A Guide to the Best of Southern California : EXHIBITS : First Drafts
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If you started investing in Santa Barbara real estate in the ‘60s and now owned more than 300 single-family rental homes there, what would you do? Just about anything you wanted. Marsha and David Karpeles decided to collect and display more than 1 million rare documents in four nonprofit, nicely appointed manuscript libraries in Santa Barbara, Montecito, New York and Tacoma, Wash.
“We don’t charge for admission, we don’t accept donations,” David Karpeles says, adding, “We don’t sell anything or trade.”
A survey of the Santa Barbara collection turns up a page from a Gutenberg Bible, hieroglyphics on sandstone dating to 600 BC and original drawings from the 1904 children’s classic “Peter Pan.” On Dec. 15, the library will display the original manuscript draft of the Bill of Rights in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the document’s ratification.
The nearby Montecito branch, which is devoted to special exhibits, will showcase pages from the original manuscripts of Mozart (“The Marriage of Figaro”), Paderewski (Minuet in G), Beethoven (“Emperor Concerto”), Wagner (“Wedding March”) Mendelssohn (“Wedding Recessional”), Puccini (“Madama Butterfly”) and Stravinsky (“The Rite of Spring”) on Thursday, the bicentennial of Mozart’s death.
The Karpeles Manuscript libraries, 21 W. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara, (805) 962-5322; 430 Hot Springs Road, Montecito, (805) 969-7660.
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