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Mother of Five Sees Her Dream Come True,
Thanks to Tyra Banks and BeautifulPlaces
17 November 2005 -- Thanks to a fond
wish granted on television's Tyra Banks Show,
a Southern California woman, her husband and
five children spent last week living a life
of luxury at a Sonoma mountainside estate.
Cynthia Villegas, a Hemet hairdresser, her husband,
Hector, and their children arrived by stretch
limousine from Oakland Airport on Monday, November
7 at Villa Montagna, an award-winning Palladian-style
manor house set on a high vineyard-clad slope
on the east side of the Valley of the Moon.
The couple and their four boys (6, 7, 8 and
16) and one girl (17) stayed for free at the
house through Friday, enjoying not only Villa
Montagna's grand views down the valley to San
Pablo Bay and the towers of San Francisco, but
also onsite massages, dinner cooked by a private
chef and wine tasting lessons from a sommelier.
“Tyra gave me my dream,” said Villegas. “Everything
here - the view, the air, the light, the green,
the rooms, the spa - are things I've dreamed
about, but I never thought the dreams could
come true.”
Villegas started on the road to her week of
luxury on a recent Tyra Banks Show when Banks
asked her and other audience members about their
deferred dreams and regrets.
Villegas, who owns a hairdressing business that
she has patiently grown over 15 years from a
garage-based concern to a 1,000-square-foot
salon, told Banks that she regretted not being
able to go on a proper honeymoon with Hector
after they wed two and one-half years ago.
After listening to her and other guests' comments,
Banks later decided to grant Villegas her dream.
Banks is a well-known fashion model whose one-hour
daily syndicated television series started airing
nationwide in September. The show quickly won
an audience, especially among younger women,
and is now drawing millions of viewers each
day.
Villegas learned that she had won the weeklong
stay when her oldest son, Fernando, took delivery
of a pizza one night. Fernando had been about
to tell the deliveryman that he had reached
a wrong address when he noticed a message written
on top of the box: an invitation for his mother
to return to the Tyra Banks Show.
It was on her return trip that Banks told the
amazed Villegas that she and her family would
be flown to Northern California, greeted by
a chauffeur and taken to live for five days
in a mansion above the Valley of the Moon.
The first night there, the Villegas family enjoyed
a dinner of lobster salad, quail and crab cakes
cooked onsite by Gloria Ciccarone-Nehls. The
Villegases even had the services of a sommelier,
Troy Smith, from Montage Resort in Laguna Beach,
Calif.
(The executive chef at the Big 4 Restaurant
at the Huntington Hotel atop Nob Hill in San
Francisco, Ciccarone-Nehls has cooked privately
for such celebrities as Cary Grant and Julia
Child. In 1995, the National Executive Chefs
Foundation named her “Hotel Chef of the Year.”)
Villa Montagna is managed by Sonoma-based BeautifulPlaces,
a lodging company that markets the rental of
upscale wine country estates and houses to affluent
vacationers. The house came to Banks' attention
when an official at the Los Angeles Convention
& Visitors Bureau told her that a stay in one
of the company's properties might make a perfect
dream come true for a family of modest means.
BeautifulPlaces also arranged the concierge-level
services that the family enjoyed during its
stay.
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Contact:
Patrick Totty, Communications Director
707-996-0266 or 415-924-8268
pct@beautiful-places.com
BeautifulPlaces – Vacation Homes of Distinction
539 First St. West
Sonoma, CA 95476
707-996-0266
707-996-0366 fax
information@beautiful-places.com
www.beautiful-places.com
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