Guest Diary• September 29, 2023

Revenge, Redemption, and Refuge

Lee Fryd takes in the last couple events of the season out east, including a small dinner party for a new docu about a 20-something phenomenon; and a luncheon and lecture on Black female ornamental horticulturists. A fascinating history of style, color and beauty...

The polish, paradox, and paradise of Palm Beach

Social History• January 6, 2012.

Happy New Year! With results of the presidential Iowa caucus soon to be known and the outcome of the Town of Palm Beach’s caucus on Tuesday night a near certainty, given the three incumbent councilmen are unopposed, it should be reassuring to know Palm Beach and Dubuque have something in common. Nonetheless, anytime Palm Beach […]... READ MORE

Part IX: After the War, January 1946 – March 1947

Social History• January 6, 2012.

Part IX: After the War, January 1946 – March 1947 Palm Beach – Mackay Point Plantation – Bermuda – Aboard the SS America For this series of images documenting Ellen Glendinning Frazer’s life following WW II, I have made selections from photographs depicting her return to Palm Beach at Felix and Ann du Pont’s Villa Tranquilla, a ... READ MORE

Monday, December 19, 2011

Part VIII: Social Rites during World War II, 1942-1945

Social History• December 19, 2011.

For this next installment of Ellen Glendinning Frazer’s photographic chronicle, I selected images from more than ten volumes containing several thousand photographs from 1942 to 1945 and arranged them within two separate topical headings: Social Rites: War and Weddings and At Ease: Chestnut Hill, Watch Hill, Mackay Point Plantation, Long I... READ MORE

Friday, December 16, 2011

Cathy Triant Buxton

House• December 16, 2011.

Having sold her previous apartment rather more quickly than she thought, Cathy Triant Buxton had to find a place to live quickly—incredibly she turned her new apartment around in six weeks—although strictly speaking, it isn’t ‘new’ since she grew up in this Upper East Side townhouse. Her father is Theodore D. Triant (Ted), the well-know... READ MORE

Friday, December 9, 2011

Ralph Rucci

House• December 9, 2011.

At one point in our interview with fashion designer Ralph Rucci, we exclaimed that his story “was like the fashion version of Rocky” – at which he ruefully shook his head and muttered something about both stories even happening in Philadelphia, where he did indeed grow up and where he began making clothes. At his first show, […]... READ MORE

Friday, December 2, 2011

Muriel Brandolini

House• December 2, 2011.

Interior designer Muriel Brandolini doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She leads her life as she pleases, taking on assignments that work for her daring creativity. As a result she has an air of authority that can be intimidating. Born to a French-Venezuelan mother and a Vietnamese father, Muriel was first raised in Saigon during the height of the [&... READ MORE

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Palm Beach Social Diary Civic Virtue

Palm Beach• November 29, 2011.

Every year when Palm Beach becomes the ultimate destination for the ominum gatherum socialitum to revel within the seasonal spin of black-tie balls and gilded pleasures, it is easy to overlook the just as many whose social life revolves around the pursuit of civic concerns and local issues. As much as the goings-on at exclusive clubs and [&hellip... READ MORE

Friday, November 18, 2011

Edwina Sandys

House• November 18, 2011.

Artist and sculptor Edwina Sandys has led a very full life. Growing up as the granddaughter of Winston Churchill she was surrounded by the wealthy, famous and the very smart. Edwina herself never went to college. She married young, bore two sons, and for the first three and a half decades did what she was supposed […]... READ MORE

Friday, November 11, 2011

Joe Biunno

House• November 11, 2011.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Joe Biunno has spent his life repairing, and restoring furniture. In his 9000-square foot showroom and workshop in Long Island City his staff has the ability to design, carve, gilt, and polish projects from start to finish. Biunno has also developed a specialty business in curtain hardware that […]... READ MORE

Monday, November 7, 2011

Palm Beach Social Diary Autumn on Palm Beach

Palm Beach• November 7, 2011.

Palm Beach’s uneventful storm season has passed as the resort’s social-and-sport playlists get underway. The King Library’s annual benefit at the Four Arts attracted several hundred patrons. The Palm Beach Civic Association might not be holding its “Welcome Home Party” until November 30 but the group recently hosted it... READ MORE

Friday, October 28, 2011

Penny Drue Baird

House• October 28, 2011.

Penny Drue Baird is a seasoned, pragmatic, and extremely hard-working designer who seems to know herself and her own thinking very well indeed. “What I think my job is, is to make people happy,” she said—and most of the successful designers we have interviewed are similarly clear-eyed about accepting that this is a service industry. At [&hel... READ MORE

Friday, October 21, 2011

Marcy Masterson

House• October 21, 2011.

Poor Marcy Masterson had a bad throat when we interviewed her and a lesser soul would have canceled on us—she bravely croaked her way through. She lives in an apartment full of lovely antiques—we are still championing brown furniture at the HOUSE column. We’re also championing dogs—in fact we could probably do a companion column called DO... READ MORE

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Daheim, Part II

House• October 20, 2011.

Here are the Daheim barns, seen from the air in 1982. 25 years after I snapped this picture from a friend’s plane, a catastrophic fire destroyed 60% of the complex. A remarkable reconstruction project has ensued. It was the subject of a luncheon lecture delivered last week by yours truly to 300 guests at the 20th […]... READ MORE

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Daheim, Part I

House• October 19, 2011.

Here’s Daheim, my home in Millbrook for thirty years, in a photo taken 2 weeks ago. It’s a complicated looking house by any measure, and if it isn’t huge, considering others I’ve blogged about, it ain’t small either. Daheim was in ruins when I signed my first lease in December of 1981. It’s taken a lot […... READ MORE

Friday, October 14, 2011

Pintura Studio

House• October 14, 2011.

While wandering around the East Village after another HOUSE interview, I chanced upon what looked like an intriguing storefront but was, in fact, the fabric design workshop of Pintura Studio. I contacted the owners, Chris Isles and Ed Rollins and JH and I wound up paying a second, rather lengthy visit to the workshop, the factory in Red Hoo... READ MORE

Friday, October 7, 2011

Maureen Footer

House• October 7, 2011.

“I guess at the end of the day, I’m a romantic,” is how the poised interior designer, Maureen Footer describes herself – a romantic with an MBA, that is, hard won she admits for someone who naturally gravitates towards the arts. “It took some naïveté out of my view of the world,” she says. She once wanted […]... READ MORE

Friday, September 30, 2011

The Frick

House• September 30, 2011.

I first found the Frick when I was young in New York, just out of college in the early 1960s. Someone must have told me about it. I did not have a refined sense of art appreciation or history. I had a passing curiosity. The first time was a Saturday. There were very few visitors; you […]... READ MORE

Friday, September 23, 2011

Martha Glass

House• September 23, 2011.

Reggie Darling Interviews Martha Glass Ceramics Collector Back in July I had the pleasure of sitting down with Martha Glass, whose photograph regularly appears here in New York Social Diary, to discuss her passion for collecting ceramics. David Patrick Columbia introduced me to her and suggested that I interview her for NYSD about her ceramic... READ MORE

Friday, September 16, 2011

Oberto Gili

House• September 16, 2011.

Photographer Oberto Gili is a charming, if restless, man. During our interview at his wonderfully quirky West Village brownstone he smoked incessantly, picked at a loaf of crusty Italian bread and hopped around as we bantered about everything from the importance of curiosity to his Italian mother. His current project, “Home Sweet Home” (Rizzo... READ MORE

Friday, September 9, 2011

Ultra Violet

House• September 9, 2011.

12.10.01: We went over to visit Ultra Violet at her penthouse on the Upper East Side. As you can see, her front lawn is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and she looks across to Central Park West, and north to the New Jersey Palisades, and south to all the rest of Manhattan and Staten Island […]... READ MORE

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