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The
ninth annual Acria Holiday dinner was held last night at
the Stephan Weiss Studio in Greenwich Village. 9:00 PM. Photo:
JH.
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First
stop, with JH and the Digital: a book party in the
reception room of 1A East 77 Street for Renée
Fleming who has written a memoir about how it all came about. Called The
Inner Voice; The Making of A Singer, it was written with
Ann Patchett, edited by Rick Kot, and published by Viking Press.
Ms. Fleming, who needed no introduction of course, was nevertheless
introduced by Beverly Sills who after her brief introduction read
a poem she had written (in the car on her way to the party no less)
about the new author.
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The
Inner Voice; The Making of A Singer. Click
cover to order.
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A very clever and touching poem, I might
add, continuing to amaze everyone about the diverse creative talents
of Madame Sills.
Opera folk and their fans are a very special crowd, and this one
last night brought out a lot of the big gun supporters of the Metropolitan
Opera Guild who, like all opera fans given the opportunity, couldn’t
resist showing up for a quick up-close-and-personal with the great
operatic soprano. She is so beautiful and glamorous looking in
real life, and has such an unassuming air about her that everyone
was enthralled. Everyone also got a signed copy of the book which
is debuted last month and is running out of the bookstores. Opera
fans are not only loyal, but devoted. |
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L.
to r.: Fleming's editor Rick Kot; Lord Jacob Rothschild
and Mercedes Bass; Renée Fleming.
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Mercedes
Bass, Lord Jacob Rothschild, and Sydney Shuman
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Duane
Hampton
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Nancy
Ellison and Bill Rollnick with Beverly Sills
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L.
to r.: Sid Bass, Freddie Melhado, Lyn Nesbit,
and Shirley Lord; Freddie Melhado and Barbara Walters.
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Leonard
Lauder and Alexis Gregory as the mystery man
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Susan
Braddock and Win Rutherfurd
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Barbara
Walters and Mercedes Bass
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Bob
Hormats and Faye Wattleton
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Lee
Annenberg and Freddie Melhado
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Frank
Langella
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Next
stop: four blocks down the avenue to the old
Joseph Pulitzer mansion, designed and built
in 1903 by McKim,
Mead & White for
the legendary newspaper publisher, where John and Francie
Train were
having a book party for Mr. Train’s newest (and 21st) book,
The Olive – Tree of Civilization. The book is a fascinating
study of the ancient fruit and its link to the growth of western
civilization up to the present day proclivities: the perpetration
of one of the most complicated crimes ever in the history of Wall
Street.
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The
Olive — Tree of Civilization. Click
cover to order. |
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Mr. Train’s book party was quite different in flavor from that
of the opera devotees just up the avenue. Co-hosted with his wife
Francie (who is also the mother of Whitney and Harry Tower), and
filled with old friends and family, such as Nicholas Platt, retired
head of the Asia Society who is now writing his first book – a
memoir of China. Mr. Platt once served as American Ambassador to
Pakistan, the Philippines and Zambia and traveled with President
Nixon on his first trip to China in 1973.
In the crowd: Countess Antoinette Guerini-Maraldi who will be traveling
for the holidays to London with her daughter Jennifer; Eleanor
Dwight,
who’s written biographies of Edith Wharton and Diana
Vreeland,
and was with her husband George who has known John Train since their
days at Groton. Also Alta and Dan Thorne, Catie Marron, Rita
Gimbel, Alexis Gregory (who’d been at the Fleming party also); Emmanuela
and James Girard IV; John Train’s daughter, Lisa
Train Pinnington,
who is visiting from London, and her sister Musa Train Klebnikov (widow of the Forbes journalist who was tragically slain in Moscow
recently), as well as their mother, Mr. Train’s first wife,
(and also the publisher of his new book), Maria Teresa, who also
has a house in Florence. There were many Italian friends who stopped
by and a lot of their language and conviviality in the room. |
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John
Train with Maria Teresa
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Gerry
Fabricant
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John
Train with Francie Train
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The
Trains’ apartment in the old mansion is partly
made up of what was originally the Rotunda and breakfast
rooms of the house,
which also lead out onto a garden, and are now John Train’s
sitting room and library. When Mr. Pulitzer was building
the house he was suffering from an acute hearing affliction
that magnified all sounds to the point of anguish. McKim,
Mead & White installed double windows and doors throughout
the four-story mansion. There were ballbearings installed
to keep everything that moved as muffled as possible, and
in the end Mr. Pulitzer (who pronounced the house a disaster),
moved out to St. Louis where he owned the Post-Dispatch.
The house remained unoccupied for decades thereafter and
was eventually turned into apartments (very luxurious apartments)
of varying sizes.
John Train, who grew up in a house just down the block, recalls
the great, big empty house that he would one day live
in. Because of Mr. Pulitzer's requirements, today Mr. Trains
library (eighteen feet from floor to ceiling) is enveloped
in quietness.
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left the Trains’ book party and walked a few more blocks
down and around the corner to Virginia
Mailman’s
where she was holding a holiday Open House (with cocktails
and buffet) from 6 till 9. Mrs. Mailman’s house was
decorated with bowers of seasonal flowers, shiny holiday
ornaments, swags of pine boughs wrapping the banister of
the staircase winding from floor to floor, red ribbons and
candles burning. This was a traditional holiday open house,
the likes of which people will be experiencing all over the
nation during the next couple of weeks; warm, cozy, with
the aroma of ample buffets filling the rooms, maybe fires
blazing in the fireplaces, maybe Christmas trees of varying
sizes, maybe Christmas classic music in the background; lots
of drinks, lots of conversation. It was the kind of party
where you could just settle in for a comfortable evening.
But we had other commitments, downtown at Donna Karan’s
loft in the Village. |
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Christmas
decorations adorn a house on 73rd and Between Fifth and
Madison Avenue
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Virginia
Mailman on her staircase with a portrait of Christabel
behind
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Ross
Bleckner, Bob Colacello, Carolina and Reinaldo Herrera, Donna
Karan and Charla Lawhorn hosted the 9th annual Acria Holiday dinner
with Friends at the Stephan Weiss Studio with cocktails called
for 7:30 and dinner at 9. This was a very cool dinner in a magnificent
loft space which belonged to Donna Karan’s late beloved husband
Stephan Weiss who used the space dually for his motorcycle collection
and for his own sculpture work studio.
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Ross
Bleckner
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ACRIA, the AIDS
Community Research Initiative of America which was founded in 1991,
studies new treatments for HIV and AIDS-related
diseases and also conducts a comprehensive HIV treatment education
program. ACRIA has helped to make seven new AIDS drugs available
to people living with AIDS, as well as providing treatment information
to countless persons worldwide.
Ross Bleckner is the president of its board of
directors and has worked devotedly for years for the cause. Other
board members include
Dr. Donald Kotler, Charles Franchino, Vincent William Gagliostro,
Marisa Cardinale, Bob Colacello, Dr. Douglas Dieterich, Tiffany
Dubin, Reinaldo Herrera, Kevin Krier, Adam Lippes, Mark J. Montgomery,
Martha Nelson, and Maer Roshan.
Last night’s guests included a large contingent from the
art community – artists, gallery owners and dealers, and
collectors. There must have been more than 200 enjoying this industrial
sized, extraordinarily luxurious loft space. Among the crowd: Francisco
Costa, Nan Kempner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Hope Atherton, Jane Lauder,
David Salle, Sally and Rufus Albemarle, Helen and Brice Marden,
Anne McNally, Veronica Hearst, Sam and Judy Peabody, Doug Cramer,
Hugh Bush, Jay Johnson and Tom Cashin, Tiffany and Louis Dubin,
Marjorie and Reza Raein, Matthew Williamson, Derek Lam, Sandy Gallin,
Douglas Hannant, Fred Anderson, Donald Baechler, Mary Boone, Suzanne
and Bob Cochran.
The dinner, served at three long tables, with each side numbered,
and everyone placed, was catered by Taste: Parmesan baskets filled
with wild field greens, whipped chevre, wild mushrooms and pear
tomatoes with a balsamic glaze; Short ribs braised with cabernet
sauvignon and fresh horseradish, crispy risotto cake, winter vegetable
bundles and for dessert: warm chocolate brioche bread
pudding served with vanilla custard and bittersweet chocolate sauces.
They raised $200,000 for the cause. |
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The
exterior of the Stephan Weiss Studio
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Zooming
in
on the dinner table
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Mary
Boone, Doug Cramer, and Sandy Gallin
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Aileen
Mehle and Reinaldo Herrera from
across the room
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Veronica
Hearst
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Debbie
Bancroft and Leslie Klotz
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Bob
Colacello
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Tiffany
Dubin and Kevin Krier
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Judy
and Sam Peabody
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Suzanne
and Bob Cochran with Ross Bleckner
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Vanessa
von Bismarck
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Sculptures
line the studio
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Sally
Albemarle
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L.
to r.: Frederick Anderson, Leslie Klotz, Muffie Potter
Aston, and Douglas Hannant; Jay Johnson, Deborah Hughes,
and Tom Cashin; Nan Kempner.
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Alexandra
Kotur and Rufus Albemarle
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Muffie
Potter Aston and Ted Kruckel
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Brian
O'Connor and Marcus Teo
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I
meet many, many people in my business, often
rushing from one place to another; many of whom I see
frequently, yet rarely get to know beyond a hello. And
indeed, in this world that I cover there are many
who manage to quite clearly avoid even a hello, no
matter how frequent the encounter. Then there are those
whom I see often enough that sometimes a bit of an acquaintanceship
develops – the friendly face of a neighbor who
always has a pleasant greeting – people whom you
don’t know but find irresistibly likeable.
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Honore
and Karl Wamsler
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Honore
Wamsler was one of those people. I first met her a
few years ago when she was honored at a dinner dance at the
New York Botanical Garden. She and her husband Karl had
been an active supporters of the Botanical for years and she
was an avid gardener and amateur botanist. More interestingly,
to me, she was an American who had married a German man (Mr.
Wamsler) forty years before, and had moved to Germany to make
a life there.
The Wamslers had a family (I think four daughters) and this very American woman
integrated herself graciously into a European life. As time passed and her children
began to grow up, she and her husband began to divide their time more between
Germany and New York. In the last several years, they were often on hand at a
variety of charity galas here. I think I last saw Honore last spring at the Central
Park Conservancy luncheon.
I really only knew her to exchange hellos, but her manner was so remarkably,
consistently
gracious that she left her mark just by her presence — elegant yet not
effusive, just friendly and warm.
So it was with great sadness that I read in yesterday’s Times that
Honore Wamsler passed away peacefully earlier this week at New York Presbyterian.
She had been ill some time ago although lately, I was told, was feeling better
than ever. Recently, however, she suffered a sudden relapse, and entered the
hospital where she died shortly thereafter. On learning the news I could only
think of her husband and family, and all those who did know her well. What a
great
great loss it must be for them, and what a great loss it is for us in the community
which she loved as well. |
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