation to stay with the Annenbergs in 1990 and took the opportunity to invite Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu to join him at Sunnylands for golf, relaxation, and a state dinner.

As an interesting side note to the Obama-Xi meeting, the dinner menu consisted of a starter dish of tamales, a main course of American beef, and California cherry pie — all intended to represent a range of American cuisine. Celebrity chef Bobby Flay prepared the meal. Rowe says that she noticed in a photograph that Flay was wearing a small American flag emblem on his chef’s tunic. She later learned that it was an innovation by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who recognized that chefs who cooked state dinners were, in fact, cultural ambassadors and as such deserved official status in the diplomatic corps. The Annenbergs would have heartily approved.

At first glance, Walter and Leonore were unlikely candidates to become the most famous host and hostess of their time.

Annenberg’s father published The Daily Racing Form, while Leonore’s father, Harry Cohn, founded Columbia Pictures. However, Walter Annenberg transformed his father’s struggling publishing company into a media powerhouse when he created TV Guide in 1952 and followed it with Seventeen Magazine. He turned The Philadelphia Inquirer into one of the most influential newspapers in America. At one time, TV Guide was turning profits ranging from $600,000 to $1 million per week. He sold his media empire to Rupert Murdoch in 1988 for $3 billion, saying that he wanted to devote his life to philanthropy.

According to Rowe, the Annenbergs did not create Sunnylands to gather world leaders to their dinner table. It happened more organically.

“Nothing in the founding documents in the building of the residence suggests they were building it as a public space. It was their audacious, modern architectural arrival in the desert (A. Quincy Jones was the architect and designer Billy Haines designed 200 pieces of furniture for the residence). They designed the home of their dreams. They opened the doors in 1966 and one of the first visitors was their neighbor, President Eisenhower. And then the list started growing of who (came to visit). And I think they saw the intersections of people gathered around their tables and they saw good conversations happen.”

Rowe says that based on interviews Annenberg gave about 10 years after Sunnylands was completed (and two years after his ambassadorship), “he does start to think about a public role for the estate … it’s adding up to quite an important American home … if not the most interesting, given the breadth of people who came here. They were both historians … and they were both well aware of important homes.”

It wasn’t all black ties, silk gowns, and receiving lines. Though they were certainly formed in many ways by a high level of society, the Annenbergs liked to have fun. Though they were both passionate art collectors (his bequest to the New York Met of $1 billion in art gives some idea of his acquisitions), they were equally passionate about golf and got out almost every day to play on their private nine-hole course. Though Leonore Annenberg often planned out full morning to midnight itineraries for her guests, dinner parties often adjourned to watch a movie or back to the living room for music and dancing.

Still, it’s difficult not to be intimidated by Flora Danica China service, the Georg Jensen acorn flatware, Léron linens, and Baccarat crystal that weighted down the Annenberg tables (All of which were either round or oval to facilitate conversation).

The Flora Danica is especially noteworthy. Denmark’s King Charles VII commissioned the original pattern for Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, as an apology for not coming to their aid in 1790 in their war with Sweden. Johann Bayer of the Royal Danish Porcelain Manufactory employed a small army of artists who hand-painted individual flora and fauna native to Denmark on each piece. The rims of the dishes are trimmed with 24-karat gold. According to the exhibition catalog, “Bayer and his team completed a dinner service of 100 place settings comprised of 1,802 different hand-molded and hand-painted porcelain pieces.” The Annenbergs acquired their first pieces for Winfield House, the ambassador’s residence in England. Eventually, the collection grew to 427 pieces. During a visit by Queen Elizabeth to Sunnylands, HRH remarked to Walter Annenberg that they had the same bone china, “except,” she reportedly said, “you have more of it.”

One of the most eye-catching pieces of the collection is giant Boehm ceramic roses that were named after Leonore. The individual petals are so thin and delicate that they’re almost translucent. One touch and they’d disintegrate. Rowe says that in addition to the Annenbergs’ insistence on round or oval tables, they wanted nothing on their tables that might impede conversation, such as a vase of flowers. So, in addition to small flower or succulent arrangements, the Leonore roses were placed around the table. It would certainly make one think twice before asking someone across the table to pass the butter dish.

According to Rowe, Leonore would gather her house manager and his staff together in the morning to go over the details of that night’s dinner. Nearly every night of the Annenberg’s time at Sunnylands was booked during the season. Leonore kept meticulous records of seating charts; the placement of guests was extraordinarily important. Couples were split apart and often placed at different tables, and careful consideration of personality, politics and interests had to be weighed before someone was assigned a place at the table. After deciding on the China, flatware, glassware, linens and the menu, Leonore left it for her well-trained staff to execute. Rowe doesn’t think she involved herself until the staff finished with their preparations, “and then she probably came and looked at the table and maybe tweaked something here and there.”

One of the little tweaks that Leonore was famous for was the inexpensive little votive candles in glass cups that you can still find at Target for a couple of bucks. According to Rowe, she often placed them near mirrors so the light would be reflected “and used the rose-colored candles because they gave off the most flattering light.”

That is diplomacy.