New York Social Diary - Social Diary

Much-needed rain. 7:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Thursday, February 20, 2014. A lot warmer in New York yesterday. Mid-40s; that’s good enough to be called warm. With a heavy rain for a few hours in the morning that began the big snow melt the city needs we can finally dig our cars out.

I went down to Michael’s for the Wednesday luncheon media melee. It did not disappoint, filled with media mutts and moguls as well as a healthy mix of bankers, lawyers, writers and such. Joe Armstrong the Mayah of Michael’s was at Table One in the bay hosting three people from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Joe’s a Texan, if you didn’t know, and he knows just about everybody who hails from down thatta way, especially if they’re in media (or politics). The late great Ann Richards was a good friend of his.


	Joe Armstrong and Ann Richards in 2003.

His guests from Austin were Steve Wilson, Jennifer Tisdale, Alicia Dietrich; and Diane Clehane, Michael’s “Brenda Starr.” The Austin group are here because of Gone With the Wind, without question one of the greatest American films of the 20th century based on one of the best selling American novels. For a long time, up until the advent of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, no other American film grossed as much. Now it’s pittance in modern day grosses. But it still remains a favorite that people have seen three, four, five times over a lifetime, sitting through the 3 hours always rapt and enchanted by this great film.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the release of the film to American audiences. The publicity machine that David Selznick, its producer, rolled out was a marketing genius’s dream. Margaret Mitchell’s novel is set in Georgia during the Civil War and the Reconstruction. It was published in 1936, and was on the best seller list for two years. Eventually it has sold more than 30 million copies and continues to remain the great read that it was to its first readers.

Selznick and his production partner John Hay “Jock” Whitney acquired the screen rights from Miss Mitchell for $50,000 -- a very pretty penny in those days (when the dollar had the buying power of thirty times that number). Whitney actually put up the money and came to it first through his associate, and Selznick took it from there.

Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and producer David Selznick on the set of "Gone With The Wind."

The novel was hugely popular. The ballyhoo for the film began as soon as the book was in the stores. The part of the hero — Rhett Butler, it was widely rumored, would be played by Clark Gable, one of Hollywood’s biggest box office stars. This rumor was planted by Selznick’s people so that the popular demand for the star (who was under contract to Selznick’s recalcitrant — at times — father-in-law would lend them Gable for the film. (MGM became the distributor.) So when readers began that book, Gable was already their Rhett. Remember, this was a time when more than half the population (numbers-wise) went to the movies every week. And they read books. All the time.

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in "Gone With The Wind."

Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel.

Then began the search for the perfect Scarlett. I don’t know how many were tested before they decided on Vivian Leigh. The film was three and a half years in the making. By the time the film was released, the ballyhoo was so intense that the public converged on the movie houses across the land. Its premiere in Atlanta was national news. And it was a hit– the biggest grossing film of its time and for decades after, winning all kinds of awards.

Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Margaret Mitchell, David Selznick, and Olivia de Havilland at the "Gone With the Wind" film premiere in Atlanta, December 15, 1939.

Back to the Ransom Center and Joe Armstrong’s lunch guests yesterday at Michael’s. The Ransom Center has a vast collection of film and publishing memorabilia including the David O. Selznick archives which consist of all of his memorandums — and he was highly prolific with his verbiage — having to do with creating the production, completing it, selling it; and all manner of scripts and costume and set design as well as tests, outtakes, behind the scenes photos.


	Vivien Leigh in "Tear Stains" make-up still, ca. 1938 (David O. Selznick Collection).

Steve Wilson, Joe’s guest, is the film curator of the Harry Ransom Center. He was accompanied by Ms. Dietrich, who is its public affairs representative and Ms. Tisdale, who is director of public affairs at the Center. On September 9th they’re going to open with a tribute exhibition celebrating the milestone anniversary of GWTW. It will be a world class exhibit and may very well draw film lovers from all over the world.

I heard about the business at the table when the party stopped by my table where I was lunching with Rosina Rucci, and Joe introduced us to the group from Austin. You’ll be hearing more about it.

Around the room, next door to the bay, Judy Price was lunching with Nancy Murray. Ms. Murray is the Senior Vice President of Communications at Louis Vuitton, and I learned yesterday when we were introduced that she is a regular reader of the NYSD. This is always a reward to hear, all these years later.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. Nikki Haskell was lunching with uber-real estate broker Eva Mohr; Jim Fallon of WWD was with fashion public relations executive Patrick McGregor. Moving along: Faye Wattleton in the corner table; Luke Janklow; Simone Levinson with Paula Zahn; Mitti Liebersohn; Viacom Executive VP Michael Fricklas; Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Imber with Jerry Della Femina and Andrew Bergman. Mr. Della Femina and his wife Judy Licht are giving a booksigning for Dr. Imber and his new thriller novel “Wendell Black MD.” Across the aisle from Da Boyz, Nina Griscom was lunching with a friend. She told me she’d read the book over the weekend and couldn’t put it down. Imber’s getting a lot of word of mouth like that.

Also in the room, Joan Jakobson, Susan Blond, Beverly Camhe; Gordon Davis with Bobby Liberman; Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel with Laurie Slotsky; Bill Siegel with Ambassador John Bolton; Mark Rosenthal; George Gurley with CS Ledbetter of the New Yorker; Henry Schleiff; Jim Friedlich; Cindi Berger; Sol Kerzner; Lou Korman; Shelly Palmer of Palmer Advance Media; Tom Goodman with Ed Adler, Glenn Horowitz.

Cockails in the ballroom of the Pierre last night for the Museum of the City of New York's annual Winter Ball.

Last night I went down to the Pierre where the Museum of the City of New York was holding its annual Winter Ball. The Winter Ball has long been a favorite on the winter social calendar in New York. It's generally thought to the baby of social impresario Mark Gilbertson. Mark has been heading up the committee to organize it for 29 years this year. And his guests – generally – are contemporaries of his who have been coming since they were known as the "Junior" group in town. Junior no more, (except for those who are coming up), the Winter Ball is now one of the great galas in the City. A lot of these people know each other, socialize with each other throughout the year. Many have grown up together or known each other since college. It's black tie and women dress for the occasion, so it's fashionable.

When I first walked into the cocktail hour which was held in a smaller ballroom in the hotel, all of the above came to mind. Plus it is comfortable. Mark told me last night that there were 470 attending. It was a record for this gala, and they raised more than $650,000 for the Museum's program. The gala affair was sponsored by Dennis Basso, who was also present with his partner Michael Cominotto, and who with Michael, are long time members of the same set in Palm Beach and Southampton.

Helen Schifter and Allison Rockeller.

George Farias and Leslie Stevens.

Teresa Colley, with husband Bruce, taking a picture of me taking a picture. Then I took mine.

Amy Fine Collins explaining.

Nicole Miller talking to Christine Schwarzman.

Mark Gilbertson (right) and friends.

Jay Diamond and Alexandra Lebenthal.

Debbie Bancroft and Chappy Morris.

Backless at the Pierre.

Barbara Regna and her sister Kristyna Halouzkova.

Amanda Meigher and Sloan Overstrom.

The main ballrom on entering.

Kirk Henckels and Chris Meigher.

The lady in red finding her placement.

Contact DPC here.

Looking towards the Empire State Building from 5th Avenue and 28th Street. 2:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Monday, February 24, 2014. Warmer over the weekend, up into the low 50s. A brief heavy rain on Friday, then sunny and mild Saturday and Sunday, no rain, no snow, no ice. That was a bit of a relief for everybody. Now the weatherman’s saying back to business: cold coming our way again.

The snow melting ...

The neighborhood. There was a piece in Saturday’s New York Post by Julia Marsh about two people I’ve been seeing around the town for the last decade or maybe two but never knew. I never met either individual. I would see them at parties, at events, openings, at the opera. We’d probably nodded hello to one another in acknowledgement but there was otherwise never a word between us, let alone a conversation, that would have led to some kind of acquaintanceship. It’s not unusual in this great city to frequently see people you never quite meet, not unlike a familiar face in your neighborhood, a neighbor, you’ve seen forever but never talked to.


	Baroness W. Langer von Langendorff.

One of the two is someone I’ve written aboutHERE. She is the Baroness W. Langer von Langendorff, who has been a fixture in the tonier environs of Manhattan for many a day, long before I ever stepped on the terra firma with my byline. I’ve never seen her in the light of day although she lights up the night with her flaming tresses and her baubles – always tastefully displayed – and reminding one of a real life diva. The baroness’ fashion choices reflect another age and another era when women of fashion and (independent) means wore a lot of that stuff all the time.

However, when I wrote that profile, never knowing her, under those circumstances, I wrote what I had “heard” and what I had observed. Even in New York, the baroness makes a spectacular entrance and presence. I re-read the piece just to see how it had held up. It has. Read it and see what I mean. However, Saturday’s article in the Post casts a somewhat different light – or is it a shadow – on the lady.

The other character in this unfolding drama, according to the Post, is Shail Upadhya. Mr. Upadhya was also a man whose presence was immediately noticeable in any crowd. He dressed for all occasions in his own style. He loved colorful suits that often looked like he’d had them made up strictly for himself. I’d see him everywhere. He didn’t seem to be socializing so much as standing about and around. I’d wonder what the pleasure of the company was for him. I often concluded he liked dressing up for parties and milling about. To each his own; it is New York after all.


Shail Upadhya.

Shail Upadhya and Karen Bass.

From the Post article, I learned that he was a longtime companion of a real estate broker named Karen Bass. He had been her boyfriend for 30 years. Ms. Bass died two years ago, and she left her friend a small fortune of several millions in real estate. According to the Post, she stated in her will: “My dearest Shail…I have always loved you and I will watch over you always.”

Evidently Mr. Upadhya took his friend’s death very badly. Friends said that his health went downhill after that and this past January, he died at age 79. I should add that Mr. Upadhya was a very youthful looking 79. He was a slender man, not big, small but wiry and moved around energetically. He had been a disarmament expert at the United Nations. He then began a career as a “fashion designer.” This was news to me but then I didn’t know the man. I’ve never thought about what a disarmaments expert from the UN would look like but “fashion designer” is credible considering.

Evidently after he died, much of Mr. Upadhya’s multi-million dollar estate was left in the hands of the baroness von Langerdorff, and not to his relatives -- half-siblings back in Nepal. The relatives believe that the baroness -- who had befriended Mr. Upadhya at some time unknown to me -- had “coerced” him to sign over his properties to her. The baroness was known for her great and not so subtle charm. A friend of the late Ms. Bass, Joy Marks was quoted in the Post as saying “he was so ill, he was like putty in her (van Langendorff’s) hands.”

The Upadhya’s half-siblings believe the baroness used “force, flattery, and threats” to persuade their brother to disinherit them. The baroness is, from what one can conclude, a very wealthy woman. Her late husband, the baron, was an Austrian fragrance tycoon who created, or at least owned the rights to White Shoulders, a very popular fragrance among young women in the 60s and 70s. The baroness was also known for having cultivated relationships with other prominent and wealthy businessmen of that era now past, and was respected and admired by some for her shrewdness when it came to investments.

I don’t know how the Upadhya relatives will prove the case as the baroness has often had properties that were regarded as good investments which she personally made. No doubt she knew more about such things than the late Mr. Upadhya who really was a more fanciful individual when he was away from disarmament matters.

But then, it’s all conjecture as to what really happened, who really knew, and who could prove it? Just like the neighbors that you’ve always seen driving in or out of their driveway, but never really got to know or to even say hello to ...

Contact DPC here.

Neighbors. 9:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014. Cold in New York last night – mid-20s. Yesterday there was a little snow and rain forecast. Not. Not a sunny day either but the roads and sidewalks were dry, and traffic was terrible all over. Today, the weatherman forecasts, we might see some of the aforementioned – some rain and some snow. Or maybe none.

The warm temperatures last week finally melted a lot of the dirty snowbanks and so we’re waiting for Springtime. I noticed one of the small pots on my terrace has sprouted four little green shoots. I was very surprised because it must have been a plant I bought or was given. I don’t know if it’s a tulip or a hyacinth. Whatever it is, I’ll be watching ... and hoping ...

After the thaw. Photo: JH.

I went down to Michael’s to lunch. Michael’s was quiet, yet packed, unlike today’s lunch which will probably be vocal pandemonium and table hopping. Yesterday had its share of NYC and international VIPs. Lesley Stahl was at the corner table. Chris-craft tycoon Herb Siegel was next door. Alexandra Trower, the Lauder VP, was on the other side. Gordon Davis was lunching with Diane Coffey and a man I didn’t recognize. Anne Fulenwider, the E-I-C of Marie Claire next door to them. Christy Ferer was hosting a table of very attractive ladies in the bay. Candia Fisher (Fisher-Landau Center for Art) was nearby, as was famous banking executive Sallie Krawcheck (former president of Global Wealth & Investment Management division of Bank of America; Dave Zinczenko, publisher/editor/tv personality was lunching with business associates; Nikki Haskell was with John Morgan and his wife Connie. Nikki heads out to the Coast today or tomorrow to take in all the upcoming Oscar parties.


	Almina stands at the crib of her son, Henry George.

	Baron Portchester or “Porchy” to his friends a family.

Also: Elihu Rose (known as Elly to his many friends), the co-creator of the magnificently restored and renovated Park Avenue Armory; Justin Smith, chief executive of the Bloomberg Media group was lunching with Steve Rattner. Producer Michael Mailer with writer/director James Toback; Lin Paulsin and friends; internationally famous economist Nouriel Roubini; mega-agent Wayne Kabak.

I got an email from a reader about Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey to us tv-watchers) and its actual family, the Earls of Carnarvon, especially the 6th Earl (grandfather of the present – the 8th Earl). Evidently the Carnarvons (family name Herbert) had all kinds of skeletons and Edwardian extra-marital activities in their past, which is no surprise to anyone who’s ever read about the Edwardians (beginning with Bertie, known as King Edward VII).

Christopher Wilson, writing in the Sunday Express (London) has pointed out that the family history is as good a place as any for Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes to get his stories and his plots for the next season’s series.

Henry George Alfred Marius Victor Francis Herbert, 6th Earl of Carnarvon (7 November 1898 – 1987) was a British peer, the son of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon of Highclere Castle, and Almina Wombwell. He was known as Baron Portchester from birth and “Porchy” to his friends a family.

Henry, or “Porchy” was married twice. First to an American woman, Anne Catherine Wendell, with whom he had a son – who eventually became the 7th Earl (who became Queen Elizabeth II’s Racing Manager), and a daughter. After their divorce he married again to the toast of two continents and a wild girl.

Tilly Losch, the 6th Countess of Carnarvon, Wilson writes “was ravished by men in power” according to a new biography by writer William Cross. “Those who wanted her for sex were unattractive and imperfect but they were rich and powerful and well connected. She slept with no one for love’s sake, she was incapable of love, but she knew what she was doing. Love was just a transaction.”

Hardly remembered today Tilly Losch, born Ottine Ethel Leopoldine Losch, born in Vienna was a ballerina and actress who by her late 20s had become a major star on the stage in London, New York, and then in Hollywood.

Cecil Beaton described her as “that serpent of the Old Danube,” which gives you an idea of her private reputation among the social set. She came to the scene in the late 1920s as the protégé of British stage impresario CB Cochran.

Her looks and sex appeal brought her quickly to the attention of society and many men wanted to sleep with her. Despite her apparent disinterest, she accommodated many of her suitors including Randolph Churchill (son of Winston). Churchill, Wilson writes, “offered up his virginity and remained grateful ever after for her ‘boundless sexual capacity.’” After Churchill came Tom Mitford, the only brother of the famous Mitford sisters (he was later killed in the Second World War).

Tilly Losch by Cecil Beaton.

Tilly had studied ballet as a child at the Vienna Opera, and became a member of the corps de ballet when she was 15. She arrived in London with a reputation for being a kept woman but was an overnight sensation in her first London stage appearance in 1928 in Noel Coward’s “Year of Grace.” From there she crossed the Atlantic to star with Fred and Adele Astaire in Dietz & Schwartz’ “The Bandwagon,” and after that in Coward’s “Bittersweet.”

Edward James, a very rich Anglo-American who had a stately pile that was even bigger than Highclere, and was known to be gay, was mad about her and wanted to marry her. He pursued her across the Atlantic to New York and begged her to marry him. She agreed but on their wedding night she refused his sexual advances by reminding him “Edward, my darling, you’re a pansy.”

Tilly Losch, 1920s, by Cecil Beaton.

Nevertheless, James founded a ballet company for her in 1933 which performed in London and Paris with George Balanchine as its artistic director. Its most popular work was “The Seven Deadly Sins” by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Tilly danced the leading role and Weill’s wife Lotte Lenya. Soon Tilly and Lenya were having a passionate affair. This went on until she deserted Lenya for Marlene Dietrich.


	Tilly Losch, Tom Mitford, and Dorothy Paley (later Hirshon).

All of this distressed poor Edward the rejected husband, although he was still known to go off with men (his favorite was an Italian taxi driver). Tilly made matters worse for him when she aborted his child. When he found out, he called her a “lousy bitch, a dirty swine, a dirty gold digger filthy vermin,” you name it. He sued for divorce naming Russian prince Serge Obelensky, the first husband of Vincent Astor’s sister Alice. Obelensky had been sleeping with Tilly during the first six months of her marriage to James. So intense was their passion that one night they couldn’t wait to get to a bed and consummated it at the top of the Empire State Building.

Meanwhile, back with the Carnarvns at Highclere: Tilly Losch met Porchy Carnarvon, the 6th Earl in 1931 in America, when he was still his first wife. According to biographer William Cross, the Earl was “ugly, crude and arrogant.” He was known to knock on a would-be mistress’ door “with a certain portion of his anatomy.” Yet, as Christopher Wilson put it: when Tilly “slithered into the bed of Porchy, Earl of Carnarvon, he could not wait to make her his countess.”

Their marriage took place in 1939. In the taxi on the way to their wedding Tilly told him: “I don’t want to be married. I’m not in love.” The family was appalled that the Earl went through with it. Wilson again: “most people marveled at how he could ever think to take such a shop-soiled and frankly dangerous woman for his wife.”

‪Alfred Cheney Johnston - Model tilly Losch, from Enchanting Beauty, 1937.

However, Porchy as he was known (as was his son also) was an “uncompromisingly direct ladies’ man.” He wanted what he wanted. Besides he went after any woman he was interested in, married or not.

The marriage lasted ten weeks. War was about to break out in England. Highclere took in a large group of evacuees from the London blitz. Tilly couldn’t take it and moved to the Ritz on London’s Piccadilly. That wasn’t enough and on November 27, 1939, she sailed from Southampton to the United States. The couple remained married, although separated and in she divorced the husband she despised.

The book: Catherine and Tilly: Porchy Carnarvon’s Two Duped Wives by William Cross. Book Midden Publishing, £12.50. You can find it on Amazon.

Tilly Losch, 1928, by Emil Otto Hoppé.

Downton Abbey aside, and back to 21st century reality, the weekend before last (2/15/14) at Windsor in Vero Beach, Florida (how’s that for some fresh air), Hilary and Galen Weston hosted the 2nd biennial Windsor Charity Polo Cup at the polo grounds. The event’s presenting sponsor was Baltimore headquartered investment firm Brown Advisory. Other signature sponsors included Swarovski and Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Audi of Melbourne.

A roster of international polo players competed in the event which benefitted the Rett Syndrome Research Trust and the Indian River Country School District’s “Summer Literacy on the Lagoon”, a local program developed to support student literacy.

More than 1,000 people came out for the day. 600 guests watched the tournament and enjoyed a champagne lunch under a handsomely decorated tented pavilion. Other attendees viewed the match from a festive tailgate section and grandstand seating.

Hilary and Galen Weston and the polo players.

Salvatore Ferragamo won Most Valuable Player, and his Caballeros de Ruby team beat opposing team Balios 9-7. Ferragamo, who runs the family’s expanding wine business, has played against Prince Charles and Prince Harry in the Outback Polo match; Legendary polo player Memo Gracida’s gelding, Lucero, was awarded Best Playing Pony. Gracida won the US Open 17 times and has held a perfect 10 handicap for 17 years.

Following the tournament, the Westons hosted an al fresco dinner at their ocean home Windsor in honor of Salvatore Ferragamo and the players.

Danna Swarovski and Memo Gracida and winning polo.

Windsor is a private residential community spanning 416 acres of lush barrier island between the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean in Vero Beach, Florida.
Established in 1989 by the Westons, Windsor was designed by renowned town planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. It is comprised of 350 home sites in various settings for their signature Anglo-Caribbean architecture and gracious living.

Members enjoy an 18-hole links-style golf course, Har-Tru tennis courts, an Equestrian Centre with over four miles of riding trails, a fully equipped Fitness Centre, and Gun Club. The Clubhouse, with interiors designed by Yabu Pushelberg is a favorite gathering place much like the Beach Club which features private cabanas, its own restaurant, a pool-side Cabana Bar and 25-metre swimming pool.

Gigi and Carl Grimstad with daughters India and Kate.

John Walsh with Mike Azzaro's sons Harrison and Hunter.

A young polo fan.

On the polo field at Windsor.

John Walsh signs autographs for youthful attendees.

Nannette de Gaspe Beaubien and Hilary Weston.

Pablo Dorignac and Camilla Errala .

Hilary Weston.

Carl Grimstad, Nannette de Gaspe Beaubien, Caroline Barnett, and Craig Barnett.

Max Azzaro and John Walsh.

Salvatore and Christine Ferragamo.

Carlos Gracida, Regina Fernandez, and Galen Weston.

Nannette de Gaspe Beaubien, Danna Swarovski, and Kjestine Bijur.

Al fresco dinner hosted by Hilary and Galen Weston in honor of Salvatore Ferragamo.

More catching up: Here in New York, Michele Gerber Klein threw a drinks party in her art-filled apartment for her friends Jody and Gerard Schwarz who is the music Director of The All Star Orchestra, an ensemble of top musicians from America's leading orchestras.

The group is currently featured in a new eight-part television series airing on PBS all over the United States. The premiseis to give everyone especiallythose who can't afford or don't have geographical access to orchestras, the chance to enjoy great classical music. Schwarz is also the Conductor Laureate of the Seattle Symphony, and there's even a street named after him in Seattle.

Eric Silberger and Julian Schwarz.

Guests included Melissa and Chappy Morris, Patsy and Jeff Tarr, Christy Ferer, Geoffrey Bradfield, DD and Beatrice Pei, Janice and Charles Cecil and Jean Shafiroff, Will Ryman, Adam Fuss, Robert Polidori and the Andy Warhol Foundation's Michael Strauss as well as Douglas Hannant’s partner Frederick Anderson, Alice and Paul Judelson, R. Couri Hay, Phong Bui and Nathalie Provosty, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Hirth, Cassandra Seidenfeld, Amy Rossi and Peter Rosenthal, Evelyn and Oivind Lorentzen, Waqas Wajahat, SueStoffel, Susan Cappa, Christopher DeLong, Dana Buckley and Spencer Tompkins and Marie Monique Steckel who led the applause for Julian Schwarz's beautifully rendered Cello performance of the Handel-Halverson Sonata.

Christy Ferer and Michele Gerber Klein.

James Prosek and Waqas Wajahat.

Geoffrey Bradfield and Roric Tobin.

Paul Schwendener and Dana Buckley.

Phong Bui and Michele Gerber Klein.

William Witenberg, Chappy Morris, Lauren Lawrence, and Melissa Morris.

Patricia and Thomas Shiah.

Marjorie and Ellery Gordon.

Pascal Richards, Beatrice Pei, and CC Pei.

Julie and Jim Dale.

Frederick Anderson and Michele Gerber Klein.

Gerard Schwarz, Jeff Tarr, and Patsy Tarr.

Oivind Lorentzen and Evelyn Lorentzen Bell.

Jodi and Gerard Schwarz.

Michael Straus, Jodi Schwarz, Michele Gerber Klein, Frederieke Taylor, and Sue Stoffel.

Janis Cecil and R Couri Hay.

Marie Monique Steckel.

Will Ryman and Peter Rosenthal.

Contact DPC here.

Looking up. 4:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Thursday, February 27, 2014. A friend wrote me yesterday to say that February was always the longest month of the year for her in New York. I kinda knew what she meant, especially after this one just passing. Tomorrow is the last day of that month. So the long one is over.

That’s what many of us are thinking and what many are wishing, going into March, Ides or no. It’s cold in New York. The leftover snow is just about gone. So it’s that stark, dull, colorless cold when you’re outside. The roads are now grey and dusty but not slippery; and it’s dull to look at except ... Spring is just around the corner. The weatherman is saying we might get more snow over the weekend.


	The happy family.

Yesterday a woman named Polly McCourt, very pregnant and heading for the hospital to give birth, lost the cab the doorman hailed for her to another woman who snatched it. You’ve heard about this, right? Right after ... right after ... Snatcha grabbed the cab from her, Polly McCourt had the baby right there on the pavement. On the freezing pavement of Third Avenue at 68th Street (she was only nine blocks from the hospital). Thanks Snatcha. Hope you made your botox appointment on time.

The good news is many people passing by pitched in and helped McCourt and her newborn child. They gave their coats and scarves to keep the baby warm. Soon the ambulance was there.

The bad news is the creep who took her cab. This goes on all the time, especially in the “better” parts of the city, and by the “better” parts neighbors. I’ve written about the woman who took the cab I was waiting for one day and when I reminded her that I had been there first, she gave me the finger. As she was getting into the cab. Same neighborhood (in their heads). I always wonder who these people go home to, and what it must be like for their partners, family, children, etc. Creeps, all. And, they’re not just the so-called younger generation, so don't go blaming it on the 20-somethings (exclusively).

Ms. McCourt, judging from the photos looked quite happy after the incident. In fact she looked really happy. A helluva lot happier than the woman who stole the cab. She’s probably looking at her phone messages. Or her apps. Happy apps. Waiting for Godot. Okay, enufs enuf.

Last night I went down to the 1stdibs Gallery at 200 Lexington where Michael Bruno was hosting a reception for Gloria Vanderbilt on the opening of her new exhibition “Gloria Vanderbilt; The Left Hand is the Dreamer” (Work from 2013 - 2014 in gouache, collage and pastel). Here’s the invitation with one of her pictures. Do get over to the 1stdibs showroom and have a look. Gloria will intrigue and fascinate. Always.

I met her about twenty-five years ago when I was living in California and had come to New York to work on a project. I contacted her to interview. She was one of the few who agreed to see me. Gloria likes meeting new people, and we became friends – New York style – meaning: we’d see each from time to time and get to know a bit about each other, but never much more than that. It has more to do with time and numbers than anything else. Too little time and too many to meet, plus all that you have to do to keep your mojo.

She was living in a newly acquired townhouse on East 91st Street and she had a new shih-tzu. I had an older shih-tzu whose name was Mrs. Fa Fa. (Don’t ask.) Gloria liked the name (so did I) and she’d always ask me how Mrs. Fa Fa was. Despite her gossamer-y charisma, Gloria is right there in the moment. She’s nobody’s fool but she’s also acquiring, learning, from people. Romance too; she likes romance, possibly almost as much as when it was new (she married her first husband Pat DiCicco when she was 16).

15-year-old Gloria.

She is the only celebrated person I have known who never over time lost her aura of specialness. By “specialness,” I mean she just not like anyone else you’ve ever known. (Except possibly in a Southern novel – although Gloria is not at all Southern).

She was a household name by the time we met. She’d been famous as a small child because of the custody case between her mother (also Gloria) and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her late father’s elder sister. Thanks to Barbara Goldsmith’s highly readable (and fascinating), best-selling, in-depth study of the girl’s famously tabloidal childhood and growing up, “Little Gloria, Happy at Last,” that fame became legend. But then by the time she was in her 40s, she’d become an all out commercial brand too. She’d had her great success with her Jeans, and then with her perfume.

With her mother, Gloria Morgan, and governess. Gloria's mother lost custody of her in 1934.

Gloria's paternal aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was awarded custody.

But when you’re in her company she’s neither commercial, or a culture relic. She’s a kind of a magical soul, an artist whose life is the work. What I admire about her is her stick-to-ive-ness, her supranatural commitment to finding ways to express herself through her works and her writing. She carries the ambition gene of her great-great-grandfather, the Commodore who put the name on the map (and even owned a lot of the map). I don’t think money was ever an object (except to be spent on beautiful and interesting things), but achievement was all.

Gloria turned 90 last Thursday. I haven’t seen her in a year or two but I’m sure she still looks amazing. To “amaze” is one of her talents. So I went down to 200 Lex last night just to say hello and to take her picture. The reception was called for 6 to 9. I left the house about 7. It’s about a ten minute ride down the FDR to the New York Design Center where 1stdibs has its showroom on 32nd Street and Lex. I got there about 7:15.

Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper, Gloria's son with Wyatt Cooper.

Emily Goldstein and Stan Stokowski, Gloria's son with Leopold Stokowski.

Andrew Slaby and Gloria.

Stuart Cohen, the PR and special events manager at 1stdibs was at the entrance. It was from him that I learned that Gloria had “just left.” I was surprised, but he reminded me that she’d been there for an hour. That doesn’t seem like a long time but then again ... she’d been there for an hour. I was sorry I didn’t think of it.

I was disappointed not to have had the pleasure of seeing Gloria and her only-Gloria charm. When I left the building, back out on the avenue looking for a cab, I noticed the Chrysler Building only ten blocks to the north, its spire lighting up the night. This, I decided was what I came for: I took the picture in the stead of another sensational New York icon whom I had missed seeing by just few minutes last night.

The Chrysler Building lighting up the night.

Catching up: This past Monday night, Ward and Nico Landrigan of Verdura hosted a cocktail reception and a lively discussion of “Memos: The Vogue Years” about Diana Vreeland with the book’s editor (and the subject’s grandson) Alexander Vreeland, moderated by New York Magazine Design Editor Wendy Goodman.

Memos: The Vogue Years, published by Rizzoli New York, is an amazing compilation of more than 250 pieces of Mrs. Vreeland’s personal correspondence, selected by her grandson. Mr. Vreeland was on hand to sign books for those in attendance.

In the audience: Taylor Gildersleeve, Brad Livingstone Black, Ward Landrigan, Reinaldo Herrera, and Carolina Herrera.

Sicilian Duke Fulco di Verdura began his extraordinary career in Paris as jewelry designer for Coco Chanel for whom he first designed his signature Maltese Cross brooches and cuffs. With a Hollywood connection through his friend and client Diana Vreeland, Verdura designed colorful jewels for stars of the era including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich. Fulco di Verdura and Diana Vreeland enjoyed a lifelong friendship and years of collaboration.

Alexander Vreeland, Wendy Goodman, and Ward Landrigan.

Judith Landrigan, Alexander Vreeland, Carolina Herrera, and Nico Landrigan.

Geoffrey Bradfield.

Emilia and Pepe Fanjul.

Catherine Hart and Cynthia McDonald.

More catching up. This past Tuesday night Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) held its 2014 Vision at Cipriani 42nd Street, celebrating its 45th Anniversary. This year’s gala theme was “Live the Moment.” Honorees of the evening were Patti LaBelle who received the Arthur Mitchell Vision Award; dance educator and arts advocate Jody Gottfried Arnhold who was given The Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Medal; and Goldman, Sachs & Co. senior partner Valentino D. Carlotti receiving the inaugural Virtuoso Award. Billy Joel was honorary chair of the evening (although he wasn’t in attendance).

Paula Zahn, Laveen Naidu, and Patti LaBelle.

Beverly D'Anne and Guy Mognaz.

Nana Meriwether, Miss USA, and Virginia Johnson.

They raised $700,000. $75,000 of that came from the entertaining live auction conducted by Audrey Smaltz. Proceeds benefitted the DTH School’s Next Generation and Community Engagement Funds.

There were performances by the Dance Theatre of Harlem School to “Over the Rainbow,” choreographed by School Director Endalyn Taylor; a preview of the Dance Theatre of Harlem Company’s forthcoming spring season at Jazz at Lincoln Center with an excerpt from “The Pas de Dix from Raymonda.” There was a special tribute performance by the Company to Patti LaBelle, choreographed by resident choreographer Robert Garland.

Sam Peabody with Honorees Jody Gottfried Arnhold and Valentino Carlotti.

However, the surprise performance of the evening was from “Lady Marmalade” herself when she ended her acceptance speech with an acapella rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer,” with opera singer Jessye Norman joining her, along with the entire audience, in singing amen.

“I can dance, but they dance like angels,” said LaBelle during her acceptance speech, referring to the Dance Theatre of Harlem Company’s performance. “This is my 52nd year in this business called Show and to be honored by the Dance Theatre of Harlem for their 45th year anniversary, I feel so blessed, so honored.”

DTH Company Dancers with Honoree Valentino D. Carlotti.

Nearly 400 corporate sponsors, supporters, friends, alumni and members of the board attended, including journalist Paula Zahn, Malaak Compton Rock, Kimberly Chandler, Miss USA 2012Nana Meriwether, Isiah and Lynne Thomas; Miss New York City 2014Kira Kazantsev, Samuel Peabody, Judith M. Hoffman, Jean Shafiroff, Beverly D’Anne and Guy Mognaz. Members of Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Board of Directors were present, including Chairman of the Board Kendrick Ashton, Jr., Gala Committee Chair Leslie Wims Morris, members Isabel Kallman, DTH Vice Chair Michael Armstrong, Trey Muldrow, Kevin Cofsky, Zandra Perry Ogbomo, Asha Richards, Anne E. Robinson, Don M. Tellock, and Aliya Lee Kong.

Jessye Norman and Patti LaBelle.

Also this past Tuesday night, Cookies for Kids’ Cancer— an organization funding research for pediatric cancer treatments hosted a special evening benefit, “Chefs for Kids’ Cancer” on at the Altman Building (135 W 18th Street). All the proceeds will go to benefit research for childhood cancer. Chefs Jonathan Benno (Lincoln Ristorante) and Dan Kluger (abc kitchen) served as Co-Chairs. Both men are friends of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Founders Gretchen and Larry Witt and knew their son, Liam, through his battle with cancer. The event will be held seven years to the day after Liam’s courageous journey with cancer began; his dreams of someday becoming a chef were tragically cut short in 2011 after a four-year battle with the disease.

Chefs Kluger and Benno have curated an outstanding collection of chefs for the event, each of whom prepared a multi-course meal for individual tables of guests. Jim Meehan (PDT) mixed cocktails at the event, and Christina Tosi (Momofuku Milk Bar) led an assembly of 15 pastry chefs. Barenaked Ladies performed an acoustic set, and guest speaker Dr. Michael P. LaQuaglia, Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, spoke about the need for advancements in treatments for pediatric cancer, the number one disease killer of children in the U.S.

In attendance also were Chef Mario Batali, actor Paul Rudd, and supermodel Karlie Kloss. The room décor was being personally designed by DwellStudio Founder Christiane Lemieux. Smart Design has created the visual identity for the evening. Additionally, a live auction was held, led by the lovely and lively auctioneer Lydia Fenet from Christie’s.

Mario Batali, Gretchen Witt, and Ella Witt.

Paul Rudd and Gretchen Witt.

Christy Turlington.

Jim Meehan.

Damon Wise, Justin Smillie, Gretchen Witt, Jonathan Benno, and Shane McBride.

Nick Anderer.

Justin Smillie.

Gavin Kaysen, Gretchen Witt, Marco Canora, Sisha Ortuzar, Nick Anderer, and Ben Pollinger.

Marc Murphy.

Gavin Kaysen.

Karlie Kloss and Christina Tosi.

Barenaked Ladies.

Contact DPC here.

Driving down the West Side Highway. 8 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, March 3, 2014. Big snow forecast for the past three days. Everyone ready; plows out, Mother Nature changed her mind and left us dry – with a smidge of it maybe reaching us sometime this morning. Maybe. We were all psyched up for the inconvenience and then look: nada.

Meanwhile in Atlanta on Friday afternoon: a most amazing cloud formation looking very much like the sky from Munch's "The Scream."

Last Thursday night Jerry della Femina and his wife Judy Licht hosted a book-party for their friend Dr. Gerald Imber who has just published his sixth book “Wendell Black, MD” in which a New York City police surgeon finds himself in the middle of an international drug-smuggling ring.


	Dr. Gerald Imber with his new book at a party given last Thursday night by Judy Licht and Jerry Della Femina at their East Side townhouse. Click to order.

	Judy Licht with Alexander Vreeland and his wife, Lisa Immordino Vreeland.

Dr. Imber in non-literary life is one of the most preeminent plastic surgeons in New York. He’s also an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. NYSD readers also know him as one of Da Boyz – Della Femina, Bergman, Greenfield, Kramer and Imber who often occupy a center table in the Michael’s melee on Wednesday.

I’ve known Dr. Imber for some time. I think I met him first when I interviewed him for a piece. He was known for also having a roster of male clients as he proposed that doing “little things” early kept the countenance fresh and good for the executive market place. I don’t know if he’s ever had anything done to himself but he wears a sunny disposish most times I’ve seen him, and if you didn’t know, you’d think the guy is just a laid back businessman (always looking as comfortable in a suit and tie as in a jacket and jeans) enjoying his visit to this small planet.

I describe him thusly because when we were chatting at the party the other night, I asked him when -- at what hour – did he (a working MD!) sit down to write? First of all, I asked him how long it took to write this book. (“About a year”). And when did he write it?

Well, he told me, he gets up at 4 a.m.(!!) and sits down to write until 6 a.m. Then he goes either to the gym or for a run in the Park (I can’t remember which, already being shocked/amazed by his early-ness.) Then he has breakfast and goes to the office to begin his day as a doctor.

And he and his wife travel; and keep a house in the country for weekends, where they see friends, lots of friends. And there were lots of friends at the della Femina/Licht reception. And not an ounce of apparent anxiety to move things along.

Book parties are always business, obviously, but this one looked like a big cocktail party among friends – lots of chatting/inter-chatting, happy to be there. Happy to toast their friend the doctor-uh-novelist-uh-biographer and beauty advisor. I haven’t read it yet but the reports I’m hearing from people who have, you can’t put it down. I understand there’s a tv or movie interest in it already. Dr. Wendell will be appearing in the next novel too, so you catch the doc’s literary drift these days.

The crowd at the Imber party.

Maria Franziska von Trapp died two weeks ago at age 99, the last of original Trapp Family Singers who was immortalized by the Rodgers & Hammerstein hit musical that was made into a hugely successful musical film in the 1960s. The family became a family business of singers after great financial losses that nearly destroyed the family fortune in the 1930s, and then Hitler’s Anschluss provoked evacuation. Baron von Trapp moved his family out of Austria and finally to America.

The script that was concocted by librettists Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay changed the story line away from Baroness von Trapp's real life written account because the show was written around Mary Martin, one of the great Broadway musical stars of mid-20th century America. Her husband Richard Halliday produced the show with Leland Hayward. The idea came from stage director Vincent Donehue after seeing “the Trapp Family,” a 1956 West German film about the family. He thought it would be a good starring vehicle for Martin.

The von Trapp family.

Mary Martin was a very big star on Broadway, right up there with Ethel Merman, Carol Channing. Her name on the marquee sold tickets. She got her big break singing a breakthrough song (for a sweet mild-fed all-American girl), “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” by Cole Porter.

She was also famous to a generation (now senior) of Americans in title role of “Peter Pan,” the musical. Her role as Maria, the stepmother of the von Trapp children, cemented her popular image for that generation’s children.

Mary Martin in the The Sound of Music.

The Telegraph of London carried the best obituary for von Trapp daughter, Maria. In the show, her part was given a different name (Louise):

Maria von Trapp,who has died aged 99, was the last of the original Trapp Family Singers, whose story of musical success and subsequent flight from Austria during the Nazi regime in the late 1930s was the inspiration for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Broadway show and hugely successful 1965 film, The Sound of Music.

The von Trapps are an aristocratic Austrian family headed by the decorated naval officer Baron Georg von Trapp and his wife, Baroness Agathe. In the wake of Baroness von Trapp’s death in 1922 the family moved to a villa in Aigen in the suburbs of Salzburg. and Maria Augusta Kutschera a young postulent — a woman preparing for a nun’s life — from the nearby Nonnberg Abbey, was appointed as tutor to Maria Franziska (the other children were not her responsibility). She was to become the Baron’s second wife (played in the film by Julie Andrews).


	Photo of Baroness Maria von Trapp from Declaration of Intention, 21 January 1944.

	Maria Franziska von Trapp in 2008.

In the mid-1930s the family’s finances were made precarious by the Baron’s investment in a bank which would later fail. Hardened circumstances caused the Von Trapps to stage paid choral concerts (previously a family hobby) with Maria Von Trapp singing second soprano in the choir.

With the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Baron von Trapp was offered a commission in the German Navy. An ardent anti-Nazi he refused and decided to flee the country with his entire family. Not, as Hollywood immortalised their journey, overnight across the Alps to Switzerland but by train to Italy in broad daylight before taking a passage to America.

Maria Franziska Gobertina von Trapp was born on September 14 1914, in Salzburg the third child of Georg and Agathe Von Trapp. Since personal telegrammes were not permitted to be sent to those serving in the military, her father learnt of the birth by a message from his wife in pre-arranged code: “S.M.S Maria arrived”.

Music was an integral part of her family’s life. “My father played the violin and the accordion, and I adored him - I wanted to learn all the instruments that he played,” recalled Maria von Trapp late in life (she would play the accordion for the rest of her life).

In The Sound of Music, Maria von Trapp was portrayed as the character “Louisa” by the Canadian actress Heather Menzies-Urich (in her debut role). On the film’s release, Maria and her siblings were surprised by the level of dramatic license taken in bringing their story to the screen.

The Trapp Family Singers in 1941.

“We were all pretty shocked at how they portrayed our father, he was so completely different. He always looked after us a lot, especially after our mother died,” said Maria von Trapp. “You have to separate yourself from all that, and you have to get used to it. It is something you simply cannot avoid.”

On settling in America, the family, continued to perform choral concerts and opened a ski lodge in Stowe, Vermont. Here Maria was to play the accordion and teach Austrian dance, with her half-sister Rosmarie, one of three children by Georg von Trapp’s second marriage. Maria von Trapp became a US citizen in 1948 and in the mid-1950s worked alongside her stepmother as a lay missionary in Papua New Guinea.

Maria von Trapp singing in front of her former home, Villa Trapp, in Salzburg, Austria, on July 24, 2008. Photo: LEONHARD FOEGER/REUTERS.

In the summer of 2008 she visited her childhood home in Salzburg, on the eve of the villa opening as a hotel. Staying in the house for the first time since the 1930s she found herself haunted by memories.

“Our whole life is in here, in this house,” she recalled as she walked its corridors. “Especially here in the stairwell, where we always used to slide down the railings.”

Maria von Trapp never married. She is survived by her three half siblings, Rosmarie, Eleonore and Johannes.

Maria Franziska von Trapp, born September 14 1914, died February 18 2014

Contact DPC here.

Meanwhile, the view from Trafalgar Square in London. Photo: Jeff Hirsch

Tuesday, March 4, 2014.Very cold, in the low double digits at night. The massive storm that was allegedly coming our way on Sunday never got far enough north for us, so we were spared the inconvenience and the traffic tie-ups. Yesterday was cold and grey and the roadways had a white coating as if they had been painted. Kind of interesting looking.

It was a cold grey day and the non-storm left a chalky white cover not the roadways, looking as if they'd been whitewashed. This picture was taken midday.

Things improved by 5 in the afternoon with the grey skies moving away and leaving us some pink clouds at sunset.

The social calendar, however, is warming up and yesterday it was going full tilt. Over at Lincoln Center, the School of American Ballet was hosting its 2014 Winter Ball at the David H. Koch Theater.

This a glamorous black tie affair with about 500 attending the dinner on the Promenade, was attended by supporters from the corporate and social community as well as the School’s board members and alumni. The highlight of the evening included a performance by the advanced students of the SAB, choreographed by Silas Farley.

This year’s theme was Starry Night celebrating 80 years of dedication to the field of ballet. Diana DiMenna, Julia Koch and Serena Lese were Co-Chairs. We’ll have more on the evening later this week.

Peter Martins, Julia Koch, Serena Lese, Diana Dimenna, Noreen Ahmad, Amanda Brotman at The School of American Ballet's 2014 Winter Ball.

Also, down at Conrad New York downtown, The Bronx Museum of the Arts held its Spring Gala with the theme “Greetings From the Bronx.” More on this also, later in the week.

I started the evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they were hosting a preview reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibition, “The Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.”

I’d never heard of Carpeaux, and I don’t usually cover art events because I’m not exactly qualified, but my friend Iris Cantor’s foundation funded this huge show, and Iris had invited me to join her in seeing the preview.

I went over to the Metropolitan Museum of a preview of a new exhibition of the 19th century French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

There are more than 150 works in this exhibition of the French sculptor and painter who lived during the Second Empire under Napoleon III. While his name is no longer well known, he was very successful in his prime – which was mid-19th century, although he died at only 48. The Met’s exhibition including sculptures, paintings and drawings organized around the major projects he was involved in.


	Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1865–67.

Carpeaux was highly regarded for his portraiture, and there is a feeling of familiarity about the faces of his subjects. They look like real people. There is a sculpture of his fiancée and another of her mother that reveal this aspect of his talent.

For although the women do not look identical (and mother is older than adult daughter of course), the resemblance of the two women is as real as if you were looking at them standing together in life. This is a wonderful show. There are membership previews this week and then the show opens next Monday, March 10th, to the public. It runs through May 26th.

When I left the Met, I grabbed a cab to take me over to Jazz @ Lincoln Center in the Time-Warner Building where the Young People’s Chorus of New York City/ Francisco J. Nunez Artistic Director/Founder was presenting a gala evening “Celebrating the Next 25 Years” featuring the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, with Ashley Brown, Delfeayo Marsalis and the New York Pops.

View from the top of the Met's steps looking each down 81st Street, about 7:10 p.m.

This was new for me. I’d “heard of” the Young People’s Chorus. I had this idea that it was a chorale group of young people and children from the city’s schools. The evening was also a fund-raiser and at the dinner after the performance, they honored Robert E. Moritz U.S Chairman and Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Humanitarian Award was given to J. B. Harrison.

I arrived midway through the first performance which featured Delfeayo Marsalis along with the children who looked to be about the same age. In that part of the program there were several dozen on stage. I saw immediately that this was not just some group of young school kids singing in the choir. This was first rate, smart, clean, directed and compelling. The kids were really good, they moved like pros (kids’ version of pro), and like really good kids, they were into their performance. Their performance was clearly professionally directed, and impressive.

The marquee on the Time-Warner Building.

Watching it I was thinking how much fun it must be for the kids. And how much work had gone into the perfection of their performance; and what a good thing that was for everyone, including the future of these children. This was real power. This is where true hope and joy preside by nature’s way.

The program, with performances ever changing along with age groups, was sophisticated and diversified but entirely accessible to any music lover. The eldest must have been young teenagers and the youngest possibly five and six years old. All the performers were costumed/ dressed for their part of the program. The composer/ lyricists ranged from Aaron Copland to the Gershwins, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg, Strouse and Charnin, Van Morrison, Dave Brubeck, Steve Wonder and several others.

The Young People's Chorus taking their final bow (after an encore) last night at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

With the exception of Mr. Marsalis and Ms. Brown, all of the songs were performed by the different age groups in large numbers, and precisely choreographed. Everywhere you look you see achievement and accomplishment for all involved and most importantly for these children. Elizabeth Nunez who is associate conductor of the YPC, serves as vocal coach for the choristers in all six YPC divisions. She is also director of the YPC Satelllite School Program which every year brings YPC’s choral program to 900 children in New York City Public Schools. She was on stage last night conducting the choristers in Paul Desmond, Dave Brubeck and Iola Brubeck’s“Take Five”

Founder Nunez’ idea was to make the YPC multicultural as a model for an inclusive society that is being replicated globally. That’s what we were watching last night and itg was joyous and fun and deeply moving. I was reminded of the SAB dinner that I was not at for that is also an organization which through the use of the arts is preparing young people for the opportunity for a better life. These are not ideals. These are realities. Children mainly lack the tools to do it for themselves.

Last night's performance at the School of American Ballet's 2014 Winter Ball. More on that later.

The Young People’s Chorus definitely has provided their choristers with those tools. It was not only a thrill to see, but it was fun and beautiful music.

The performance ran about ninety minutes. It seemed like there were hundreds of children and young people entering and exiting for the more than fourteen numbers. Precision of movement, choreography was everywhere, the work of Jacquelyn Bird who is the director/choreographer. In the past eight years the multi-talented Ms. Bird has choreographed numerous performances of the Young People’s Chorus, including tours of the Dominican Republic China, Japan, France and at Coca-Cola 125th Anniversary celebration.

Francisco Nunez, the YPC’s founder and artistic director, is also a conductor, composer and a MacArthur “Genius.” Fellow. He is a frequent speaker on the role of music in achieving equality and diversity among children in today’s society. Mr. Nunez is a genius, and you can witness it yourself when you see a Young People’s Chorus performance. Again, Hope and Joy abound not only in the children performing but in the audience watching. The next time you get a chance to see the Young People’s Chorus, take your children, your grandmother, and your best friend and go. Everyone will love it and some will get it too.

Broadway at 62nd Street, looking South toward Columbus Circle and the Museum of Arts and Design (the white tower under the CNN sign). 9:10 p.m.

Contact DPC here.

New Oxford Street scene in London, where the weather is almost balmy. 6:30 PM. Photo: Jeff Hirsch.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014. Cold and grey in New York. Beats snow at this point in the game. The weatherman says it’s gonna get warmer. 37 degrees maybe.

It was another busy night in New York for the calendar. There was a gala preview of the Annual Art Show to benefit Henry Street Settlement at the Park Avenue Armory. That’s a great show.

The crowd at last night's ADAA Art Show Gala Preview.

Then three blocks down at 583 Park, the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hosted its annual Bunny Hop (for the kiddies — from 5 to 7). They did this for years at FAO Schwarz over by the Apple Cube, but this year Gucci sponsored and it was a big hit with the kiddies and the mommies and daddies and nannies. Meanwhile over on Madison Avenue, the Whitney Museum held a press preview for their biennial which is number 77. It is also the last one that will be held in the great Marcel Breuer building as the Whitney is going downtown big time.

I stopped by the townhouse of a supporter of New Yorkers For Children where they were hosting a cocktail reception for Bryan Samuels, who is the new president of Chapin Hall of the University of Chicago. Chapin Hall is a research and policy center which focuses on the mission of improving the well-being of children and youth, families and their communities. The NYFC and Chapin Hall have an effective working relationship in developing programs to help foster children in New York.

Bryan Samuels of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Gladys Carrion, Commissioner, and Eric Brettschneider, President of New Yorkers For Children.

I stayed only briefly – long enough to get a picture of the principals. Eric Brettschneider is the new president of New Yorkers for Children, succeeding the NYFC’s founding father Nicholas Scoppetta. Mr. Scoppetta with the help of a group of friends and associates started this organization to assist foster children who were aging out of foster care.

Mr. Scoppetta had been a foster child himself. He was also Commissioner for the Administration of Children’s Services under Mayor Giuliani. He was also Fire Commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg. In the past 18 years, his NYFC has had a direct and positive effect on thousands of kids in New York who are moving into adult life.

This is another example of power of one man with one idea assisting children and young people to grow up and make good lives for themselves. NYSD readers have read my accounts of some of these young people who have emerged from often dire beginnings and yet made impressive, admirable and even powerful strides in creating independent, rewarding lives for themselves. Mr. Scoppetta is a Good Citizen. This is what it looks like. He sets a good example for all.

After my brief picture taking and talking with the aforementioned, I moved on over to the New York Junior League headquarters at 130 East 80th where the French Heritage Society was sponsoring a lecture by author/historian/art critic Olivier Bernier was giving a lecture on Madame Pompadour also known as the Marquise de Pompadour, the mistress to Louis XV, King of France from 1715 until 1774.

Olivier Bernier at the podium lecturing on Madame de Pompadour last night for the French Heritage Society, at the New York Junior League on 120 East 80th. The building was originally the home of Vincent Astor and his first wife Helen Huntington.

The NYJL house itself is one of the classic New York 20th century mansions. It was designed by Mott Schmidt– who designed several houses and buildings on the Upper East Side – for Vincent Astor and his first wife Helen Huntington. I was as curious to get a look at the house’s interior as I was to hear Mr. Bernier speak. Despite its size, it was a much smaller house than the mansion Astor had grown up in on Fifth Avenue and 65th Street where the Temple Emanu-el now stands. A very different kind of space has a different effect on a person when it comes to living quarters. Although we get used to it.


	Louis XV, King of France.

Olivier Bernier was born in this country to French parents. While he doesn’t speak with a French accent, he doesn’t seem “American.” More English; European. He’s written several books about the French 18th Century and its characters. Guy Robinson of French Heritage introduced me to him. A distinguished looking man, obviously a scholar, he’s very much the gentleman on meeting but with an almost modest demeanor.

I’ve read some of his books, as well as several other biographies of the Louis’ and the ancien regime, their mistresses and palaces. The drama is enhanced in the imagination by the Revolution. I recently read a history of Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser, a kid from the provinces who serendipitously met the young Dauphine and became her hair stylist for the rest of her (short) life. It was an extraordinary, other-worldly life of extreme etiquette and luxury. And corruption. That came to an end called The Terror. All inherited from the previous Louis, the king whose mistress was Pompadour.

It was Madame Pompadour who is said to have first uttered that famous line attributed to Louis on his deathbed “Apres moi, le deluge….” Somebody called it right. True or not, it is the grist for the drama that still attracts readers and other characters to stories and accounts of the players in this fabulous and dramatic history.

The Marquise de Pompadour, Mistress of the King.

Bernier told us that with the coronation of Louis XIV, France was becoming “civilized.” This was a concept that was “new” – and doesn’t even exist anymore (we are allegedly civilized). Women, Bernier told us, were regarded as the more civilized of the genders. More refined, more clever.


Marie Leszczyńska, Queen of France.

For a girl like Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, a child of uncertain parentage, the greatest achievement would be to become a mistress of a rich man. Little Jeanne’s mother knew this and with the assistance of a man who was or wasn’t her father, she was “educated” to the refinements and the ways of the world which she would enter.

She was a year old when the King, then only fifteen, married his only wife, Marie Leszczyńska, who was daughter of the King of Poland. Jeanne was 21 – and he was 30 – when she met him for the first time at Versailles in 1745. She became his official mistress within weeks.

Pompadour was given the title because a king’s mistress had to be titled. That way she could live down the hall – the “hall” in this case being the Hall of Mirrors.

Bernier told us that “rouge” was important. The way it was worn was telling. A young girl would wear it very lightly. An older woman, like Marie Leszczyńska, might not wear any. She might instead a scarf of black lace instead, indicating the end of something. But rouge in their world: a woman might wear it in two round daubs on a very white face. Jeanne Poisson knew how to wear it.

Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles.

In an age where France was becoming La Gloire in history, the new marquise exercised great taste and artfulness. She wore a lot of real flowers on her dresses which were often made up of several pieces of fabric sewn together. A woman getting into them was often sewn in. She cultivated and energized Sevres and the great furniture makers. She was also a friend of Voltaire.


	When The Marquise de Pompadour was very young. Notice the rouge.

Louis moved her into an apartment above his in the vast chateau. The Queen lived in another apartment nearby, and was well aware of the royal mistress. Pompadour, as the mistress had the power, and was respectful and considerate of the Queen – who’d already had ten children with the King and didn’t want to risk her health by having any more.

It was understood in a civilized world that a royal mistress should have the funds to live luxuriously. Because she had the power of the purse, she also cultivated influence over policy, and had obvious political clout which gave her more power, and enemies. The king respected her.

The royal affair had lost its sexual heat after the first five years but Pompadour was clever with her power over the King and she kept him. She even found less clever mistresses to occupy his needs, but remained his comfort. When she died of tuberculosis at age 42, he mourned her. Her legacy, Mr. Bernier told us in his talk last night, was her enormous influence over the arts and culture that still defines France in terms of style.

The lecture lasted a little more than an hour. This was followed by a reception for the guests with a buffet of delicious-looking hors d’oeuvres, canapés and drinks. But I went over to Eli’s which was just a block away to the east, and bought myself a large portion of their delicious meat lasagna and took it home and had dinner; and then wrote out of this account of my trip to Madame Pompadour on a cold late winter’s night in New York.

Contact DPC here.

London street scene. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Thursday, March 6, 2014. Another cold, grey day in early March in New York with the weatherman predicting (slightly) warmer temperatures in the next few days. This coming Sunday we turn the clocks ahead, preparing for Springtime.


	Fern Mallis and Bisilia Bokoko, Spanish Global Brand Ambassador for the Liceu Barcelona Opera House.

It was Wednesday and it was the Michael’s lunch. A mob scene. At table one, the Bonnie Fuller and Gerry Byrne gang. This week: Michelle Fine-Smith, advertising director of Penske Media; PR guru Norah Lawlor, hairstylist to the stars Louis Licari; Lisa Lockwood of WWD, Albie Hecht of Headline News, Katie O’Reilly of Macy’s; Faye Stein and Stephanie Wener of VH1; Valerie Bruce of BBC America, Jenny Fleiss of Rent The Runway. Right next door to them, Jesse Kornbluth with Paige Peterson. And next to them that Texas boy, the Mayah of Michael’s Joe Armstrong with another Texas boy Don Carleton, executive director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at U Texas. And next to them: mega entertainment lawyer Alan Grubman with mega-hedge fund owner Daniel Loeb. And next to them, Jack Kliger with Glenn Horowitz; and across the aisle from them Rosanna Scotto of Fox 5 News with Maury Rogoff.

Moving around the room: PR consultant Judy Agisim with Fern Mallis and Bisilia Bokoko, Spanish Global Brand Ambassador based here in New York for the Liceu Barcelona Opera House; Barbaralee Diamondstein-Spielvogel with Hildy Kuryk, Director of Communications for Vogue; Jay Sures of United Talent with Elizabeth Vargas; Cliff Sobel, US Ambassador to Brazil; Joan Jakobson with Loraine Boyle; more Texas, Becca Thrash and friends; Harold Ford Jr; Barry Frey; producer Beverly Camhe, Andrew Stein, and next door to him, DPC with Rikki Klieman; Diane Clehane with Liz Kaplow, marketing communications exec; Scott Singerwith Maureen Reidy; Alice Mayhew with Kati Marton; Wednesday Martin and Suri Kasirer with Lisa Linden of Linden, Alschuler & Kaplan PR; Henry Schleiff, President of the Discovery Channel with Ed Bleier; Mickey Ateyeh with Carlos Falchi. And there you have a good picture, although I’ve missed dozens more.

Then, last night, a real only-in-New York night. The New York Philharmonic held its annual Spring Gala with presentation of a staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 Award-winning musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Starring Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel in the title role, and Emma Thompson who was making her New York stage debut portraying Mrs. Lovett , the Philharmonic orchestra was conducted by Alan Gilbert, and directed by Lonny Price.

Those are the facts but hardly the picture. Avery Fisher Hall was packed to the rafters for this very special event. Terfel and Thompson were supported by a brilliant cast including Christian Borle (who recently starred in the Encores! production of the Neil Simon/Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh musical adaption of Patrick Dennis’“Little Me”); Jay Armstrong Johnson, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Kyle Breen, Erin Mackey.

Maestro Gilbert recalled (in the program notes) seeing the original production: “The music totally captivated me right away but I was particularly fascinated because the story was so outré– I was amazed that such a macabre subject matter could be musical theater material.”

The subject matter briefly is a tale of revenge where Sweeney (played brilliantly by Bryn Terfel) plots with Mrs. Lovett (Emma Thompson) in a gruesome revenge for having served a 15 year term in a penal colony on trumped up charges. Sweeney, a tonsorial expert with a razor, murders his victims and Mrs. Lovettbakes pies with the remains of Sweeney’s victims.

Last night's cast of "Sweeney Todd" with the New York Philharmonic taking their bows to a standing ovation in a packed Avery Fisher Hall.

As gruesome and creepy as the story is, the witty lines of writer Hugh Wheeler, combined with Sondheim’s witty and clever writing in the music and libretto (Emma Thompson compared the story to Dickens and Baudelaire) thrilled the audience who gave the orchestra and performers a standing ovation.

It was a glittering audience of New Yorkers who are supporters of the Philharmonic, as well as theater and music lovers and admirers of Stephen Sondheim’s work. Governor Cuomo even made a rare theater appearance. I had invited a friend to join me who couldn’t attend at the last minute, so I had an extra ticket. At all theater events in New York, there are many people who wait by the theater entrances hoping someone will come along with an extra ticket.

Emma Thompson (in red) taking her bow with Bryn Terfel (in white).

The composer lyricist Stephen Sondheim taking a bow onstage with the entire cast and orchestra.

Last night as I was about to enter Avery Fisher Hall, I passed a young man holding a sign seeking that extra ticket, and so I gave it to him. It turned out he is a young composer/lyricist named Oliver Houser, a native New Yorker who is just completing his first musical. Among the audience just two rows ahead of our seats, across the aisle was Mr. Sondheim himself. There is a special thrill that goes with being in New York, of sitting in the same space as the creator of the piece on the stage. It occurred to me that my young “guest,” already committed to his art must have felt that special thrill watching brilliant creation along with the creator himself. This is New York in spades.

Cocktails began at 5:30 on the Grand Promenade of Avery Fisher Hall, with the concert starting at 7. Honorary Chairs for the Gala were Mr. Sondheim, Stephen Colbert, Neil Patrick Harris, and Bernadette Peters. The Gala Co-Chairs were Mr. and Mrs. J. Christopher Flowers, and the Executive Vice Chairs were Agnes and Gerald L. Hassell. Restaurant Associates catered the evening’s event, and the décor to complement the evening’s festivities was provided by Van Vliet & Trap. A great night in New York.

The table settings for the dinner after the show.

Contact DPC here.

Fifth Avenue. 4 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Monday, March 10, 2014. Warmer weekend in New York, in the 40s, and the Sun out. What a difference a little sunshine makes on a Saturday or Sunday morning. So that’s a start. I went out on the Promenade by the river to check the traffic. It’s been pretty empty most weekends for the past couple of months, except for the joggers. Yesterday the neighborhood was coming out for some fresh (by the river) air.

Sunday afternoon's walk along the Promenade, 2:30 p.m.

Taking a family walk on the Upper West Side.

The social calendar ramped up last week and so the weekend was a relief. The benefit dinner parties/dances/ galas are back in business. Last night, at Restaurant Daniel on Park Avenue and 65th Street, Chef Daniel Boulud continued his long and unflagging support of Citymeals-on-Wheels with his annual Sunday Dinner at DANIEL. Chef Boulud was joined in the kitchen by Chef Regis Marcon, a 1995 winner of the world-renowned Bocuse d’Or culinary competition and co-owner of Hotel et Restaurant Regis et Jacques Marcon. Chef Marcon is also the current president of Bocuse d’Or France.

This year’s theme was “Burgundy, Black Truffles and Blue Jeans.” 160 privileged guests indulged at the Michelin stars restaurant, served a winter menu celebrating black truffles. The dinner was paired with fine red and white Burgundy vintages chosen by Head Sommelier at DANIEL Raj Vaidya. The evening also included a silent and live auctions of rare and large format wines and one-of-a-kind travel and dining experiences. Attire was “Sunday chic – blue jeans encouraged!”

The scene of Citymeals-on-Wheels's "Burgundy, Black Truffles and Blue Jeans."

Robert S. Grimes was the event chair, and Nicholas Lawry of Swann Auction Galleries served as auctioneer. Citymeals prepares and delivers more than 2 million weekend, holiday and emergency meals to 18,000 homebound elderly New Yorkers. Thanks to Citymeals board members, the City of New York and certain designated grants and sponsorships for administrative expenses, Citymeals is able to promise that ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of all other donations are used entirely for the preparation and delivery of meals.

Robert S. Grimes and Daniel Boulud.

This past Thursday night I went to a performance of TomGoldDance at the Gerald Lynch Theater of John Jay College. It was a gala organized by Gillian Miniter, Fe Fendi and Elyse Newhouse for their friend, the former New York City Ballet soloist Tom Gold and his dance troup.

I am incapable of describing ballet performances. Or any dance performance for that matter. What I can recognize is skill in dancing. I also admire the dancers, having learned enough to know at least some of what goes into developing their skill and craft and ability. To watch good dance is to watch someone doing something for the Simple pleasure of it and lending that pleasure to your imagination. This is a great achievement for any artiste. It requires commitment, discipline, sacrifice and commitment for any artist also. But for a dancer it requires something else: physical stamina and dexterity.

Tom Gold Dance troup performance at the Gerald Lynch Theater.

These thoughts go with me to any performance as it did on Thursday night. There were three pieces: “Urban Angels,” music by , danced by Marika Anderson, Likolani Brown, Meaghan Dutton O’Hara, Nancy Richer, Daniel Applebaum, Stephen Hanna, and Andrew Scordato; “The Ladies’ Roolm,” music by Claude Debussy, danced by Nicole Greaniero, Sterling Hytin, and Luciana Paris with piano by Joseph Mohan; and “La Plage,” music by John Zorn, danced by Ms. Hyltin, Mr. Hanna, Ms. Paris, Anderson, Brown, O’Hara, Richere, and Messrs Appelbaum and Scordato.

The pieces were choreographed by Tom Gold.

After the performance there was a dinner down at Brasserie Cognac between 55th and 56th Street on Broadway. I’d never been there before. The gala took over the entire restaurant. There must have been about a hundred guests. Miniter, Newhouse and Fendi are all friends and friends of Tom Gold as well. The guests because were mainly friends of the hostesses as well as Tom’s supporters. It wasn’t black tie, so it was relaxed. The menu was very tasty. To get a better idea of the selection, check out their web site, because the food was delicious, the wines were excellent, the desserts were too tempting.

The crowd salutes Tom Gold at the post-performance dinner at Brasserie Cognac.

The evening was also a gesture of love that Tom Gold’s friends share for him. I’ve known him for several years although always in passing – as is so much of my social life in New York. He’s a very friendly fellow in that he always has a smile with his hello. He’s at ease with himself and you find him very easy to talk to, as if he were an old friend. He often wears red including to his black tie attendance. It’s his fashion signature. I’d noticed it enough that it’s in my memory bank of his image but I never thought about it specifically until Thursday night. The three hostesses wore red and when I asked one of them “why,” she answered: “Tom.” Oh, now I get it.

It was all a good decision and accomplishment. The dance, the dining, the night. The tables were well seated – not so frequent an incident, no matter where you go, public or private. By which mean, there was abundant and active conversation all around. That’s the seating. I was next to and across from three people – women – whom I’d never met before. Conversation was wonderful, like the cuisine. Later I asked others what their tables were like. Same answer. A triumph.

Gillian Miniter. Elyse Newhouse, Tom Gold, and Fe Fendi.

Fe Fendi, Dr. Susan Krysiewicz, Olivia Flatto, and Judith Hoffman.

Fe Fendi and Janice Becker.

Julian Lethbridge and Anne Bass.

Elizabeth Lorenzo, Mary Cronson, and Patricia Shiah.

David Bennett, Harry Kargman, Jill Kargman, and Ted Porter.

Sylvester and Gillian Miniter.

Likolani Brown, Daniel Applebaum, Stephen Hanna, Sterling Hyltin, Ohara Meaghan Dutton, Andrew Scordato, Tom Gold, Marika Anderson, and Nicole Graniero.

This coming Thursday, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) at Maastricht, Netherlands, opens its doors for its ten day annual art fair. Longtime readers know NYSD has covered it for the past ten years. The experience, even for those of us who are not connoisseurs or collectors, is entirely engaging and wondrous. This year, NYSD will again be covering thanks to Augustus Mayhew who often contributes his great art and architecture pieces to the NYSD, (as well as the great Ellen Glendinning Ordway Collection archive), will be there reporting for the NYSD on the wonders and precious items that take his interest. Here's a little preview of this TEFAF from Mr. Mayhew ...

Antonacci & Lapiccirella Fine Art, Florence & Rome. Carnival in Rome 1847. Ippolito Caffi, artist. Tempura gouache on paper. Signed and dated, lower left, "Caffi 1847."

However much an important rarely seen painting by van Gogh, a silver soup tureen commissioned by Catherine the Great, a scarce photograph by Charles Nègre, a presidential pocket watch, and a unique monumental 11th century Tibetan mandala have already garnered press interest for the upcoming 27th edition of The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht, what I have found is that this international event is like no other because each of the 295 exhibitors brings with them artworks, artifacts, jewelry, and objét certain to astonish even the most discerning connoisseurs.

Acting Chairman of TEFAF's executive board, Robert D. Aronson and his mother Irene Aronson photographed at last year's fair. A fifth-generation Dutch Delft dealer, Robert Aronson's father, Dave Aronson, was a TEFAF co-founder and served as chairman for a decade.

Art collectors from the South Pacific to the Persian Gulf, distinguished Old World and Modern museum curators and directors, as well as art patrons and trustees, are already booked for next Thursday’s day-long VIP Vernissage, where an ever-growing number of Americans are expected to attend. According to a recent TEFAF market study, Americans are the number one buyers. Several museums have put together trips for their members to the fair that include tours of privately-owned chateaus and exclusive events, often arranged in concert with TEFAF’s organization. Although TEFAF is a European-based non-profit, the organization’s philanthropic funding has increased for restoration projects that benefit private, academic, and public museums in the United States.

Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam. Pair of Blue and White Obelisks. Delft, circa 1690 Marked AK in blue for Adrianus Kocx, owner of De Grieksche A (The Greek A) Factory,1686-1701. Aronson Antiquairs numbers major museums as its clients, including The Wadsworth Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The British Museum, and Holland's own Rijksmuseum.

Buccellati. Ducale. Tulle bracelet, yellow gold and diamonds. The floral motifs from the Doge's Palace are reproduced along the band in yellow gold, set with brilliant-cut diamonds and enhanced by a contour of leaves.

“I sense the art world’s return to the value and enjoyment of paintings, a good sign our Old Master dealers will do extremely well,” said Michel Witmer, an American member of TEFAF’s board of trustees and one of the group’s ambassadors. “Often, buyers come to Maastricht looking for the best Picasso or the most captivating Matisse, and although they will most likely find it, they fly home with works by Old Masters,” Witmer added.

“Addicted to Vintage: Trends in 20th Century Design” will be the topic for this year’s symposium scheduled for Friday, March 14, led by Marie Kalt, editor of Architectural Digest–France. Kalt will introduce the panel and Michael Bruno, chairman of 1stdibs, the largest online marketplace for 20th-century design, fine art, antiques, jewelry, watches, and fashion, will summarize the current market trends. Panel members include journalist and design experts Ian Phillips andCedric Morisett, and interior designers, Joseph Dirand, Chahan Minassian, and Pierre Yovanovitch.

Véronique Bamps, Monaco. Set, brooch and earrings. René Boivin. Paris, c. 1960. 18K yellow gold, old-cut brilliant diamonds and natural pearls.

Gallery Delaive, Amsterdam.Untitled. Walasse Ting (1929-2010). Ink and acrylic on rice paper. 178.5 X 96.5 cm. One seal of the artist.

Gallerie Boulakia, Paris.La petite musicienne. Henri Laurens (1885-1954). Bronze. 37 cm. high. 1937.

TEFAF — the world’s leading art fair — is known for its excellence, elegance and the exceptional range and value of its art works, antiques, and haute joiallerie. Among this year’s stand-outs:

Dickinson Ltd., London & Dickinson Roundell Inc., New York: A painting that played a key role in making Vincent van Gogh internationally famous. Moulin de la Galette. 1887. Oil on canvas. Signed lower left, “Vincent.”

Koetser Gallery, Zurich: A large elegant panel by Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679).

The Fine Art Society, London: A version of Hogarth’s Beggar’s Opera II, dated 1728. It has been in private hands since the 18th century and has not previously been on display.

Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Bern and Basel: An extraordinarily strong and vivid Expressionist painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). Totentanz der Mary Wigman, 1926/1928.

Galerie Berès, Paris:A small but delightful monochromatic work by Max Ernst (1891-1976), depicting a bird in a cage with total simplicity of line. Oiseau en cage sur fond noir. Oil on plaster laid down on panel. 1923/1924.

Marlborough Fine Art, London: A bronze sculpture by Jean (Hans) Arp (1887-1966). Metamorphosis (Shell – Swan- Swing),1935. The bronze was exhibited in the seminal exhibition of Arp’s work at MoMA in 1958.

Landau Fine Art, Montreal: Family Group, 1947. A bronze sculpturecreated by Henry Moore (1898-1986).

Senger Bamberg Kunsthandel: An early triptych of the Holy Family made in Brussels in the late 15th century by the Master of the Barbara Legend. The triptych was formerly in the collection of Baron of Thüngen, Rossbach Castle.

Koopman Rare Art, London: A soup tureen from the magnificent Orloff service commissioned by Catherine the Great (1729-1796) from Jacques Nicolas Roettiers and given to Count Gregori Orloff (1734-1783).

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, New York: A compositionally strong work entitled Le tailleur de pierre by Charles Nègre (1820-1880).

Galleri K, Oslo: A large scale work by Andreas Gursky, including Mayday IV 2000, a C-print from an edition of six, 208 x 508 cm.

Richard Green, London. The Tower of Babel, 1604. Abel Grimmer. Oil on Panel. "... a work that combines miniaturist precision with a surreal inventiveness and breadth."

Contact DPC here.

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.

Contact DPC here.

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.

Good enough to be called warm

Terra Firma

Transactions

What Many Are Wishing

Mother Nature changed her mind

Going full tilt

They says it’s gonna get warmer

Preparing for Springtime

Warmer weekend in New York

Spring is about to be in the air

A Glimpse of Springtime

The Ides of March are upon us

Light and Darkness

One more day til the vernal equinox ...

Always learning

A sunny first Spring Saturday

Still Bundled ...

Moving this way and that way

Early Spring Monday

One Man’s Folly