In 2020, following a stay in confinement in Los Angeles, the group released “Santana Winds”, a hypnotic ballad inspired by the violent and sometimes diabolical winds of southern California.

“There was so much destruction,” Isabel recalled a year later from Gstaad, Switzerland. At that time, things were considerably brighter. She had just returned from Mykonos, where she and her South African-raised cousin, Vanessa Waibel, hosted a spirited bachelorette weekend for their San Francisco relation, Ivy Getty. Photos of the girls – at one point in matching pink pants, dancing on stage at trendy beach club Jackie O’ – have splashed across Instagram and the Daily mail.

“They’re like sisters, we grew up together,” Isabel said of Vanessa and Ivy. “I’m very close to a lot of my cousins.” (Although they now live on four continents, most of JPG’s roughly 40 great-grandchildren are surprisingly united.)

Her extended family had their issues, she acknowledged. “[But] everyone has tragedies in their family. It’s just that ours have been more public. There’s been a lot of hurt, but that’s why it’s important to stay grounded and together.

Other young Gettys– some by marriage – made glamorous figures across Europe. Sabine (née Ghanem) was born in Geneva to a Lebanese father and an Egyptian mother, but her introduction to the family took place over a weekend in New York, where she was enrolled at the Gemological Institute of America. Over dinner, she met Brown University undergraduate Joseph Getty, the British-raised son of Italian aristocrat Domitilla Harding and Getty Images co-founder Mark Getty (son of the third-born of JPG, Paul Jr.).

Joseph was in love with Sabine. Long-limbed, brown-eyed, with a bob of blonde hair, she has an authoritative personality and a cosmopolitan air. Crazy about fashion, she describes her style as Bob Mackie meets Catherine Deneuve.

After the couple moved to London, she launched her high jewelry line, Sabine G. Her whimsical pieces soon adorned Celine Dion, Rihanna, Nicole Kidman and Deneuve.

On a bright morning in May 2015, a pack of paparazzi invaded the Basilica dei Santi XII Apostoli in Rome as a parade of young members of the royal family, including Princess Beatrice and Pierre Casiraghi of Monaco, paraded. Thirty-three years after the marriage of Mark and Domitilla inside the old basilica, Joseph and Sabine chose to exchange their vows there.

But where were the bride and her hooded cape? Given that the latter spanned 23 feet and featured 500,000 sequins (hand-embroidered by Maison Lesage) shaped in the image of a beaming sun, it needed its own caretaker and car, which spawned a path through the winding traffic of Rome. Finally, the garment arrived and was attached to the bride, who was already dressed in a figure-hugging long-sleeved duchess silk gown, the work of Schiaparelli Haute Couture.

Tatler went on to rank Sabine and Joseph third on its “Social Power Index”, just behind the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. While many Gettys today lead surprisingly unglamorous lives, Sabine lives up to expectations. “She’s the most Getty of them all!” a social observer remarked.

In the non-glam category, there is Beau Perry, who works in remote areas of Alaska. A seafarer, Beau is the largest seaweed producer on the Pacific Coast and at the forefront of sustainable marine aquaculture. Beau’s mother, Claire Perry, is one of three daughters born to JPG’s first son, George. “Les Georgettes,” as the women have been called, are all dedicated and intensely private environmentalists; their offspring share their aversion to the press.

Raised in Southern California and trained at Georgetown University, Beau founded his algae propagation company, Blue Evolution, in 2013; the following year he headed north to Kodiak Island. He was among the first entrepreneurs to see the potential of growing algae in Alaskan waters.

“I’ve loved seaweed all my life,” he once shared on Instagram. “As a surfer, I spent forever rocking through the kelp forests of California…. Traveling the coast you can find… giant kelp, bull kelp, sea palm, the list is endless – and they look as different to me as beech, redwood or oak forest.

Blue Evolution provides Alaskan fishermen with seed stock, which it makes by extracting spores from wild kelp; seedlings are grown on pieces of string called seed pipes, which fishermen thread along ropes suspended from a floating frame. Once “planted” in November, the kelp ribbons grow up to one foot per day. Weaving and protecting the lines is arduous. In May, Beau and his acolytes reap the fruits of their labor: tons of nutritious, slimy green grapes.

American style branch of this dynasty, the epicenter is San Francisco – a lavish mansion in Pacific Heights, to be exact. Here, Ann and Gordon Getty (now 88, JPG’s only surviving son) raised their four sons.

At Christmas 1998, Billy, the youngest, got engaged to Vanessa Jarman. Ann, one of the most formidable leading ladies of the time, took a great interest in the bride’s dress. She called her friend Oscar de la Renta in New York. “I want you to dress Vanessa,” she told him, according to Boaz Mazor, a longtime La Renta executive. “I want her to be the most beautiful bride ever. I want her to look amazing.

“Oscar dropped everything. He called all his assistants, the office was upset,” Mazor continued. “Then we got a call to cancel everything.”

Vanessa had decided to leave with Narciso Rodriguez. For her, the new star designer agreed to make her first wedding dress since the one that had propelled her to stardom, that of Carolyn Bessette, for her marriage to John Kennedy Jr. in 1996.

“Ann was livid! Furious!” said Mazor.

Yet when Vanessa walked into the Renaissance-themed ceremony at a Napa Valley ranch, side-saddle on a dappled horse into the sunset, just about everyone had to agree that she had well chosen. Her figure-hugging matte satin dress with layers of embroidered crystals shone.