Social Diary 8/10/04 - Southampton Hospital’s 46th annual Summer Party, “The Enchanted Garden”

Brisk New York Monday

Sunset over the Hudson River. Photo: JH.

The portrait below is called “Figure in an Interior (GVC)” by the distinguished portraitist Aaron Shikler. The subject is, of course, Gloria Vanderbilt, the glorious glamorous one, whose new memoir It Seemed Important At the Time is to be published by Simon & Schuster in October and is currently excerpted in the new Vanity Fair.

Figure in an Interior (GVC) by Aaron Shikler

I’ve written this before about Gloria, but I don’t care, I’ll write it again – she’s one of the few individuals I’ve ever known whose persona exceeds her celebrity. And by miles. The voice, the presence, the elusive, even seriously elusive charm never fail to intrigue and captivate. That all sounds like so much hype in the re-reading, however ...

I ripped through the VF piece last night. As a young girl she tells of thinking of becoming a nun, until she found boys, (“God was one thing, boys were another”), and then that was that. Then when she went to Hollywood (at 17) to visit her mother who was living there, she thought of becoming an actress, or rather a movie star, or rather, at first ... “What I wanted most to do when I landed in California was to date movie stars.”

That, she got. In spades. Even Howard Hughes came a-calling. He wanted to screen-test her (“Me – a movie star! Yes, why not! Maybe that would be the Great Thing”). From nun to movie star in one transcontinental flight. From HH she went on to the next star and the next and the next, to her first husband (there would be four), still in her teens (Pat di Cicco), and her second husband at 20 (conductor Leopold Stokowski, who was forty years older or thereabouts), to a Who’s Who of affairs, dalliances, husbands, admirers, fans and Truman Capote.

There’s a wryness to the text, a fragrant wit, a child of the fates, a lifetime of bright lights, big cities, high roads and low, very low. Hard to believe, this still sylph-like glamour girl, still a glamour girl, albeit a far more serious and circumspect woman, completed her eighth decade last February. These last few years have been quiet and creative ones for her. Part of the good news about the new book is that she’ll be out and about, promoting her work, so we’ll see more of her.

Meanwhile I was reminded of all this by a note she sent me, not about herself, but about her daughter-in-law Emily Goldstein (married to her son Stan Stokowski). Emily and her business partner Victoria Munroe have opened a new gallery, The Drawing Room, on Newtown Lane in East Hampton. Stop by and have a look if you’re in that neck of the woods.

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Out in Southampton on Saturday night there were more than a thousand guests, it turns out (yesterday I got a little carried away reported fourteen hundred), and they raised more than $1.4 million at the Southampton Hospital’s 46th annual Summer Party, this year called “The Enchanted Garden." The big white tent was bathed in the most flattering brilliant pink light, with acid green chinoisserie chandeliers, flowers by Bardin Palomo, with lush and splendid orange trees arranged by Lisa Jackson and Alex Papachristidis to create the Enchanted Garden.

Alex Papachristidis and Lisa Jackson

Barbara Glatt and Vera Wang

Julia and David Koch were the Honorary Dinner Chairs. Barbara Glatt was Chairman this year, and Cindy Willis and Sheila Fuchs were the co-Chairs. And to put a party like this together, they work. And work and work and work. Perri Peltz was the Mistress of Ceremonies and Jean Little FitzSimmons was honored for her many years of exceptional leadership and devotion.

A thousand guests is a BIG party for a little town like Southampton. The police close off part of Wickapogue so that they can control the traffic enough to get everyone in and out of their cars and then valet park them.

The evening always begins in the cocktail tent – huge – where there’s a silent auction. They had such items as an 8 night trip for two to Ireland and England, tickets to the 2005 New York Yankees opening day and dinner with the team, a custom portrait by David Peikon, a $1000 gift certificate to Steven Stolman’s beachy chic shop on Main Street in Southampton, and a handbag by Dennis Basso. Robbins Wolfe Eventeurs did the dinner: toasted coconut shrimp, grilled pear with mint mascarpone and prosciutto, marinated sliced flank steak, medallions of salmon, corn pudding, lemon mousse, and white and dark chocolate garden baskets for all those choco-holics who can’t control themselves.

Vice-chairs and committee members included Vera Wang and Arthur Becker, James and Whitney Fairchild, Tory and Chris Burch, Somers and Jonathan Farkas, Jamee and Peter Gregory, Pamela Gross and Jimmy Finkelstein, Laura and Harry Slatkin, Jo and Paul Hallingby, Julie and Edward Minskoff, Ophelia and William Rudin, Nancy and Martin Stone, Kristen and Charles Krusen, Kathy and William Rayner, Marge and Peter Sullivan, Debra and Steven Tanger, Debbie Bancroft, Eugenie Niven, Steven Stolman, Eric Ruttenberg, Alison Mazzola, Donald Jackson and Maribeth Welsh.

Representing the hospital were Annette Leahy, President and CEO; Peter Larsen, Chairman of the Board; James Ferrer, President of the Foundation; and many hard working staff members and volunteers.

Jean Little Fizsimmons and Cindy Willis

Brendan and Eva Dillon

Among the guests were U.S. Congressman Tim Bishop; Diane and James Burke; Julia Wallace, in a dress by Roberto Cavalli; Betty and Virgil Sherrill; Brendan and Eva Dillon who was wearing a cocoa chiffon by Vera Wang; Marty Richards with Maria Theresa Fauci; the world of interior’s Prince of Chintz H.S. (him self) Mario Buatta; Andrea Stark, in Carolina Herrera; Karen and Richard LeFrak; The Actors Studio’s James Lipton; the recently betrothed Wilbur Ross and Hilary Geary; Ann Grimm; Jessie and Rand Araskog; and little boys in blue Noah and Ethan Ruttenberg, with their ma Perri Peltz.

Also Rosalie and Gary Brinton, John Burns, Mary-Sidney Green, Mary Unsworth, Suzanne Hemming, Kay Gilman, Mireya and Joe D’Angelo, Michael Fagan, Royce Pinkwater, Sherry Miller, the Boswell of the Palm Beaches Shannon Donnelly, Katharine Rothman, Joe Fuchs, Dean McNamara, and Jamie Swanson.

During dinner the Stingers played and afterwards, legendary DJ Tom Finn came in to turn the Flower Lounge tent into a 1960’s “Mod Hip” disco. The after party was chaired by the Associates Committee, which included Paris and Nicky Hilton, Amanda Hearst, Emilia Fanjul and Brian Pfeifler, Miles and Oliver Hammond, Haley and Jason Binn, Samantha Gregory, Cristina Greeven Cuomo, Harrison LeFrak, Tinsley and Topper Mortimer, Eugenie Niven, Fernanda Niven, and Carlton DeWoody.

The $1.4 million raised goes to the hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine, which is the sole provider of emergency care on eastern Long Island, from Westhampton Beach to Montauk Point, and serves more than 25,000 people a year. During the summer months, because the department helps more people than many New York City hospitals, it has to dramatically increase its physician and nursing staff coverage, even adding a special “fast-track” for rapid treatment of patients with minor complaints. Southampton Hospital has the most sophisticated, noninvasive cardiac diagnostic and monitoring technology now available. Nevertheless, Southampton Hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine posts an annual operating deficit in excess of $2.5 million.

Dinner and dancing under the tent

Founded in 1909, Southampton Hospital is the sole provider of hospital services on the South Fork. More than 240 physicians and allied health professionals in 48 specialty areas staff the 100-plus-bed facility. The Hospital also performs more than 370,000 diagnostic procedures and 4,800 ambulatory surgeries each year.

David Koch

Making the evening possible were the sponsors, including: Henry R. Kravis, Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg, Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, Arlene and Alan Alda, Charlotte Ford, The Donald Burns Foundation, Deborah and Allen Grubman, Stanley and Fiona Druckenmiller, Felix Rohatyn, Laura and Robert Sillerman, and corporations: The Renco Group, Tomorrow Foundation, Seaman Schepps, Estee Lauder Inc., Departures Magazine, Douglas Elliman, LLC, North Fork Bank, The Printery, and The Zilkha Foundation.

Making the good time possible were the guests, the chairs, Tom Finn and the Stingers, Robbins-Wolfe, and the Southampton Police and Fire Departments who look after the community with diligence and humor on a summer night like this.