Social Diary 9/15/04 - The kick-off party for the first annual Fete De Swifty, booksigning party for Princess Michael of Kent and her new book, The Serpent and the Moon

Rounding out the evening at Swifty's

Swifty's. 8:15 PM. Photo: JH.

Tuesday in New York. Michael’s at lunch was jumping. William Lauder holding forth at one table, his mother, Evelyn Lauder at another. Cynthia McFadden was presiding over the monthly “harpies” luncheon which included Barbara Walters, Liz Smith, Lally Weymouth and Peggy Siegal. Francine LeFrak had the corner table and right next to her, film producer Stanley Jaffe. Also Billy Joel entertaining his girlfriend, and a few tables over, Susan Lyne with Jeff Sagansky, George Stephanopoulos, Broadway producer Fran Weissler with Diane Sokolow, Joe Armstrong; publisher Larry Kirschbaum, Tony Hoyt with Stephen B. Howe of the Financial Times; Jack Myers with Greg Stewart. Also Linda Chester lunching with author Pamela Keogh who recently published her Elvis Style (preceded by Jackie Style and Audrey Style); 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft. Beliefnet.com’s Swami Jesse Kornbluth with Wendy Goldberg and Marshall Cohn; Robert Halmi Jr., Rob Weisbach, Alice Mayhew, author James Atlas, Peter Gregory with Neal Fox, Ralph Destino with Ann Sutherland Fuchs, Suzanne Gluck; mega-editor Nan Talese, Michael Gross, Grace Mirabella, Christopher Walken, and Sarah Rosenthal and Sassy Johnson who was lunching with me. The conversation was blasting, almost so deafening you could hardly hear yourself think. But fun; one of those New York moments when you and the room’s energy become one in the same.

Sean Driscoll, Peter Rogers, and Casey Ribicoff

Tuesday night. The kick-off party at Susan Rotenstreich’s Park Avenue apartment for the first annual Fete De Swifty which will take place on Monday, October 4 from 6 to 9 PM, in a great big tent decorated by Robert Couturier covering the entire block of 73rd Street between Lex and Third.

Besides being the hottest new party of the New York social season, Fete de Swifty will raise much needed funds for the Parks AfterSchool Program of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City. A lot of New York kids with working moms are pretty much on their own with no place to go in those crucial hours between daily school and office closing. Funding is an important way to keep thousands of these kids off the streets, out of potential trouble, and engaged in constructive and rewarding activities.

This free program serves more than 3000 children, ages six to thirteen, 80% of whom receive public assistance, in 33 recreation centers. In all five boroughs there are childen staging plays, building web sites, and warming up their soccer teams. Good for them and good for all.

The first annual Fete de Swifty promises to be the chicest block party in all of New York since the days of its predecessor, the late restaurateur (Mortimer’s) Glenn Birnbaum’s Fete de Famille which raised millions for AIDS care. The new events’ name is derived from the internationally popular East Side restaurant which was named after Birnbaum’s pet pug, “Swifty” (who was named after super-agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar), with cocktails, mountains of hors d’oeuvres, special entertainment and an auction conducted by Sotheby’s executive vice president Jamie Niven.

Liz talks the talk ...

... and walks the walk

Fete de Swifty is the brainchild of Liz Smith and Robert Caravaggi (co-proprietor with chef Stephen Attoe of Swifty’s restaurant). When Liz celebrated her extremely youthful 80th a couple of years ago, she asked friends instead of sending gifts, to send a donation to the Mayor’s Fund to help out this great city of ours. The result was in the low six figures. Fete de Swifty was conceived by Liz and Robert to carry on this great cause.

Mario Buatta

There are Sponsor Packages ($50,000), Benefactor Packages ($25,000), Patron Packages ($10,000), Supporter Packages ($5000), Donor Tickets ($1000), Friend Tickets ($500) and tickets for $350 and $150 for juniors. The list for all of these is already extraordinary for a first time charity gala including Steve Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group taking a Sponsor Package, Nicole Kidman taking a Benefactor Package. Patron’s include Glorious Food’s Sean Driscoll, Celia Lipton Farris, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller, Barbara Goldsmith, Henry and Louise Grunwald, William Rondina, Sir Evelyn and Lady de Rothschild, Sotheby’s, Ellen Violet and Mary Thomas, John Welch. Supporters include Larry Flynt, Forbes, Inc. Toni Goodale, Sherry Lansing, Hillie Mahoney, Patsy Preston, Kathy and Billy Rayner, Gov. Ann Richards, Laura and James Ross, Dr. and Mrs. Nathan Saint-Amand, Jeannette Sarkisian Wagner, Vaughn Williams. Donors include Mr. and Mrs. Sid Bass, Geoffrey Bradfield, Jerry and Linda Bruckheimer, Mac and Gerta Conner, Nancy Coyne, the late Fred Ebb, James P. Edwards, Ahmet Ertegun, Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, Jonathan Farkas, Mr. and Mrs. Max Fisher, Jamee and Peter Gregory, Cornelia Guest, Pamela Howard, Jo Hallingby, Carl Icahn, Robert Janjigian and Mario Nievera, J. C. Penney, Connie and William Jones, Wiliam and Stephanie Joseph, Larry and Shawn King, Leila and Henry Luce, Cynthia and Dan Lufkin, Chappy Morris, Todd Romano, Pauline Pitt, Emilia Saint-Amand and Fred Krimendahl, Joel Schumacher, Richard Snyder, Carl and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Taubman, Tiffany & Company, Robert and Blaine Trump and Jack Valenti. And that’s for starters. Join up, get on the bandwagon.

For more information call 212-573-6933. Don’t miss it; you’ll be glad you didn’t.

Cynthia and Dan Lufkin

Victoria and Susan Rotenstreich

Katherine Oliver and Michael McCarty

Liz Smith and Patsy Preston

Betsy Smith and John Rotenstreich

Robert Caravaggi and Peter Rogers

L. to r.: Deborah Krulewitch; Robert Couturier; Ellen Liman, Leila Luce, and Liz Smith.

Mayme Greer and Todd Romano

Jonathan Eliot and Liz Finkle

Susan Rotenstreich and Iris Love

Nanette Smith and Robert Tierney

John Rotenstreich and Patti Harris

Joel Getz and Ellen Liman

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Princess Michael of Kent

Click on image to order The Serpent and the Moon

After the party at Susan Rotenstreich’s, JH and the Digital and I went down the avenue to the home of Christine and Steve Schwarzman where they were hosting a booksigning party for Princess Michael of Kent and her new book, The Serpent and the Moon, (Simon & Schuster), the story of one of the greatest royal love triangles – of Henry II of France, his queen Catherine de Medici and his lifelong mistress Diane de Poitiers.

The Schwarzmans own one of the great apartments of New York, once part of the original even larger apartment built originally for John D. Rockefeller Jr. and more recently owned by Gayfryd and Saul Steinberg. Mr. Schwarzman is said to have paid more than $30 million for the place which is nothing if not grand, yet comfortable and welcoming. Enormous rooms, high ceilings, a circular staircase with a golden brass balustrade, an enormous wood paneled library with shelves chock full of books, and on the ecritoire at one end of the library, stacks and stacks of Princess Michael’s fascinating and romantic biography.

The princess has been intrigued by the story since she was a young woman when she learned from her mother that the king’s mistress (who was eighteen years older than her lover) was an ancestor. The princess can also claim direct descendency from Catherine and Henry as well.

Meanwhile, several dozen filled the rooms with their flutes of champagne, glasses of white wine, and sparkling water, so glad to be back in the thick of things, so glad to be in New York right on the edge of autumn and its reveries.