Gentry's Christine VanDeVelde discusses the art of entertaining at home with internationally renowned interior designer Judy Kanner

Judy Kanner is the most successful hostess I have ever met. A prominent Los Angeles interior decorator, when she gathers people around the table in the dining room of her Spanish style home set into one of west Los Angeles' canyons, there is a sense of comfort, warmth and energy that I have felt in few other social situations. Kanner's talent as a hostess is nowhere more apparent than in her small dinner parties. When you're a guest at one of her dinners you feel as if you're family -- unconditionally loved -- and we always depart a day or evening spent at one of her homes reluctantly.

Blessed with an eye for creating beautiful and natural environments in her work and her life, she has also consciously refined her aesthetic, from her classic bob and Armani suits to the buffets by her lap pool. So when I asked her if others could learn how to create the welcoming and magical ambience that characterizes her gatherings, though she at first claimed it was just letting "people be with good food around." she was also able to articulate what she does that makes us want to stay forever when we're lucky enough to be invited into her home. Her secrets can be your secrets.

First of all, she says, the house itself must have a feeling of comfort and safety. Guests must be made to feel at home. "Most people are more comfortable not being fussed over," she says. "Make people comfortable by just leaving everything on the table, not moving people around and not cleaning up. As I get older, I realize one of the nicest things you can do is not control people so they can relax, which is hard to do when the hostess has an agenda."

This is not as easy as you would think, however. Very few people are able to achieve this, says Kanner. It is not a function of money. It can be achieved in a small house in a part of town where you wouldn't want to live. It requires a hostess whose primary interest is in her guests, not in making an impression. And what that means is avoid hired help and, if you can, caterers. There is a completely different mood to a gathering when people aren't served, says Kanner, a feeling of shared celebration.

A grandmother of four who looks twenty years younger than her age, Kanner always lets things be fun and homey -- although homey at Judy Kanner's is very chic. I once found the children bouncing a ball down the stairs in the front hallway trying to get it to land in a Chinese vase. It might have been a priceless antique or a find at Pottery Barn, but you never know with Judy whose home is decorated in an eccentric and elegant mix of Bauhaus, Biedermaier, and, yes, Pottery Barn. In any case, our hostess found the children's antics great fun.

"Entertaining is about messing things up," she says. A great hostess will serve red wine without worrying about spills, won't comment when her guests tuck their feet up on the new upholstery, and lets the glasses congregate on the coffee table from the cosmopolitans through the wine and on to the brandy and Black Cows.

Food is extremely important, as well. "Good cooks make the best hostesses," says Kanner. If you're not a gourmet cook, however, you can create a feeling of sumptuousness with lots of good, simple food pleasingly presented and no one will care if the leek and thyme tart came from Oakville Grocery. Kanner is never afraid to add to her buffet from Gelson's, the L.A. version of Draeger's. "When all is said and done," she says, "if you're a good cook or have good food, people are going to have a good time."

Candlelight is a must, according to Kanner. "I can't imagine having people in my house or garden after the sun goes down and having them come to the table without candles," she says. Tabletops are covered with votives at every dinner and the driveway and entrance are lined with hundreds more for large parties. Essential, too, are flowers, which should be placed throughout the house. But don't order arrangements from a florist. Instead, bring them in from your own garden or visit the Farmer's Market to find them. In Kanner's home, you're surrounded not only by garden flowers, but orchids in every room along with potted bloomers like freesia and hydrangeas.

In the end, the underlying secret to Kanner's success is that she truly likes her guests and wants to make them happy whether it's with the best peach pie you've ever tasted or the chance to sit around the table and talk uninterrupted into the night. Granted, she has a great sense of style and her canyon home is spectacular, but she nevertheless avoids ostentatious displays and sticks to what looks and feels natural and puts her guests at ease. A lot of the time, hostesses fall into the trap of entertaining as part of an agenda to impress and disdain this kind of informality as a confession of downward mobility. But in doing things her own way, in being authentic, Kanner is an authentic success as a hostess.

Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Christine VanDeVelde. All rights reserved.