Los Angeles  House of Lange Trip Report - Day 2

Friday, October 23rd 2008

Friday morning I woke up and snuck into the living room area of our suite and got some work done on my laptop.  As the sun came up, I got to witness this beautiful Los Angeles sunrise:

Karen woke up not long after and we headed down to an early breakfast.  The Sunset Towers has a beautiful dining area off the pool with a lovely view:

Karen approved of the continental breakfast selection:

After we ate, it was nice to just site back and enjoy the warm California sun:

After breakfast, we decided to walk around and explore a bit.  Here's a shot of the hotel from the front entrance:

Almost directly across the street is the location of the world famous Comedy Store - the launching pad for many of the world's best comedians:

LA traffic was already heating up on Sunset Blvd:

Stepping back into the hotel, we decided to visit the hotel's Tower Bar - a bar and restaurant that's become quite popular with celebrities in recent months.  Apparently both Jennifer Aniston and Elton John dinned here the night before - I guess we went to bed a bit early.  :)

We went back up to the room and changed as we we had a 10:30am meeting time back in the lobby for the House of Lange event.  We were transported in a caravan of BMW SUV's to Beverly Hills and one of the coolest houses (rented for the event) I've ever seen:

The pool and the view from the pool area was quite spectacular:

A shot of Karen taking in the view:  

A shot of me doing the same:

The neighbor's house:

After the other journalists and guests arrived and everyone had a look around, Lange's CEO Fabian Krone kicked off the House of Lange Event:

The concept behind the "House of Lange" was a deceptively simple one - not everyone can travel to Glash�tte Germany to visit their factory (I've actually had the opportunity to do so, which you can read about by clicking HERE).  Lange has surmrised that by giving customers a sense of the craft, tradition, and expertise in mechanical watch making, it will help to differentiate them from other luxury watch making houses.  I think it's a fantastic concept.  Here's a few photos of the Lange watch makers that were brought from Glash�tte for the event:

Karen tried her hand at the engraving station.  As anyone who knows us can tell you, Karen is far more "hands on" at this sort of thing than I am.  She's also got 10 years in the jewelry business which along with her natural aptitude, made her an excellent student:

The exercise involved Karen engraving her initial into the small metal plate. With just a few minutes of instruction, she was able to turn out impressive results:

Here work was given to one of the master engravers to inspect and he was very impressed - I thought they were going to give her a job application on the spot!

I tried my hand at engraving with <*ahem*> far less impressive results than Karen. Here's a shot of me at the assembly station, which I enjoyed.

Of course, Lange had many display cases of of their beautiful watches which they brought for the House of Lange event:

A "supersized" scale model of a Lange movement which was interesting to study:

After lunch, we were all transported back to the hotel for a few hours of free time before the evening House of Lange event.  Karen and I decided to spend a little time poolside, then went for a walk to take in the "Sunset Strip."  It was at this point we realized we were right next door to the original House of Blues:

Given where we were, I couldn't resist snapping this photo:

Mel's drive-in is a real Sunset Blvd icon:

We had a nice walk, then went back up to the hotel and cleaned up to go back to the House of Lange - I got this sunset shot from our hotel room:

As impressive as the rented Beverly Hills house which Lange rented was during the day, it was even more so for the evening event:

I've seen this sort of view of LA at night on television and in movies many times, but you can't imagine how breath taking it is see in person:

Karen doesn't impress easily, but I think even she was pretty blown away the evening view:

It's always nice being with the pretties girl at the party. :)

Everyone at the dinner party seemed to be enjoying themselves:

The woman in this photo is Lange's US President Marcia Mazzocchi

Here's a shot of Mike Disher, Online Editor of WATCHTIME magazine and formerly of Timezone. We sat next to Mike and had some fantastic dinner conversation - great guy. I'm glad to see he's with WATCHTIME now.

After dinner, Lange's CEO Fabian Krone brought up their watch makers, and made some closing remarks, followed by a fantastic tribute video which was shown using some pretty high tech "holographic" technology on the screens which are behind them in this photo:

After the video, the dinner party continued well into the night.  Karen and I stayed for a few hours longer and mingled, then had then headed back to the hotel. The House of Lange event was from my perspective a huge success - many thanks to my friends at A. Lange & S�hne and Paul Wilmot Communications for inviting me to attend!

 *All text and images contained in this review are the original work of the author, John B. Holbrook, II and are copyright protected. Use of any of the information or images without the permission of the author is prohibited.

Please note that the Author and this site are in no way affiliated with or related to The Rolex Watch Company Limited. All trademarked names, brands, models and designs mentioned herein are the sole property of The Rolex Watch Company Limited.

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