New York Social Diary - Social Diary

The Temps They Are A-Changin'. 2 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014. A nice day in New York; sunny and not too cold. I noticed the witch hazel blooming on the edge of Carl Schurz Park, my primary indicator that indeed Spring is about to be in the air.

Yesterday afternoon I spotted these two beauties on the tree outside my window. I’d never seen Mourning Doves before. At a glance I thought they were pigeons. But of course with one look I could see they clearly were not. I took this picture and then looked them up. There are a variety of doves, and Mourning Doves are also referred to as Turtle Doves (come to me my little turtle dove…). They fly fast, and on powerful wingbeats, sometimes making sudden ascents, descents, and dodges — with their pointed tails stretching behind them. These two were perched on those branches for quite a few minutes, looking as if they were having a little respite. Mourning Doves also produce a brood six times a year. Somehow I knew these two were a “couple.”

The two Mourning Doves outside my window.

The calendar was full last night on the social side of New York. All kinds of things going on. Over at Sotheby’s on York and 72. Guild Hall was holding its Lifetime Achievement Awards dinner, celebrating an “Evening of Artistic Achievement." They were honoring Blythe Danner (for Performing Arts), Philippe de Montebello, the former longtime president of the Metropolitan Museum, for Visual Arts; Barbara Walters (need I say more?), and Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder who were given a Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropic Endeavors.

Marty Cohen, Blythe Danner, Barbara Walters, Philippe de Montebello, and Joe Roberto at Guild Hall's 29th Anniversary Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Awards Dinner.

Then, over at the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle, The Women’s Project Theatre were holding their Women of Achievement Awards Gala, with special guests Veanne Cox and David Hyde Pierce with a special Tribute to Dorothy Fields (“I won’t dance Madam, with you; My heart won’t let my feet do things they should do…”) – the great Dorothy Fields.

At the same out over at 583 Park Avenue, The New York School of Interior Design honored Mariette Himes Gomez and Charles Jencks at their annual Spring dinner.

And where was I? I was over at Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Frederick P. Rose Hall The Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770, was hosting its annual Order of the Golden Sphinx Gala, honoring film producer David Heyman.

You know about Hasty Pudding… or you’ve heard of it. I had; and knew very little otherwise. It’s Harvard social club (The Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770) for students that comprises three entities: the Hasty Pudding Club, Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and Harvard Krokodiloes undergraduates and alumni. It’s very prestigious, and several presidents have been members and some very great American theatrical and film talent once belonged, when they were students.

The evening’s emcee was Andrew Farkas, the real estate executive who is a Harvard alumn and a member of Hasty Pudding. Mr. Farkas has a bright and outgoing personality and as an emcee you could almost believe he was in show business himself. A jolly good fellow, he set the tone for the evening which reflected the fraternal jocularity (which never gets old despite itself) of the club and its members and its honorees. In other words, there we were sitting in that wonderful amphitheater overlooking Columbus Circle and Central Park South to the east with most men in black tie, and quite a few “actors” in colorfully glamorous drag and the emcee roasting the honoree, and it was Harvard in New York too.

Andrew Farkas, the night's emcee, opening the evening.

You know what I mean? I actually chose to attend that particular event last night because ... I’d never been to a Hasty Pudding event and wondered what it was like.
Well, it was like I said: Jocular, fraternal, affectionate, fun and roasty.

Mr. Heyman if you didn’t know is an enormously successful film producer -- Harry Potter series, Gravity– which won seven Oscars this year, and several others. He’s been so successful in his filmmaking career that he probably can’t believe it himself (he comes from a film producing family so he knows the score and its unevenness). But they had, at the end of the evening, a vid of Sandra Bullock sitting in her car putting on lipstick with her kid sitting in the car seat next to her, and while looking in the mirror at her lipsticking, says, “so who is this David Heyman? Everyone says I know him. Sorry, I never heard of him, what can I say?” Very believable and very funny. Like the whole evening.

David Heyman receiving his "Golden Sphinx" from Andrew Farkas.

Making his acceptance speech (brief).

His closeup.

The awardee with his Gold Sphinx.

The awardee's parents Norma and John Heyman.

It was just this side of a send-up, except it wasn’t. It was affectionate and celebratory, and Mr. Heyman himself (who was attending with his mother and father, Norma and John Heyman and his brother) acquiesced with amused dignity. Both parents are in the business: Norma is an actress and producer (Dangerous Liaisons), as is John who has produced several films (including The Go-Between) and television programs, and is also a talent agent.

I had actually met the Heymans several years ago when JH and I were in Abu Dhabi at the Festival of Thinkers, and since then I’ve often seen them around New York dining out or at events. I knew vaguely about their careers but was not aware of how productive and prolific they’ve been, along with their son (he and Sandra Bullock coincidentally share a birthday, 7/26, as do I with them but with a twenty-year difference in age).

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals at work.

David Heyman’s “acceptance” was serious and modest, and keeping with the tone of the evening. It was basically a love-in for a good time. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals members added the punch and dash and jazz. Completely unexpected was the highlighting of this organization’s serious endeavors. Besides its distinguished clubbiness and theatricals and the talents which have sprung forth from it, its members are deeply and actively involved philanthropically assisting children and individuals of the community through direct service and fund-raising.

The Order of the Golden Sphinx gala was produced by Amanda Lipitz Productions and written and composed by Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde: The Musical,The Explorers Club) and Larry O’Keefe (Legally Blonde: The Musical, Heathers: The Musical), both alumni of the Pudding, all performed by Hasty Pudding Theatricals and Harvard Krokodiloes undergraduates and alumni.

Andrew Farkas in introducing David Heyman's award reminded the audience that one Golden Sphinx award outweighs Seven Oscars!

A closeup of the award.

The Order of the Golden Sphinx, named for a traditional symbol of The Hasty Pudding Institute, is the highest honor bestowed by the Institute and recognizes individuals in the entertainment industry for their extraordinary contributions to the performing arts. The recipient represents the Institute’s mission to support and foster the performing arts within its membership, at Harvard, and the community at large.

A wonderful evening in the Big Town. And ... cocktails, dinner, presentations, acceptances, along with dessert (Hasty Pudding, what else ...?) and and a show, we were out of there at nine o’clock! How could it go wrong?

Contact DPC here.

Spring flowers starting to appear and disappear. 3 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

March 13, 2013. Yesterday was a nice day in New York with temps hovering around 60 degrees but cloudy as the weatherman was forecasting rain and high winds last night. As of this writing, we’ve got the rain but the “high winds” evidently will come after we’ve gone to bed. Whatever the forecast, New Yorkers have had a glimpse of Springtime and we’re ready for it!

Yesterday was Wednesday and so it was the Michael’s lunch. The place was packed with all kinds of media and financial people. The media people all sit in the front so they can see who’s coming and going, and the bankers and hedge funders like to sit in the Garden Room where they can discuss business get the light and the garden with everything growing.

DPC with Wilbur Ross and Laura Codman at Swify's fourteen years ago in the New York Observer.

I was lunching with CSLedbetter and George Gurley, the journalist who wrote the first interview with me fourteen years ago in the New York Observer when JH and I started the NYSD. George was something of a rookie then but he got the story right. That’s not as easy a task that you might think, even with a tape recorder (which George always carried). We had a lot to talk about.

C.S. Ledbetter III and George Gurley out on the town.

DPC assuring George of something.

Next door,Joan Jakobson was lunching with Barbara Liberman, Suzanne Maas and Tim Hogan. Joan and I met in 1969 when we were both volunteers in the Carter Burden Councilmanic campaign here in New York. Tim had an official job in the campaign.

Carter Burden was well known in New York as a Vanderbilt scion who was married to Amanda Mortimer, Babe Paley’s daughter, and was said to be following in the footsteps of his mentor, Senator Robert F. Kennedy whose office Carter had worked in. So for us kids, it was an “of the moment” time and we were young adults and New York was the most exciting city in the world where everything was happening.


	Bill Paley, Amanda Mortimer (Mrs. Carter Burden, Jr.), Carter Burden, Jr., and Babe Paley, 1964 (©Ben Martin/ Time magazine archive).

The campaign headquarters was in a defunct supermarket on the corner of 79th Street and Second Avenue (it’s long since been replaced by a towering apartment building). There were lots of volunteers, many of whom were the candidate’s generation. We had all been infused with the excitement of the political process after the ill-fated Presidency of John F. Kennedy.

We were all looking for the next “hero” (Kennedy-like) who would inspire the people to do great things. It sounds naïve and almost quaint in these troubled times, and they were troubled times then too, but we remained inspired by the positive and expansive energy John Kennedy brought to the nation.

Because Burden was a rich boy, married to a beautiful young woman with a glamorous background, and a disciple of Bobby Kennedy, he attracted an ambitious and energetic group of people to help him. The Upper East Side was then highly populated by older, working class people as well as the affluent we always read about. Many were senior citizens, widows and widowers, who lived, often alone, in rent control apartments of old tenement buildings that filled the neighborhoods east of Third Avenue to the East River since the early 20th century. It was called the Silk Stocking District mainly because of the citizens living west of Third Avenue, from Lexington, Park and Madison to Fifth Avenue.


Knock-knock. “Who’s there?” “Christina Onassis and Douglas Fairbanks ...”

As volunteers we campaigned with our feet, knocking on every door along the avenues and the cross streets, talking to our neighbors, learning what their issues and problems were. Among his volunteers were his cousin Douglas Fairbanks Jr. At the time Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a newlywed and stepmother. She called the campaign headquarters one day asking if they could use the help of her stepdaughter Christina Onassis.

Of course, was the answer: send her over. So Christina O and cousin Fairbanks were sent out, a duo, knocking on the doors of the tenements in the 80s. Knock-knock. “Who’s there?” “Christina Onassis and Douglas Fairbanks ...” Doors opened, slowly and cautiously but enough to get a glance: yes it was true.

Although Carter Burden was a circumspect individual – neither shy nor ebullient, at least in public appearances, he was a very bright young man who despite his silver spoon background knew what the real priorities were and had the pluck to put himself out for them. He worked hard in the campaign, was professionally organized, and had the funds available to do so. He won big and he worked hard at his job after that.

But politics was an eye-opener for him. Among his achievements was the result of awareness provided by his district — much of which was an older neighborhood where families had lived for generations: he founded the Carter Burden Center for the Aging for his district. The objective was to assist and help those neighbors with their basic needs, counseling (and advice). That was forty years ago, or more, and the Burden Center for the Aging flourishes in the Upper East Side neighborhoods to this day. You may have read about it here on the NYSD.


	Susan Burden.

Carter Burden died young — in his early 50s— of a heart ailment. He’d abandoned politics long before, very disillusioned, I was told, with the process and corruption that confronted him. His widow Susan Burden, who is also one of the co-founders of New Yorkers For Children, still takes a very active interest in the work and fundraising for the Burden Center which continues to assist thousands of neighbors.

Meanwhile back at Michael’s yesterday. The List (always incomplete, mostly what was in my purview: George Malkemus (Manolo Blahnik’s business partner in the US) and Cody Kondo of Saks Fifth Avenue; Jamie MacGuire (MacGuire Communications); Susan Magrino (Susan Magrino Public Relations); Fern Mallis with Lynn Tesoro (public relations); Barry Frey (Digital Place-based Advertising); Linda Janklow; Terry Kramer who is in town for the opening of the new musical “Rocky,” with her ex-son-in-law; TV Guide’s Jack Kliger; Shelley Zalis of IPSOS OTX; Alice Mayhew; producer Bob Bradford (husband of Barbara Taylor Bradford);Laurie Dhue with Lawrence Stuart; Joe Versace; Jay Sures of United Talent; Bonnie Timmerman with Cornelia Guest; Henry Lambert; Neil Lasher of EMI Publishing; Marty Pompadur; Scott Singer of USA Today with Betty Cohen; Joan Gelman and Joan Hamburg; Harold Ford Jr.; Rick Northrop; the legendary television executive Fred Silverman, Nick Verbitsky of United Stations; Robert Zommerman; John Arnhold; producer Beverly Camhe with filmmaker son Todd Camhe; Hearst’s Deb Shriver, and scores more just like ‘em.

Meanwhile at the same hours, over at the Oscar de la Renta store on 772 Madison Avenue, they were having a Trunk Show of Oscar’s new Childrenswear line for Fall and Holiday 2014. You won’t be surprised to see that Oscar has created the most beautiful clothes for the adorable boys and girls. The Trunk Show runs through today, March 13th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

There are 3 reasons to shop Oscar de la Renta’s trunk shows:

1. A 15% discount off the entire order, plus free ground shipping
2. One-on-one wardrobe building for girls, boys, and baby, with dedicated childrenswear specialists
3. Access to the full assortment and size ranges, including a capsule collection exclusive to trunk shows and oscardelarenta.com.

The Oscar style and elegance translates naturally and freshly on these cute kids. Both contemporary and traditional, they're adorable too. Who wouldn't want their child or grandchild to spark and sparkle like this?

Contact DPC here.

Street vendor. 3 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Friday, March 14, 2014. Stone cold yesterday in New York. But sunny and bright, and that made all the difference for us people waiting (now impatiently) for Spring. The weatherman says we’re going back to those “early Spring” temperatures today.

The Ides of March are upon us. It, no doubt, was Will Shakespeare who placed that historical moment of Roman times into modern superstition in his play Julius Caesar where the soothsayer warns Caesar to “beware the Ides of March.”

The Ides are now “officially” on the 15th of the month although for the Romans had a different calendar where the Ides were the middle three days of the month – the 13th, 14th and 15th. In 44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March.

Plutarch, the Greek historian who became a Roman citizen, reported that Caesar had been warned by a seer that “harm would come to him” sometime “no later than the Ides of March.”

Making his way at that date (the last day of the three) to the Theater of Pompey where the Roman senate would often have political meetings, Caesar passed by the same seer who had warned him, and said to him “well, the Ides of March have come,” as if to say “and nothing happened to me.”

Whereupon the seer agreed but reminded Caesar, “come, yes, but they have not gone yet.” Caesar was assassinated shortly after those words were spoken at a meeting of the senate.

Morte di Giulio Cesare ("Death of Julius Caesar"), by Vincenzo Camuccini, 1798.

And so it was, and we weren’t there (thankfully). However, last night in New York there were lots of coming-togethers in various theaters of congregation and merriment.

Over at the New-York Historical Society, there was an evening reception and special preview for the opening of NYHS’ spring exhibition “Bill Cunningham Facades” which opens to the public today. The exhibition, which was curated by Valerie Paley, explores the famous fashion and society photographer’s project which he began in 1968.

From “Bill Cunningham Facades" at the New-York Historical Society.

In the beginning Cunningham scoured the city’s thrift stores, auctions and street fairs for vintage clothing , and scouted architectural sites on his bicycle. The project, completed in 1976, paired models, especially his muse, fellow photographer Editta Sherman, posing in period costumes at historic New York settings. There are 80 original and enlarged images from this whimsical and yet bold work on view providing a unique perspective on the city’s distant past and the time in which the images were created.

An hour after that reception, on the other side of the Park on 70th and Fifth, the Frick Collection were holding its annual Young Fellows Ball, now in its 15th year. This year, called the Celestial Ball, was sponsored by designer fashion house Paule Ka. This is a great party, black tie, and long dresses for many of the junior social set, with about six hundred attending and running from 8:30 to midnight. We’ll have lots of pictures to show early next week.

While less than a mile away, from 6 to 9, as the crow flies, John Demsey Group president of the Estee Lauder Companies (he oversees MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Jo Malone, Tom Ford, Prescriptives, Smashbox, and of course Estee Lauder) opened up his Upper East Side townhouse for the annual Pisces party he hosts with his friends Alina Cho and Marilyn Gauthier.

This party is great fun with lots of drinks and hors d’oeuvres provided by Cornelia Guest Events with lady herself supervising.

There must have been a couple hundred of the trio’s best friends and associates, who started filling the art and photography-filled public rooms (on two floors) from the moment the clock struck six.

I left a little after eight and they were still streaming in. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still a good crowd by the time the clock struck eleven, John’s that kind of host: people feel very welcome under his roof, and there are always lots of familiar faces to meet and greet and chat with.

John’s friend, PR guru Alison Mazzola, oversaw the organization and planning.

Entering the party on the first floor. The couple in the center are Max Weiner and his wife Vanessa von Bismarck.

The Pisces mermaids.

Vera Wang and Stefano Tonchi greeting and departing.

von Bismarck and Weiner again.

Birthday girl Alina Cho -- talk about a lousy photograph.

A little better, but not much.

Patrick McMullan was there.

And then Dr. Doug Steinbrech appeared on the scene.

Jeff Sharp with Mark Gilbertson.

Stephanie Foster and Mr. Gilbertson. Mark's moving on to the Frick party after this one.

Daniel Benedict suddenly turned and saw ...

Daniel with Stephanie Foster, who kept saying "who is that handsome guy?"

The models the first time ...

And the second time. That's better DPC.

On the second floor where the beat goes on ...

I'll just sit and watch, thank you ...

"OMG!!" or is it Mio Dio? Sophia asks herself ...

And in another room on the second floor.

The silver mermaid?

No, the silver Susan ...

The birthday boy, the host with the most, Mr. D.

And with his long time friend (since his college days in California), the silver Susan.

Robert Zimmerman informs, R. Couri Hay takes it all in ... uh-huh, uh-huh ...

Bettina: "How's the weather up there ..."

Adelina Ettelson was leaving early to go home and be with her little ones. Lesley Stevens just got there and wasn't going anywhere but ...

The second floor where she was camera ready when I went to get a picture of Amanda Ross.

Martha Kramer moving toward the stairs (down) ...

Jill Roosevelt has Victoria Hagan's ear.

Cracked me up!!

Cynthia Frank and Michael Boodro are wondering what ...

Then Dennis Basso came along and was ready for his closeup ...

Okay, says Linda Wells, take the picture.

Fern Mallis is trying to make a point while avoiding the photographer ...

Patrick McMullan back behind the camera.

Julie Skarrett waiting patiently for her next good shot.

Antony Todd, a new arrival, about to have a word with Cynthia Frank.

On my way downstairs, Bronson van Wyck arrives.

Too warm for fur for some, and Alina makes her way up to the second floor.

The first floor landing with guests coming and going ...

The photographer photographs.

The great Linda Fargo of Bergdorf's arriving. Linda is going to be honored this spring by the Couture Council of the FIT Museum.

Contact DPC here.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral with this Olympic Tower behind. 4:30 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014. Sunny, cold day, no snow (that was predicted). It was also the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Fifth Avenue, which made getting around midtown a little on the difficult side, especially on the side streets. But New Yorkers by now are used to slow going in midtown on any given day.

Crossing Fifth Avenue at 55th Street on my way to Michael's, I was halted by the parade so I decided to take a vid of what was passing by.

Christopher Mason and Francine LeFrak, yesterday at Michael's and the wearin' o' the green.

Deaths. Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon, the widow of philanthropist and art collector Paul Mellon, died early yesterday morning at her 4,000 acre horse farm Oak Spring Farms in Upperville, Virginia. She would have been 104 on August 9th. Mrs. Mellon, who had been in declining health, died peacefully with members of her family present.

Americans first heard about Bunny Mellon as a national figure in the 1960s when she had been involved with Jackie Kennedy in the re-decoration of the White House during the Kennedy Administration, and then later when after the assassination of President Kennedy, she completed a design for the Rose Garden under the auspices of Lady Bird Johnson. It was especially her friendship with Mrs. Kennedy that brought her to the attention of the general public. Her friendship between the Kennedys and the Mellons had already been established before, and after the President’s death, she was known to be a generous and caring friend to Mrs. Kennedy and her children.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Bunny Mellon, 1961. (AP)

Bunny Mellon directs the placement of flowers at Robert F. Kennedy's gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery, June 8, 1968. (AP).

She was born Rachel Lowe Lambert in Princeton, New Jersey on August 9, 1910, the eldest child of Rachel Parkhill Lowe (who gave her daughter the lifelong nickname of Bunny) and Gerard Barnes Lambert. Her grandfather Jordan Lambert invented Listerine which her father marketed as an antidote to "halitosis," after which he founded Warner-Lambert Pharmaceuticals. He later became president of Gillette Safety Razor Company which made several common American household products, including the razor blades, the mouthwash and also Dentyne chewing gum. The company was eventually merged into Pfizer chemicals.

Mrs. Mellon’s first husband, Stacy B. Lloyd Jr., with whom she had two children – a son Stacy III and a daughter Eliza -- was a Philadelphia socialite who served in the OSS during the Second World War. The Lloyds were good friends of Paul Mellon, the billionaire heir of his father, Secretary of the Treasury in the 1920s Andrew W. Mellon, and his wife Mary Conover Mellon. When the first Mrs. Mellon died from an asthma attack in 1948, Bunny Lloyd divorced her husband and married Paul Mellon.

Paul and Bunny Mellon, with her daughter Eliza Lloyd, at the preview of the Mellons' collection of English art at the Royal Academy in London. Eliza Lloyd was hit by a truck while crossing a Manhattan street in 2000, causing a brain injury and full body paralysis. She died in 2008. (AP)

Paul and Bunny Mellon were well-established members of Eastern U.S. Society, both heirs to large well-established fortunes created from banking and industry. They were very well known within their “world” of society. She was a fulltime client of Paris couture, especially Balenciaga and later Hubert de Givenchy, but both inclined to eschew any kind of celebrity, and so they were not famous, the sources of their separate fortunes notwithstanding.

They were highly cultivated connoisseurs of art and the decorative arts, as well as in the breeding of racehorses at the Oak Spring Farms. Mr. Mellon collected 18th and 19th century painting, and Mrs. Mellon collected modern art including many works of Mark Rothko which she purchased at the artist’s studio. Over the years, the couple donated more than a thousand works of art to the National Gallery of Art (initially funded by Andrew Mellon) in Washington, and to the Yale Center for British Art (Paul Mellon was a member of the class of ’29), which the Mellons established in 1966.

Bunny and Paul Mellon, with one of their thoroughbreds.

Paul and Bunny Mellon, shown just after Sea Hero's Kentucky Derby victory in 1993.

Lady Bird with Paul and Bunny Mellon.

Despite the modest demeanor of their public personalities, the Mellons lived high, wide and handsome, maintaining sprawling residences in New York, Upperville, Cape Cod, Antigua, Nantucket and Paris, although their main residence seemed to be Oak Spring Farms where they kept a fulltime staff of more than one hundred. They also had built their own mile-long jet landing strip on the property, much to the dismay of one of their landed neighbors.

A friend of mine was once being given a tour of the property adjacent to Oak Spring when the Mellons’ private jet took off, reminding the neighbor of the annoyance of having their pastoral scene frequently interrupted by a jet — which Mrs. Mellon would often use to fly to Reagan National to go to Washington, only forty miles away from the farm. This one particular day, ten minutes later the same plane returned, to which the neighbor cracked, “Oh, Bunny Mellon must have forgotten her scarf!”

Bunny Mellon's Oak Spring Farms in Upperville, Virginia. (VF/Jonathan Becker)

Carol Joynt's photo of Route 623, aka "The Mellon Road."

Besides their mutual interests in the arts and horse breeding, Bunny Mellon had developed an interest in gardening (and subsequently in botany) when she was a young girl and her father designated a small plot of land for her to start a garden. Over her lifetime she became not only an expert but an archivist of horticulture, building an elaborate private library on the subject at Oak Spring – which is why Jacqueline Kennedy asked her to do a makeover of the White House Rose Garden. During the Kennedy Administration she was an active supporter of Jackie Kennedy’s White House entertainment, never stinting on assisting with the expense of Mrs. Kennedy’s extravagant entertaining.

The Mellon marriage was successful in terms of its longevity and durability although Paul Mellon was known to have had a long extra-marital relationship with a very popular and much liked Washington socialite Dorcas Hardin. This was not a secret to his wife. There is an oft-told story that sometimes when Mr. Mellon spoke in a rather loud voice to his wife, she would respond, “Paul, it’s Bunny you’re speaking to, not Dorcas ...” (who was known to be hard of hearing). Nevertheless, all matters of matrimonial tradition were upheld religiously (if not according to religious tenets) and respectfully. Furthermore Bunny Mellon had a list of intensely passionate interests that occupied her every spare moment.

Mellon, photographed by Henri Cartier-Bresson in her Oak Spring garden, 1962.

In many ways, besides being a connoisseur, she was a true artist. Along with horticulture, she and her husband took a deep interest in architecture, and she in interior design. Later in life she was frequently involved (with a fulltime interior designer) in constantly re-decorating and refurbishing her houses, furniture and the landscape. She had an artist’s eye for all of it, never overlooking the slightest detail right down to the pruning of the beloved forest of trees that adorned her farm.

Paul Mellon died in 1999 after a long illness. Already in her mid-80s, Bunny Mellon soldiered on creating with her passionate interests. She also inadvertently gained national attention for having contributed more than $3 million to the Presidential Primary campaign of Senator John Edwards. Bryan Huffman, an interior designer from North Carolina who was a friend of hers, introduced them. Some of her contribution was later revealed to have been used by the Senator to support a woman with whom he had fathered a child in an extra-marital relationship.

Paul Mellon's final resting place, with a julep cup of carnations and a tiny wooden sailboat

Andrew Mellon's final resting place.

She claimed innocence, although she made it known that she had met the Senator because she liked the national policies he espoused. Others believed that she was the victim of Mr. Edwards’ fatal charm. It was true, friends of hers later admitted, that even at her advanced age she remained vulnerable to the charms of good looking men who were both talented and attentive to her. It was a kind of innocence that a true, lifelong heiress could be vulnerable to. Her relationship with events designer Robert Isabell was another example. She and Isabell, who was fifty years her junior, were very close pals, sharing the same intense interest in horticulture and interior decoration. They talked the same creative language, and saw each other frequently. It was a mutual admiration.

Isabell was also impressed by Mrs. Mellon’s knowledge and talented eye, not to mention her awesome wealth and lifestyle. There was a moment when friends of the event planner (who was gay) believed they might actually marry. And when he died suddenly in still questionable circumstances, Mrs. Mellon insisted that he be buried on her farm.

Because she was a woman of great personal fortune all her life, unlike women who claim authority wearing the badge of their husbands’ fortunes, she was never recognized for her ambition. Instead it was personified by her creative passions, and acknowledged for its uniqueness. She was a gentle and generous lady to many, although not without the sense of personal prerogatives that very rich heiresses possess when it comes to relationships with other people. If Bunny Mellon were tired, for whatever reason, of another person, they could find themselves out of the picture, suddenly cut off, with no access to her whatsoever. That was a natural defense that she developed with maturity.

At the end of her life she suffered from macular degeneration as well as cancer. She had outlived the stamina demanded by her elaborate and far-flung lifestyle. Several years ago, I was told by a very good source, that her advisors had canvassed some of the big banks in New York for a $100 million dollar line of credit, backed by a half billion dollar portfolio of assets, but to no avail. She began to divest herself of assets, like the New York townhouse on East 70th Street that has recently been re-sold, as well as the properties on Cape Cod and in Paris. She also mistakenly fell prey to the financial wiles and wayward charms of one Ken Starr, not the Clinton nemesis, but the so-called “financial advisor” of the same name who relieved a number of her friends and celebrated acquaintances of millions of their fortunes.

Despite her fabulous lifestyle, her elaborate personal projects and interests, her fashionable presentation, all enhanced by her vast inherited wealth, Bunny Mellon was unique — a simple girl who lived close to the earth in her daily life, a caring and affectionate friend of nature who loved nothing more than pleasing people with her ability to amaze. Many years ago when her friend Jackie Kennedy, took up learning to paint watercolors, Bunny Mellon presented her with a small paintbox. Opening the box, Jackie found in each square where the palette of colors would be located, two precious gems corresponding to those colors: rubies for red, emeralds for green, sapphires for blue, etc.; and in the place where the paintbrush would be kept, two hooks of precious metal earrings to hold each stone. A memento designed to delight a precious friend. Which is what Bunny Mellon was to many.

Bunny Mellon looking out at the terrace at Oak Spring Farms. Photo by Horst for Vogue.

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A book and a smoke in Chelsea. 2:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014. Bright, sunny day yesterday in New York, with temps reaching the upper 40s midday. One more day til the vernal equinox. Did you know that on that day the Earth’s equator passes the center of the Sun, and the day and night are of equal length? And it won’t be long before the buds begin to show on the trees and winter will have passed.

Monday night when I was putting together yesterday’s Diary about Bunny Mellon who died much earlier in the day at 103, I was going to make note of the tragic death of the young fashion designer L’Wren Scott who took her own life in her Manhattan apartment the day before. I thought better of it because I had nothing to add that would have brought comfort to any of her loved ones, including her boyfriend Mick Jagger whom I don’t know but who must be deeply disturbed by her loss and her decision to leave. Ms. Scott was still a young woman with great promise although she might not have believed that since the media reported that her business was in terrible condition financially.

Coincidentally, I had also planned to run a second obituary about an Englishwoman named Clarissa Dickson Wright who died a few days ago at age 66. I changed my mind because the Mellon piece got longer and longer, but several people had sent me a link to Ms. Wright’s obit that ran on Monday in the Telegraph of London, urging me not to miss it. Every message I got implied that I would “enjoy” reading it, and a couple of people evensaid “if you read nothing else today, read this, adding that it was “hilarious.”

So naturally I read it. And although I wouldn’t call it “hilarious,” it came close. Ms. Wright had an attitude, a history and a life style that was particularly British to American thinking, and I laughed off and on throughout the reading.

Many Americans, I learned, including my NYSD partner JH, were very aware of her and her cooking show “Two Fat Ladies” on television, and loved watching her. I never saw it but having read the obit about her classically British eccentric life, I can now see why.

So, if you haven’t read it, or didn’t know of her, or even if you did, you can enjoy the fact that despite her highs and lows, ups and downs, crazy family characters (mother, father, etc.), she nevertheless did it “her way,” and it sounds like she had a damned good time, no matter what.

From Monday morning’s Telegraph of London: Clarissa Dickson Wright was a bombastic, outspoken lawyer brought to her knees by riches and alcoholism who rose again on the TV series Two Fat Ladies.

Clarissa Dickson Wright was a bombastic, outspoken lawyer brought to her knees by riches and alcoholism who rose again on the TV series Two Fat Ladies.

Clarissa Dickson Wright, who has died aged 66, sprang to celebrity as the larger of the Two Fat Ladies in the astonishingly popular television series.

Clarissa Dickson Wright was a recovering alcoholic, running a bookshop for cooks in Edinburgh when the producer Patricia Llewellyn was inspired to pair her with the equally eccentric Jennifer Paterson, then a cook and columnist at The Spectator.
The emphasis of the programme was to be on “suets and tipsy cake rather than rocket salad and sun-dried tomatoes”, the producer declared. Hence bombastic tributes to such delights as cream cakes and animal fats were mingled with contemptuous references to “manky little vegetarians”.

Not all the reviews were kind. Victor Lewis Smith in the London Evening Standard referred to the ladies’ “uncompromising physical ugliness” and “thoroughly ugly personalities.” Another critic quipped: “Perhaps handguns shouldn’t be banned after all.” Most, though, became instant addicts and predicted future cult status. By 1996 the programme was attracting 3.5 million viewers.

The Triumph motorbike and sidecar which sped the two fat ladies around the countryside might have appeared contrived (although Paterson was a keen biker), but their kitchen-sink comedy could never have been scripted. Clarissa Dickson Wright would come up with such lines as “look at those charming looking fellows” when describing scallops, and advise businessmen to come home and cook “to relax after the ghastly things they do in the City”.

Jennifer Paterson (left) and Clarissa Dickson Wright aboard their classic motorcycle and sidecar combination. Photo: PA

Not content to confine themselves to the kitchen, the indomitable pair ventured out into the field, gathering mussels in Cornish drizzle — using their motorcycle helmets as pails — and perilously putting out to sea in a sliver of a boat to catch crabs.

Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmeralda Dickson Wright was born on June 24 1947, the youngest of four children. “My parents had great trouble deciding what to call me in the first place,” she explained about her abundant christening, “but then they were so delighted they had finally found a name, they got pissed on the way to the church.” To decide which name should come first, “they blindfolded my mother and turned her loose in the library, where she pulled out a copy of Richardson’s Clarissa”.


	Clarissa Dickson Wright in 1968.

Her father, Arthur Dickson Wright, was a brilliant surgeon who was the first to extract a bullet from the spine without leaving the patient paralysed; he also pioneered the operation for stripping varicose veins and his patients included the Queen Mother, Vivien Leigh and the Sultana of Jahore. He had met Clarissa’s mother, Molly, an Australian heiress, while working in Singapore.

Growing up in Little Venice, Clarissa’s first memory was of eating a hard-boiled egg and a cold sausage on a picnic at Wisley at the age of three. Her father, though basically miserly, did not stint on household bills. He had pigeons flown in from Cairo and a fridge permanently full of caviar. From infant trips back to Singapore remembered consuming “deeply unhygienic but delicious” things wrapped in banana leaves.

When her parents entertained, Clarissa read recipes to the illiterate cook, Louise, who in turn would squabble with Clarissa’s mother about what they were going to serve. One day, Louise stood at the top of the stairs: “Madam,” she said, “if you make me cook that I’ll jump.” “If you don’t Louise,” Mrs Dickson Wright retorted, “you might as well.” (Clarissa also had memories from around this time of Cherie Booth“always doing her homework in school uniform in the middle of louche Hampstead parties — she was a swot”. Later she observed the budding union between Booth (“desperately needy”) and Tony Blair (“a poor sad thing with his guitar”). Later still she observed that the “wet, long-haired student” that she had known had been replaced by a man with “psychopath eyes. You know those dead eyes that look at you and try to work out what you want to hear?”

Clarissa’s father became a progressively violent alcoholic, so that when he came home “one would take cover”. He broke three of her ribs with an umbrella and on another occasion hit her with a red-hot poker. She later confessed to poring over botanical volumes in search of suitable poisons and scouring the woods for lethal mushrooms.

Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson.

Boarding school proved a wonderful refuge. She then did a Law degree externally at London (her father refused to pay for her to go to Oxford unless she read Medicine) and was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1970. It was while she was at home studying for her Bar final that a letter arrived for her mother while the family was at breakfast. It turned out to be from her father, announcing divorce proceedings. After her father left the house Clarissa Dickson Wright never saw him again.

She was by then a regular pipe smoker, consuming two ounces of Gold Block a week. The first woman to practise at the Admiralty Bar, she received excellent notices from, among others, Lord Denning, and was elected to the Bar Council as a representative of young barristers.

Things started to go awry, though, when her parents died in quick succession in the mid-1970s. Her father left his entire £2 million fortune to his brother, explaining his decision in a caustic rider to his will. Clarissa’s mother, he wrote “never helped me and sought to alienate my children.” Clarissa’s sisters had married men either too old or too young, and her brother’s fault was to be “seeing Heather (one of Clarissa’s sisters) again”. As to his youngest daughter: “I leave no money to Clarissa, who was an afterthought and has twice caused me grievous bodily harm, and of whom I go in fear of my life.” The family contested the will to no avail.

It was Derby Day when Clarissa came home to find her mother dead. “It was a shock I quite simply couldn’t handle,” she recalled. She went to her boyfriend’s house and surprised everybody by pouring herself a large whisky: “I remember thinking 'Why have I waited so long? I’ve come home.’ I felt this enormous sense of relief.”

Her “habit” soon consisted of two bottles of gin a day, and a bottle of vodka before she got out of bed. “Suddenly it was as if I’d done it,” she remembered of her consequent loss of ambition. “I could hear the eulogies at my memorial service in my head, so what was the point of actually going through the mechanics of doing it.” In 1980 she was charged with professional incompetence and practising without chambers; she was disbarred three years later.

Financially this presented no immediate hardship since her mother had left her a fortune. Yet by the age of 40, Clarissa Dickson Wright had blown it all on “yachts in the Caribbean, yachts in the Aegean, aeroplanes to the races – and drink”.

“If I’d had another £100,000,” she conceded, “I’d have been dead.”

At rock bottom she went to the DSS to ask for somewhere to live, only to be told: “We’re not here for the likes of you, you know. You’re upper class, you’ve got a Law degree.”

She began to cook in other people’s houses. “Of course it’s only the upper classes who will become domestic servants now,” she reflected. “Other people feel it demeans them.” One day, when preparing to cook for a house party, she was on her knees, cleaning the floor. “I looked up,” she remembered, “and said 'Dear God, if you are up there, please do something.’” The next day she was arrested for refusing a breathalyser. “I was carted down the long drive just as the house party was coming up it. From then on, I was inexorably swept into recovery.” It took place at Robert Lefever’s Promis Recovery Centre at Nonington, not far from Canterbury. She retained an affection for Kent ever after.

Clarissa Dickson Wright owed her proportions to drinking six pints of tonic a day over 12 years, leading to “sticky blood” (a condition normally associated with people taking quinine tablets over a long period) and a very slow metabolism. Of the ungallant nature of the Two Fat Ladies title, she said: “Well there are two of us. I have a problem with 'Ladies’ as it sounds like a public convenience. But which bit do you object to? Are you saying I’m thin?” Her size did not deter suitors. “I get more offers now than when I was slender,” she said. “Especially from Australians. They’re crazy about me.”

It could also be a formidable weapon. On Two Fat Ladies she was known as “Krakatoa” for her temper, and once put two would-be muggers in intensive care. “I didn’t go around beating people up,” she said, “but if people were aggressive to me, then I hit them.”

A knowledgeable food historian, she argued that the “use of anti-depressants is directly relatable to the decrease in use of animal fat (a stimulant of serotonin).” She did not own a television, but went across the road to watch the rugby. Her choice for Desert Island Discs ranged from The Drinking Song by Verdi to Ra Ra Rasputin by Boney M. The desert island of her imagination was “a Caribbean island during the cool season with lots of shellfish... and perhaps the odd hunky native that one could lure to the sound of music.”

Following the success of Two Fat Ladies, Clarissa Dickson Wright was elected a rector of Aberdeen University and opened a restaurant in the grounds of the Duke of Hamilton’s 16th-Century Lennoxlove House.

Then, after Jennifer Paterson died in 1999, Clarissa Dickson Wright presented the One Man And His Dog Christmas Special. She later went on to appear (from 2000 to 2003) in the series Clarissa and the Countryman, with Johnny Scott. It was remarkably un-PC, but the real reason for the fact that the BBC dropped her, she claimed, was that she was too pro-hunting.

Her support for the Countryside Alliance did see her plead guilty to attending a hare coursing event in 2007. She had thought it legal as the greyhounds were muzzled and the magistrate gave her an absolute discharge. “I did not get a criminal record for that,” she said. “I was quite looking forward to going to jail in Yorkshire and writing the prison cookbook. It would have been a rest.” In 2012 she again raised eyebrows when she suggested that badgers shot in any cull should be eaten. Badgers, she noted, were once a popular bar snack: “I would have no objection to eating badgers. I have no objection to eating anything very much, really.”

Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott.

Her autobiography, “Spilling the Beans “(in which she claimed, among other things, that she once had sex behind the Speaker’s chair in Parliament) was published in 2007. That and other ventures such as the “engaging county-by-county ramble” “Clarissa’s England” (2012), and a return to the small screen (filming a three-part series for BBC Four on breakfast, lunch and dinner) saw her finances steadily improve. One supermarket chain offered her an “awful lot of money” to promote it, but she could afford to turn it down. “I don’t regret it. I used to say that all I had left in life was my integrity and my cleavage. Now it’s just my integrity.”

Her faith was less well defined than her views on field sports. “I’m not a very good or compliant Catholic. I reserve my right to disagree. My ancestors fought with Cromwell. Other ancestors went with Guy Fawkes. So we’re bolshie on both sides.” She admitted attending Mass to “give thanks” and enjoyed AA meetings, describing them as “better than television”.

The love of her life was a Lloyd’s underwriter named Clive who died from a virus caught in Madeira. Latterly she said that she had a long-time admirer. “We are very companionable,” she noted. But they did not live together. “Heaven forfend! I don’t mind cooking his meals, but wash his socks? No.”

Clarissa Dickson Wright, born June 24 1947, died March 15 2014

Contact DPC here.

Debating in front of Henri Bendel. 4:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Friday, March 21. 2014. A sunny, warming first day of Spring in New York.

I went down to lunch at Michael’s with Faye Wattleton. This was one of those lunches that are the luxury of my work: you get to know New York and how it thinks and what motivates it. You’re learning. Always learning. That was the conversation. Afterwards I made my way up Fifth Avenue because I wanted to get a better look at the Bergdorf Windows which I’d passed quickly in the cab on my way to Michael’s. They are smashing. I also wanted to get a shot of the recently Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ re-gilded General William Tecumseh Sherman statue facing south.

Sculptress Alice Aycock's "Park Avenue Paper Chase," with sculptures on the avenue islands from 52nd Street to 66th Street. Spellbinding in the most wonderful way, aluminum and fiberglass. Up until July 20th.

There were a lot of people, especially tourists and younger people, hanging out and about in this area in mid-afternoon. At the foot of the statue there was a group of street performers wowing the crowd with their refined “improvised” movements and acrobatics that are both astounding and astonishing. You can see why people congregate here. It’s a major hub of the city what with the Plaza, the Sherry-Netherland, Mr. Morgan’s Metropolitan Club, Bergdorf’s, the Apple Cube and Central Park all within one revolution of the eye. And yet it has the feel of a village also. Community. And at the other end of Central Park South are the black and shiny twin towers of the Time-Warner Center. You’re in New York, bub.

Looking south along Fifth Avenue from the Plaza and the Gen. Sherman statue.

In 1892, Augustus Saint-Gaudens modeled a bust of General William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War Union General, who lived in New York after the Civil War. Saint-Gaudens created the equestrian sculpture in Paris in 1903. It was re-gilded last year.

On the north side of the Grand Army Plaza, the latest art installation.

Last night I went down to Carnegie Hall where the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (AFIPO) presented the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, ZubinMehta, Music Director and Conductor, and featuring guest artists Pinchas Zukerman on the Violin and Amanda Forsyth on Cello.

The Isaac Stern Auditorium (main concert hall) was white and sparkling from its gilded cornices and proscenium arch, and the borders of the four spectator balconies. The house was packed. Several hundred of the guests were part of the benefit gala. The Orchestra, which is a great success in the world with its great talent, gets a lot of support from its Friends. The Music Director’s position, for example is endowed by the William Petschek Family. The American Friends is the principal underwriting of its US touring program. The President of the AFIPO is David Hirsch, who coincidentally is the father of JH himself. The Hirsch family are generationally music lovers. The thing about all of these “friends” of symphonies and opera and ballet companies, is that their supporters are passionate. It’s all a beautiful thing and the world is always the better for it.

A standing ovation for Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra last night at Carnegie Hall.

Sitting in this great auditorium that Mr. Carnegie built to his wife’s wishes for their friend Maestro Walter Damrosch, I could only think of all the (some now) immortal artists and performers who have worked on that stage such as Gustav Mahler, Vladimir Horowitz, Maria Callas, Leopold Stokowski Bob Dylan, Judy Garland, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, as well as Mr. Damrosch and the great host of mid to late 20th century artists and performers. Including last night’s great conductor Zubin Mehta.


	Maestro Mehta.

	Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth.

Maestro Mehta as he enters the podium is a man of commanding dignity, an almost royal bearing in his white tie and tails. His full head of hair almost completely grey now, he invites a kind of awe from his posture, which is almost military, definitely in charge, but with a certain majesty. That’s what you see. His conducting moves are tensely economical but there remains a precise lightness in his movements that is compelling to watch, because it also takes you into the music.

The program opened with “The Star Spangled Banner” by Frances Scott Key. All American schoolchildren learned the national anthem when I was growing up. All. All verses too. You wouldn’t have known it in Carnegie Hall last night. I fear many of us have forgotten it enough to the point that they don’t really know the words. This was followed by the Israeli anthem “Hatikvah,” sung by Cantor Azi Schwartz of the Park Avenue Synagogue. This was followed by Odon Partos Condertino for Strings.

Then Pinchas Zukerman came onstage with Amanda Forsyth. They performed Brahms’ Concerto for Violin & Violoncello in A minor, Op. 102 Double Concerto. After the intermission, the Orchestra returned to perform Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4 in F Minor.” A thrill, in that great and beautiful and historic hall, at this time in our lives.

They closed the program with a standing ovation for the artist, the conductor and his musicians. Almost. The ovation brought them back for an encore, which as Maestro Mehta explained to the audience, was a medley of songs in tribute to their composer, the great Marvin Hamlisch. Gemutlich. And that was the beautiful evening in New York.

It was getting brisk outside when the concert let out. Seventh Avenue had a breeze off the river. I went without an overcoat but was lucky to get a cab just a couple under yards down the block. Many of the guests for the gala then moved on to the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza, just a few blocks away (across from the General Sherman statue), for the gala benefit dinner.

David Hirsch, Lucia Noseda, Rochelle Hirsch, and Gianandrea Noseda.

Lauren and John Veronis with Herb and Jeanne Siegel.

Elisa Ross and Adrienne Arsht.

David and Lisa Klein.

Jane Lebell and Elaine Petschek.

Steve Bush, Betsy Bush, and Alan Shamoon.

Vicki Schussler, Harvey Schussler, Justine Schussler, and Nathan Griffith.

Bob Rendon, Terre Blair, and Valerie Lemon Rendon.

David Hirsch, Paola Curcio Kleinman, and Jerry Kleinman.

Susan Catalano, Gabrielle Gubitosa, Nunzio Gubitosa, Marie Stedman, and Shirley Kirshbaum.

Jeffrey and Danielle Hirsch.

Susan Catalano and Shirley Kirshbaum.

William and Marion Weiss.

Ian Frankel, Angeliki Kotsianti, and Lawrence Perelman.

Dasha Epstein, Don and Jane LaBelle, and Geoffrey Stern.

Simi Matera, Steve Bush, Betsy Bush, Nancy Czaja, Cherie Stahl, and Alan Shamoon.

Dylan Page and Jonny Friedman.

Alyssa Barrie nad Guy Billauer.

Rachel Weg and Dr. Oskar Weg.

Dr. Postley with Dr. Leon Root and Paula Root

Dinner at the Plaza for the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's annual gala.

Our piece on the death of Bunny Mellon on Tuesday’s Diary drew a lot of interest. What struck me about her – I never knew her nor met her, was her image – the elements to provide the imagination with what someone is like. Very American almost down home, although that was impossible because she had the breeding that implied sophistication, cosmopolitan, all the trappings of the very rich. But that picture we ran of her next to her friend Jackie Kennedy tells you more about who she might have been than anything else. Almost dowdy, not sleek or glamorous like her leonine friend, a natural beauty. Bunny Mellon loved beauty, wherever she went. That could explain her soft spot for those good looking, talented men who knew the ropes of charm about her. Who could be more charmed than such an artiste as Mrs. Mellon?

Bunny Mellon by Harry Benson, Antiqua, 1976.

My colleague Mackenzie Carpenter, (who is also an NYSD reader, fortunately for us), a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sent me her dispatch in yesterday’s Post-Gazette on the Will of Mrs Mellon. Ha, you don’t care what’s her in Will? I’ll bet. A woman with a half dozen homes, vast tracks of property, art, private planes and a centi-million dollar fortune?

You can read in the Will, the woman had a lot to leave, including a lot of jewelry, including a lot of Schlumberger. She bequeathed to her children, grandchildren and friends. Item by item. “it’s all in the details,” she was evidently fond of saying. Well there it is. Carpenter reports that the Will had been revised nine times since 2003, and that its original left a lot of jewelry to her daughter Eliza Lloyd who died in 2008 after a long term coma from being hit by a car.

Mackenzie Carpenter in the Post-Gazette points out that the changes reveal that Mrs. Mellon “never gave up hope that her daughter Eliza would recover from her coma. That hope is all over this document ... right off the bat, it’s about the jewelry, There’s pride of ownership, ‘my’ this, ‘my’ that ... but more importantly I see a mother handing down beloved things to her only daughter. Never mind that daughter is in a coma. Someday ...”

Carpenter also pointed out that the original executors were Mrs. Mellon’s longtime attorney Alexander Folger but that he originally shared that position with Mr. Kenneth Ira Starr, aka Ken Starr, who was another one of those men who appealed personally to Mrs. Mellon. She was introduced to him by a friend who had also been “impressed” by his manner and self-assurance as a financial adviser. This same friend later warned Mrs. Mellon that Starr had absconded with millions of her mother’s fortune and that Mrs. Mellon should flee. Mrs. Mellon listened, but after that was “cool” to her friend and apparently ignored the warning.

The Post-Gazette and Mackenzie Carpenter ran the entire Will with all its changes yesterday online here.

On the occasion of Asia Week New York, the Asian art extravaganza that is currently underway, The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its majestic Asian art galleries to over 600 international collectors, curators, gallery owners, and scholars who have been in New York for the non-stop round of exhibitions, auctions, and museum shows.


	UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Now in its 6th year, a record-breaking 47 galleries -- from Australia, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Thailand and the U.S. -- have set up shop all over town offering an astonishing array of the rarest and finest Asian examples of porcelain, jewelry, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, bronzes, prints, photographs, and jades from China, Japan, Korea, India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia.

One of the evening’s highlights were the curatorial tours of the major exhibitions now on view: Ink Art:Past as Present in Contemporary China, the Met’s first Chinese contemporary art exhibition; The Flowering of Edo Period Painting: Japanese Masterworks from the Feinberg Collection and Tibet and India: New Beginnings.

This drew a big New York and international crowd including The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Yoo Soon-taek, Emily Rafferty, Maxwell K. Hearn, Carol Conover, Lulu Wang, Mary Ann Rogers, Gisèle Croës, Kasper, Bernard Wald, Marie- Hélène Weill, Colin Mackenzie, Joan Mirviss, Jiyoung Koo, James Lally, Kit and Tina Luce, Melissa Chiu, Alexandra Munroe, Harry and Ellen Eisenberg, Annysa Ng, Suneet Kapoor, Robert Mowry, Suzanne Eliastam, John Carpenter, Beatrice Chang, Martha Sutherland, Carlo Cristi, Katherine Martin, Margriet Krigsman Scholten, Annysa Ng, Karen and Leon Wender, Keum Ja Kang, Erik and Cornelia Thomsen, Nancy Berliner, Jane Portal, Michael Goedhuis, Francesca Galloway, Henry Howard-Sneyd, Christina Prescott-Walker, Anu Ghosh-Mazumdar, Yamini Mehta, Mee-Seen Loong, Xian Fang, Dessa Goddard, Bruce MacLaren.

Galerie Jacques Barrère
PHOENIX ON TIGER
Carved wood and deer antlers with traces of polychromy
China
Chu Kingdom,Warring States period
4th – 3rd century BC

Joan B. Mirviss Ltd.
Screen-style sculpture, Tôhen Mandara, 1973

Michael Goedhuis
Peacock: Pearl, a work in ink, acrylic and lacquer on paper, 2012

Kaikodo LLC
An 8th century Gilt-silver wine-drinking Game Set, Tang Dynasty

Gisèle Croës
Archaic bronze vessel Zun
Late Shang dynasty 1600-1050 BC - c. 1300-1050

Prahlad Bubbar
Maharana Bhim Singh at a Jharokha Window (detail). Attributed to the master artist Chokha. Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, circa 1800.

Wait, there’s more: Jeff Olson, Edward Wilkinson, Claire and Michael Chu, Lesley Kehoe, Byron Kehoe, Debbie Misajon, John Reed, Michael Hughes, Elias Martin, Eric Zetterquist, Nana Onishi, Oliver Forge, Brendan Lynch, Jonathan Tucker, Prahlad Bubbar, Tina Zonars , Elisabeth Hammer, Ashley Hill, Louis Webre, Jennifer Casler-Price, Marley Rabstenek, Nancy Berliner, Sue Ollemans, Walter Arader, Nicholas Grindley, Ruth and Richard Dickes, Bill Griswold, Chris Malstead, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Feinberg, Karsten Tietz, Giuseppe Piva, Antoine Barrère , Marsha Vargas Handley.

Yoo Soon-taek, Mike Hearn, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Emily Rafferty, Carol Conover, and Lulu Wang.

Anyone here you know? Here’s more: Chiu-Ti Jansen, Dessa Goddard, Machiko and Koichiro Kurita, David Orentriech, Marina Killery, Carole Davenport, Erik Schiess, Gaia Banovich, Jessie Paindiris, Dr. Alvin Friedman Kien, John and Berthe Ford, Tu Qiang, Andrew Kahane, Christophe Hioco, Shawn Ghassemi, Hiroshi Yanagi, Nayef Homsi, Kathy and Paul Bissinger, Bob Levine, Vijay Anand, Leonardo and Tomaso Vigorelli, David Joralemon, Ed Nagel, Thomas Bachmann, Gabriel Eckenstein, John Guy, Joe Earle, Erica and Lark Mason, Jiaxin Tian, Alice Chin, Nancy Wiener, Leiko Coyle, Calli and Bob McCaw, Vyna St. Phard, Corinne Plumhoff, Shao Wang, Carlton Rochell and Kathleen Kalista, Noémie Bonnet, Sarah Callaghan, Margaret Tao, Marilyn White, Pilar Conde, and Alfonso Lledo Perez.

Jeff Olson, Dessa Goddard, Suneet Kapoor, Christina Prescott-Walker, Carol Conover, Katherine Martin, Joan Mirviss, and Henry Howard-Sneyd.

This year, Asia Week New York welcomed their Presenting Sponsor, Amanresorts, with seven of its properties in four Asian countries including Amanfayun in Hangzhou, China, Aman at Summer Palace in Beijing, China, Amanbagh in Rajasthan, India, Aman-i-Khas in Ranthambore, India, Amangalla in Galle, Sri Lanka, Amanwella in Tangalle, Sri Lanka, and the Amankora in Bhutan.

The Supporting Sponsor for the second year, is The China Center, which is scheduled to open on 6 floors in One World Trade Center in 2015. Serving as a gateway for Chinese companies and individuals entering the U.S. to connect with American entities seeking new opportunities with China. A multifaceted space, The China Center will include a private members club with a restaurant, a tea lounge, a bar, premier event and conference spaces and best-in- class serviced office suites.

Pilar Conde, Miwako Tezuka, and Alfonso Lledo Perez.

Noémie Bonnet and Debbie Misajon.

Eric Zetterquist and Carol Conover.

Mary Ann Rogers and Carol Conover.

Vyna St. Phard, Alice Chin, and Chiu-Ti Jansen.

Spencer Sharp and Chiu-Ti Jansen.

Barnaby Conrad III and Martha Sutherland.

Tomaso and Gerolamo Vigorelli.

Lisa and Steven Chait.

Michael Goedhuis and Grace Dai.

Shawn Ghassemi and Ina Nouel.

Alexandra Monroe and Gisèle Croës.

Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch.

Kasper and Emily Rafferty.

Annysa Ng and Karen Wender.

John Reed and Carol Conover.

Mike Hearn, Michael Knight, Dr. Pedro Moura Carvalho, and Colin Mackenzie.

Marie-Hélène Weill.

Dina Bangdel, Ashmina Ranjit, Debottam, Bose, Sam Chapin, Dr Sid Bhansali, and Sanjiv Sharma.

Helmut and Heidi Neumann, Christina Prescott-Walker, and Henry Howard-Sneyd.

Thomas Bachmann and Gabriel Eckenstein.

Kathleen Kalista, Carol Conover, and Carlton Rochell.

Margriet Krigsman Scholton and Katherine Martin.

Carlo Cristi and Nayef Homsi.

Moke Mokotoff and Grant Barnhart.

Jiyoung koo, Victoria Lee, Risha Lee, and Yang Liu.

Jiaxin Tin, Erica Mason, Lark Mason, and Ed Nagel.

Margaret Tao, James Lally, Antoine Barrère, and Jeanne Jauneaud.

Bob Mowry and Suzanne Eliastam.

Jessica Paindiris and Gaia Banovich.

James Godfrey, Leon Wender, and Clarissa von Spee, Curator in the Department of Asia, British Museum

Michael Knight, Nancy Murphy, and Nicholas Grindley.

David Orentreich, Marina Killery, Helen Dennis, and Michael Hughes.

Also in little ole Manhattan … This past Wednesday night, Bertrand Lortholary, Consul Général de France, and Christian Deydier, President of the Syndicat National des Antiquaires, celebrated the upcoming Biennale des Antiquaires et de la Haute Joaillerie at a cocktail reception at the French Consulate.

The Biennale is a spectacular show, NYSD has covered it several times. The collections are fabulous and the venue is fabulous and it’s everything brilliant about the French and you’re in Paris for it. Treasures abound.

Bertrand Lortholary and Christian Deydier.

Guests at the recpeiton included Cecile David-Weill, Laura de Gunzburg, Philippe & Stephanie Dauman, Pierre Levai, Sharon Alouf, Corice Arman, Michael Avedon, Edgar Batista, Benoit Pous Bertran de Balanda, Eric Boman & Peter Schlesinger, Leighton C. Candler, Cecile Casablancas, Lady Liliana Cavendish, AlejandraCicognani, Pietro & Elena Cicognani, Ricky Clifton, Nora Coblence, Milly De Cabrol, Trish Caroll, Anne De Louvigny Stone, Massimiliano Di Battista, Barbara Wilhelm Dwek, Martha Kramer & Neal Fox, Marilyn Gauthier, Cindy Farkas Glanzrock, Stéphane Houy-Towner, Cory Kennedy, Stephanie Lacava, Aurora Lopez, Ghislaine Maxwell, Patty Newburger & Brad Wechsler, Lee & Liliana Siegelson, Lucien Terras, Douiglas and Florence Von Erb, and Camille Wiart.

The premier showcase of art and antiques fearing treasure from the world’s greatest dealers sinc the 1950s will take place at the Grand Palais in Paris from September 11 through 21st.

Sharon Alouf.

Lily Snyder and Laura de Gunzburg.

Slava Radanovic.

Elsa Fine, Amy Fine Collins, and Flora Collins.

Eric Marx and Jackie Swerz.

Michael Avedon.

Liliana Cavendish.

Jane Fire.

Lili Siegelson, Jacques Babando, Geraldine Lenain, and Lee Siegelson.

Giulia Coccia and Adelaide Roset.

Ghislaine Maxwell.

Edward Barsamian.

Cory Kennedy.

Trish Caroll.

Stephanie LaCava.

Stefania Pia.

Photographs by Annie Watt (AFIPO & Asia Week)

Contact DPC here.

Afternoon tea. 3:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Monday, March 24, 2014. A sunny first Spring Saturday with temperatures reaching up to 60. Sunday got colder and the weatherman is suggesting a snowstorm in a day or two. Nevertheless, Spring is here, and I photographed the proof yesterday.

Was the city quiet? It was in my neighborhood. The private schools on either side of me were closed for vacation. Parents take off too, for their favorite climes. Nice weather in the city, however, and aside from the daily double dog walks along the Promenade, I stayed in with my books and my media reading. And the ongoing job of culling my books since they have now taken over my humble flat.

The first signs of Spring in the nabe. Just inside Carl Schurz Park.

Last week I finished “Heir Apparent, A Life of Edward VII; The Playboy Prince.” By Jane Ridley. It took forever because I’m often pressed for time. I picked up this book with a vague indifference but cover had intrigued me. Who was that man? And what did I care?


	Click to order Heir Apparent, A Life of Edward VII; The Playboy Prince.

Christened Albert Edward (Albert being his father) but known all his life as “Bertie,” he was the second born child, first born son of Queen Victoria and Albert, and therefore the “heir.” Coincidentally, I had recently read a biography of Victoria (“Serving Victoria” by Kate Hubbard), also excellent. I had had no burning interest in the subject but once I started, I wanted to know more. Victoria’s personal “influence” on the Age which has her name, remains confounding.

Victoria ascended the throne at 18, having had no preparation other than the knowledge that she was the likely heir to her uncle, William IV. Her life was designed from the start: she was a major isolator. As Queen, she hated being in the city (London) — found it crowded, noisy, and dirty — and lived in the cold and splendid isolation at Windsor, Balmoral and a couple other palaces that were far from the madding crowd.

An only child, she had been isolated from her contemporaries. When she came to maturity what was most important to her was marriage, or rather perhaps more specifically, a companionship with a sex life. This is not stated thusly in any of the biographies about her but it’s pretty obvious. Nowadays it might be stated that she liked having a guy around. All the time.

Victoria and Albert had nine children. She didn’t like being pregnant. Bertie came not long after the first child, the adored Victoria (Vicky). It was a very difficult pregnancy and a painful delivery for Victoria, and you could conclude from what has been written and recorded by her that she held it against the child. She disliked him. As a boy he was under the stress of his father’s “plans” for his education and his mother’s distance, even expressed as disdain for him.

Queen Victoria, 1882. Behind the queen is a portrait of her then deceased husband, Prince Albert, by German artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

His “education” was so strict and stressful that even his minders pleaded with Albert to give the boy a minute to himself — and maybe a couple of contemporary pals. No. Bertie was not to have friends outside of his siblings. He became what would be labeled now as an abused child, both physically and mentally. Ganged up on by his parents who each had their own private issues with the poor child’s existence. Bertie would, one day, be King, however — although his mother thought the idea was unfathomable. She thought he’d be a horrible king and said so. (These people wrote thousands of letters expressing themselves to friends and family members. Because it is the royal family, much of the correspondence is extant and archived for historical research, etc.)

Young Bertie.

When the boy came into his teens, they had to loosen up a little, and he was sent away (allowed) to school. He had a natural predetermination for friendship. They came easily to him, much to his surprise, firstly because (and he soon knew this) he was “The Prince of Wales,” but finally because he was a hail fellow well met, and eager to befriend. Outside the house, away from the parents, he was King — or the closest to it that any of Her Majesty’s subjects were going to get.

Bertie bloomed and flourished. Away from the scornful rule of his parents, a charming personality emerged from the enchantment of the world around him. He loved social life and he loved girls. He would have a very long wait to come to the throne. But he was married (arranged) to a Danish Princess Alexandra of Schleswig-Holstein in his early 20s. The idea was to curb his pleasure-seeking social life. But the marriage gave him his independence, and nothing curbed what can only be described as a life of Edwardian hedonism.

Marlborough House London where Bertie and Alexandra (known as Alix) lived before he became King.

The betrothed, Princess Alexandra and the 20-year-old Prince of Wales.

Edward and Alexandra on their wedding day, 1863.

Sandringham, the country house of the newly married Prince and Princess of Wales.

The Prince and Princess of Wales moved to Marlborough House in London. They were the closest thing to the monarchy in the mainly Queen-less London, since Victoria liked the country and seeing nobody except her closest staff. Her isolation made her unpopular with many. She was an “absent” monarch. Her excuse was her self-imposed lifelong “mourning” of the early death of her beloved Albert (he was forty-two). Bertie was not absent, however.


	The Prince and Princess of Wales, 1896.

And now, as the Prince of Wales, presiding over the “Marlborough House Set” (which was what his society was known as), he was getting around all the time — the dinners, the balls, the ladies who were charmed by HRH. It was a liberation that eventually educated him.

Victoria was to have the longest reign of any English monarch up to the present. She refused to share any of her power, nor any State information with her aging son claiming not to trust his judgment. She could reference the gossip and other matters that stirred up because of his presence in the world out there. So she kept him in the dark.

Nevertheless, the boy, free from ma and pa’s iron hands, bloomed into a great fellow to know out there in the world where his mother never ventured. His awareness gave him access to much that people are willing to share with the man who would be King. He ruled “Society” and brought in people who were formerly outsiders, because he liked them. He also had several mistresses and many other encounters that charmed and amused him as well as those around him. This greatly influenced his subjects, especially those who traveled in his social circles. His encouragement of good works and health care for the poor, demonstrated a sense of his people’s needs.

HRH Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale; HRH, the Prince of Wales; and Prince Goerge of Wales (later King George V), circa 1890.

Tzarina Alexandra of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, Queen Victoria, and Bertie, the Prince of Wales. Alexandra is Victoria's granddaughter, Nicholas is the nephew of Princess Alexandra of Wales, son of her sister.

From late youth, he was a compulsive eater, eating enormous meals, accompanied by the libation and the endless cigars and cigarettes. As you read this book, you find yourself taking him in, watching him enjoy himself after that horrendous childhood. You’re amazed at his stamina. Despite his immense intake and girth, he could cover a lot of the day with his luncheons, dinners, balls, games, theatre and travel, you can see that he enjoyed it all. He was a very good man to (almost) all the women he took a shine too. A shine was often what it was because, aside from carnal knowledge, Bertie loved the feminine presence that was bright and eager and interested, that which he was denied by mama back at the castle when he was a child.

Bertie, the great epicurean, at table.

In 1901 mama finally dies. Bertie is 63. The moment The Heir is imagined to be waiting for. He’s getting gouty and his girth and consumption of rich foods, liquors, and constant smoking have slowed down his pace to sometimes alarming moments. He’s lived; his life has been a banquet. There is still a mistress (at this point, Mrs. Keppel— the great-great-grandmother of Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall). But “it’s too late” he was heard to say on learning the news.

Alice, Mrs. George Keppel, the last of the King's Mistresses. When the King was dying, Mrs. Keppel had in her possession a letter which the King had written before he became ill, allowing her to see him. He also made arrangements through his friend, the banker Ernest Cassel, to supply Mrs. Keppel with a mansion with servants in Mayfair and an annual stipend.

The legendary Lily Langtry, who was a brief mistress of the Prince of Wales with whom he kept up communication throughout his life.

Daisy the Countess of Warwick and her son the Hon. Maynard Greville. Daisy, the Countess Warwick, was long the mistress of the Prince of Wales. Daisy was rich, a very good horsewoman, and a liberated woman. They remained friends long after the affair ended.

Easton Lodge, her home, and society's playground in the Edwardian Age.

However, the pay-off for Bertie the man, and for the reader is his accession not only to the throne but to understanding his role. This is the most interesting part of his life because he was a man who was never allowed to claim himself in relationship to his role as future monarch. However, his decades of “socializing” among the elite, the royalty, the demimondaines, the bankers and the politicians who kept their eye on him, gave him a background he never could have obtained from his mother’s tutoring. He could see more than one side to it and was never threatened by the possible loss of “position.” After all, it was a constitutional monarchy.

The Prince (and later the King) loved to be well turned out and expected it of all his circle of friends. Uniforms were very important, as they were part of protocol.

Because of that, his natural talent as a diplomat gave him access to the power he would one day claim as his. He became the King that neither his mother nor father could have achieved. He learned along the way how to handle himself with the powerful and the politicians. He grasped precisely the role a monarch can play to keep the politicians and the power people out of trouble. (Like War. Kaiser Wilhelm was Bertie’s sister’s boy. A crazy boy in many ways, and not lovable. Bertie could see where things could lead with Willie. He worked consciously to keep the peace among his relatives and relationships in other countries, and their ambitions.)

There has never been a more effective monarch, acting in the interest of his people (and the Empire), until the present Queen who seems to reflect the real power of a constitutional monarch. You get to see how the world is ultimately a small group of people who relate to each other rather than to the peoples they lead. This remains a difficult concept for us. Bertie, however, as monarch, understood the bigger picture.

Edward VII and his nephew Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm (Ridley refers to him as William) was at the very least a very neurotic man with strong military inclinations and very conflicted about his British (his mother's) relatives. Bertie suspected that his nephew wanted a war (to prove something).

You also get to see the genetic dynamics of a family. Victoria complained, among other things, that her son was not handsome like his father (he looked like his mother). She complained about the company he kept (implying the women). But she too, had a constant predilection for the company of the opposite sex. Bertie had a grandson, who would one day take title as Edward VIII, (remembered as the Duke of Windsor) and be regarded in his youth as a chip off the old block.

Author Jane Ridley gives us a full and deep portrait of the man, the abused and isolated boy who went out into an epicurean existence as a royal Prince, a man who came very late to his throne, but a man who, on that same path, had gained and developed the wisdom to lead in the interests of his people. Reading about this life, you’re aware of the paucity of such wisdom and leadership in the world today.

Edward VII relaxing at Balmoral Castle, photographed by his wife, Alexandra.

Contact DPC here.

Looking north along Fifth Avenue from 58th Street. 4:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014. Big snow forecast. Flurries barely in the air at the hour of this writing (11:30 p.m. Tuesday night). Looks like we won’t see that Big One that forecasters were describing as “explosive.” Maybe some white stuff on the tree branches in the morning. And then deep freeze, so says weather guy, until Thursday.

In the world of deluxe New York dining, the word was going around yesterday that Charles Masson, the longtime manager, director and family partner, “abruptly” left La Grenouiille, New York’s chicest, most enduring French restaurant, last Saturday in a major shakeup involving his family – his younger brother Philippe and his mother who started the restaurant with Charles Masson Sr. in 1962.

Charles’ younger brother Philippe, who worked at the restaurant from 1993 until 2000, has come from Brittany where he and the senior Mme. Masson live, in order to “fill his brother’s shoes.” "Friday was his last night,'' confirmed a maitre d' at the midtown restaurant.


	Charles Masson through the window at La Grenouille.

This comes as a shock to thousands of the restaurant’s devoted clientele, as Charles who took over the running of the restaurant when he was 19 after the death of his father in 1975, has been managing the highly successful restaurant for almost four decades. Although it is not as much of a shock to those who recall a family disagreement that occurred back in the 1990s when Charles departed, and Philippe took his place.

"My brother needs a break, he's taking some time off,'' Philippe Masson told Grub Street, the New York magazine food and restaurant blog. Philippe had been out of the business and the country for the last decade. Most recently he has been in France where Mme. Masson lives.

There had been rumors circulating in the past few weeks that there was a family dispute, and not a new one, that was coming to a head. I didn’t believe it when I heard it, thinking: why would anyone upset that perfect business model? But then again, perfect and family are two words rarely used together.

However. Those who know the family and know the story have described it as Shakespearean in content. Two brothers and a mother who at this great age continues to wield a mother’s power.

It is indeed a very sad situation for La Grenouille's longtime customers, who have grown used to the elegantly comfortable, beautiful and chic dining experience that Charles has created and seamlessly provided for them. Perhaps that imprimatur will remain.

Looking up toward the second floor of La Grenouille at 3 East 52nd Street.

There is always the worry that such things might change. The restaurant is not only known for its excellent cuisine but also its impeccable service, its beautiful floral arrangements which flourish in the dining rooms, as well as its lighting and décor that add more than a little something to the atmosphere (the air up there) that is rarely found in any restaurant anywhere nowadays.

Last year JH and I visited the restaurant and interviewed Charles while JH photographed its entire interior. The piece is here: What was so impressive about the visit was not only the aforementioned qualities and characteristics but mainly the creative thinking of Charles Masson. He is a man who had wanted to be an artist but abandoned those desires for the sake of the family business. But he transferred his creative focus to making La Grenouille the ultimate restaurant it is today. The man is endlessly innovative.

View of the downstairs dining room, soon to be reinvented elsewhere?

During our tour of the main dining room, as he described the intricacies and complexity of the design, I remarked on the theatricality of it all. "It's theatre," he said with an artist's confidence. And the clientele is the star.

Charles Masson Sr. opened the famed restaurant in 1962 with Mme. Masson who was a force in the business. Charles too has been the succeeding force in the family business – buying and arranging the spectacular floral pieces, as well as the seating chart, the training of the staff. He designed the menu, decided its contents as well as painting the seasonal watercolors that adorn its pages.

The watercolor backgrounds on the menu are by Charles.

JH took another attitude beyond my regrets about the change. He thought it was exciting when I told him Charles had left. "Charles is an innovator," he reminded me; "he could do something great for his developing (younger) audience." There are rumors he may be opening his own restaurant downtown which would please a lot of people who already love La Grenouille.

Meanwhile Grub Street reported that Philippe Masson is easing into his new role.  "I used to cook here when I was much younger and it feels like yesterday,'' he them. "When you are born and raised in the business, it's like getting back in the saddle.''

"Vive La Grenouille et Vive le Charles."

Meanwhile the new Quest magazine is on the stands with the beautiful Alexandra Richards on the cover. Ms. Richards is, if you didn’t know the daughter of Rolling Stone Keith Richards, as well as best-selling memoirist, and Patti Hansen. She has not strayed far from her father’s profession: she’s one of the hot young in-demand DJs on the social scene in New York. She modeled this layout”Crazy In Love With Michael Kors” with another in-demand DJ on the social scene, the beautiful Hannah Bronfman, of those Bronfmans. The girls are wearing Michael Kors, from his Spring 2014 Collection. The piece was produced and styled by Daniel Cappello and photographed by Julie Skarratt.

While down among the sheltering palms of Palm Beach that ever so fashionable and chic home away from home for many New Yorkers, Marianne and John Castle, who reside smartly in the old Kennedy mansion, which served as JFK’s Winter White House, had a dinner for their friend Rosita, The Duchess of Marlborough. The Castles’ dinner was a kind of an affectionate farewell for the duchess who was returning to her home in the UK after her annual winter visit to Palm Beach. The guest list: Marylou Whitney and her husband, John Hendrickson, who had been visiting but were heading back to Saratoga and then off to Kentucky for the Derby. The other guests were, Dan Colussy, Dr. Ed Miller and his wife, Lynn; Ann and Donald Calder, Quest’s Grace and Chris Meigher and Jim Mitchell.

The Castles' dinner table set for fourteen.

Rosita, Duchess of Marlborough with Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson.

Mrs. Castle and her guest of honor, the duchess.

Lynne and Ed Miller.

Mrs. Castle and the Whitney-Hendricksons.

Grace Meigher with Rosita Marlborough.

Chris Meigher with Marylou Whitney.

Jim Mitchell and John Castle.

More from Palm Beach ... Steven Stolman, president of Scalamandre, hosted a cocktail party in the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach's library to honor supporters of the 42nd Annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House, which will open to the public in New York on May 1st.

Each year, celebrated interior designers transform a luxury Manhattan home into an elegant exhibition of fine furnishings, art and technology. This all began in 1973 when several dedicated supporters of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club launched the Kips Bay Decorator Show House to raise critical funds for much needed after school and enrichment programs for New York City children. Over the course of four decades, this project has grown into a must-see event for thousands of design enthusiasts and is renowned for sparking interior design trends throughout the world.

This year's show house will be presented at the extraordinary Villard Houses, an historic Stanford White mansion at the base of the New York Palace Hotel. Twenty-two accomplished designers will transform the north wing into a spectacular expression of interior design at its best.

Rich Wilkie and Danielle Quintero.

Steve March, Jane Green Warburg, Nick Gold, and Robert Rizzo.

On hand to celebrate this year's show house were designers Pauline Pitt and Stephen Mooney (both Kips Bay Show House alums), Gil Walsh, Lauryl Guse, Gary McBournie, Ross Meltzer, Victor Figueredo, James Boyd Niven, Tristan Butterfield, Robert Rizzo and Leslie Singletary along with Kips Bay president James Druckman and executive director Daniel Quintero, who spoke passionately about the 11,000 children that the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club serves in New York City and its environs.

For tickets to the gala preview on April 30th or general admission beginning on May 1st, please visit www.kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org.

Tristan Butterfield, Lauryl Guse, Gloria Stolman, and Gil Walsh.

Pauline Pitt and Steven Stolman.

Joan Drake, Geoffrey Thomas, and Jackie Weld Drake.

Judy Flynn and Tom Shaffer.

Lauryl Guse, Gil Walsh, and Stephen Mooney.

Danielle and Daniel Quintero.

Scott Velozo and Ross Meltzer.

Bill Richards and Gary McBournie.

Pamela Fiori, James Druckman, Nazira Handal, and Colt Givner.

James Boyd Niven, Rob Copley, and Gary McBournie.

Ross Meltzer, Pamela Fiori, and Victor Figueredo.

Leslie Singletary and Mark Hemeon.

Jackie and Beau Breckenridge.

Palm Beach con't ... Supporters of "Artists for Others," a benefit performance for Agape International Missions (AIM) held a kickoff luncheon at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa recently to make final plans for the event, to be held on Thursday, April 3rd from 7 to 10 p.m. at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa. The benefit will feature six-time Grammy Award winner Amy Grant, known as "The Queen of Christian Pop" and seven other musicians.

Eva Hill, president of Britannia Pacific Properties Inc., owner of Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, welcomed guests and introduced R. Michael King, general manager of the hotel, who provided a brief overview of the hotel's support of the local community. Mr. King then requested that Ms. Hill provide a brief history of AIM, which rescues children from sex trafficking.

Attending the kickoff luncheon were host committee members Becca Anderson, John Bradway, Nick Gold, Coleen Hanamura, Jennifer Kenwell, Kimberly Kosanovich, Jan Kranich, Sarah Kubrick, Mindi Lambert, Becky Moore, John Patten, Julie Rudolph, Sherry Schlueter and Elaine Taule. Laurel Baker, Michelle Bernardo, Jessica Branson, Dr. Rachel Docekal, Toni May, Anne Moran and Catherine Warren.

Ms. Grant will be joined on stage by Kip Winger, Lincoln Brewster, Buddy Hyatt and Celica Westbrook, as well as T.G. Sheppard, Danny Gokey and Kelly Lang. Artists for Others will also feature Lisa Cohen of the CNN Freedom Project, Bridget and Don Brewster of AIM, Ken Peterson of 3Strands and artist David Garibaldi.


	Amy Grant.

"'Artists for Others' is our way of giving back to the community. The AIM benefit on April 3rd will be the inaugural kickoff for other charitable performances to be held every year. The event will be a fun-filled evening where guests will enjoy magnificent music, in an elegant setting -- up close and personal with these talented artists," Eva Hill, noted.

"All of our guest artists are performing at the benefit without a fee because they love children and want to do all that they can to help AIM provide more lifesaving services."

Tickets for the event are $250 per person or $2000 for a VIP table. Special priced hotel accommodations are available for those attending the event.

AIM event sponsors to date include Cheney Brothers, 3Strands, Shiraz Events and Gulfstream Media Group.

For tickets and additional information on the AIM benefit reception, call Alison Votaw at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa at 561-540-4994 or email her at: Alison.Votaw@EauPalmBeach.com.

R. Michael King and Eva Hill.

John Patten, vice president, BMO Private Bank; and Jennifer Kenwell.

R. Michael King and Sherry Schlueter, South Florida Wildlife Center.

Julie Rudolph and Eva Hill.

John Bradway and Kimberly Kosanovich.

Nick Gold and Mindi Lambert.

Jan Kranich and Coleen Hanamura.

Becky Moore and Becca Anderson.

Last but not least Down Among the Sheltering Palms ... More than 170 Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach supporters gathered recently in the Center's Gimelstob Ballroom for a special event honoring members of the Helen K. Persson Society. The luncheon honored Society members for their confidence, trust and investment in the Kravis Center and featured a presentation by Bernstein Global Wealth Management, sponsors of the event.

Named five years ago for the Kravis Center's ardent supporter, the late Helen Persson, the Society now has 120 members. The recent $5 million dollar gift from the estate of Mrs. Persson brings the value of the Center's Permanently Restricted Endowment Fund to $17.3 million.

Jane Mitchell and Brian Wodar.

In 2008, Mrs. Persson lent her name to establish the Helen K. Persson Society, recognizing members whose financial commitments to the Endowment will keep the Center fiscally sound for future generations to come. Mrs. Persson was a Life Trustee, who served as a member of the Board of Directors from 1992 to 2007. "Mrs. Persson's thoughtful legacy is an invaluable contribution to the long-term fiscal stability of the Center. The gift from her estate will also allow the Kravis Center to implement new strategies to enhance our donor base and to inspire future gifts to the Center's Endowment which Helen felt was so important," shared Chief Executive Officer Judith Mitchell who then introduced founding Board Chair and Chair of the Center's endowment effort, Alexander Dreyfoos.

The luncheon's guest speakers included Evan Deoul, Senior Managing Director of Bernstein Global Wealth Management. He was joined at the podium by Brian Wodar, National Director of Nonprofit Advisory Services for Bernstein Global Wealth Management, who provided a presentation on "Key Considerations for Donors in 2014." Mr. Wodar has spearheaded the firm's research on the interplay between spending, investment policies and fundraising for nonprofits. He also provides customized consultation on complex financial issues facing Bernstein's high-net-worth investors and their professional advisors.

Evan Deoul and Judy Mitchell.

Society members in attendance at the luncheon included: Dr. Nettie Birnbach, Margaret May Damen, Margaret Donnelley, Renate and Alex Dreyfoos, Debra Elmore, Maureen Gardella, Fruema and Dr. Elliot Klorfein, Elinore Lambert, Harriet Miller, Jane Mitchell, Judy and Jim Mitchell, Evelyn Peterson, Beth Schwartz, Charles Williams and two new members who were honored with a presentation of a commemorative memento, Rachel Sommer and Barbara and Irving Reifler. Also in attendance was Chair of the Kravis Center's Development Committee and Board member, Laurie Silvers.

The Center's newly elected Board Chair, Jane Mitchell, closed the program for the luncheon and shared the following words of gratitude, "The Kravis Center is indeed deeply grateful to the vision of Helen Persson and the generosity of her estate. By lending her name to the endowment effort, she set a shining example of generosity to her community."

Margaret May Damen, Rachel Sommer, and Barbara and Irving Reifler.

The Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, located in West Palm Beach, Florida, is one of the premier performing arts centers in the Southeast with a growing national and international reputation. Established as a leading force in the social fabric of the community, its many outreach programs are as broad and varied as the community itself. To date, the Center has opened the door to the performing arts for approximately 2 million school children.

Members of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts Helen K. Persson Society receive invitations to special events, acknowledgment in Kravis Center publications and other benefits based on level of commitment.

Alex and Renate Dreyfoos.

Catherine Zieman, Donald Ephraim, Diane Bergner, and Caroline Harless.

Fruema and Dr. Elliot Klorfein with Dr. Nettie Birnbach.

Jerry Kelter and Elinore Lambert.

Harriet Miller and Ilene Arons.

Debra Elmore and Maureen Gardella.

Charles Williams and Beth Schwartz.

Lucien Capehart Photography (Castle, Kips Bay, Artists for Others); Corby Kaye's Studio Palm Beach (Kravis).

Contact DPC here.

Waiting for the bus on 10th Avenue. 3:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Thursday, March 27, 2014. Sunny and mild but with a whipping, icy wind moving everyone this way and that across midtown.

It was the Michael’s lunch, and the place was packed – one hundred sixty at table and bar (also reserved and filled). The big star in the room was The Divine Miss M who was lunching with Boaty Boatwright. Miss M is very familiar with Michael’s as her husband Martin Von Hasselberg is one of Michael McCarty’s best pals, and is in the portrait with Michael (painted by Kim McCarty) next to the reception desk at the entrance of the restaurant.

Around the room: Joan Gelman; Elizabeth Musmanno, PR exec now with her own company; formerly of Vera Wang; Adam Platzner of Cornelius Capital, Bisilia Bokoko with Judy Agisim, Prince Dimitri; next door to them:s Michael Garin, CEO of Image Nation Abu Dhabi, with Jacques Cousteau’s daughter (didn’t catch her name); and next door to them: Deborah Norville looking her bright and beautiful self; and next door to them: this writer with author (“Haywire”) Brooke Hayward; Beverly Camhe, Steven Stolman; Ed and Arlyn Gardner with Tony Hoyt; Dan Lufkin; Jordan Ringel; Andrew Stein with Nancy Ross and Ed Klein;Peter Price; Al Roker with Henry Schleiff; Kelly Langberg celebrating her husband Jeffrey’s birthday; Ellen Levine of Hearst; Debra Shriver of Hearst, Fern Mallis, George Green, formerly President and CEO of Hearst magazines; Dr. Jerry Imber with his pal Jerry della Femina. There are usually four or five at this table.

Moving right along: Ed Kelly of American Express Publishing with Keith Kelly of the New York Post; Jack Kliger; Joe Armstrong with Dave Zinczenko; hedge fund guru James Chanos; Nick Verbitsky of United Stations; Lisa Linden of Linden, Alschuler & Kaplan PR, with Joe Spinado; Ryan McCormick with Diane Clehane; Robert Peck of Baron Captal, Steve Solomon of Rubenstein PR; Betty Lee Stern; Stu Zakim of Bridge Strategic Communnications, and scores more just like ‘em.


	A young Charles Masson arranging flowers at La Grenouille.

Sound-wise it was pandemonium. The conversation passing this table was mainly about La Grenouille, the ne plus ultra French restaurant around the corner on East 52nd Street where Charles Masson, son of the founders and manager of the restaurant for the past forty years, ran the business. Except for seven years in the 1990s when Charles departed after disagreements with his younger brother Philippe. At this stage, the word younger is relative — the men are now in their fifties.

Last Saturday, Charles departed once again and was “replaced” by his brother who heretofore had been living in France where their mother lives.

New York magazine food and restaurant blog Grub Street, which broke the news of Charles Masson’s departure on their web site Tuesday, was able to interview Charles again yesterday, and the story began to surface in the media.

It turns out Charles Masson never had a share in the family business despite all the decades he has put in to taking care of his parents’ business and turning it into a restaurant without peer in New York. Amazing when you think of it. He’s been a paid manager, always requiring his mother’s approval and eventually his mother and his younger brother’s approval for anything he spent right down to a light fixture in the kitchen. This, while mother and brother were living across the Atlantic in France on the laurels of the son’s work.

Many years later, nobody does it better.

Recently, according to the interview, Charles learned that Philippe has become the majority owner of the restaurant — in other words, the mother gave it to him — and began his micro-managing, reminding his brother: “Remember Charles, you’re just an employee ....” Philippe, incidentally, told the New York Post that there was no family rift, adding that his mother “doesn’t want to be in a situation where she can’t sell her baby.” Aha! The plot thickens.

It’s an odd story, despite it being a family squabble. The Matriarch and her two sons at loggerheads. Whence comes the conflict? And from whom? This is of course, in the novel, or the film script. It begs the question: "Why now?" The brother, who now owns the "majority" share, has spent seven of the last 40 years working in the business. He left in 2000 after a disagreement with Charles that evidently threatened violence between the two in the restaurant kitchen (a knife or knives allegedly brandished).


	Portrait of Charles Sr. in 1972.

In the meantime, the older brother, Charles, without a piece of the action, has built the family business into something that has triumphed down through the decades, being the very last of the great French restaurants that blossomed out of Henri Soule’s original Pavilion (where Charles Masson Sr. worked as a waiter when he first came to America).

All great restaurants have a personality that reflects the “owner.” There are no exceptions to this rule. Charles Masson Jr., albeit “not an owner, but only a manager,” did that. He did that not only to satisfy his vision of the restaurant but to protect the property and tradition of his parents, and also his brother. He gave La Grenouille its personality. Now that mother, with whom he evidently has a distant relationship (are you surprised?) has sent his brother back as “majority owner” to be Charles’ boss.

There’s an unrevealed factor working here besides the obvious sibling rivalry, which was clearly not arbitrated by the mother of the sons. When people who are close to the story refer to it as a Shakespearean drama, they are referring to the implication of the betrayal of one’s own blood. A fool, a knave and greed are always elements in Will Shakespeare’s plots.

So what is the real story here? Why have the mother and brother decided to wrest the running of the business from that son who has so brilliantly managed it to — ultimately — their benefit in the last four decades? Is it that they just don’t think he’s done a good job managing the family asset? Hard to imagine, considering his achievement.

Prime New York real estate: The view of the Cartier mansion from the upstairs room at Le Grenouille.

The plot smells of something else. Some people think this is a real estate story. The family owns that property at number 3 East 52nd Street. Charles Masson Sr. acquired the building when he opened his restaurant in 1962. A former stable, built in 1871 is the same building where Saint-Exupery wrote "The Little Prince" (he was a friend of Masson Sr.), and the same edifice where a 120 years ago, in the Gilded Age, the society abortionist Mme. Restell performed her procedures to make sure the gilded names were not cursed with bastards. It is a landmark of 150 years in New York. Fifty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. Cartier is across the way. Prime prime, New York real estate.

The non-participating owners could very conceivably sell the building for a very high price – millions and millions and millions and then can go back to the business of living off the restaurant without even having a restaurant. That’s not an original thought now, is it?

Meanwhile New Yorkers can expect to see Charles Masson enchant them once again with his knowledge, aesthetic, and art as a restaurateur.

Everyone told him it wasn't going to grow; a grapevine on East 52nd Street. That was 12 years ago. Charles calls it "The Grapevine of Hope."

For more ...

New York Times:From France to Midtown, a Rift Rocks La Grenouille

Grub Street:La Grenouille's Charles Masson on His Resignation: It Became 'Impossible' to Run the Restaurant

Contact DPC here.

Spring smoking. 2:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014.A beautiful sunny, early Spring Monday in New York with temperatures in the high 50s and more predicted for today and tomorrow. It was a very rainy weekend which washed the sidewalks and the streets, and kept a lot of us (this writer, anyway) inside. Saturday night from this warm and sheltered nook looked great from the terrace, as you can see in the picture. That red light at the top of the photo is a beacon on top of a tall apartment house for the air traffic’s benefit.

Looking south on East End Avenue on Saturday night in heavy rains about 11 p.m. I love the way the lights play on wet surfaces of the roads and sidewalks; always reminding me of excitement of the city at night, surrounded by the near and far sundry lights of the lives inhabiting the space. The tiny red dot on the upper left corner is a blinking tower light to warn off low flying air traffic.

Mother Nature bursting a haze of yellow just inside Carl Schurz Park on Gracie Square (background). I used to think this was forsythia but a reader told me that it was probably witch hazel.

And down on the Promenade (John Finley Walk is its official name) in the Park by the river, two people are relaxing, contemplating by the River. I took this picture because I loved the low hanging cloud formation, a grey and purple against the blue. The East River was very smooth. We're looking across to Queens. The tower in the center is the northern tip of Roosevelt Island.

A lovely day for walking the dogs. This gang is waiting for its walker, who is inside the building either returning or fetching another canine, while the others are waiting in various states of relaxation.

JH was out yesterday with his camera and his magic eye for New Yorkers in various places and scenes, taking in the glorious hours in the Sun. You can tell by the way they are dressed that it's still on the chillier side of the spring season, but nevertheless invigorating to be able to sit in the noonday Sun.

Very lightly, rarely leaving fingerprints.Among the mail we got in reference to Carol Joynt’s lovely piece on yesterday’s NYSD about Bunny Mellon’s“Perfect Funeral” at Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville, Virginia last Friday afternoon, was this memory from one of our readers in Palm Beach:


	Bunny Mellon in her Oak Spring garden, photographed by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1962.

“I remember many springtimes ago I was slowly driving along a very rutted dirt road between Marshall and The Plains ... Mrs. M was half way up the embankment by a stone wall clipping some early spring daffodils ... I stopped to chat and she told me that this particular variety of jonquil was a native hybridizer and she had dug up some from this same spot several years before, but the transplanted ones on her property always bloomed ten days later and she knew the blooms in this particular wild spot would be ready for an arrangement she wanted for a dinner party that night.

“She was dressed in Wellies and a Barbour coat and she called her clippers secateurs, which is a word very few folks know ... Mr. Baltimore, her longtime loyal driver was behind the wheel of the muddy BMW wagon, which had a bucket of water in the back.

“We chatted for a few moments and I told her where there was a stand of early Japanese Cherry branches just ready to bloom in a neighboring woodland ... I'm sure she headed right over there just as excited as she might be in pursuit of the most perfect piece of jewelry in a Left Bank atelier!

“The M's lived in a grand style but they both lived it all very lightly, rarely leaving fingerprints.”

Contact DPC here.

4:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, April 3, 2014. It was a beautiful Sunny Spring day again in New York with temperatures hitting the low 60s. A preview only because don’t forget April is the month of “showers that bring May flowers,” and we know it sometimes even snows in April. Although thankfully the snow doesn’t stick around.

Last night John Rosselli and Bunny Williams held a reception for their friend and John’s one-time business partner Furlow Gatewood from Americus, Georgia who has just published a book on his life as a furniture and arts collector and would-be interior (and exterior) designer, “One Man’s Folly; The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood” with Foreward by Julia Reed and Afterword by Bunny Williams. Mr. Gatewood was present of course, as was Julia Reed up from New Orleans for the occasion.

The crowd last night at a reception hosted by John Rosselli and Bunny Williams for Furlow Gatewood's “One Man’s Folly; The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood."

Although NYSD covers much of the work and many of the activities and creators of the New York (as well as American/International) design community, my personal interest doesn’t stray far from being that of an observer. I have neither the funds nor even the personal interest in collecting or decorating, but I do have a great respect and wonder at what is accomplished, and achieved, and why and how. It is a very important industry in New York.

It’s a very hard working community belied by the “glamour” factor it produces. And it is not an “easy” living or business. The late Mark Hampton (whose wife Duane was at the event last night), once the remarked that you never hear of interior designers getting rich from their business -- although there are some exceptions -- and it is true. Aside from everything else, it is a labor of love and devotion for the greater lot of them.

Furlow Gatewood and Bunny Williams.

Furlow talking with an admirer of his work and his new book. Click to order.

John Rosselli and Sheila Kotur in deep conversation ...

And then they look up and who should be taking their picture ...?

Ward and Judith Landrigan (I must have said something funny).

Herself, Miss Julia Reed from way down yonder ... up in the Big Apple for her friend whose book she wrote the Foreward to.

Mr. Gatewood, whom I had never heard of until John Rosselli called and asked me to the reception, is actually a legend in the business. This was reflected in the very large crowd which was there last night to fete him and to buy his book.

Now in his 94th year, a boy from Americus, who after serving in the Second World War and a brief foray with a flower shop in his hometown, came to New York to make his way and opened an antique shop on Second Avenue. It was not far from where John Rosselli, already a legend in the business for his superior taste and style, had a shop. The two men became very close friends and eventually partners in business.

Furlow's famous cheese straws, which he always brings with him for friends, on his trips to New York and elsewhere.

The man in his kitchen making the cheese straws.

Rosselli, who was impressed by Gatewood’s inventory soon suggested that they combine inventories, giving Rosselli the time to travel to Europe -- which in those days was a cornucopia of available (and often cheap) fantastic antiques and objets -- while Gatewood watched over the business.

The man had an eye that had been honed since boyhood for beautiful things, particularly in the antique class. His first acquisition was made when he was 8 or 9, with his earnings from his paper route, when he bought a pair of milk glass chickens from his great-aunt Nanie Lou, his grandmother’s sister.

Young Furlow in a Cord convertible, circa 1940.

It was when he was in New York that he really began collecting, as well as buying for the business, visiting every sale, every old house and turning up at every country auction. He also began making runs between New York and Georgia. Eventually returning to Americus, he took over the property that belonged to his parents, mainly to rehabilitate it, beginning with the house he grew up in.

The property now has four houses, including the Barn – which was the original barn but re-designed and built (adding rooms to accommodate his acquisitions as he went along) as well as three other houses he acquired and moved to the property – Cuthbert House, Peacock and Lumpkin House – all very old houses that were derelict or almost when he bought them for the style they possessed. All of these houses are the story of this wonderful book about one’s man way of life and journey.

The Barn, the first of his "follies" that began as a rescue mission and became a labor of love. Those are real birds on the second level. And a view of the "glass room" off the dining room.

The man's bedroom; originally his mother's four-poster; and a guest room.

Cuthbert House, a mid-19th century Gothic Revival dwelling originally located in nearby Cuthbert, Georgia. In 2007, Furlow learned it was about to be demolished to make way for a local church parking lot. He bought it and moved it 65 miles to his property where he renovated, refurbished and turned it into another jewel in his real estate crown.

The statue of Diana, goddess of the hunt, who was said to be able to talk to and control animals just like the statue's possessor.

And the spacious back porch, added to the house, featuring louvered shutters between latticework columns. An Indian dhurrie rug, and John Robshaw red-and-white pillow fabric.

A peacock sits on the gate before the Peacock House which began its life as a winter plant repository with dirt floors and was transformed specifically to make use of three fabulous sets of French doors (found years earlier at New York's Pier Antiques Show).

The front room of the Peacock House.

Mr. Gatewood loves animals too. Dogs, lots of dogs, including many that were strays or abandoned, as well as some rarer breeds that he took a fancy to. He loves birds too, and there are several peacocks in happy residence on the property. “One Man’s Folly” is the story captured in this beautiful book. With their Foreward and Afterword, his friends Julia Reed and Bunny Williams set the stage and lead you into what can only be called A Great Life and a magnificent obsession.

The man and his friends.

His pals, always waiting, always wondering when he's not there.

Making themselves at home.

Contact DPC here.

A lunch for Holly Peterson and her new novel, "The Idea of Him" at Michael's. Standing: Nina Griscom, Rikki Klieman, Emilia Saint-Amand, Leslie Stevens, Joy Ingham, Joan Jakobson. Seated: Susan Gutfreund, author Holly Peterson, Dr. Sarah Simms Rosenthal, DPC, Muffie Potter Aston, and Daisy Soros.

Thursday, April 3, 2014. A not cold, but not sunny day in New York with an occasional raindrop that didn’t amount to carrying an umbrella for protection.

It was Wednesday, you know the drill for me (if you care): It was Michael’s. I go there for the fun of it – seeing the characters on that rialto and maybe catching an idea or a story, or something that I can report on about this life in little old New York. There’s always something and sometimes more, not to mention an excellent lunch.

I was at the big roundtable in the bay with all of these girls, photographed by Steve Millington, Michael’s GM. The place was a racket of chat filling the room, and the energy was Up.


	Click to order"The Idea of Him."

I was hosting a luncheon for Holly Peterson to fete the publication of her new book/second novel “The Idea of Him.” Holly is a savvy New York girl who not only needs but knows how to get the word out. She asked me if I’d invite some friends to lunch where she could introduce her novel. So I invited ten very smart New York women that I’ve known for a long time. There were twelve at table including me and Holly.

I had no idea what it would be like. By which I mean: you ask someone to give their time and you wonder if you can make it worth their while. None of these women knew all of the others at table. Although they were all only one degree of separation away, even without me. I didn’t know how or what I should prepare. I’m not good at giving much advance thought to that stuff. I did think about seating. I asked a friend who suggested that I put a conversational type next to a quieter type, etc. But then it occurred to me that everyone I invited is a conversational type. That’s how and why I know them as well as I do.

This list:Nina Griscom (who just returned from Uganda where she went on safari to visit the gorillas); Rikki Klieman (aka Mrs. Bill Bratton); Muffie Potter Aston; Daisy Soros, who just returned from Jamaica; Joy Ingham, who just returned from visiting Daisy in Jamaica; Emilia Saint-Amand, Leslie Stevens (of LaForce and Stevens PR); Dr. Sarah Simms Rosenthal, Susan Gutfreund, Joan Jakobson, Holly and me.

The restaurant was very busy and this table has the view of the entire front room. After everyone was seated (lunch called for 12:30), I introduced Holly who, like my guests, is a New York girl. She and I have known each other for probably 15 years or so. She’s a journalist (as well as a -- once upon a time -- wife and mother), and very active professionally. She’s a woman whose ambition is expressed in her creative imagination. She’s a very good networker, meaning she often can actualize.

She’s always thinking of stories, angles, ideas. Very often they’re not only clever but substantive. She has a journalist’s detailed curiosity and you can find that in her books. She published a novel called “The Manny” a few years ago, sold over ninety thousand copies, published in 26 territories/countries and sold the movie rights. It was about a young mother who hires a man to be nanny to her kids. Manny, get it? And what happens. Uh-huh.


Looking at these faces around me, I can't help thinking how they could be a fascinating movie -- ten individuals, full, active lives, all different, some friends, others not known, but good women with fascinating stories full of light, flash and drama, including the obstacles, widening, at times rocky road, and sweet rewards. And smart, very smart.

The seating couldn’t have been better. As soon as everyone sat down the conversations began and whoever was a stranger to another, they were no more. I sat back and watched for a few minutes because there was so much going on at table, like a group of old friends (of mine). Finally I clinked my glass of Barbara Bush (iced tea and orange juice) a few times, quieted the table and introduced Holly.

I told them what I just told you: the how and why. Then I introduced Holly who told us about her life, her professional career and her books. It’s been an interesting road. When she sold her first book, she told us, it was a two book deal. When she presented her second (“The Idea of Him”) the editor not only turned it down but canceled the contract.

This is where the pro comes into the picture. It’s a lesson for any writer. Holly considered the issues. She wanted a book about a “strong woman.” They wanted a book about a woman who would/could be a victim. She didn’t want that. They thought: that’s what sells in this kind of genre. She knew the genre and she knew she could do it. So she did some work on the manuscript, strengthened the strengths and kept pursuing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That was what she got, at least 12 times, probably more. Undaunted, (a lesson to all of us writers) she kept at it.

She was upset about all the rejection of course because, in her words: “80% of them had reason because the versions didn’t make sense, and 20% were cautious about an “untraditional heroine.” Confusion, rejection, she soldiered on, writing new versions, until her word got to the desk at Tessa Woodward at William Morrow (an imprint now of HarperCollins).

When she finished, the comments and questions arose and again the tenor of table talk rose. I wasn’t surprised: all of these women are readers, some voracious; and some writers too. I made a couple of comments about “strong women” from my point of view and from there the lunch flew with nary a silent moment.

The Michael’s staff serving 12 people at once was flawless from the order taking to the serving to the clearing. There were moments when I felt like a director watching this fascinating production. So much stimulating conversation, expressing thoughts and talk about books, about life, about women, about marriage; I was surprised people were able to eat lunch too. It was easy for me because I mainly sat and listened like a good boy. It was fun and amusing in the sense of pleasure; a joy. What Holly Peterson wrought. “The Idea of Him ...” A good lunch for a good book.

Around the room: Joan Gelman with her pal Joan Hamburg; Darlene Fiske; Amy Rosi with LuAnn Delesseps and Diane Clehane; Paige Peterson withpublisher Lena Tabori, Jonathan Estreich, Joe Armstrong entertaining Deeda Blair and Cathy Graham; at the table next to Joe: Maria Shriver (looking very glamorous gorgeous,et al).

Moving along: Mickey Ateyeh with Deborah Buck, who has just published “The Windows of Buck House; Fabulous Fictional Females” (Acanthus Press), a spectacular coffee table tome.

Pauline Brown of LVMH; Pete Hunsinger of GQ; Alice Mayhew (Simon & Schuster);Chris Meigher (Quest); Peter Price; Anik (Mrs. Michael J.) Wolf; Dennis Basso; Ralph Isham; (Dr.) Jerry Imber, Jerry Della Femina, Michael Kramer; The Mort Janklow; Ms. Maury Rogoff, PR guru; Francine LeFrak, founder of SameSky Jewelry; John Needham of the Clinton Initiative with Pattie Sellers of Fortune; Jorge Espine; Armando Ruiz withThe Michael Strahan; Bisila Bokoko with Judy Agisim and Stan Herman (major Seventh Avenue figure, and also former President of Council of Fashion Designers of America, CFDA); Sandy Brown of thestreet.com; Cristina Cuomo with Camille Hunt of Niche Media; Warner Brothers VP Dave Dyer; George Goutis; Jim Smith of Niche Media,and scores more just like ‘em.

Around the town. This past Tuesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street, WNET, parent company of New York’s public television stations (Thirteen and WLIW21, and operator of NJTV) raised 2.7 million dollars at its 20th Annual Gala Salute. They honored Kathryn and Kenneth Chenault and Cheryl and Philip Milstein. The evening was hosted bythe husband and wife team of Deborah Roberts, correspondent for ABC News’ 20/20, and Al Roker, co-host of NBC News’ Today Show and The Weather Channel’s Wake Up With Al.

Kathryn and Kenneth Chenault, Cheryl and Philip Milstein, and Al Roker and Deborah Roberts.

The Chenaults and the Milsteins were recognized for exceptional commitment and partnership in creating the best of public television. Through their long-standing leadership and support for public media, these two couples have played a vital role in the institution’s success. The Chenaults and the Milsteins are longtime friends, community leaders, and philanthropists whose generosity has added immeasurably to the cultural landscape of New York City life.(Cheryl Milstein is one of the vice chairmen of WNET’s board.)

Charlie Rose & Rosalind P. Walter.

There are several photographs of Rosalind P. Walter. We don’t get to have photos of Mrs. Walter very often as she is not one who is much interested in being photographed, as she is to her commitment for the work of WNET and Public Television. I’d been noticing her name on the crawl of credits on many a PBS program for decades when I happened to meet her at an event several years ago. She is the real thing: a woman who is committed solely to funding public television programing for the better of the community and the world. Learning. Learning; that could be her motto.

I was surprised also to meet such an unassuming person, quite modest in her bearing, maybe you could say: humble. But full of real down home, quiet enthusiasm about the work she so often has sponsored. So whereas we don’t like to bore you, dear reader, with multiple photos of one person at any one event, we take exception with this distinguished and lovely lady. It’s always a good idea to get a good look at a real philanthropist whose generous spirit adds a much needed quality to our harried world.

Rosalind P. Walter & Billie Jean King.

Rosalind P. Walter & Hari Sreenivasan, correspondent of PBS Newshour.

Paula Kerger, PBS President & CEO, and Neal Shapiro, WNET President & CEO.

Cheryl Milstein, WNET Vice-Chairman, and James S. Tisch, WNET Chairman.

Al Roker, Elmo, and Deborah Roberts.

Abby Disney, Susan Benedetto, Tony Bennett, Billie Jean King, and Ilana Kloss.

Catching up. Earlier last month, on March 5th, The Fountain House Associates Committee hosted its 4th annual Associates Spring Breakfast. The event, “Perimenopause: How Hormonal Changes Can Disrupt Your Life,” took place at a private club in Manhattan. The breakfast featured speakers C. Neill Epperson, MD, Director of the Penn Center for Women’s Behavioral Wellness and Shari Lusskin, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science - Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

More than 120 gathered to hear to the experts discuss the physical, mental and behavioral changes experienced during perimenopause and to clarify some longstanding myths. Among the topics discussed were sexual drive; memory loss; depression; and hot flashes.

The event was hosted by members of the Fountain House Associates Committee. The Chairs were Kate Allen, Donya Bommer, Angela Clofine, Kathleen Kocatas, Jennifer Oken, Sarah Simmons, Katie Tozer, and Katie Zorn; Vice-Chairs were Nicole Cunningham, Chiara Edmands, Linda Garnett, Heather Georges, Kamie Lightburn, Katherine Lipton, Laura McVey, Dara O’Hara, Florence Peyrelongue and Sarah Von Maltzahn.

Chairs Donya Bommer, Kate Allen, Kathleen Kocatas, Jennifer Oken, Sarah Simmons, Angela Clofine, and Katie Tozer.

Proceeds from the event go directly to the Danny Zorn Scholarship Fund to help Fountain House members explore education opportunities.

Founded in 1948 on the premise that people can be active partners in their own recovery, Fountain House is one of the world’s leading mental health organizations. In providing employment, education, housing, health and wellness opportunities for people living with serious mental illness, the goal is to ensure that they have the foundation to build healthy, productive and fulfilling lives. The effectiveness of the Fountain House approach is widely recognized and has inspired similar models in more than 400 locations in 40 countries and across the United States helping over 100,000 people living with mental illness worldwide. www.fountainhouse.org

Heather Georges and Chiara Edmands.

Dr. Shari Lusskin and Dr. C. Neill Epperson.

Angela CLofine, Jennifer Oken, and Lorna Hyde Graev.

Shannon Henderson, Susan Fraze, and Tracy Huff.

Noel Momsen and Jennifer Oken.

Kathy Flock and Frances Beiro.

Henrietta Morlock, Anna Hall, and Elizabeth Mandy.

Paula Del Rio, Katie Tozer, and Florence Peyrelongue.

Jennifer Geiling, Annie Huneke, Amanda Heath, and Alison Cihra.

Daphne Procopion, Noelle Penna, and Toni Lauto.

Brita Steffelin and Caroline Curry.

Sheri Severino and Susan Johnson.

Sarah McGee and Mary Paige Rustum.

Photographs by Joseph Sinnott & Chris Roslan (WNET)

Contact DPC here.

More signs of spring. Photo: JH.

Friday, April 4, 2014. Beautiful day in New York yesterday. Couldn’t ask for it better. Low 60s, blue cloudless skies, sunshine on our faces. Late afternoon the clouds moved in. By early evening by the river, it was getting that chill that sometimes comes in summer but the heat’s behind it. This chill had the ice instead. But beautiful.

At lunch I went over to the Museum of Arts and Design on Columbus Circle. Have you been? It’s a wonderful place for children and anyone with a curious imagination. It has its basis in the original creative consciousness which all children have and most adults lose touch with. JH photographed it shortly after it opened.

One p.m., Columbus Circle and the Museum of Arts and Design directly across the square.

View from the Museum's restaurant . I love this vista -- the Circle with Columbus' statue, The Time Warner complex at Broadway on the left, and the Trump Tower with its entrance on Central Park West and 15 CPW directly behind.

The Time Warner Towers, seen from the MAD restaurant.

Paola Bacchini was hosting a luncheon for about forty women and me. Wednesday times four. There were quite a few women I hadn’t seen in some time including my great old (time-wise) friend Beth DeWoody, who is literally peripatetic. The luncheon was in honor of Paola Fendi and Barbara Tober. Fe Fendi was also present. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, the Fendis are both lovely (Italian) ladies. I take it they get on very well. Mother started the business; that gentle almost a wisp of a charming little lady created an international brand has now extended for three generations.

Barbara Tober. She was editor-in-chief of that big bridal magazine at Conde Nast, that cash-register magazine, Brides. I think that’s the title. I’ve never read a bridal magazine but it’s like an addiction obsession for a lot of people at a certain age, and no doubt with the New Age marriages, there will be more. Cash registers.

Paola Fendi, founder of the famous brand.

The intrepid Barbara Tober.

Daisy Soros.

Lauren Roberts.

Barbara did that for at least three decades. She and her husband Donald are the going-ist couple on the social circuit. And they’re not exactly adolescents (if you catch my drift). Donald comes home from work and plays the piano every night. Or maybe it’s every morning. He’s been doing this all this life! I play the piano too, and I know the pleasure of being alone at the keyboard, but he’s daily and zen-d out with it. They ride their horses at their place in the country. They travel. They go out, they go dancing, they go skiing, they read, they entertain, and among other philanthropic interests, they -- and especially Barbara -- have had a major hand in creating this fabulous museum.

This in the thing about New York, thinking about the Tobers and the Fendis. There are so many amazing individuals and couples (individuals times two) who are both innovative and industrious and their practicing it makes them even better at it.

Beth Rudin DeWoody.

Recollections made from later in the day. Many years ago, back in the mid-60s, as a very young man first in New York, I pursued an acting career. I took an acting class at the HB (Herbert Berghof) Studio in the Village taught by Lilly Lodge. The 14-year-old Liza Minnelli started in same the class too. She was a little kid, and very nervous. But as you can see, she used it as they say in acting classes, and became Liza.

Afterwards I had a year at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Sandy Meisner. That was not easy and I should have known then. But I continued on, determined despite my self-doubts, starting out making the rounds, going to auditions. I did some summer stock and some off—off-Broadway stuff, but nothing of even remote distinction. Then three years into it, there came a moment when I was in working at the Lake Placid Playhouse when during a scene on-stage, I had this “aha!” moment. I realized that I was working with (some) people who were deeply committed to their craft. And I wasn't. You’ve got to be deeply committed. So soon after, I quit that road.

Vincent Sardi Jr. standing before a wall of the restaurant's famous theatrical caricatures.

I still have several good friends from those times, and I also had a part time job that became one of the highlights of my early days in New York. It was working with Jimmy Molinski, the headwaiter/maître d’ at Sardi’s restaurant in the heart of Broadway, on West 44th Street. I worked during the dinner hour, 4:30 to 7:30, Monday through Friday, and the lunch hour on matinee days (11 to 2) Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Sardi’s was at that time, and for decades before, a mecca for the Broadway community. It was the go-to restaurant for theatre-goers having dinner before and after theatre. It was a large restaurant and packed every night. Beginning at 5:45 p.m., the dinner filled the house until 7:45.

Everyone in the theatre business came through those doors and often daily. The greatest stars in the world, the most famous statesmen, politicians, writers, playwrights, composers, actors, legends, silent screen stars too; and movie moguls, playboys, society matrons, lyricist, producers. They all came in daily. Shows rehearsing often took their lunch breaks at Sardi’s with the star cast sitting around a big table in the first section. In the early days back in the 30s and 40s,, Vincent Sardi Sr. (who was succeeded by his son Vincent Jr.) used to feed the actors out of work and let them run a tab and often forget about it if times were tough.


	Arlene Francis and Rock Hudson live from Sardi’s

Arlene Francis broadcast a daily radio show from at table at Sardi’s. The New York Times was just down the block and many of the Times journalists, editors and executives lunched and/or dined there daily. Actors hung out at the bar just to hear what was going on and also make themselves known to the community.

Opening nights on Broadway were always at Sardi’s. They were dressy. Black tie. A red carpet was rolled out on the sidewalk and the limousines pulled up with the photographers flashing. And when the actors from the opening show made their entrance the entire restaurant rose and applauded. An hour and a half later, the delivery boys from the Times would bring over tomorrow’s edition with the review -- which made or killed the rest of the night.

My job was to stand by the door (I wore a maroon captain’s jacket – too big and needed a good cleaning, but this was part time), and greet people as they came in, asking them if they had a reservation. If they did, I immediately passed them on to Jimmy standing at his station a couple feet away from me. If they didn’t have a reservation, I politely told them there were tables available on the second floor. That filled up too. If the person were famous – a movie star, politician, writer, etc. – I never bothered to ask but just directed them to Jimmy. I loved the whole thing. I was in the middle of the Big Town. The show biz gossip was part of the ambience too, the talk about shows coming in, the hits, the flops, And the talent, the famous talent, was awesome. There were clamoring crowds, just like the song says.


Anne and Charlotte Ford.

Anne (mother), Anne, Charlotte, and Henry Ford II at Charlotte's coming out party in Grosse Pointe.

It was there one night in what must have been the Spring of 1966, that I first saw Charlotte Ford, who came in with her sister Anne and their mother, also Anne, for a pre-theatre dinner.

In those days people dressed for the theatre, and it was time when the fashion was high, and yet in transition. At that moment, Charlotte Ford was one of the most famous heiresses in the world. As famous at a moment as Jackie Kennedy. A famous debutante, coming out at a highly publicized party in Grosse Pointe. She was always in the society and nightlife columns and the weekly newsmagazines for dating playboys and European aristos and even, as her sister likes to recall, Frank Sinatra. She and Anne, who is a couple of years younger, were frequently photographed for the fashion magazines and newspapers. They were fashion “icons” of the era. Charlotte even eventually became a designer and had a fashion collection with offices at 530 Seventh Avenue.

In her early 20s she had famously married the Greek ship owner Stavros Niarchos with whom she had a daughter Elena. The marriage ended in divorce. Anne had married an aristocratic Italian charmer, Gianni Uzielli. All of this information was known by probably millions of Americans. Society girls, especially ones with famous family names were always celebrities in the press in both the 19th and the 20th centuries. Aside from movie stars and royalty, they sold newspapers and magazines. Unlike today, they were not in most cases looking for the publicity. The press was looking for it in them.

On this particular Spring early evening in 1966, when the three Fords – Mother and daughters -- came through the doors of Sardi’s where I standing ready to greet. It was a stunning sight, and there was nothing for me to say. In my memory’s eye, their entrance was a sudden pearl-ish haze of white and blonde and diamonds and sleek and bouffant. They were both beautiful girls. A Fitzgeraldian swoon for me (remember I was in my early 20s and F. Scott still filled my romantic sense of life in New York). Although they passed by so quickly that I barely had a chance to look at them.

The section where they were seated.

Jimmy, bowing and grinning with pleasure of serving them – these were the real VIPs – extended his left arm and immediately led them to a table in the center of the first section where all the stars were seated and where the diners all took instant notice. Who needed theatre when you could have this?
Once they were seated and had ordered, I’d leave my station by the door just to steal a quick glance at all that dazzle. It is probably my memory’s imagination, but it seemed as if their diamonds, their blonde and their dresses were flashing about the room. Fitzgerald couldn’t have turned away from it.

A 1943 Ford family photo. Seated left to right, the wee Charlotte Ford with her great-grandmother Clara Ford and her great-grandfather, Henry Ford. Behind, Charlotte's father, Henry II, Charlotte's grandmother, Eleanor Ford, Katrina Kanzler, Anne Ford (Charlotte's mother), her aunt Josephine Ford, and her grandfather Edsel Ford, who died only a few weeks later of stomach cancer at age 49.

Merle Oberon, Charlotte, Anne and Cristina Ford, the second wife of Henry II.

Of course, for those of us who follow these things (and we number in the hundreds of millions, maybe billions now), we learned that as it is for the rest of us, life for the Fords had its ups and had its downs. In Charlotte's life and Anne's life, and their parents’ lives, there were divorces, remarriages, divorces, etc, all recorded (sometimes in headlines) in the press and especially the tabloids.


	DPC and Charlotte at the Southampton Hospital Summer Benefit, 2003.

That was half century ago. As fate would have it, Charlotte and I met at a dinner party one summer night in Southampton about thirty years later. We’ve been friends almost ever since. Those images my memory replay have been tamed by the reality of familiarity and age (maturity?). For example, as glamorous as the girl can still look, and she’s always well turned out, her only priority is to look her best. Whatever sparkle there is, it's costume, not real stuff (yet it looks it). Charlotte has no yen for big jewels and never did. And the international jet set image has a gloss that neither she nor Anne carry or pretend.

They’re basically two down-home girls brought up in Michigan, in Grosse Pointe where the sensibility of behavior was modesty, humility, and respect. And they exude that in their relationship with each other and with others.

They came to New York to make their lives after they finished school like a lot of us. Charlotte’s life and times have taken her to many exotic places and connected to kinds of individuals in the great big world, and made many friends but she’s the same Charlotte to all then and now.

Where many of the passing cavalcade of those decades (the 60s and the 70s) have come and gone in other kinds of haze less pearl-ish, and with time marking our lives, the Ford sisters remain close to each other, to their children, their grandchildren and their brother, his wife and their children. It’s the same sensibility that all Americans of a certain age were brought up with.


The sisters today at Anne's birthday party, 2013.

Aside from their marriages, they’ve both been naturally devoted to their motherhood, and to their community. Charlotte has been on the board of the New York Hospital for more than three decades because she’s intensely involved. As tabloidal as her young life was, she’s lived it all in very stable circumstances. I don't think she's ever had a drink and chocolate is demon to fight off. Today her greatest interest outside of her charitable activities are her grandchildren whom she talks to by phone or sees very frequently.

I don’t think I ever told Charlotte or Anne about that “sighting” that early evening at Sardi’s way back when. I love the memory. It remains so “literary” in my reverie, juxtaposed to the reality of knowing the person behind the image. The Charlotte I know, and I know rather well, is in fact so far from that “image” that was widely presented that it’s kinda funny, as well as ironic.

The Fords grew up just like the rest of us. Yes there were differences determined by their socio-economic state, but in terms of the women, they’re still just folks. There were standards of behavior that were inculcated so strongly that they seemed to be part of the psyche. A half century later that way of life is defined as a fantasy called Family Values. In those days there was no name for it. It just was. You could find in the lives of the people on Elm Street in Westfield, Massachusetts where I grew up, as well as along the gold coast of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, or anywhere else in America, for that matter.

Charlotte's birthday dinner in 2011, left to right: Anne Ford, Elena Ford, Sasha, Charlotte, Cally, Buddy, Edsel Ford, and young Charlotte.

This Diary came about because yesterday was Charlotte’s birthday. Her sister Anne always gives a dinner for her and I had been invited to join them. In the afternoon I was making notes for today’s posting but that story about Sardi’s and seeing them that night kept filling my memory’s eye. I was very amused by my very young self taking it all in, and this much older man recalling the thrill of it. When life is a symphony, as sometimes it is, this was one of them. Charlotte.

This is my favorite photograph of Charlotte. The Charlotte I know, surrounded by the loves of her life, taken several years ago in Southampton for her Christmas card.

Contact DPC here.

Great Lawn in Central Park. Sunday, 4:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, April 7, 2014. Beautiful weekend in New York. I had a dinner date that was canceled late so I stayed home Friday night. It rained; it poured. Down at the Pierre, Save Venice was hosting its annual un ballo in maschera, “Enchanted Garden Ball.” They were kind enough to invite me and although I had to regret, I could have just showed up, but the weather persuaded me otherwise. But more about that un ballo in tomorrow’s Diary.

The scene before and during dinner at un ballo in maschera.

I am reading James Romm’s “Dying Every Day; Seneca At the Court of Nero.” I picked it up at the Crawford Doyle Bookstore on Madison Avenue and 82nd Street because I noticed there were several new books out on the history of the Romans and of the Greeks. Clearly, a current “fad” among publishers (and authors). What is the message here, I was thinking.

I chose the Seneca book because someone had previously given me a small, sliver of a paperback published of one of his “Consolation” pieces called “On the Shortness of Life; Life Is Long If You Know How To Use It” from Penguin Books’ Great Ideas series. And although the title (the paperback) intrigued me, I couldn’t get into it. I figured this “Dying Every Day ...” might give me some background get me started.

I’ve not read enough to give you a capsule except to say that Claudius and Agrippina fit very well into the exposition and I’m reminded of the compelling, now decades-ago PBS Series I, Claudius where just about everybody had no redeeming qualities. And a lot of poison in their backpockets. In this new book, Agrippina remains the monster she was in the Claudius series. But somehow, unlike the TV dramatization, you realize these are real people doing real shit. Pardon my French.

This was right after Caligula was murdered, (to the relief of many). Caligula, who must have had a serious toxic chemical imbalance (I’m serious), was insane and creepy and paranoid. Nevertheless, although I’m not prepared to tell you much more, Seneca is a most interesting character as a writer, and a political character. He talked out of both sides of his mouth – one with his pen and the other with his tongue. Power interrupts, fear joins up.

The subject remains current, and not just with our politicians. Although with the Romans the corruption of power was so far along that it could only end in ruins. But not before Agrippina had her way.

Last Friday was the 90th birthday of Doris Day. Most people born after 1975 never knew about Doris Day. This is amazing. I don’t know of any current star more popular than she was, nor as multi-talented. Her essence struck a note with Americans right after the end of the Second World War and she was an icon of her generation among both American men and women.

What’s more she was very talented. There was a ten-year period in her life, somewhere mid-20th century where she was the Number One box office star (grosses) in America. My generation grew up on her. She could do comedy, drama and she could sing. But more than that, her femininity encapsulated the “average” the ideal American girl’s consciousness. In real life she suffered the slings and arrows of people and place, sometimes more than most.

Doris Day on her 90th birthday (April 3rd) with her friend Jackie Joseph in Carmel, California.

Nevertheless she survived and retired after a 30 year career as a star (later on television). She began her career as a band singer. This was enhanced when she signed on with Warner Brothers and they starred her in several musical films with Gordon MacRae and Gene Nelson. She was the quintessential middle-American young woman, and gave it a distinct and durable glamour. You knew when you went to a Doris Day movie who you were going to get. You just didn’t know how she’d show it to you. Not a bad angle, no matter what she was or was doing; she was always interesting. She shared her era with Marilyn Monroe. Two great great film talents; Doris survived. She’s spent her retirement years actively involved in helping animals, mainly dogs, survive. One of my favorite songs of hers is: “Hooray For Hollywood.” There you have it.

Saturday was a beautiful day in New York. I had dinner Saturday night at Sette Mezzo with Kathy Sloane, Raul Suarez and Martha Stewart. Kathy and Raul are old friends of mine although they’d never met. This was one of those nights in New York where dates merged.

Kathy a major private residential real estate broker here in New York and also long active in national politics (her husband Harvey Sloane was once mayor of Louisville as well as Congressman from Kentucky). She and Martha are great friends. Raul, who is an old friend of mine, is an art consultant at Sotheby’s and lives here and in Miami.


	Martha and Kathy out on the town.

They all love Miami. I was the only one at table who doesn’t know Miami. Martha and Raul had never met and it turned out they both have traveled widely and know many of the same people and places. I didn’t know this but Martha has devoted many of her TV shows to travel pieces.

People ask me what Martha’s like off-camera. I can’t say I know her well but I’ve been in her company a number of times and seen her at events scores of times. At table, she’s just like she is on television. She’s a natural teacher because everything she approaches is with curiosity. She grasps it all, and can relate it in the simplest terms. The personality, as you already know, is centered and intense, but calm, and pleasant. The businesswoman is genius.

Most outstanding to me is her stamina. She came in from East Hampton for the dinner. That’s a good three hour plus ride. It turned out that she’d left her house in Westchester in the morning, with three of her dogs and was driven out to her house in East Hampton (three hours plus) where she spent the day removing the plantings in her garden and shipping dozens of rose bushes to Westchester because she’s doing a new garden in EH.

I asked her what she thought of the long ride out East and back. Fine. She sat in the backseat and did desk work. Then about four-thirty, she packed it in and was driven back to Manhattan for dinner. We finished up about ten and Martha went back to Westchester. Is there another media (or corporate executive) out there who can match it? I wonder ...

So how was your Saturday? Mine was spent cleaning out a couple of closets and reading about Seneca and Agrippina and snoozing. And it was nice.

Friday morning, the tree trimmers (Bartlett's) were out with their fancy cranes, trimming the stray branches along the avenue. They work fast; good thing because it's one of those activities you can stand and gape at.

Saturday night: A view east of Manhattan from the 25th floor of an apartment building in the lower 60s between Madison and Fifth. That's the Trump apartment tower on Third Avenue on the right (with the shopping mile of Madison Avenue in the mid-60s down below) and the Hotel Carlyle tower on the left.

Sunday afternoon, a friend invited me to the Encores! performance at City Center -- Great American Musicals in Concert. Based on the Sidney Howard play, "They Knew What They Wanted," with the book, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw. Starring Laura Benanti, Heidi Blickenstaff, Brian Cali, Bradley Dean, Shuler Hensley, Cheyenne Jackson. There are several songs that became recording hits after the show opened in 1956 including "Somebody, Somewhere," "Big D," "My Heart Is So Full of You," and "Standing On the Corner." The Encores production was a memorable revival, a very effecting almost-opera. with a wonderful cast and chorus of singers and dancers. The audience loved it! The show closed last night. Next on the calendar is "Irma La Douce," which opened on Broadway in 1960 and was later made into a film starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.

Sunset, about 6:30 p.m. last night (Sunday), looking south across to Roosevelt Island and the Con Ed towers to the 59th Street/Queensboro (now the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge).

Following the river and the Sun.

Also this weekend, Peter Matthiessen died. We received an email from a friend, Nelson Hammell in Palm Beach, who was a big fan of the author. Here is Mr. Hammel's message:

Perhaps it is a reflection of our nation's current obsession with shallow consumerist culture, where college basketball, Nascar and Hollywood Weekend Box Office Revenues will eclipse a moment of silence on hearing of the death of author Peter Matthiessen at the lovely ripe age of 86 yesterday in Sagaponack, Long Island.

Baby Boomers and Millennials alike bow at the altar of pop culture spirit seekers, whether it is Dr. OZ, Ram Das or even Hillaria Baldwin, the yoga practicing current wife of Alec.

Mr. Matthiessen, born to privilege, good breeding and manners and a plug in to excellence in Academia, cut a wide swath through native cultures from New Guinea to The Himalayas, down into The Everglades and around the Cape Horn up through South America ... and many other points in between and on the extreme.

The Snow Leopard, Far Tortuga, and The Tree Where Man Was Born are all personal favorites and I can't even begin to count all the non fiction offerings, New Yorker Magazine articles and author interviews that populate a Google Search of Matthiessen offerings.

Handsome tho hard featured, irascible, thrice married with more than a few other lovers and many more admirers, Mr. Matthiessen was a man's man, physically fit and imposing, while cupping his arm around a sensitive nature, well tuned to the mysteries of spiritual life which led him down the path of Zen Discovery and Daily Meditation. I read once that his mission was to bore down to the simplicity of soul, paring away the commercial absurdities and cultural detritus which clutters our modern lives.

While hardly immune to the necessity of "working the press" to sell books and build his brand, I suspect Matthiessen was most at home on the side of a mountain, lost in a Savannah, paddling through a swamp or working the net lines of a fishing boat in the Peconic Bay ... a thimbleful of Scotch or a bottle of good Red a reward at the end of the day with a glorious sunset and a star filled sky the nightcap we all hope for.

Perhaps it will be years before Matthiessen's literary output is fully acknowledged, lauded and revered. But right now, as his temporal body cools before it is committed to the soil, I raise a glass to this uniquely talented American author.

Catching up. A a couple of weeks ago The Philadelphia Antiques Show, a benefit for Penn Medicine, hosted a select group of Show supporters at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The Reception was held to honor the 2014 Show beneficiary, The Penn Center for Human Performance at Penn Medicine, and to recognize the Show's many generous underwriters.

The Philadelphia Antiques Show 2014 Board.

Established in 1962, The Philadelphia Antiques Show is one of America's oldest and most prestigious shows with more than fifty exhibitors in a comprehensive range of American fine and decorative arts as well as select experts in Asian and English works. This year's Show will take place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from April 26-29, 2014 with its annual Preview Party taking place on Friday, April 25.

For more information about The Philadelphia Antiques Show: Antiques & Art through the 20th Century, visit ThePhiladelphiaAntiquesShow.org.

Joanne and Raymond Welsh.

Nancy Kneeland and Catherine Sweeney Singer.

Stephanie Simmerman, Grete Greenacre, and Candace Coleman.

Beth Johnston and Catherine Sweeney Singer.

Brook Gardner and Pam Mahoney.

Jamie Holt, Raymond Welsh, and Hollie Holt.

Nancy Kneeland and Joseph J. McLaughlin, Jr.

Ralph J. Muller.

Evelyn Fell, Nancy Kneeland, and Marie Kenkelen.

Garry Scheib, Al Black, Jim White, and Kevin Mahoney.

Contact DPC here.

Surveying the scene below before the rains. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014. Grey day in New York with rain promised “sometimes heavy” in the evening. And so it was. Came down with a wind blowing it right at you.

Someone sent me the announcement from Sotheby's that Barbara Hutton’s“legendary Jadeite necklace sold at auction in Hong Kong for $27.4 million. Known as the Hutton-Mdivani necklace (Hutton bought it when she was married to Prince Mdivani – one of four Rumanian brothers – princelings, real or self-created – known as the Marrying Mdivanis in the 1920s and 30s).

Barbara Hutton and Prince Alexis Mdivani on their wedding day in 1933. They were divorced two years later, the same year Mdivani died at age 30.

Forgotten now in contemporary life in the 21st century, Hutton was heiress to part of the Woolworth fortune. Her mother Edna Woolworth Hutton committed suicide when Barbara was seven. She was alone in the apartment with her mother and found the body. Being the only child she inherited her mother’s share of the F.W. Woolworth fortune which measured in the billions in today’s dollars. Her father, Franklyn Hutton (brother of EF), increased her inheritance through investment so that when she reached majority, she came into about $500 million.


	Barbara Hutton and Prince Mdivani at the opening of the Met in 1933. She's wearing the Jadeite necklace that sold on Monday in Hong Kong for more than $27 million.

	The Hutton Mdivani necklace.

She acquired several husbands, one son – Lance Reventlow; several residences including the American Ambassador’s residence (Winfield House) which she built in London; a drug addiction, and an enormous cache of precious jewelry.

Barbara used to like to “play” with her jewelry – have it all brought out and spread out on her bed while she looked it over, tried it on, etc. One of her cousins, Marjorie Durant Dye, a granddaughter of Marjorie Merriweather Post, went to visit Barbara one day in the mid-1960s, when she was living at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. It was said that she had gone through most of her fortune by then.

Barbara was surveying her jewels spread out before her on her bed while visiting with her cousin Marge. She was fondling an extraordinary emerald green jade necklace that took Marge’s eye.

Marge: “Oh Barbara, that’s so beautiful.”

Barbara passed it over to her. “Try it on,” she said to Marge.

Marge did. “Oh, it looks beautiful on you,” Barbara enthused, adding: Take it ...”

“Oh Barbara, I can’t take it ...”

“No, take it, it looks so good on you ...”

Marge Dye didn’t take it. Later she told her grandmother Mrs. Post the story, and grandmother responded: “You should have taken it. She’s only going to give it away to somebody else, maybe even a stranger.”

Barbara Hutton had what our late friend John Galliher (who knew her well) called “inconsequential generosity” – giving away something for no reason other than a whim of the moment.

I don’t know who eventually took it, or ended up with it, but someone paid more than $27 million for it yesterday in Hong Kong.

Hutton was said to have died with only $3000 in her bank account, having spent an estimated $900 million in her lifetime. She also bought herself a great many jewels, many of which were still in her possession at the time of her death in 1979 at age 67.

Before the rains came yesterday early afternoon, I went down to Michael’s to lunch with Olivia Flatto. You may have seen her photos on the NYSD many times as Olivia is very active in the ballet and several other cultural interests here in New York. I’ve known her to say hello to for years although we’d never had a conversation. Frankly, she’s French and good looking French women who speak with certainly can be intimidating. Charming (the accent, for starters) but intimidating. Ish. So there you have it.

DPC and Olivia Flatto at Michael's. Photo: Steve Millington.

I think the first time I got an inkling of her personality was last year when she made it a point to invite me to a performance of the Paris Opera Ballet. I was flattered to be invited because as much as I enjoy watching the ballet, I am not knowledgeable, a real amateur spectator. Nevertheless, I was very impressed with the Paris Opera Ballet. Firstly, the corps de ballet were all the same height. That detail set the tone for me. Thank you Olivia.

It turned out that Olivia, accent and all, is not at all intimidating. Actually she’s very personable and enthusiastic. Olivia grew up in France. I think in Cannes or thereabouts. She and her husband Adam who is a born and bred New Yorker, have a place in Cannes. She got her doctorate in Science at Penn. Coincidentally she met her husband who was studying in the building next door, the Wharton School of Business. Her interest is research. Olivia is still working in her field. She is also a mover and a shaker for her cultural interests.


	Michael Gross with a copy of “House of Outrageous Fortune." Click to order.

I started the evening at book signing for Michael Gross at 15 Central Park West, the now famous and still new Robert A. M. Stern-designed residential tower built by the Zeckendorf brothers several years ago. Michael has written a book about the building, if you hadn’t heard (and you’ve been under a rock).

Michael has become something of an expert on the residential life of the very rich, first with his history of “740 Park Avenue,” the dernier cri of gift-edged cooperative apartment buildings at 71st Street and Park Avenue. Then he wrote a somewhat similar history about what he calls the Platinum Triangle in West Los Angeles – Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Bel Air. The books are filled with inside stuff on the people and their houses and their spouses and their louses. Michael is highly skilled at delivering what is called gossip by some, but most frequently fact (and eventually history) known by others-in-the-know. His delivery is literary but tabloidal enough to keep you turning the pages for more.

This new book, just out, “House of Outrageous Fortune” is about 15 CPW and its roster of very rich residents. And some of their stories. One of the stories was published in Vanity Fair a few months ago, about a particular very rich resident who got into some crummy trouble outside the country while satisfying his anxious libido and driving a car. Evidently said resident was said to be unhappy that there was a book party for such a book in his home building.

Michael was unfettered and unfazed. There was security detail in the lobby, in the corridors and probably in the apartment of the hosts (Ranan and Tamar Lurie– with Wendy Sarasohn). And the gathering was rather tame – everyone was curious just to see the interior of one of these multimillion dollar apartments.

I’d never been in this building before. It is enormous, covering a whole city block, and the lobbies are enormous. The apartment where the party was held was above the 30th floor and the views of Central Park are spectacular of course (although the weather was foggy and wet out there).

I’d run in quickly to get a picture of Michael with his book for you to see, because I was on my way to Carnegie Hall and the Zankel Auditorium where concert pianist Bruce Levingston was giving a concert at 7:30.

The sidewalks around Carnegie Hall at that hour (7:15 – 7:30) have that New York night excitement about them. People gathering to go inside to one of the concerts taking place. There is a sense of something important about to take place. And for the artists and their audience, it’s true. It’s Carnegie Hall.

Bruce’s concert was called “Voices From the Sleep.” The program, as you can see was mainly contemporary music, also with Bach and Debussy, and the father of contemporary, Philip Glass.

In the program notes, Bruce explained: “In choosing to title this program, I sought to make an allusion both to the influential voice of Bach found throughout each work as well as to tributes by each composer to other figures of the past (the eternal sleep). In the (Gyorgy) Ligeti, there is a tribute to Bartok, in the Fairouiz to Ligeti, in the Andres to Chopin, in the Kurtag to Debussy, and even in the works of Bach himself, to God and man Together, these works offer a touching perspective to the close spiritual connectivity we all share as artists and human beings, past and present."

Bruce draws a cross-section of ages although a large number of younger concert-goers – 20s through 40s. His many friends know him also as a dedicated dog lover, and a very sociable fellow who loves people (he’s a Southern boy). His manner is always impeccable: polite but in a warm, easy way. His dress, like his manner, is smart and well-tailored but just as matter of fact and relaxed.

He talks to his audience sometimes before he plays something, sometimes afterwards. He tells us what he is doing so we can follow his lead. His style of playing is suffused with drama. He goes after the music as if he is leading us on the search, and we are with him. When he finishes he stands and bows, flashing his wide impish smile. You could almost be in the man’s living room save for his (well-tailored dinner jacket and black tie).

The Steinway awaits Bruce Levingston last night at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Last night’s concert was very contemporary for this novice. One of the composers, Fairouz, a man who looked to be in his early 30s, was in the audience, and got a big hand on introduction. After intermission, Bruce returned to take his place at the (magnificent) Steinway concert grand and continue to take on his exploration of the “Voices…” finishing the program with Philip Glass’Dracula Suite.

Oh, during intermission, who should I run into but my lunch partner Olivia Flatto who also happens to be a very good friend of the evening’s virtuoso, whom she has known for about twenty years, which is approximately how long I’ve known him too. Ships in the night and now acquaintances. This is New York.

Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero raises a glass at a dinner party at Villa Firenze.

Washington Social Diarist Carol Joynt's Memo to DPC —

For the first time in several years, Vanity Fair has chosen a new location for its annual White House Correspondents Association dinner after party. With their co-host Bloomberg, they are switching allegiance from the French to the Italians. The party — the most sought after invite of the crazy WHCA weekend — will be at Villa Firenze, home of Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero and his wife, Laura. The date is Saturday, May 3rd.


	Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero and his wife, Laura.

Villa Firenze is one of the city's grandest estates, and on a nice night a particularly splendid spot for a late night party under the moon and stars. It was the location for last year's Opera Ball.

Since 2009 the VF-Bloomberg party was held at the French ambassador's residence on Kalorama Drive, about a 15 minute walk from the WHCA dinner at the Washington Hilton. No one will be walking to Villa Firenze — it's 3.5 miles from the hotel. A lot of taxi, sedan and SUV drivers will be making good bucks that night. VF searched hard to find a location to replace the French residence, which is undergoing renovations in preparation for the arrival of a new ambassador in September (reported to be France's ambassador to the U.N., Gérard Araud).

Depending on how it plays out this year, going forward we could have a competition between France and Italy, vying for the affections of VF and Bloomberg, but each is one of the city's great party places. First, though, we'll have a real DC blood sport — vying to get on the guest list for this year's after party. Amb. Bisogniero and his wife suddenly will have all kinds of new best friends.

Here are three New York Social Diary stories that give a good look at Villa Firenze:
• A Country Barbecue on the grounds
• A dinner party co-hosted by Elle magazine Gucci
• The first VF-Bloomberg party held at the French Ambassador's residence

The back terrace of Villa Firenze.

Last Friday night (April 4th) at the PierreSave Venice celebrated is annual Un Ballow in Maschera with an “Enchanted Garden Masked Ball” to raise funds to support and preserve the cultural and artistic heritage of Venice, including the restoration of the church of San Sebastiano and Vittore Carpaccio’s Saint Ursula cycle at the Accademia Galleries.

The evening’s chairs were Coco Brandolini D’Adda, Jessica Hart and Stavros Niarchos, Nancy McCormick, Devon and Philip Radziwill, Lauren and Andres Santo Domingo, Tabitha Simmons and Craig McDean. Co-chairs were Madeline Hult Elghanayan and Alexandra Lind Rose.

Vice Chairs were Dana Auslander, Adelina Wong Ettelson, David Graber, Amanda Hearst, Tania Higgins, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, Elizabeth Kurpis, Mary Kathryn Navab, Sally and Michel Perrin, Beatrice Rossi Landi, Fiona Howe Rudin, Susan Shin, Luigi Tadini, Teresa Teague, Matthew White, Martha Wright, Yliana Yepez.

Dance Chairs were Peter Brant II, Giovanna Campagna, Kelly Connor, Martin Dawwon, Julie Henderson, Jessica Stam and Jackie Swerz.

The evening was sponsored by Dolce & Gabbana, Ferrari North America and HFZ Capital Group. Corporate supporters were Armani, Deutsche Bank, Kusmi Tea, Stuart Weitzman, Swarovski, Vogue, Wesley Vultaggio and AriZona Beverage.

Other supporters and notable guests included: Lily Aldridge, Giovanna Battaglia, Derek Blasberg, HayleyBloomingdale, Valerie Boster, Hamish Bowles, Bianca Brandolini, Dylan Brant, Harry Brant, Georgina Chapman, Alina Cho, John Demsey, Wendi Deng, Jessica Diehl, Karen Elson, Camilla Al Fayed, Gabby De Felice, Georgia Ford, Wes Gordon, Trisha Gregory, Zani Gugelman, Laura de Gunzburg, Alecta Hill, Blair Husain, Steve and Linda Ivy, Jeff Koons, Beatrix Ost and Ludwig Kuttner, Rebekah McCabe, Ashley McDermott, Gillian and Sylvester Miniter, Bibhu Mohapatra,Carlos Mota, Annelise Peterson, Crystal Renn, Fiona Howe Rudin, Indra Rockefeller, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld,Mary and Ian Snow, Ferebee Bishop Taube, Dasha Zhukova, Leslie and Daniel Ziff.

And all of it for you to see thanks to Billy Farrell and his merry band of photographers, who were on the scene ...

Marco and Farah Mattiacci.

Madeline Hult, Adelina Wong Ettelson, Yliana Yepez, Alexandra Lind Rose, Beatrice Rossi-Landi, and Nathalie Kaplan.

Martha Wright.

Blair Clarke, Pamela Ludwick, and Kate Peck.

Amy Gross and Matthew White.

Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos and Sophia Kanavos

Alina Cho and John Demsey.

Jessica Hart.

Annelise Peterson.

Julie Henderson.

Sally Perrin, Alexandra Lind Rose, Martha Wright, Matthew White, Federica Marchionni, Adelina Wong Ettelson, Yliana Yepez, and Madeline Hult.

Edna Perez, Carlos Serrano, Leah Chalfen, Daniel Ezra, and Lizzie Asher.

Georgia Ford, Jenny Friedman, Stacey Engman, and Joseph Geagan.

Blair and Fazle Husain.

Harry Brant, Sofia Sanchez Barrenechea, and Carlos Mota.

Mark Gilbertson and Alexandra Lind Rose.

Jennifer and Kevin Fisher.

Douglas Distefano, Carol Strone, Leslie Ziff, Conrad Oakey, and Kaitlyn Trainer.

Di Mondo.

Charles Tolbert and Di Mondo.

Sofia Sanchez Barrenechea and Lazaro Hernandez.

Samuel Deutsch.

Elizabeth Cordry, Hayley Bloomingdale, and Indre Rockefeller.

Susan Chase and Topper Mortimer.

Beatrix Ost and Ludwig Kuttner.

Andy Oshrin and Michelle Smith.

Peter Brant Jr., Crystal Renn, and Harry Brant.

Alessandra Brawn and Jon Neidich.

Matthew White and Tom Schumacher.

Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne.

Silke Tsitiridis.

Jessica Hart.

Chloe Perrin and Amy Toland.

Lauren Santo Domingo and Padma Lakshmi

Justinian Kfoury, Camilla Al-Fayed, Lazaro Hernandez, Derek Blasberg, Sofia Sanchez Barrenechea, and Giovanna Battaglia.

Pamela Ludwick.

Julia Erdman and Eugene Tong.

Adelina Wong Ettelson and Hamish Bowles.

Sarah Arison, Julia Loomis, and Melanie Lazenby.

May Kwok.

Margot and Mia Moretti of The Dolls.

Kelly Rutherford.

Shane Stinell, Sarah Flint, and Susan Krysiewicz.

Bettina Zilkha and Madeline Hult.

Federica Marchionni, Jeff Koons, and Coco Brandolini d'Adda.

Indre Rockefeller.

Luigi Tadini, Bruce Starr, Nicky Balestrieri, and Jon Neidich.

Federica Marchionni.

Teresa Teague and Christine Beauchamp.

Beata Boman.

Stavros Niarchos, Lauren Santo Domingo, and Derek Blasberg.

Caroline Rupert, Philip Radziwill, and Devon Radziwill.

Lexie Moreland and Kristie Garced.

Carlos Mota and Crystal Renn.

Lily Aldridge and Tabitha Simmons.

Bettina Prentice, Joseph Geagan, and Bettina Santo Domingo.

Nina Freudenberger and Kyle Hotchkiss Carone.

Alex Acquavella, Andres Santo Domingo, Eric Moran, Philip Radzwill, and Jamie Prentice.

Calypso and Hayley Bloomingdale.

Hassan Pierre and Amanda Hearst.

Jennifer Creel and Barbara Hemmerle Gollust.

Contact DPC here.

Taking literary shelter along Fifth Avenue. 1:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014. Yesterday was another beautiful early Spring day in New York with temperatures reaching up to the mid-60s.

Yesterday on the NYSD,John Foreman’s fascinating Big Old House piece on Hillwood, the Marjorie Merriweather Post mansion in Washington featured a photo of a diamond crown worn by Russian empresses at their weddings.


	Miss Universe 1952, Armi Kuusela, crowned in Long Beach, California with Empress of Russia's marriage crown, owned at the time by Cartier of New York.

Afterwards, we received an email from a frequent reader, William Prendiz de Jurado, pointing out that Alexandra of Hesse (a granddaughter of Queen Victoria) was the last empress to wear the crown when she married Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, in November 1894. It was worn twice again by Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna in 1902 and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna in 1908.

Mrs. Post went to live in the Soviet Union in 1936 when President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her third husband Joseph Davies US Ambassador to Russia. Davies was the second American ambassador to the post-Revolutionary Soviet government (William Bullitt was the first).

The Communists were selling off a lot of the Imperial possessions at the time, including portraits, objets and Faberge creations to raise money for the treasury. Mrs. Post (then Davies), who always had a sharp eye for a bargain of great intrinsic value, bought many things (you can see some in the exhibitions now at Hillwood in the Big Old House story).

I don’t know the route the marriage crown took, but by 1952 the Tsarina’s marriage crown was owned by Cartier of New York and the valued at $500,000 (or many millions in today’s currency). Amazingly, it was actually used in the very first MISS UNIVERSE-1952 pageant, in Long Beach, California! (The winner in 1952, was Armi Kuusela.

The marriage crown made for the Empresses of Russia, last worn by Empress Alexandra at her marriage to Tsar Nicholas in 1894, and now in the collection of Marjorie Meriweather Post's Hillwood mansion in Washington. Bands of diamonds sewn into velvet-covered supports are surmounted by a cross of six large old mine-cut diamonds.

Last night in New York. Interior designer Maureen Footer has written an interesting book on American interior design, “George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic” (Rizzoli, publishers), and last night there was a book signing for her at La Grenouille.


	Click to orderGeorge Stacey and the Creation of American Chic.

I didn’t make it to the signing but I have seen the book. Interior design books have been very popular for quite some time now, and many of them cross my desk. All are interesting in showing a designer (or designers’) works. Ms. Footer’s book on George Stacey who was a very much sought after designer beginning in the 1930s, is not only about his work for his clients but also about the style (and “chic”) of that era.

Among Stacey’s great supporters (and clients) were Diana Vreeland and a raft of the prominent social figures in New York mid-20th century, including Minnie Cushing Astor, her sisters Babe Paley and Betsey Whitney, Marie Harriman, Lil Isles, Princess Grace of Monaco. The shelter and fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, House & Garden, Town & Country were avid about Stacey’s work also.

Ms. Footer is an expert on Stacey whose works she has long admired for the irreverence of his designs, his erudition, flair for color and innate grasp of balance, scale, and proportion. She will be talking about this on May 18th at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s House in Lenox, if you’re in the neighborhood.

Although my interest in and knowledge about interior design is very limited, I found the book stimulating as a visual social history of the era during the years of the Great Depression and the years following the Second World War. Plus, it’s just a beautiful book.

Designer/author Maureen Footer photographed by Mary Hilliard.

George Stacey, circa 1936.

Babe Paley and her decorator George Stacey on a buying trip to Paris in 1952.

A young Diana Vreeland when George Stacey was a close friend.

Last night at Cipriani 42nd Street, The Paris Review was hosting its annual “Spring Revel” honoring poet Frederick Seidel. The Paris Review was founded sixty-one years ago in 1953 by Harold Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. Mr. Matthiessen, who died over the weekend at age 86, was said to be the originator of the idea when he was living in Paris and working for the CIA. It is said that the idea was dreamed up as a kind of “cover” for his work.

In its first five years, the Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Adrienne Rich, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Nadine Gordimer, and Jean Genet, among many other distinguished writers.

Last night at Cipriani 42nd Street for the Paris Review's Spring Revel.

Terry McDonell, who is President of the Board of Directors of the quarterly magazine, eulogized its very popular and much loved “co-founder” Matthiessen. It was Peter Matthiessen who brought George Plimpton into the organization, with Plimpton eventually becoming its editor and its force for many years.

The dinner – which was sold out – began with some welcoming remarks by the Review’s editor Lorin Stein. Then the Plimpton Prize for Fiction (with $10,000 award) was presented by Lydia Davis to Emma Cline for her story “Marion” Which appeared in the 205 edition (March issue) of The Paris Review. The Terry Southern Prize for Humor (a $5000 award) was presented by Roz Chast to Ben Lerner for “False Spring,” which also appeared in edition 205. Graciously and modestly, both awardees exhibited brevity in their acceptances.

Across the street from Cipriani 42nd Street, The great landmark that has greeted so many millions of first time visitors to New York for the past century, Grand Central Terminal.

After the dinner, John Jeremiah Sullivan presented the Hadada Award (so named by George Plimpton after the Hadada Ibis, a sub-Saharan bird known for its large range) to Mr. Seidel. Mr. Seidel, who was evidently present in the hall, had elected not to appear on stage in accepting the award, but after the presentation, three authors: Martin Amis, Zadie Smith and Uma Thurman each read one of his poems: “Downtown,” “The Night Sky” and one without a title beginning with the lines:

“I live a life of laziness and luxury,
Like a hare without a bone who sleeps in a pate ...” read by Mr. Amis.

This is always a special evening, unlike anything else among the big benefits that I attend over the course of the year. Although there are other “literary” benefit galas, the Revel’s roots are in the camaraderie that seems to fill the vast Cipriani room, informal, unstuffy, writerly, cozy, chatty, conversational, where the heroes and heroines who ply the written word for all of us are the Main Attraction.

Contact DPC here.

An intimate moment in Central Park. 4:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, April 10, 2014. Another beautiful Spring day in New York, fair and mild with the temperatures hovering around 60 degrees midday. The weatherman is predicting that by Monday we’ll see temperatures as high as 70. Spring is here.

Diary readers have seen this picture before– my benchmark to tell me that Spring is actually here. I’ve identified this bush in Carl Schurz Park as forsythia and then a reader corrected me saying that it was Witch Hazel. Okay.

But yesterday while walking the dogs just outside the park I stopped to ask a couple of volunteers working on spiffing it up for the new season what name of it was. Aha! It’s called Cornus Mas. It’s a species of flowering plant in the dogwood family, native to Southern Europe from France to Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. And Carl Schurz Park.

The Cornus Mas en masse along East End Avenue in Carl Schurz Park looking toward Gracie Square.

It’s a large – as you can see – deciduous shrub or small tree that grows anywhere between five and twelve feet tall. The flowers are small (5-10 mm in diameter) with four yellow petals produced in clusters of 10 to 25 together in late winter before the leaves appear. It produces a fruit that is like an oblong cherry, containing one seed which when ripe resembles coffee berries (it ripens in late summer). The fruit is edible and only ripens after it falls from the tree. When ripe, the fruit is dark ruby red or a bright yellow. It has an acidic flavor best described as a mixture of cranberry and sour cherry, and is mainly used for making jam. Now we know.

Cornus Mas blossom closeup.

Yesterday was Wednesday and it was Michael’s for a lot of people. My lunch was canceled and so DPC did not attend. However, a little bird gave me a rundown of the room which was filled with “the regulars” and here are some of them (with some exceptions to the “regular” qualification): David Schiff, Kelly Simon, Dave Dyer (VP Warner Brothers), Bonnie Fuller of Hollywoodlife.com; Pauline Brown (LVMH), Judy Licht (Mrs. Jerry Della Femina)with Liz Aiello; Steven Greenberg (of Allen & Co), Nina Griscom, Glenn Horowitz, Jerry Inzerillo (Pres. CEO IMG Artists), Walter Isaacson, who was honored last night at the World Monuments Fund gala,with M. David Skorton, new head of Smithsonian; Pamela Keogh; Henry Schleiff; Stan Shuman; Liz Smith with Jay Springer and LeRoy Rimes; Richard Turley with Rikki Klieman; David Zaslav (president of Discovery Channel) with Joe Squawk; Beverly Camhe; Alexandre Chemla; Jim Bell with Jonny G Weir; Joan Gelman; Scott Greenstein; Star Jones with Holly Phillips MD; Wayne Kabak; Neil Lasher of EMI Publishing; Anne Martin-Vachon of HSN; Steve Mosko President of Sony Pictures Television; Harvey Weinstein, and scores more just like ‘em.


	Diana Quasha, Chairman of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, pretty in pink.

	Sydney Shuman, member of the board.

Last night in New York, The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House held its annual Spring gala, A Spring Affair at Cipriani 42nd Street. More than 460 attended and they raised approximately $1.4 million.

Antiquaires and auctioneers, Leigh and Leslie Keno emceed. They honored outgoing President Thomas J. Edelman for his “outstanding leadership and support to benefit” the House (as it’s referred to by those who participate). Veranda magazine was the media sponsor for the event.

Lenox Hill Neighborhood House is one of New York’s premier nonprofit organizations, begun 120 years ago. In his speech last night Mr. Edelman explained how more than a century ago, the Upper East Side had a different face.

The wealthy lived on Fifth and Madison Avenues. Park Avenue was still known as Fourth Avenue and the railroad tracks spewing their sooty smoke ran down the middle of the avenue. There was also an elevated train that ran along the center of Third Avenue (the Third Avenue El) which was the dividing line between the wealthy and the working poor.

Some very enterprising ladies from Fifth and Madison started the Neighborhood House to assist these families – especially the children and the elderly – in their daily lives. In time they developed many programs for children and adults for their health, childcare, learning and diet. More than a century later, the House serves more than 20,000 neighbors a year.

Last night after the speeches, they introduced a 14-year-old girl of Albanian descent who has been going to the Neighborhood House since she was three. Her days there were spent learning, exercising and socializing with others.

Her experience attending the House daily for the variety of programs she could participate in has prepared (and her mother and her sister) her so that she was accepted to begin studying at the Bronx HighSchool of Science. She was so sharp in describing the benefits of the House that it was hard to believe she was only 14.

Guests at the cocktail hour before the dinner.

And later during the dance.

The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House is one of the great things about New York, this vast city of millions of lives where people actually share neighborhoods and learn and learn about each other. Diana Quasha, who has been President and is now Chairman of the Board, told the guests that Mr. Edelman had helped the organization in myriad ways including expanding the endowment for all the programs it funds, as well as improving the physical plant. His daughter, in introducing her father last night, told how they spent their Thanksgivings at the headquarters on East 70th Street (between Second and Third Avenues) serving all those who had no place to go for the holiday dinner.

The black tie evening is always a glamorous affair attended by more than two generations of volunteers and members, many of whom live on the Upper East Side. It began at 7 with cocktails and a preview of the designer tables. There were more than 50 tables and I was able to photograph more than 30. The tables were spectacular and set the tone for the evening.

Catching up: This past Monday night's Edible Schoolyard NYCheld its Spring Benefit "Putting Down Roots" at 23 Wall Street, an industrial space transformed by event designer Bronson van Wyck. The sold-out event — with 420 attending and 32 participating chefs — raised more than $1 million for ESYNYC to continue building organic gardens and kitchen classrooms in underserved communities.

The Edible Schoolyard NYC dinner last Monday night at 23 Wall Street, decorated by event designer Bronson van Wyck to resemble the out-of-doors.

Participating chefs designed and prepared a four-course dinner for each individual table. The chefs included the event’s Culinary Chair David Chang (Momofuku) and Mixologist Dave Arnold (Booker and Dax), as well as: Einat Admony, Balaboosta; Nick Anderer, Maialino; Michael Anthony, Gramercy Tavern; Joaquin Baca, The Brooklyn Star ; Jonathan Benno, Lincoln Ristorante;; Fredrik Berselius,Aska; April Bloomfield, The Spotted Pig; Danny Bowien, Mission Chinese Food/Mission Cantina; Marco Canora, Hearth; Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli,Prime Meats; Tom Colicchio,Craft; Matt Danzer & Ann Redding,Uncle Boons; Mark Gandara & Marcus Samuelsson, Red Rooster Harlem; Brooks Headley, Del Posto; Gavin Kaysen, Café Boulud; Anita Lo, Annisa; Ignacio Mattos,Estela; Joe Ogrodnek and Walker Stern, Battersby; Kevin and Alex Pemoulie, Thirty Acres; Alexandra Raij, Txikito; Ruth Rogers, The River Café, London; Justin Smillie and Joel Hough, Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria/ll Buco; Alex Stupak, Empellón; Rich Torrisi, Torrisi Italian Specialties; Christina Tosi, Momofuku Milk Bar.

Guests included Martha Stewart, Oliver Platt, fashion designer Lela Rose, restaurateur Danny Meyer, jewelry designer Waris Ahluwalia, fashion consultant Julie Gilhart, artist Mickalene Thomas, gallerist David Maupin, artist Julie Mehretu, Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, W Magazine Editor in Chief Stefano Tonchi, bon appétit Editor in Chief Adam Rapoport, and PAPER Editor in Chief Kim Hastreiter, as well as Clifford Brokaw and Leah Carpenter, Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman, Jeffrey and Elizabeth Leeds, Aby and Samantha Boardman Rosen. Questlove DJed the night.

Standing (L-R): Joaquin Baca, Fredrik Berselius, Walker Stern, Joe Ogrodnek, Michael Anthony, Alex Stupak, David Chang, Jonathan Benno, Marco Canora, Kevin Pemoulie, and Danny Bowien.

Seated (L-R): Justin Smillie, Joel Hough, Gavin Kaysen, Einat Admony, Anita Lo, Kate Brashares (ESYNYC Executive Director), Ruth Rogers, Brooks Headley, Alexandra Raij, and Mark Gandara.

ESYNYC is a nonprofit organization established in 2010 to provide underserved NYC public school communities with experiential, inter-disciplinary seed-to-table garden and kitchen education in order to transform their relationship with food.

ESYNYC is one of six founding affiliates of the Edible Schoolyard Project, which was started by renowned Chef Alice Waters in Berkeley, California. The organization aims to improve children’s health outcomes and relationship with food by teaching kids in disadvantaged areas how to grow, cook, and love healthy food. ESYNYC is currently building a second Edible Schoolyard in East Harlem, also designed by WORKac, with a plan to expand across all boroughs.

Kate Brashares, Elizabeth Leeds, Amanda Fuhrman, Allison Cayne, and Fernanda Niven.

This past Tuesday nightat the 69th Regiment Armory, a big crowd of models, celebrities and fashion industry leaders came out to support the 11th annual Jeffrey Fashion Cares 11th Annual New York Fundraiser hosted by Anna Chlumsky. Guests sipped champagne and mingled before heading into the awards presentation, live auction and runway show.

Rob Smith was presented the Jeffrey Fashion Cares Community Leadership Award by Steve Madden.

Christian Langbein, Jeffrey Kalinsky, Rob Smith, and Michael Krans.

Among the guests were: Anna Wintour, Steven Kolb,Roopal Patel; models Constance Jablonski, Carla Ciffoni, Kate Bock, Nina Agdal, Ji Hye, Zuzana Gregorova, Amanda Norgaard, Caroline Brasch Nielsen and Heidy De la Rosa; designers Erin Beatty of Suno; Joseph Altuzarra, Tony Mellilo, Scott Studenberg and John Targon of Baha East; and Dennis Basso.Chairs for the evening were Christian Langbein and Michael Krans. Host committee chairs were Prabal Gurung, Mickey Boardman and Justin Tarquinio.

They raised $669,811, which will benefit The Hetrick-Martin Institute, Lambda Legal, ACRIA & The Point Foundation.

Jeffrey Fashion Cares was established in 1992 in Atlanta by Jeffrey Kalinsky, fashion pioneer and community leader. He launched the first ever Jeffrey Fashion Cares event to heighten awareness of the plight of people living with HIV/AIDS and members of the LGBTQ community.

Jeffrey Kalinsky, Anna Wintour, and Stephen Kolb.

Joseph Altuzarra, Steven Kolb, and Prabal Gurung.

Jeffrey brought his fashion show and reception benefit to New York in 2003. In just 11 years, the event has raised nearly $5 million for LGBT and LGBT youth charities here in New York City. Each year the Jeffrey Fashion Cares event attracts an A-List guest-list of socially-minded philanthropists, top celebrities, famous socialites, fashion executives and designers, international marketing, sales, and banking executives, media executives and editors, well-known models, stars of film, stage, and television, and world-renowned artists.

In the past 22 years, the event has raised more than $11 million in Atlanta and New York events, for the LGBT communities’ most important charities and non-profit organizations. 95% of every dollar raised goes directly into the coffers of the beneficiaries. www.jeffreyfashioncares.org

Jeffrey Fashion Cares 2014 fashion show.

Last Friday night at Three Sixty Tribeca at 10 Debrosses Street, Mohonk Preserve celebrated its 50th Anniversary at a gala with Robert DeNiro as Honorary Chair of the evening (and speaker).

Located in the Shawwangunk Ridge, a section of the Appalachian Mountains, 90 miles north of New York City, in Ulster County, with headquarters in the town of Gardiner, NewYork. It was created in 1963 by guests of the Mohonk Mountain House and the Smiley Family. The Preserve manages more than 7000 acres of land with 30 miles of carriage roads and 40 miles of trails for hikding, biking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and horseback riding. One of their objectives is to reduce ecological damage – including loss of bird habitat by deer overbrowsing. Mohonk in the native Lenape language means “lake in the sky.” The Mohonk Preserve is New York State’s largest non-profit nature preserve.

Robert DeNiro, honorary chair of the Mohonk Preserve gala speaking about the preciousness of the environment ... "now it's a matter of life and death. We can all agree on that."

Honorary Chair was Robert De Niro. Also attending were Jane Rosenthal, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Mary Wittenberg (President of the NY RoadRunners), Brian McCarthy (interior designer), Scott Stewart, Mike Keegan, Noah and Maria Gottdiener, Glenn Hoagland, Paul B. Guenther. The event also marked the success of the organization’s multi-million dollar campaign.

This was a fun night celebrated by men and women dedicated to the cause, their cause. The crowd was in good humor – as was Mr. DeNiro, who teased that he had two speeches saying, “I was going to mix them both, but I’m probably going to take the safe one because I want to get out of here without looking like an a-hole."

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Glenn Hoagland, Robert DeNiro, and Jane Rosenthal.

He went on to thank “Maria” (although he was introduced by Noah Gottdiener, her husband), because “That’s what was written for me.”

“Mohonk Preserve is a shining example of the good that came from smart sensitive care of our natural resources. Not long ago, that seemed like a good choice, now it’s a matter of life and death. We can all agree on that.”

Mr. DeNiro went on to talk about environmental catastrophes — including the recent mudslide in Washington — which could have been avoided by choosing the environment over commerce. “Traffic on the George Washington Bridge — well, that was something else entirely.”

A view of the Mohonk Preserve in Ulster County, New York.

He concluded his remarks with a one-liner that brought the house down, “This should be the first commandment: ‘Don’t f - - k with Nature.’”

Later in the evening, during the speech of M&T Bank’s Mike Keegan, the jovial Honorary Chair called out “Is there a Smiley in the house?” after the Bank Executive referenced the family which founded Mohonk Mountain House and helped found the preserve 50 years ago.

It was clearly an offer the present member couldn’t refuse: The speech was sidetracked briefly when the award-winning actor gave Maria Guralnik— the Smiley family member in the room — a hug to thank her for their efforts.

Another view of the Mohonk Preserve.

Contact DPC here.

Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, April 14, 2014. A beautiful Spring weekend in New York with buds budding and New Yorkers out to enjoy the good weather.

Sunday in the Park with the neighbors shedding their winter garb and taking in the vitamin D of the Sun’s rays.

Sunday walk in Carl Schurz Park looking east from the Promenade about 2:30 p.m. There were a lot of people taking Sun.

A snooze under the flowering tree in paradise.

The daffodils festooning before a light blanket of windworn blossoms.

First blooms in one of the gardens now cleared and ready.

More daffys.

Two girls and a guy. The girls are both looking at their phones. S what else is new?

And the blessed forsythia suddenly in full bloom.

Gracie Mansion, the Mayor's house. I'm still not sure if Mayor De Blasio is in residence with his family. It went unoccupied in the Bloomberg years.

Looking south along the Promenade. The building most visible is 10 Gracie Square.

Warm Sun sensors ...

A bank of forsythia along the walk leading directly onto East 86th Street and East End Avenue.

Back by the river looking south.

Mom with her recent fire chief.

The park bench aficionados. It is heavenly just to sit and watch the river ...

Pup's more interested in the passing canines.

Pop's most interested in the returning oil tanker heading south.

The days. This is what it’s like now that the social season has begun:

Last Thursday’s social calendar in New York looked something like this: The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s annual Spring Luncheon at the Pierre; the ASPCA’s annual Bergh Ball -- “House of Paws” -- at the Plaza; the 29th Annual rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Barclays Center, Creel & Gow’s book party for international interior designer Nina Campbell; Jay Jeffers Collection Cool Book launch at a private residence; the French Heritage Society’s benefit concert and champagne reception at the Consulate General of France; The Public Art Fund’s 2014 Spring Benefit.

Georgina Bloomberg, Jessie Schuster, and Allie Rizzo at the ASPCA’s annual Bergh Ball -- “House of Paws.”

You still with me? OK, onward also that night: the Rockefeller University Parents & Science host program; the Warhol/Jackie opening at Blain DiDonna Gallery; the Youth American Grand Prix 15th Anniversary Gala at the David Koch Theater; the 4th Annual Public Prep Namesake Luncheon; Cocktails to Promote Entrepreneurship in America, hosted by Sam Hamadeh, Robert F, Kennedy III, James G. Brooks Jr. at Hamadeh’s loft; The A.C.E. (Association of Community Employment) Soiree at the Crosby Hotel; the New-York Historical Society’s cocktails and dinner to celebrate prize winner Andrew O'Shaugnessy’s book “The Men Who Lost America"; and Tiffany & Company’s cocktail reception featuring “The Diamond Sky” by Leo Kuelbs Collection at the Guggenheim.

And these are only the ones I heard about through invitations.

Thursday night I started out the East 72nd Street apartment ofLauren Lawrence (the Dream Analysis lady) who gave a cocktail reception for Sirio Maccioni marking his 80th. Sirio is a real legend in this town, starting out in the days of yore at the fabled Colony restaurant where all the swells and café society and visiting royalty lunched and dined. In the 1980s his La Cirque – located where Restaurant Daniel is today on 65th and Park – was a magnet for all the Nouvelle Society girls and their husbands, benefactors, pals and chums. Lunchtime was a line up of table after table of the Who’s Who in the social world of New York. Everybody wanted to lunch or dine at Le Cirque. And just about anybody who was anybody did. Today Sirio’s vision extends to both coasts (sort of: Las Vegas) and he’s a brand. There are currently three Maccioni restaurants and watering holes here in Manhattan: Le Cirque, Sirio’s and Circo.

Hostess Lauren Lawrence with her guest of honor.

He’s lightened up on his workload somewhat with the assistance of his sons who are all in the family business and well tutored in the family business. They all also possess, their father’s finesse. Nevertheless, Sirio is still “thinking” about his business and always looking to approve. He had a big turnout at Lauren Lawrence’s including: Pamela Fiori, Carolyne Roehm, Susan Gutfreund, Iris Cantor, Carmen, Kalliope Karella Rena, Elizabeth Kabler, Larry Kaiser, Hormoz Sabet, Dennis Basso, Geoffrey Bradfield, Ann Rapp, Liliana Cavendish, Cole Rumbough, Alex Papachristidis and Scott Nelson, Leesa Rowland and Larry Wohl, Michele Gerber Klein, Cole Rumbough, Maggie Norris, Consuelo Costin, Lucia Hwong Gordon and Monique Van Vooren, and many more. They all came to pay tribute to The Man.

Marco and Sirio Maccioni at Lauren Lawrence's; Carmen has a hug for the Man.

Leaving Lauren Lawrence’s I headed up Fifth Avenue to the Guggenheim where Tiffany & Company had taken over the museum for the evening to celebrate the debut of its 2014 Tiffany & Company Blue Book collection.

This was a first visit for me to this annual Tiffany & Company tradition presenting their Blue Book Collection of dazzling diamonds. Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth and Katie Holmes were among those attending and wearing what Anita Loos dubbed “A girl’s best friend…” in her tale of Miss Lorelai Lee almost a century ago in New York -- sparkling in diamonds from the Blue Book.

Guests arriving at the Guggenheim for the Tiffany party, 8 p.m.

The red carpet.

What lured me was the venue Thursday night (I love even looking at the Gugg) was the featured one-night only showing of “The Diamond Sky,” a custom projection mapping installation by the Leo Kuelbs Collection, “inspired,” I was told, “by the vibrancy and luminosity of Tiffany Diamonds and the 2014 Blue Book.”

So I was told. I wanted to see what that inspiration turned out in a film projection on the walls of the museum’s central gallery.

Everything about the evening had the Tiffany touch to it. I remember the days when you’d go into Tiffany only if you looked presentable and it was usually as quiet as your local village library, and you were serious about being there. It never looked “busy” except at holiday time. It was a beautiful place but really only for people doing business. Young couples bought their wedding rings there and registered for the patterns and designs of their choice of china, crystal, silver and watches and jewelry. It had a luxurious hush to the air. And it was fun. A trip.

The guests/spectators taking in the video show.

Looking up to the dome above the balcony galleries.

Ultra chic.

Elegant and glad to be there.

Tiffany of the 21st century retains its platinum and diamond aura and reputation, but the Fifth Avenue main store now always has a crowd viewing the display cases. There are always people making their choices to take home, as well as people outside taking photos of each other standing by the door or the window display cases. The costume of much of the clientele is different, just as the American costume is different from even twenty-five years ago. People now dress very casually, often looking like tourists, but not really. It’s the style that has changed. But the Tiffany charisma remains with that certain hush in the air.

This, to me, is the genius of its leadership. I’ve written about Tiffany’s annual holiday luncheon where they invite the fashion press, treat everyone to an elegant luncheon and then sends them on their way with a very nice piece of Tiffany merchandise, be it silver, china, crystal (No, no diamonds, rubies and emeralds!), always smart and thoughtful, an understated yet generous spirit comes with it.

Fashion speaks. There were lots of people photographing for themselves and many photographing for the international press. The guests were prepared.

Waiting for the show.

A good evening for watching, looking, chatting ...

Tiffany slips into the picture when you least expect it.

Well, I get to the Gugg (it was called for 6:30) about 8 o’clock. It looks like a Tiffany production as their famous robins egg blue was cast on one exterior wall of the museum, and there was a bank of photographers getting pictures on the red carpet of beautiful young women dressed for the occasion, Dressed, as you can see in the photos. (Stiff-back or stiff knees, you stand straight at Tiff’ny’s). Tiffany’s chairman Michael J. Kowalski was standing with their head of public relations Linda Buckley both looking up at the balconies where the projection was showing.

The video projection was created by the Leo Kuelbs Collection. I'm not sure what that is or who they are, but their work was a brilliant collaboration with Tiffany's evening because the "Collection's" effect was to create An Evening. It dominated the party and yet was quite separate from anything else. You got the feeling they created a kind of museum Tiffany. Amazing.

It was a very cool scene, as you can see from the best I could do with my camera. It wasn’t subdued yet there was an atmosphere visually that reminded me of Bertolucci or Visconti. It was a very cinematic atmosphere. There were some beautiful young women glamorously dressed, and while the champagne was flowing and canapés were being scooped up, the men were in suits, not a few looking like they’d come from the land of Visconti or Mastroanni.

The red carpet continues ...

Looking at the jewelry through the portal ...

This is what they were looking at in the display portals ...

There were many very sophisticated Asians. The women especially were very chic in the classic sense, There was also a wall of four of five lighted portals displaying some of the Bluebook jewels. Jessica Biel was in an Oscar de la Renta and wearing a Diamond Drop necklace in platinum ($325,000) and Tiffany Diamond Legacy earrings in platinum ($165,000). Kate Bosworth was wearing a Cushion-cut Blue Elbaite Cuperian Tourmaline Ring with with Yellow and White Diamonds ($40,000) and a Tiffany Victoria necklace in platinum with diamonds ($55,000). Katie Holmes (in Balenciaga) was in a Sapphire and Diamond bracelet in platinum ($85,000) and an emerald cut 27.31 carat Esteemed Sapphire ring with diamonds in platinum. Only $425,000 at Tiffany. Just like the song: Square-cut or pear-shaped, those rocks don’t lose their shape: Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend. I don’t think it takes much convincing, just from watching the crowd Thursday night at the Gugg.

You can see the Tiffany lighting. I was thinking looking at the Solomon Guggenheim above the museum entrance how most people probably have no idea who the man was. He died in 1949 at 88, long before the building that bears his name was designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. Scion of a famous American mining family, Mr. Guggenheim began collecting old masters in the 1890s. After the First World War, he retired from the family business and devoted himself to the collection of modern and contemporary art that became an important collection by the 1930s for which he opened his first museum in 1939.

Half moon rising over the Gugg. 9 p.m.

Contact DPC here.

The full moon before Tuesday morning's lunar eclipse. 1:27 AM. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014.We’ve had a flurry of beautiful Spring days in New York with lots of sunshine and sudden bursts of Nature to charm us out of the winter doldrums.

JH had a looksee at Tuesday morning's Lunar Eclipse ...

Monday the first pears blossomed, overnight, some ahead of others according to their relationship to the Sun. The temperature was hovering around the low 70s, high 60s. The pear trees in New York are one of the highlights of the season.

Then late yesterday afternoon it began to rain, and by mid-evening, it was coming down and so was the temperature, said to be heading for the low 30s by the wee hours.

Monday lunch, the flowers behind my table at Michael's. Michael said they are "albino cherry blossoms."

The first pears to blossom in the neighborhood was the row along Henderson Place on the northwest corner of East 86th Street and East End Avenue. They’re in the direct course of the Sunrise. These brick houses were built by a businessman named Henderson in the early 1880s. This part of New York was sparsely settled in those days. Gracie Mansion -- now The Mayor’s Residence -- was across the road, built eighty years before in 1799. It was originally a country place when the city was way down at the tip of Manhattan. The road was known as Avenue B on the grid back then (the straight line of the grid resuming about 79th Street).

The block on the northwest corner of 86th and East End Avenue with the festooning pear trees which seemed to happen literally over night (Sunday to Monday).

Mr. Henderson, according to Christopher Gray, the always fascinating architectural historian of the New York Times, intended the houses to be for “persons of moderate means.” The middle class lived in townhouses in those days, many of which were rentals. The working poor lived in tenements. The wealthier citizens lived in townhouses which sometimes were mansions. East End Avenue which was then Avenue B was almost an outpost from the center of the city.

Henderson built 32 houses. The architects were Lamb & Rich, who designed Sagamore Hill in Long Island, the now famous country house of Theodore Roosevelt. The complex is, according to Christopher Gray, “one of their signature works, on which they called on all the charming details in their portfolio and lavished them on the complex.”

One hundred and thirty years later, Mr. Henderson’s inspiration retains its charm, and is even more beautiful while the pears are flowering. As you can see by the photograph which was taken Monday afternoon, it’s not an outpost from the city anymore. Although by nightfall it’s far from the city’s bustle.

A walk on the Promenade in Carl Schurz Park in the early rain yesterday afternoon, looking east toward the Henderson Place houses and the pears.

A view from the top of the Promenade looking west down 86th Street.

The rain and the nabe looking south and looking north, 7:20 p.m.

A neighbor makes it to the door just in time.

The city has been noticeably quieter during the past two days of the Passover Holiday. So there is very little to report. I went to dinner with an old friend on Monday night and the restaurant was quiet. I did get a surprise gift from Victoria Amory, whose picture you may have seen on the NYSD over the years both here and in Palm Beach. Victoria, who is a gracious and friendly lady, is also a chef, a foodie and an industrious entrepreneur. She and her husband divide their time between Greenwich, Southampton and Palm Beach with a lot of ole Manhattan thrown into the mix. But mainly I think, Victoria’s heart (and imagination) is in the kitchen.

This little gift she sent me comes as an “introduction” to her “condiment collection” which is debuting at my Saturday afternoon favorite food emporium, Zabar’s over on Broadway and 80th Street. The collection includes three creative ketchups, two peppery piri piris, and one romesco sauce, an aged sherry vinegar and roasted garlic-infused Sherry Ketchup and a Red Chili Piri Piri sauce. I’m one of those people who makes dinner when I’m home. Nothing fancy; just easy and practical, chicken, pasta, meatloaf, chicken, some vegetables and a salad maybe. This collection is a great way of putting a little variety into the everyday menu.

PS. It snowed tonight (as the weatherman forecast) for about fifteen minutes, even coming down like a storm, but turned to moisture as soon as it hit the ground; maybe the gentle farewell from Old Man Winter.

1 a.m. this morning. A light wet snow falling and the temp dipping into the 30s.

Contact DPC here.

A family of four in the park. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, April 17, 2014. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day in New York, and cold. From the high 60s the day before into the low 30s. But the buds are budding and so we’re going along with it.

It was Wednesday. Where else? Michael’s. The Wednesdays customers are always in the mood to know who’s in the room; who’s breaking bread by their side. Public relations, media, authors, agents, bankers, corporate executives, editors and Wendi Deng Murdoch who is at the top of the “talk-about” list because of her marriage break-up with a man named Rupert. Mrs. Deng Murdoch was lunching with Erik Gordon and Fisher Stevens, the actor, director, producer who won an Oscar four years ago for his documentary feature.

Lunch elsewhere in New York ...

Also in the room, Vanity Fair writer Amy Fine Collins with Debra Spar, president of Barnard College; Bernard Gershon, Senior VP Disney; Steve Solomon of Rubenstein Associates (public relations), Jim Abernathy (vip public relations); more PR: Lisa Dallos of HL Group; Audrey Gruss (founder of Hope for Depression) with Jay McInerney; Michael Gross, who is busy right now publicizing his new book “House of Outrageous Fortune” about 15 Central Park West, the building where retired banker Sanford Weill sold his penthouse apartment to the young daughter of a Russian oligarch for $88 million.

Moving around the room: Glenn Horowitz, the rare book seller, an occupation which is much more than meets the eye, as you will learn here; producer Beverly Camhe; mega-entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman; Scott Marden (Compass Partners); Martin Puris; Henry Schleiff with Steven Schipopa (from The Sopranos); Lisa Linden and Julie Menin, the Manhattan Community leader who ran for Borough President (juliemenin.com); Gus Oliver with Frank Biondi, media and film executive (Viacom, Universal Studios); Marty Pompadur, former President of News Corporation (Murdoch); media executive Peter Price; former Redbook publisher Tony Hoyt; author/cosmetic surgeon and Renaissance man Jerry Imber and dah Boyz: Jerry Della Femina, Michael Kramer Andy Bergman; Kathy Lacey (major public relations); private media mogul Christy Ferer with Pauline Brown of LVMH; Barry Frey; Dini von Mueffling (public relations) with Charlie Shuler,Joe Armstrong with David Zinczenko; fashion executive Miki Ateyeh; (another) Michael Gross, Apollo Global Management co-founder, CEO of Solar Capital; Cayli Reck of Style Sovereign; Don Epstein of Great Talent Network, with Tom Goodman.

Michele Gradin, Laura Zambelli Barket, Laura Moore Tanne, Kim White, Linda Lambert, Arriana Boardman, and Allison Aston at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' 17th annual Bergh Ball.

Last Thursday night at the Plaza, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals hosted its 17th annual Bergh Ball to raise funds to directly impact the lives of homeless, abused and abandoned animals across the country. The theme this year was “House of Paws.” It was a black tie evening and Isaac Mizrahi was the emcee.

Henry Bergh, who lived and died in the 19th century in New York, founded the ASPCA in 1866, three days after the first effective legislation against animal cruelty in the US was passed into law by the New York State Legislature. Mr. Bergh’s work prompted the formation of both the New York and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Lake Bell, Jessie Schuster, Mollie Ruprecht, Allie Rizzo, and Georgina Bloomberg

The Bergh Ball gets a great turnout. Among those attending this year were: Lake Bell, Nathan Lane, Vincent Piazza, Andy Cohen, Victor Garber, Georgina Bloomberg (who is ASPCA Associate Chairman), Chuck and Ellen Scarborough, Nigel Barker, Drena DeNiro, chairpersons Allison Aston, Arriana Boardman, and Margo McNabb Nederlander and James Nederlander, Linda and Ben Lambert, New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and his wife Rikki Klieman, GMA’s Ginger Zee, Kathy and Rick Hilton, Danielle Knudson, Vice-chairpersons.

Several guests walked the red carpet with adoptable dogs from the ASPCA Adoption Center, in hopes of finding a new home for the dogs. Commissioner Bratton escorted ASPCA dog Duchess, who had been brought to the ASPCA by the NYPD from the Bronx in November. Andy Cohen accompanied his own dog Wacha.

Andy Cohen

Victor Garber

Alicia Quarles

Jacqueline Stroyman

Nathan Lane

Drena DeNiro

I missed the Bergh Ball this year and also last year. I totally support their work and I had other commitments, but the Bergh Ball was on my mind. Two years ago when I went to cover it, I adopted a twelve year old shih-tzu named Jenny. It was a spur of the moment decision because I already had two (rescued) shih-tzus at home, and I have a busy day-to-day life away from the apartment. But Jenny, who was being carried around that evening by one of the ASPCA volunteers, reminded me of another shih-tzu I adopted back in the late 90s from the Center for Animal Control. Many NYSD readers have read about Buster (here). He was a little sweetie.

It turned out that this new girl was twelve, was blind, had been in terrible health, had had tumors on all of her teats and had a bronchial problem. Who cares, she needed a home. After I agreed to share my home with her, they waited until they were sure she was in good health before releasing her. That was in June 2012. She’s been in very good health ever since.


	Jenny Jen Jen waiting to see if Dave's going to feed her some treats. It's about that time of day.

She’s a sweet dog, blind, but able to maneuver around carefully. She loves affection but unlike my other two she does not come for it, and at first was uncertain about receiving. I don’t know what her history was but she was a very alienated dog. They told me that at the Center she stayed to herself. It always amazes me that people have animals (and children) and abuse them or abandon them. Those are the real losers in life. Losers in many ways.

She was very tentative when she came home with me. Also my other female, my alpha dog, Missy/Madame, was not hospitable. In fact she was something of a little bitch about this new girl in town. I could actually see the dialogue going on between the two of them. Jenny backed off quite easily, as if to say: “have it your way.” I excoriated Madame and she wagged her tail in response. The other guy Byron, follows Madame around like her little puppy (unless she shoos him away). It is a very amusing scene for me to watch them live their lives quite apart from me.

When Jenny was first living with us, she wouldn’t sleep in the bedroom with the rest of the gang. I tried by putting her on the bed, but she wanted to get off, and then she’d leave the room. I wondered if it were something between the two females. Eventually I made a little bed in a basket for her and put it next to my bed. After about nine or ten months, she claimed it. However, her presence still quietly riles Madame who has been known to get into the same little basket bed, driving Jen out. I reprimand Madame/Missy, who always acts like she doesn’t know what fuss is about, and Jenny returns to her pillow.

She must be about fourteen now. She’s not a warm and cuddly girl like her cousins, although she responds to affection with pleasure. I’ve brought her up on the bed and held her by my side and petted her, and although she likes it, when it stops, she leaves. However, now she mainly sleeps in the bedroom but always makes an appearance at mealtime (her time twice a day).

The Gang: Madame/Missy on the left, Jen in the middle, and Byron on the right.

She’s the first dog I’ve had who is very reserved after living with me for a long period of time. I have a feeling that if Missy weren’t around, she might be more enthusiastic. But these dogs know boundaries and respect them unlike a lot of us. I can’t imagine what her earlier years were like that would dampen the canine spirit, but it did. Nevertheless, in the two years she’s lived here, she’s managed to make it her home, and she is safe and cared for. And fed. She, like her cousins M and B give me, this solitary man, the opportunity to express my profoundly joyous affection for them daily, and that is their gift to me. The more, the merrier.