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Portrait
busts of Roman Caesars at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton.
Photo: JH.
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We
ran some pictures (taken in the Hamptons) last week and
among them was a trio of very pretty young women, X, Y & Z.
A reader emailed the picture back the following day with the following
message:
“Y” is having an affair with “Z’s” husband. “Y” was
married to (a very social preppy). Paid for her first divorce. She's from (the
midwest). He was abusive. She called the cops on him. She dated the tennis pro
last summer. Dropped her membership this summer because her ex- is cutting her
back a lot. He's a controlling stinker. A sad creature. Bad reputation. She drinks
too much at every party; gets sloppy and flirty. Eats at the bar at Nick & Toni's.
Many men to meet there. That's the new act for these single ladies. They can't
meet people with a girlfriend at a table. Much more turnover at the bar. Rathah
a bore to watch.
And from another reader about another Party Pictures
page last week:
Dear DPC: (One day last week) you ran an item about a reception held at
(someone’s home in the Hamptons).
Pictured in the article was VB (not his initials) posing
with (a very attractive female guest).
VB is a person that all should be wary of. He has quite a past and should
not be trusted. He has been in prison both in the state of California as
well as Utah. He was arrested in California (Lake Tahoe area) where he
embezzled funds from his position as the manager of (a local) store.
For a few years he posed as a decorator in Manhattan. After September 11th
he left NYC and went back to the (to the West but apparently) has now returned
to New York.
There was a write-up in a local magazine about his legal troubles with
a famous female singer. This is just one of many tales. He is related to
(a very rich widow with a wild past) who was photographed in one of your
columns last March. I would hope that she does not introduce him to anyone
whom he could consider a victim.
Continuing: Yesterday’s New
York Times had a piece by Warren St. John in
its Sunday Styles section about a new club abuilding on East
56th Street which is to be called the Core Club that will “serve
as a place for a geographically and socially diverse set
of wealthy people to gather and meet others of the same disparate
tribe.”
St. John refers to the membership as a “Noah’s ark manifest
of over-achievers from various professional species” such as Vernon
Jordan, real estate developer (and husband of Samantha
Boardman) Aby Rosen, Mickey Drexler, Terry Semel, Steve
Roth of Vornado Realty, Richard Meier, Patty Smyth and
John McEnroe, Beth DeWoody, Tory Burch, Ghislaine Maxwell, Teddy Forstmann,
Woody Johnson, Donnie Deutsch, Marianne Boesky, Andrew Lack and Ari Emanuel,
(big-time talent agent).
The fee to join is $55,000 although the first 100 members are reported
to have put up $100,000 a piece to get the club going (that $10 mill if
you’re doing the arithmetic) and will get their money back plus interest
in a few years.
The club is the brainchild of Jennie Saunders, a very
goodlooking blonde who grew up in Westchester and “always wanted
to be one of those people” (she saw on the evening news – the
celebrities and powerbrokers). Ms. Saunders says it’s going to be
a “for-profit” venture
and the original investors (the 100 grand group) will get their money back
plus interest over five years.
The Knick it’s not. Of course there will be a gym,
a Pilates machine and a spa, not to mention an apartment upstairs if you
should get sleepy. Or something. Ms. Saunders reportedly sees the Core
Club as a place for intellectual stimulation (even for the sleepy?) that
will give the members “a voice in contemporary culture.” Richard
Meier? Patty Smyth? Tory Burch? Vernon Jordan? Maybe she means a much louder
voice. Club consultants (they’ll be called “curators”) “will
filter through the cultural detritus of the day to recommend the best stuff” to
its otherwise apparently culturally overwhelmed members. Well, it’s
always good to get the detritus out of the way, isn’t it. Everything
will be curated – the library, the “art offerings,” the
movie library, the books, the menus, even “the toilet paper.”
If you’re thinking this takes the cake, the obvious question for
the intellectually stimulated is: Whose cake? Marie Antoinette’s?
Meanwhile, over this past weekend I’ve been reading the
galleys of Michael Gross’ fabulous new book 740
Park; The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building. The
book, which will be in the stores in October is a riveting document of
the city’s social history from the time of the building’s construction
which began about the time the stock market crashed in 1929 right up to
today. Now considered one of the best addresses in the city, it was built
by Jackie Onassis’ grandfather James T.
Lee.
Mr. Lee had the right idea although The Crash destroyed any dreams he had
about a great financial success with the building. Jackie and Lee
Bouvier and their parents (who had a horrendous marriage) lived
there rent-free for several years until the building could find a tenant
(to rent) their apartment. The building limped along financially until
it got an important boost when John D. Rockefeller Jr. moved
in with his wife Abby and his son David in
1938-39. Even then, it was well into the late 1950s before the building
became entire co-op, thanks to the effect of the Crash.
The book is can’t-put-downable but more on it when I finish (it’s
a tome – more than 500 pages).
No rest for the weary. Out in the
Hamptons this past weekend it was party party party as the
season winds down. On Friday night, one of America’s
most famous mothers, Kathy Hilton threw
a big dinner (sixty for sitdown) for one of America’s
most famous fathers, her husband Rick Hilton,
celebrating his fiftieth. The whole clan was in attendance,
the world famous daughters – Paris and Nicky,
as well as sons Conrad III and Barron
II. I emphasize the “famous” part because
Southampton remembers how not many years ago, they were “just
the Hilton family,” popular members of the social set
and now they belong to the tabloids and the media. Among
the guests dining under the tent on a buffet of steak, lobster,
chicken et al, Julia and David Koch, Leonard and
Allison Stern, Henry and Nancy Silverman, Jamee and Peter
Gregory, Ben and Linda Lambert, Somers and Jonathan Farkas,
Dana and Dr. Patrick Stubgen, Sharon Sondes and Geoffrey
Thomas (who will be dividing their wintertime between
their apartment in the Trump Tower on Columbus Circle and
their finally finished fabulous villa in West Palm Beach);
Oscar-winning producer Marty Richards (who
is rumored to be getting married again – unless he’s
already tied the knot), LeRoy Neiman (who
sketched a portrait of the birthday boy on his napkin), R.
Couri Hay, Pamela Gross and Jimmy Finkelstein and
special guest – one of the contestants from Kathy’s
recent reality TV show.
Saturday night, one of the Hiltons’ neighbors, the
urbane Jacques Leviant and his son Sasha and
daughter-in-law Luisa hosted his annual summer cocktail
party (with a Viennese orchestra providing the background music) on the
terrace and back courtyard of his villa, drawing many of the same crowd
plus scores of others from both new and old Southampton, such as Hilary
and Wilbur Ross, Cyril Dwek, Francesco and Marina Galesi, the Monty
Hackets, Rainer and Regina Greeven, Alexis Gregory, Fern Tailer Denny,
Barbara Cates, Carl and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Betty Sherrill,
Frank and Victoria Wyman.
This was also the week for the annual Huggy Bear Invitational Tennis tournament – a
week of doubles play started in 1985 by the three Forstmann brothers – Nick,
Tony and Teddy. The event raises millions for
children’s charities and is held at Tony Forstmann’s estate
on Cobb Road in Southampton. Last night was the big benefit dinner, totally
private (for contributors) which featured Stevie Nicks, Don Henley and Roger
Waters performing.
And if that’s not enough for one night in that poor little resort
village by the sea, Bettina Zilkha, Alice Judelson, Tinsley Mortimer and Nina
Garcia gave a surprise (am I suppose to believe that??) birthday
party (huge) for for the society/ celebrity/hipsterdom’s ubiquitous
photographer Patrick McMullan at a nightclub called Cain
which is part of a trendy motel complex called Capri. The guests (the Who’s
Who and What’s What) dined at trestle tables set up around the pool,
served by young, sexy waitresses.
Over in East Hampton last night Frances Hayward hosted a
dinner for the Royal Academy at Grey Gardens. Tonight writer and now literary-mom Joanie
McDonell is having a book party today (Monday) for son Nick who
published his first novel (Twelve) when he was 18 (three years
ago) and has now published his second – The Third Brother (about
a young man in search of an MIA journalist in Thailand). Accomplished and
an achiever as he approaches majority, the media rags are already talking
about the envy and jealousy that apparently surrounds Nick. They should
all go read a book. For a change.
Weddings, We have weddings ...!
A couple of weeks ago in Monte Carlo was the
wedding of James Orlando Sibony and Lauren Henderson. James
is the son of investment banker Marc and Margaret Sibony. He was brought
up in Spain (his father is Moroccan, his mother British), Monaco and in
England, and is also an investment banker.
A Moroccan dinner party took place on Friday night, followed by the church ceremony
on Saturday at the Monaco Anglican Church.
That evening there was a Dinner and Ball at La Vigie Gardens overlooking the
spectacular bay of Monte Carlo.
The bride is daughter of Texas oil tycoon Robert Henderson. Brought up in Texas,
she graduated from Georgetown University. After living in New York and Washington
D.C., she completed a course at Christie’s in London. She is a top executive
at an advertising firm in London.
The couple met in the South of France, twelve years ago. They will live in London
where they are redecorating a penthouse apartment in Chelsea. |
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| L.
to r.: Haidee Henderson and Alexander Sibony;
San Franciscan Nancy Wilson and Rupert Montagu;
The Prince of Salina and Ivana Boris at a Moroccan
dinner given in honor of James Sibony and Lauren
Henderson. |
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| Clockwise
from above: The newlyweds with Mrs. Henderson
and Mrs. Sibony; Lauren Henderson Sibony and Prince
Jacinto Salina; The newlyweds drive off into the
sunset. |
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