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I’ve
known Beth DeWoody since she was a young girl just
out of college (UC-Santa Barbara). We met thirty years ago through
a man who is a
close (and now lifelong) friend of both of us and have been close friends ever
since. Thanks to her — she is one of those people who keeps in touch and
keeps things moving. I’ve seen her evolve from a young university student
to young wife and mother to an influential force in cultural life here in New
York where she participates in many causes, and has myriad friends of all types,
sizes, sensibilities and interests — all of which she shares with everyone
she knows in one way or another.
Daughter of the late real estate magnate and
the great proponent of New York City, Lewis
Rudin, she joined the family real estate
firm early on and presided over her grandfather Samuel
Rudin’s philanthropic foundation.
The Rudin family are major donors to many of the
city’s institutions, from schools and hospitals
to the arts and municipal causes such as the parks.
They were the original supporters of the New York
City Marathon back when “marathons” were
new and rare (the winning trophy is named after Sam
Rudin). In the dark financial days of the city in
the mid 1970s, Lewis Rudin was the man who proposed
that the real estate owners pay their taxes in advance
to help the city’s finances, and started the
Association for a Better New York (known as ABNY)
and now headed by his son, Beth’s brother, Bill
Rudin.
I recount these family activities because Beth quite naturally, and her brother
(who is a few years younger) took on the mantle of their father and his civic
interests, and along with her uncle Jack Rudin, became very
much a part of it all. I can’t think of any major philanthropy that she
hasn’t had direct and important participation in.
As an individual she has always been attracted to creative people and in a variety
of ways has been a patron to many. When I came back to New York from living in
California for a number of years and in very tentative financial and professional
shape, she literally took me in and shared her life with me. I became a member
of her family, living in her house for three years. It was she who also introduced
me to Heather Cohane, the founder and then owner of Quest,
who first hired me to write for the magazine. Although we had long been good
friends, this kind of openness and generosity is characteristic of her. I am
certain there are many whom I don’t know, have never met, who have been
recipients of the same generosity.
She loves people and is most especially drawn to artists. She loves traveling.
She makes friends wherever she goes and all of these friends know her in exactly
the same way. She loves shopping. She loves collecting — art especially,
but a wide variety of things from artifacts to furniture, to photography, to
books to objets to vintage items, be they clothing or magazines.
As long as I’ve known her, she’s had a passionate eye for pace-setting
collectibles, in some cases raising and refining what was once considered kitsch
to a contemporary, post-modern art. Several years ago she acquired a couple of
50s-style houses in West Palm Beach (one for herself and one for her children)
and a few months ago on a Sunday in the Style Section of the New York Times,
there she was, in all her collector’s glory on the front page, sitting
in her Beth DeWoody art-filled living room in West Palm. I had to laugh with
joy at the sight of it, for to see her in those objective circumstances, was
like seeing a whole life come together, perfectly expressed.
She’s been married (and divorced) twice — first to artist Jim
DeWoody, father of her two children, son Carlton and
daughter Kyle, both very bright young people who share many
of their mother’s (and their father’s) interests. Growing up with
their mother, which I witnessed first hand, now looks in retrospect a little
like growing up with Auntie Mame. There was always activity, variety, people
and movement. There still is. The only difference is that the young DeWoodys
are now very much participants in their mother’s interests and activities
(along with their own far-flung interests, all encouraged by mother) and travels.
Underneath an extremely social and congenial
personality is a trenchant sense of resolve.
It is a characteristic often found in women of lifelong
independent means, not infrequently translating into
something eccentric and even problematic. Some exercise
it in ways that are the stuff of romantic novels and
tabloidal literature, demonstrating a destructive willfulness
in actualizing their wishes. Women like Doris
Duke and Barbara Hutton are
icons of its extremes. Not this lady. She loves change,
she loves the new, but she is always grounded and conscious
no matter the circumstances surrounding her. I’ve
never known her to take a drink or even smoke a cigarette,
let alone a joint or any other kind of stimulant, even
coffee. She’s not necessarily early to bed at all
times, but she’s “up and at ‘em” every
morning pursuing her interests, her responsibilities
and projects.
Between her travels to Florida, to her house in Southampton, to Europe or any
other destination her interests may (and often do) lead, she’s always present
in my life. Today I live around the corner from her New York apartment, and whether
or not she’s in residence, like any good friend, her door is always open — whether
it’s to use her laundry room in a pinch, to give a television interview,
to put up family members on a rare visit or to use a shower if for some reason
the water’s been turned off for repairs in my building. She’s always
there, unwavering, loyal, never changing. This, I have lived long enough to discover,
is a very rare quality, indeed precious, with value beyond calculation. |
Albemarle,
Rufus
Aston, Muffie Potter
Basso, Dennis
Benedict, Daniel
Capehart, Jonathan
Cominotto, Michael
Curry, Boykin
Dahl, Tessa
DeWoody, Beth Rudin
Duchin, Peter and Brooke
Duff, Patricia
Eaton, Phoebe
Fales-HIll, Susan
Fekkai, Frederic
THE FULL LIST
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