THE FELIX AUSTRIA SCHOOL OF CIVILITY  serves the children of Los Angeles and is the new and unique authority on practices of civilized behavior in the internet age--we take it out of ossified dance halls and classrooms and into the field (LIFE), where we practice principles of good manners as we go.   The Felix Austria School curriculum emphasizes “civility,” because before there can be refinement in social engagement, one must be aware of and attentive to the needs and desires of others around oneself--and to act with sincerity.  By remaining socially alert, we make the world around us easier for others and thereby easier for ourselves. From this base of civilized behavior, we can move on to the more refined nuances of etiquette at play during dinner parties and ceremonies, for example (to which we're not invited unless we demonstrate the simplest expressions of civility first). 

Grounded in the realities of California-living amid its brilliant ethnic diversity and the clipped and distracted pace of the internet age, The Felix Austria School also draws from the storied richness of etiquette in Vienna and the tried-and-true principles of America's great Emily Post.

The Felix Austria School of Civility is led by Felix Pfeifle and buoyed by his collegiate assistants, all of whom have First Aid/CPR certification.  

FELIX ETIENNE-EDOUARD PFEIFLE BIO

Felix Pfeifle grew up in the Central Valley of Northern California, where his family has been for six generations. Pfeifle likes to say that the Midwest starts in the Central Valley.  With regard to etiquette, Pfeifle treasures his home region most for the value placed on authentic self-representation: insincere smoke-and-mirrors are not tolerated.  There, one says  what one means and one does what one says he will do.  Social graces are also to be found in the Central Valley--Pfeifle was sent to the requisite cotillion, of course--but much more important is the solidity of one's character, first.

Pfeifle has cultivated a lifelong interest and participation in art, history, and culture.  He graduated cum laude in humanities from UC Berkeley, 1992, with a focus on fin-de-siècle Austro-Hungarian studies, and from there studied aesthetics at the University of Vienna as a Fulbright Fellow.  Pfeifle also attended the Elmayer Tanzschule, Vienna's legendary ballroom dance and etiquette school.  As an extension of his Fulbright Fellowship, Pfeifle taught English at two of the city's most elite preparatory schools, Gymnasium Neulandschule and Maria Regina Hofzeile, having been chosen by Fulbright for these schools specifically due to his persona as a “scholar and a gentleman.”

A unique outcome of Pfeifle's deep interest in Viennese culture led him to inherit a seemingly improbable archive of letters that spanned 60 years between an elderly American citizen and the last Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Otto von Habsburg. Curious, Pfeifle endeavored to understand the men behind this fascinating correspondence, ultimately developing a unique, formative relationship with the Archduke himself.  Their meetings and conversations became the basis of the award-winning documentary film, FELIX AUSTRIA!, which premiered in Toronto in 2013.  Over the course of a ten-year period, in which Pfeifle met the Archduke each year, he developed an abiding appreciation for the authenticity, humility, and simplicity that formed the basis of the Archduke's fine manners, which were rooted in the principle of respect for others; not a great leap, after all, from the very values with which Pfeifle grew up in the Central Valley of California--not a great leap from the basic tenets of good manners in most cultures around the world.  Aside from the example set by his own forebears and other memorable mentor figures, Pfeifle cites the Archduke as both a moral and social role model.

Professionally, Pfeifle trained as an architect and worked for firms in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles until founding and directing his own inter-disciplinary design firm, 2005-2015. He has taught architectural history and urban planning studies at the New School for Social Research in NYC.  Pfeifle has also served on the board of directors of the Greater Los Angeles Fulbright Association, Modern ARTillery, and the Los Angeles Bach Festival.