Reagans’ ‘Welcome Home’ Party to Be $1-Million Benefit

First is always best.

So, because the First Couple is returning to Los Angeles, and this is the first “welcome home” party--and it promises to raise $1 million for the Nancy Reagan Drug Abuse Center--it’s naturally seen as a “best ticket.”

Barron Hilton is doing his best, hosting the Jan. 4 event at the Beverly Hilton--and quite a generous host too. The Hilton Hotels are underwriting the entire dinner, with the Conrad Hilton Foundation “picking up the difference” so that the $1 million is guaranteed.

The big draw is that this black-tie gala is the only “welcome home” party set before the Reagans actually get here--post-election, but while he is still the President. It’s quite a social coup.

In an interview, Hilton was clear that “the President leaves the White House only one time to come back to California,” and that would be the Christmas holidays. (That’s always been the time the Reagans and the First Friends party at Walter and Leonore Annenberg’s desert estate for New Year’s Eve.)

Their return may not produce the social upheaval once imagined, especially because some friends say a lot of the socializing and entertaining will be within that special circle of intimates. But certainly, through the spring and summer, top charities will be vying to honor the Reagans, to have them present at big parties, to put them and thus the charity in a stronger spotlight.

Close friends, or those who want to be close, will get a chance at the Jan. 4 benefit to be members of the President’s Circle--paying $25,000 for a table, instead of the asked-for, and certainly not meager, $10,000. Even before the invites went out, Hilton had received President Circle OKs from Marvin and Barbara Davis, Carl and Margaret Karcher, Gerald and Virginia Oppenheimer, Jerry and Margie Perenchio, Lod and Carole Cook, and Henry and Caroline Singleton. They, and other $25,000-table buyers like them, will get to mingle at a special private reception with the Reagans.

A longtime Reagan buddy, Merv Griffin has signed on to line up the entertainment, which already includes Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles. (More than $3 million has been raised already for the $10 million needed for the L.A. area drug-rehab facility operated by Phoenix House, but nothing comes close to the $1-million contribution made possible through Hilton.)

HERE’S ADOLFO--The well-known designer (Nancy Reagan and the First Friends wear him all the time) is chairing the Thursday Hispanic Designers Gala Fashion Show and Benefit at the Beverly Hilton. The designs to be shown as part of the black-tie event come from a list of designers including Luiz Archer, Roberto Robledo and Carlota Alfara. Co-chairing the event are City Councilman Richard Alatorre and KMEX-TV General Manager Danny Villanueva. Hispanic Designers Inc. promotes and encourages young Hispanic designers.

HERE’S MORE BRAND NAMES--(And a reminder that this is one party you can’t buy your way into.) That’s the opening of the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum Nov. 21 (the Autry Foundation’s $54 million gift to the City of Los Angeles). Among bright lights from the business and political world (including Mayor Tom and Ethel Bradley) will be stars of the West, like Guy Madison, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and Clayton (the Lone Ranger) Moore, and social types like Barbara and Marvin Davis, Tim and Nancy Vreeland, and Bill and Keith Kieschnick.

HERE’S GOOD FRIENDS--That’s the Friends of the L.A. Free Clinic, who will honor Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss of A & M Records on Dec. 9. It’s quite an honor--even though it comes in the shape of a roast and those who attended last year’s “tribute” to Bernie Brillstein remember the laughs as fast and furious. Mimi West and Ellen Hoberman are the event co-chairs, and are delighted over the “coup,” since Alpert and Moss are usually very private people. And the honored two, West pointed out, were real “Friends” of the L.A. Free Clinic as far back as 1972, when a $10,000 grant from A & M literally kept the clinic’s doors from closing. The party, by the way, is at the Beverly Hilton.