At Villa Montalvo the ceremony and the party are a long brick path apart, so I build two sound setups and plan the walk between them. I DJ and MC private events and weddings here, and I play company dinners, fundraisers and milestone parties too, from the first song to the last one you chose.
Villa Montalvo is a Mediterranean Revival house in the Saratoga foothills, built between 1912 and 1914 as the country home of a San Francisco mayor who became a U.S. senator. He left the estate for the development of art, literature, music and architecture, and a nonprofit runs it today. The official name is Montalvo Arts Center. Most people still call it Villa Montalvo.
The house sits against a wooded slope on about 175 acres in Santa Clara County, with formal gardens, an arboretum and trails through the redwoods. The gardens were laid out with advice from the designer of Golden Gate Park. Marble statues, iron gates, cypress trees, wisteria over the pergolas.
For an event, all of that means distance. The ceremony gardens, the veranda and the rooms inside are separate places, and your guests walk between them. The usual order is a garden ceremony, cocktails in the Spanish Courtyard, dinner on the veranda and dancing in the Main Hall. Outdoors the sound has nothing to bounce off. Indoors it has hardwood floors and paneled walls, and it bounces off everything. I plan for both.
An open-air, white-columned pavilion at the end of a wide brick path in the Italianate Garden, with marble statues, iron gates and cypress trees. It sits at the bottom of the Great Lawn, the opposite end from the Villa, so the walk back up to the house is part of the plan. Nothing out here reflects sound, so the speaker gets aimed at the guests and the vows go through a wireless mic.
A classically styled garden with statuary, directly behind the Villa on the far side of the Spanish Courtyard, and the ceremony garden for larger groups. It's a shorter walk to dinner than from the Love Temple. I ask which garden you've reserved before I plan a single cue, because it changes where the gear goes and how long the move takes.
The Main Hall, Library, Dining Room and Solarium, together on the first floor: hardwood floors, carved and paneled walls, original light fixtures, French doors to the outside. Dancing usually goes in the Main Hall, the high, beamed room in my photos, with its French doors open so the music carries to guests in the courtyard and on the veranda. Speakers go where the dance floor gets the energy and the tables can still talk.
The veranda wraps the house and looks over the Great Lawn, and in the warmer months it's where dinner usually goes. In my photos from here, dinner is outside the villa and the welcome goes out on a wireless mic. Open air, so a speaker near the tables does the work that walls do indoors.
The courtyard directly behind the Villa, between the house and the Oval Garden, and the usual spot for an open-air cocktail hour. Music out here stays under the conversation, and I clear any speaker with Montalvo first. It can run as an additional sound zone so the main rig stays put while your guests are arriving.
On an estate this spread out, the work is done before anyone arrives.
The Love Temple or the Oval Garden gets its own small setup, and it's separate from everything else. The main rig is already built and tested where the party happens, so nobody stands around waiting while I carry gear up a brick path.
Hardwood floors, paneled walls and French doors make the villa's rooms bright to the ear. I set levels for that. Dinner and cocktail music sits where people can talk over it, then I build it as the plates clear and the floor opens.
This is a historic house with gardens reached on foot, so the carry gets planned. Montalvo has four numbered parking lots, and Lot 2 is the one right beside the Villa, at the top of the Great Lawn. The Love Temple is the length of that lawn away. I confirm with Montalvo which lot I unload from and the route to each spot, stairs included. Then I arrive early, with backup equipment, and have it all running before your first guest.
I plan the timeline to the end time you choose, with the walk from the garden to the house counted in. Music at Montalvo runs until 10 p.m. at the latest, the same hour Saratoga's noise code counts as the start of night, and I plan inside that limit. Entrances and toasts land early, dinner breathes, and the dance floor in the Main Hall gets its full stretch.
The cypress-lined rose garden path at Villa Montalvo
My rig and speaker set up in the paneled hall
Ceremony at the garden pavilion, set up with sound
The walk down the aisle path toward the pavilion
The processional comes down the garden path
The pavilion where ceremonies are held, set for guests
The cypress allee leading to the ceremony pavilion
The iron garden gate at the start of the path
First dance in the hall, the whole room watching
The couple in the thick of their own dance floor
Late in the night, the circle opens up
The welcome on the wireless microphone at dinner
Dancing under pink uplighting, seen through the French doors
Someone has to know when the ceremony or the program starts, who has the microphone for the welcome, when your guests move from the garden to dinner and how much dancing is left. That's me. Before your event we go through a planning questionnaire and planning calls, your must-plays and do-not-plays, the exact versions of the songs you love. By the time I arrive I already know your day inside and out, and I'm the MC for every announcement, entrance and toast.
An estate run by an arts nonprofit has its own house rules, and its events team is on site the night of your event. I get the rules from them for your date and send whatever they need from me, proof of insurance included.
The uplighting in these photos is mine. Pink up the carved paneling behind my booth, pink and violet in the corners of the beamed ceiling for a first dance, and, seen from outside through the arched French doors, the whole hall washed purple and pink with the floor full. The chandeliers and the wall sconces are the villa's own.
Color is your call. Uplighting along those walls gives the wood a color and lets the room change between dinner and dancing. A monogram or pattern can go on the floor or a wall, and dance-floor lighting tells everyone where the party is. Each of those is an add-on you choose in the instant estimate. I clear the lighting plan with the venue first.
Villa Montalvo hosts weddings, and it also hosts private, social and nonprofit events. This is a house that has had guests from the start: its first owner hosted writers, artists and actors here. A rehearsal dinner on the veranda. A milestone birthday in the paneled rooms. A fundraiser, a company dinner or a holiday party where the music stays out of the way until it's time to dance.
I play all of those, along with mitzvahs and quinceaneras. If you want a sound more than a program, a Selector Session is a set of my own programming for a welcome party, cocktail hour, dinner or after-party. And The Journey, a live sound bath that flows into a facilitated ecstatic dance, can be its own event or one part of a bigger one.
Clubs, festival stages and every venue from Napa Valley to the coast are on one page: Places I've played.
Your date, which garden or room you have in mind, and the feeling you want in it. I'll take it from there.