AERIN LAUDER at home for the holidays
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CONTENTS NOV.–DEC. 202O VOL.43 NO.6
50
MAKING BANK
Rising stars Harry Lawtey and Myha’la Herrold talk with Delaina Dixon about Industry, HBO’s new high-finance drama.
AERIN LAUDER PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHRISTOPHER PATEY, GROOMING BY ALEXA RODULFO.
58
WHEN DYNASTIES DIVIDE Plutocratic family feuds are now public spectacles as never before. Shinan Govani is enjoying the view.
64
PRÊT-À-PARTY
Dressing for the season. Illustrations by Meagan Morrison. 70
THE NEXT WIVES’ CLUB
Lisa Marsh on how to spot— and thwart—the women coming for your husband. 74
THE GATED FAMILY “Nouveau feudalism” is the order of the day as the elite (and their staff ) sequester themselves to avoid modern threats. By Brandon Presser.
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DOMESTIC GODDESS Aerin Lauder, author of Entertaining Beautifully.
10/20/20 12:24 PM
VERNISSAGE
Avenue’s insider preview of all that’s new and noteworthy: the trailblazer Carmen Herrera on her latest landmark work of art for New York; the soignée Elisabeth Jones-Hennessy on how to buy thoughtful gifts for the ones you love; and Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert on reopening in time for the holidays. By Horacio Silva. 20
BUY CURIOUS
Divinely decadent gifts and chic stocking stuffers for the holidays. By Horacio Silva. 32
COFFEE’S FOR CLOSERS Harry Lawtey, star of new finance drama Industry.
CULTURE
Brian Gresko interviews erstwhile Brooklynite Jonathan Lethem about his latest novel, a dystopian tale set in a place where all technology mysteriously fails. Heather Hodson takes a peek at Camilla McGrath’s behindthe-scenes photographs of her famous friends— writers, poets, actors, musicians, and everybody who was anybody. Three coffee-table tomes offer esoteric travel, while Avenue rounds up the best reads for
the holidays, including fiction, memoir, gossip, and humor. Angela M.H. Schuster reports on mega-gallery Pace’s expansion to Palm Beach, talks to Legacy Russell of the Studio Museum about its special relationship with MoMA PS1, and interviews gallerist Claire Oliver on her reconsidered plans for Miami Art Week. As art market players find themselves under pressure this fall, Judd Tully discovers the forging of strange new alliances. With the next eagerly awaited season of The Crown featuring Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana, Harriet Mays Powell examines the female power of the pair. LA DOLCE VITA Guests of the photographer Camilla McGrath at her Italian estate, from left to right: Beatrice Monti, David Hockney, Gregor von Rezzori, Henry Geldzahler, Francesca Antinori, and John Kasmin.
COVER: Illustration by Cecilia Carlstedt 10
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LIVING
With the publication of her glossy new book Entertaining Beautifully, Aerin Lauder invites Wendy Moonan into her Hamptons manse to talk design, décor, and the joy of family holiday traditions. Abbye Churchill celebrates the art of the American feast in all its rich variety. Melissa Feldman tracks down the names who will help you throw a chic, responsible party this season. 94
TRAVEL
The party in America’s southern capital of sun and fun shows no sign of slowing down, writes local expert Dirk DeSouza. 98
GIVING
Adam Grant, the psychologist and author of the groundbreaking bestseller Give and Take, explains why it pays to give.
102
HEIR CARE
As wealthy students rent group houses to serve as private dorms while they study remotely, Brandon Presser asks, What could possibly go wrong?
104
NOTORIOUS NEW YORKERS
Anthony Haden-Guest recalls Larry Levenson and the delights of Plato’s Retreat. 108
SEEN
A virtual opening night, a picnic in the park, and a most unusual New York fashion week. 112
SOCIAL SKILLS
Satirist Posey Wilt imagines another week in Hollywood for Prince Harry.
For our relaunched website, go to avenuemagazine.com
HARRY LAWTEY PHOTOGRAPHED BY HARRY LIVINGSTON FOR AVENUE. STYLING BY ELLA-LOUISE GASKELL/STELLA CREATIVE ARTISTS; GROOMING BY VICTORIA NUGENT; LAWTEY WEARS RICHARD JAMES FOREST ROYAL FLANNEL JACKET, $1,095; AND FLAME PSYCHEDELIC PRINTED SHIRT, $335. AT RICHARD-JAMES.COM. CAMILLA MCGRATH © 2020 BY THE MCGRATH FOUNDATION/ALFRED A. KNOPF, PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
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The happiest of holidays—from our family to yours
T
Giving Back his year’s holiday season brings to a close one of the strangest years many of us have ever experienced. But amid the disruption, and for many of us loss, November and December also bring their annual reminder of the importance of recognizing everything in our lives for which we are grateful. This issue, Avenue strives to strike a balance between the indulgent fun of the holidays and the spirit of giving. In these pages, we visit separately with authors Jonathan Lethem and Aerin Lauder, who talk about the importance of family and community. And we also hear from Adam Grant, whose best-selling book, Give and Take, makes the case for upping our generosity. From the arts, we hear from the young stars of HBO’s new hit, Industry, as well as the Studio Museum in Harlem’s talented young associate curator, Legacy Russell. And the divinely decadent gift guide also includes plenty of suggestions about how you can support our city’s valued cultural and philanthropic institutions in their time of need. As we approach the first anniversary after our relaunch, we at Avenue are thankful for many things. We appreciate the women and men whom we recognize in these pages for making this city the capital of the world. We are grateful for the businesses who support us, and, above all, for our readers, many of whom have been with us since Avenue first rolled off the presses in 1976. It is with a full heart that I wish you the happiest of holidays—from our family to yours. Warmly, BEN WIDDICOMBE
Editor-in-Chief 12
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AVENUE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Ben Widdicombe CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Courtney Gooch
Shinan Govani (When Dynasties Divide, page 58). “As something of a professional busybody, I am always interested in how people negotiate the public and the private, and how the personal is almost always political when it comes to families,” says Shinan Govani, a longtime social columnist in Canada. The author of the novel Boldface Names, his work has also appeared in Tatler, Town & Country, Vanity Fair, and The Daily Beast. Courtney Gooch was previously an associate partner at Pentagram, which redesigned Avenue, and joined us as creative director this summer. She also runs Portrait—a design studio with clients that include the High Line and Planned Parenthood—and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. “Working on the magazine these last few issues, it strikes me that New York never ceases to be a source of inspiration.” Rainer Hosch (Batteries Not Included, page 32), is a Viennese photographer who got his first camera on his eighth birthday. Today, he resides in California with his wife and children, shooting editorials and advertisements for The Hollywood Reporter, Esquire, and Nike, among others. For this issue, he shot author Jonathan Lethem at home in L.A. “We worked socially distanced... He only took the mask off for the moments we were shooting. He sent me home with fresh basil and jalapeño peppers from his garden.” Joey Yu (The Gated Family, page 74), is a London-based artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in The Guardian, the Financial Times, and the New York Times. Her clients also include Hermès and Zegna, and she recently crafted a set of emojis for De Beers. Of her work for Avenue she says, “Creating these illustrations definitely had me dreaming of lush lawns and quiet swimming pools! Drawing the pieces lets you escape the madness of everyday life for a little.” 14
DEPUTY & MANAGING EDITOR
Angela M.H. Schuster FEATURES DIRECTOR
Heather Hodson PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR
Catherine G. Talese PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
Jessica Lee STYLE EDITOR
Horacio Silva DIGITAL FASHION EDITOR
Aria Darcella ART ASSISTANT
Daniela G. Maldonado LONDON EDITOR
Catherine St Germans PARIS EDITOR
Clémence von Mueffling CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Liesl Schillinger, Katrina Brooker, Gigi Mortimer, Tracy Bross CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Anders Overgaard, John Huba, Mitchell Feinberg, Landon Nordeman, Martin Vallin, Mark Seelen, Scott Frances © 2020 by Cohen Media Publications LLC AVENUE MAGAZINE 750 LEXINGTON AVENUE 16TH FLOOR NEW YORK, NY 10022 EDITORIAL@AVENUEMAGAZINE.COM
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HARRY LIVINGSTONE BY JULIA MORGAN; SHINAN GOVANI BY GEORGE PIMENTEL; COURTNEY GOOCH BY MICHELLE OBEN; RAINER HOSCH BY MEINRAD HOFER.
Harry Livingstone (Making Bank, page 51), who trained as an actor at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, is a portrait photographer based in the UK. He now runs his studio in South London, focusing on editorial work and headshots. “Shooting Harry [Lawtey] was an absolute pleasure,” he says of his work for Avenue. “Being an actor shooting actors immediately gives you something in common, a shared outlook.”
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Free Spirit | acrylic on canvas | 46 x 44 in.
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“ART HEALS.” CARMEN HERRERA 16
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PAINTING: DIAGONAL BY CARMEN HERRERA, COURTESY OF LISSON GALLERY; PORTRAIT BY VICTOR LAREDO/LISSON GALLERY; STUDENTS: PUBLICOLOR/JONATHAN MARDER; CARMEN HERRERA: JASON SCHMIDT/LISSON GALLERY
Taking It to the Streets
O
BY HORACIO SILVA
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER Clockwise from opposite: Diagonal by Carmen Herrera, upon which the new mural is based; the artist as a young woman; and recently in her apartment; young artists creating an earlier Publicolor work.
n a recent afternoon, Carmen Herrera, the 105-year-old Cuban American minimalist painter who became an international art star in her 90s, sat with her friend and fellow artist Tony Bechara, the chairman emeritus of El Museo del Barrio, at her Gramercy Park apartment. The two were discussing Herrera’s latest work of art, unveiled this fall. A hypnotic black and white mural on the eastern-facing wall of Manhattan East School for Arts and Academics, formerly known as Junior High School 99, it is visible from the FDR Drive. The new landmark, a geometric abstraction titled Uno, Dos, Tres, based on an existing work of hers from 1987, was painted in collaboration with middle and high school students at Publicolor—a youth development program that engages highrisk, low-income students by teaching them the marketable skill of commercial painting and design. “All children are precious, but these have limited opportunities because of circumstances not of their making,” said Herrera. “They could be my own grandchildren or great-grandchildren.”
Meanwhile, a few dozen blocks uptown on Park Avenue, Ruth Lande Shuman, the founder of Publicolor, was singing hosannas to the artist and her new work. “There’s just so little public art in East Harlem,” she said, “and I love the idea that here is this amazing Cuban American female artist whose work is going to be a shot in the arm to the Hispanic community in East Harlem and will be there for God knows how long.” “It’s so uplifting for the spirit of New York City,” said Beth Rudin DeWoody, the art collector and philanthropist who has underwritten the project with her brother, William Rudin. “It's perfect timing, and that's why we got involved.” For the past 25 years, Publicolor has been energizing and engaging mostly disaffected students. The initiative began by going into public schools and painting vibrant colors in all the public spaces as a way to galvanize the students and convey respect for education and the joy of learning, and has since branched out to the community at large with the transformation of community centers, health clinics, homeless shelters, and day-care centers. Asked if she was concerned about the mural being graffitied, Shuman expressed little concern. She recalled how at the first school that Publicolor painted, the principal made a deliberate effort to reach out to those students who were known to do graffiti all over East New York. “They joined us,” she said, “and what was gorgeous is that they became my anti-graffiti posse. No one was going to touch their work.” Herrera was equally sanguine. “There has to be more art in public schools,” she said, “especially in those from the neediest parts of the city.” After all, she added, “Art heals.” NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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VERNISSAGE
“THERE’S NEVER BEEN A MORE POIGNANT TIME TO BUY THOUGHTFUL GIFTS FOR PEOPLE.” ELISABETH JONES-HENNESSY
RETAIL-ORIENTED Elisabeth Jones-Hennessy invites you to come in.
Better to Give
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COURTESY OF ELISABETH JONES-HENNESSY; COURTESY OF MR. DOG NEW YORK
“W
hat to get the person who has everything” is a cliché that should never be uttered— except perhaps when online shopping for yourself over a second glass of wine. But it is certainly true that when perusing the internet for holiday-appropriate gifts, there can be a certain sameness to the inventory. Enter Elisabeth Jones-Hennessy, a soignée former buyer for Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue, and founder of the new e-commerce platform GiftMeChic.com. “There’s never been a more poignant time to buy thoughtful gifts for people,” she says, “and we do the thinking for you.” That means a selection of outside-the-box originals like Hermès silk scarves that have been remade into espadrilles, cashmere sweater appliqués, and even $175 face masks by the upcycling label Respoke. Or perhaps you know someone who would enjoy a “bespoke crystal prescription” ($350 for 90 minutes) from Paige Novick, who puts the woo! into woo-woo with a “customized chakra balancing meditation, visualizing crystal ribbons of cleansing, healing and strengthening.” There are also cult insider brands such as Indego Africa, offering home accessories from Rwanda, and Fleur du Mal, a swimwear and lingerie line from Italy—finds that she discovers on her frequent travels. “During Covid the majority of my research has been limited to word of mouth,” says Jones-Hennessy, who divides her time between New York and Paris, and is married to Kilian Hennessy, the parfumeur and cognac heir. “I’m lucky to have friends with beautiful taste who’ll
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put me onto things like a new jewelry brand from Norway or an artisanal fashion brand made by Colombian women.” Jones-Hennessy, who has long been involved with New Yorkers for Children, plans to create scholarships in the far-flung communities whose wares the site sells. “I want to make sure that the charities I align myself with really make sense with the brand,” she says, “so I have been meeting with anyone and everyone.” The good news is that you can support this philanthropic vision through shopping. After giving your friends the “Crème de la Crème Caviar Package” ($400) or Maison de la Truffe black truffle gift box ($250), for example, you might also like to add the “customized nutrition consultation” ($375) with Dr. Penelope McDonnell. And once you’ve completed your gift list…feel free to throw in David Sawyer’s $150 “Red Wines for Fall” selection for yourself.
Where’d You Go, Bernardin?
ERIC RIPERT: NIGEL PARRY/BECCA PR
A
s the unflappable head chef and owner of Le Bernardin, the sprawling seafood restaurant in Midtown that’s arguably the most luxurious fine-dining experience in the city, Eric Ripert is used to firing multiple plates at once. But on a recent afternoon, even he seemed a little overwhelmed. Ripert was in overdrive, scrambling to reopen indoor dining. Le Bernardin, which has been awarded three Michelin stars every year since the food guide was established in New York in 2005, had been closed due to the pandemic since mid-March. In addition, he was working to reopen the adjacent Aldo Sohm Wine Bar—which he co-owns with his business partner, Maguy Le Coze, and Sohm, Le Bernardin’s wine master and master sommelier—as well as supporting World Central Kitchen’s initiative, with help from City Harvest, to provide meals for New Yorkers in need. (Since April, he and his staff have prepared and donated approximately 400 meals per day.) He was also putting the finishing touches on a forthcoming recipe book, Vegetable Simple, his sixth, to be released in spring 2021. “It’s a lot,” he said, with a soupçon of understatement, “but you have to be adaptive, no? You have no choice if you want to stay relevant.”
INDOOR FIN RUSH Eric Ripert’s seafood mecca is once again welcoming diners.
“BELIEVE ME, DESPITE THE CRISIS THERE’S A LOT OF DEMAND FOR PLEASURE AND LUXURY.” CHEF ERIC RIPERT
Lately, this has meant not only proselytizing on behalf of vegetables (“it’s important for the planet and, despite what some people think, I don’t eat fish every meal”), but also preparing for the new New York. This includes installing new air ventilation and purification technologies, working out new traffic flows in public areas to avoid congestion, and making sure that his staff has the right personal protection equipment. “As a chef I never thought I would have to learn these things,” he explained. “I’ve always focused on making a great or delicious experience, on creativity, but these new protocols are very important because we want to make sure people feel comfortable and safe.”
Not that it was all masks and HEPA filters on his mind. “Usually at this time of the year, a lot of black truffles are coming into the market,” he said giddily. “We always do a truffle menu for the holidays, and I think we will keep that tradition this year because, believe me, despite the crisis there’s a lot of demand for pleasure and luxury.” The size of the tables might be smaller this season, but Ripert is still aiming big. “It’s a huge responsibility this time around, and we take pleasure in creating a special holiday dinner that people will remember for a long time,” he said. One ingredient, of course, is not negotiable. “Wine, lots of wine,” he enthused. “Without good wines, there’s no such a thing as a good dinner.”—hs NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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BUY CURIOUS
Wrapped AT T E N T I O N DIVINELY DECADENT GIFTS AND CHIC STOCKING STUFFERS THAT ARE ANYTHING BUT HO-HO-HUM
GRAEME MONTGOMERY/TRUNK ARCHIVE
SELECTED BY HORACIO SILVA
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BUY CURIOUS
Balmain “Pernille” sandals. $895 balmain.com
Balenciaga floral hourglass blazer. $3,190 thewebster.us
Elizabeth Moore “Eye of the Sun” 14-karat recycled yellow gold and ethically sourced white diamonds earrings. $1,900 elizabethmoore.com
Saint Laurent spotted blouse in shiny and matte striped silk. $2,295 ysl.com Chanel transparent evening bag. Price on request chanel.com
La DoubleJ turtleneck in Punto Milano jersey. $310 ladoublej.com 22
Grazia & Marica Vozza malachite heart necklace. $1,900 aerin.com
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Neha Dani teal sapphire “Khepi” ring with orange and yellow sapphires set in 18k yellow gold. $29,000 Macklowe Gallery, 445 Park Avenue Janie Kruse Garnett Bay Leaf assorted sapphires and white diamonds ear climber. $3,550 janiekrusegarnett.com
For Her
Larkspur & Hawk gift set featuring a Bella Rivière white quartz and washed sterling necklace, and hand-painted vintage jewelry box with a velvet cushion. $2,550 for the set. aerin.com
HEY, LUCKY L ADY Fendi faille trench coat. $3,290 fendi.com
Hermès “Kelly” briefcase. $10,900 hermes.com
Celine “Nano” luggage bag in drummed calfskin. $2,700 celine.com
Dolce & Gabbana passementerie tweed jacket with bejeweled buttons. $4,595 dolcegabbana.com NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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BUY CURIOUS
Ermenegildo Zegna Noorda Z logo belt, featuring the Bob Noorda-designed vintage logo. $810 zegna.com
Rolex “Datejust 41.” $9,650 tourneau.com
Brunello Cucinelli reversible cashmere bomber jacket with hood. $8,995 brunellocucinelli.com
Mulberry “Clipper” leather holdall. $2,300 mulberry.com 24
Acne Studios textured single-breasted coat. $1,150 farfetch.com
Hervé Obligi yellow fountain pen. $4,200 maisongerard.com
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For Him
Saint Laurent silk pinstripe shirt. $1,360 farfetch.com
Fabergé gold and diamond-set white enamel cigar cutter with matching pocketknife. Price on request. alvr.com
T. Anthony luxe watch box. $1,400 tanthony.com
Jaeger-Lecoultre gold “Master Ultra Thin Kingsman Knife” watch. $29,800 jaeger-lecoultre.com
I LOVE YOU, MAN!
Harrys of London “Maddox F” calfskin boots. $795 harrysoflondon.com NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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BUY CURIOUS
La DoubleJ x Salviati rigadin glassware. $1,000 (set of 8) ladoublej.com
Fotografiska “Man Ray” chess set. $680 email shop.ny@fotografiska.com
A La Vieille Russie malachite table box. Price on request. alvr.com
Gucci marble three-panel screen. $15,000 gucci.com 26
Laboratorio Paravicini “Bloom” dessert dishes. $250 (set of 4) aerin.com
Lola James Harper/George Esquivel limited edition candle. $65 esquivelshoes.com
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For the Home
Janie Kruse Garnett wrapped cane low profile sterling silver candlesticks. Sold as a pair, $1,025. janiekrusegarnett.com
T. Anthony backgammon set. $1,050 tanthony.com
La Gallina Matta cocktail napkin. $95 (set of 4) aerin.com
CHEZ IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT
Carleton Varney Petite Francie and Grover pillow. $48 each carletonvarney.com
Puiforcat “Phi” glass and silver-plated brass espresso cup. $1,030 (for 2) puiforcat.com NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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ReFa Carat face skincare tool. $220 refausa.com
Hermès Rouge Hermès lipstick in Rose Nuit. $72 hermes.com
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Lancôme “La Vie Est Belle” Sara Shakeel limited edition fragrance. $99 (50ml) and $133 (100ml) lancome.com 28
Tom Ford lip and eye color collection. $155 neimanmarcus.com
For the Body
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Guerlain “Orchidée Impériale Black Kintsugi—The Cream.” $1,465 guerlain.com
AVENUE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020
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Maison du Chocolat limited-edition handmade holiday cracker tree (only 22 available worldwide) featuring 8.5kg of chocolate. $2,000 call 718-361-9161
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Janie Kruse Garnett sterling silver and coral coquille-motif lobster picks. Sold as a pair, $500. janiekrusegarnett.com
Veuve Clicquot and Yayoi Kusama La Grande Dame CuvĂŠe collaboration. $36,000 (for magnum and limited-edition Kusama sculpture) and $195 (for standard bottle and Kusama-designed limited-edition box) veuveclicquot.com
Louis Sherry selection of 12 truffles in a collectible tin designed by John Derian. $40 neimanmarcus.com
NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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GREAT GIFTS THAT SUPPORT GOOD CAUSES
Food Bank for New York City helps provide 1,500 meals. $300 foodbanknyc.org
The Asia Society Japanese kimono gift wrapping papers. $11.95 asiasociety.org
The Metropolitan Opera seat plaque honoring a loved one. $5,000–$15,000 metopera.org 30
The Frick Collection sustaining fellowship. $10,000 frick.org
INGRES, COMTESSE D'HAUSSONVILLE, 1845, OIL ON CANVAS, COURTESY THE FRICK COLLECTION; METROPOLITAN OPERA: KATHYASIMON; APPLE; TIM UR/ISTOCK; TREE: DNY59/GETTY IMAGES
Central Park Conservancy endow a tree. $50—$5,000 centralparknyc.org
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Broadway Legends: Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard holiday ornament. $65 broadwaycares.org
For the City
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AVENUE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020
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Brooklyn became a global brand equated with erudite hipsterdom, and Lethem’s work rode that wave.
Batteries Not Included
PHOTOGRAPHED BY RAINER HOSCH FOR AVENUE
Jonathan Lethem’s latest novel, The Arrest, takes place in a world where all modern technology mysteriously fails. Brian Gresko asks him—is that dystopia or utopia?
BLACK AND BLUE Author Jonathan Lethem photographed in Los Angeles, the city he moved to from Brooklyn, where he grew up and made his name as a writer.
J
onathan Lethem is a Brooklyn writer, but not in the way you might expect. “I think of myself as the last of the old kind of Brooklyn writer, not the start of the new kind,” he tells me one recent morning over Zoom from his home in suburban Los Angeles, where he lives with his third wife, the filmmaker Amy Barrett, and their two young sons. Though Lethem, who is now 56, grew up in Boerum Hill and is associated with the early aughts Brooklyn literary boom that included Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead, and a couple of authors also named Jonathan, he no longer lives in the city’s most writerly borough. For the past decade, Lethem has taught creative writing at Pomona College in Claremont, California, occupying the post formerly held by David Foster Wallace. He has come to look the part of professor, with thick graying hair, a distinguished beard, and glasses. Early in the morning before classes he writes, and has continued publishing books at a regular pace—the latest novel, his twelfth, is The Arrest. The move was less a decampment from NYC and more a return to the West. At the age of 19, Lethem headed across the country to quell what he called “a weird ache for desert spaces,” a longing inspired by his love of science fiction novels, hard-boiled detective tales, and Westerns. He hitchhiked the last leg, at one point finding himself desperately thumbing a ride in the very salt flats he had gone searching for. “I was dreaming of that space and then I walked into it—I was on Mars!” He spent more than a decade in California, working in bookstores and publishing four novels—none of which feature Brooklyn to any large extent. In fact, the majority of his books don’t. And yet Lethem is deeply connected with
his hometown, because the novels that brought him to the attention of readers at large—1999’s Motherless Brooklyn, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and 2003’s semiautobiographical Fortress of Solitude, a New York Times bestseller—feature the very streets on which Lethem was raised, and were written not far from them. Both novels appeared at a time when, culturally, Brooklyn became a global brand equated with erudite hipsterdom, and Lethem’s work rode that wave. “I didn’t know that was at my shoulder,” Lethem tells me. That he felt compelled to return to his old neighborhood at the time of Brooklyn’s ascendancy was an almost novelistic turn of events: hometown boy hits the lotto. Some of his earliest Brooklyn literary influences, authors like Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Robert Stone, “wanted to get the hell out of Brooklyn, not center it in their work, and certainly not brag about it.” It’s to this group that Lethem feels an allegiance. He just happened to have reached back to his childhood for inspiration at the right time. And it could be that he’s caught lightning in a bottle again, because The Arrest concerns a subject that’s very much on our minds these days: societal collapse. The title refers to a mysterious death of technology—screens go black, batteries fail, guns stop working—that throws the world back into an agrarian society. It’s a dystopian tale, and yet it’s set in a bucolic version of small-town Maine that’s almost utopian in feel. Asked what drew him to this setting, Lethem again goes to Brooklyn. “When you’re a Brooklyn kid the immediate wilderness is New England,” he replies. Family vacations meant southern Maine, where Lethem’s father, a painter, had connections to a community of artists. Of this time spent in counterpoint to city life, Lethem says, “I was lit up by it,” his voice wide with awe. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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“Everyone’s probably had this thought this year—what if our prepper friend was actually right?” Jonathan Lethem
So much so that he’s spent part of every year in small-town Maine for the past two decades or so. “It’s a part of me,” he says. “And yet my relationship to that community is qualified and peculiar. Some people recognize that I feel very at home there and other people probably think I’m the classic summer person with a house and a boat (which I don’t have, but which would be typical), unable to operate a chainsaw.” “I’m both connected and a question mark,” he says, laughing. The central character of The Arrest, Sandy Duplessis, a television script doctor stranded by the apocalypse at his sister’s organic farm, shares this muddled relationship to his new home. And while Lethem makes clear he is not his character, the situation Sandy finds himself in is one Lethem has considered himself. “Everyone’s probably had this thought this year—what if our prepper friend was actually right? Well, in coastal Maine many people have generators and know how to put away food for the winter,” Lethem says. “Those skills are a thread running through the history of these communities.” So he asked himself: What role would a novelist have to play in such a place during end times? With a smile on his face, he paints the scene for me. “It’s like, ‘You grow the food, you keep the fire going, you clear the road, and I’ll write the novels!’ I don’t think it would take long for someone to give me the memo, ‘We don’t actually need a novel today, but we sure could use some help cleaning up the place.’” When The Arrest opens, Sandy has put aside writing and become the town courier and butcher’s assistant, leading a life that’s quiet and largely stable. Both Sandy and the community’s peace is threatened when a wealthy television producer from Los Angeles shows up in a nuclear-powered car, like a prop from a sci-fi B movie made real. “I’ve always had the suspicion about dystopian fiction that a lot of it is secretly wish fulfillment on the part of the author,” Lethem says. In this case, he imagines a writer who has found solace from the fast-paced moneyed land of Los Angeles 34
L.A. STORY Jonathan Lethem at home in suburban Los Angeles.
in a rural world without smartphones and social media, a calmer pace of life where storytelling, when it happens, is done around a fire, or in solitude with a book. And then, just when he thinks he’s out, L.A. tunnels up from under him. Inevitably, tensions flare. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Lethem has sent a character to a small town in Maine. “I sneaked Maine into the Brooklyn-est of my Brooklyn books, Motherless Brooklyn,” he reveals. When the main character of that novel, Lionel Essrog, leaves the borough to follow a lead in the mystery he’s trying to solve, he ends up in a small Maine town not unlike the one where Sandy Duplessis lives. “That was almost like an imaginative dry run for The Arrest.” Not long after Motherless Brooklyn’s publication, Lethem himself would start summering in just such a small town. Looking at it this way, Lethem is like Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five, a writer unstuck in space-time, exploring his childhood home just as it becomes the next big literary thing, dreaming
of deserts he’d later cross, and rural towns he’d later settle in. Lethem’s reading, writing, and life choices are closely intertwined, and place plays an important role in all of them. “I’ve projected spaces in my imagination,” he says, inspired by his reading. “Then explored those spaces in my life, and my work reflects that.” And it all started in, and often comes back to, Brooklyn. The Arrest will be published on November 10 by Ecco.
AVENUE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020
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She Was a Camera Haute Bohemian Camilla McGrath photographed her closest friends, who just happened to be the movers and shakers of the late 20th century, writes Heather Hodson
She knew everybody who was anybody. Camilla McGrath, (née Countess Pecci-Blunt, of the aristocratic family that also produced Pope Leo XIII), was the irreverent, aristo-bohemian wife of the larger-than-life art gallerist and music producer Earl McGrath. Together, the glittering couple were in every swim, their circle spanning the worlds of entertaining, film, music, the arts, and society in Europe, New York, and Los Angeles. Their friends included “people of all stripes,” as the social observer and photographer Frederick Eberstadt once recounted to Vanity Fair, and guests at the parties in their apartment on 57th Street (or their West Hollywood house, or her family's palatial pile, Marlia, near Lucca in Italy) might include Mick Jagger, Jasper Johns, Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Andy Warhol, or Christopher Isherwood. These good times were invariably captured on Camilla’s Nikon camera, and the thousands of black-and-white photographs became her life's work, until her death in 2007, but few have ever been published. (Earl would pass away three years later.) A collection of more than 600 photographs from the 1950s to the 1990s appears in Face to Face, which includes reminiscences by Fran Lebowitz and Harrison Ford among others, is a rarefied window onto the last century. LOOKS FAMIGLIA Clowning around the yew hedges of Marlia, Camilla’s family estate near Lucca, left to right: Francesca Antinori, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler, David Hockney, English art dealer John Kasmin, and Italian gallerist Beatrice Monti. Top, from left: Sonny Mehta, Robert Silvers, Joan Didion, Susanna Moore, and Earl McGrath during Thanksgiving celebrations at the Dunnes. 36
© 2020 BY THE MCGRATH FOUNDATION/ALFRED A. KNOPF, PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
Face to Face: The Photographs of Camilla McGrath (Knopf, $75.00)
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CHAMPAGNE WISHES Jerry Hall’s birthday party at Mr. Chow in 1985, from left: Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, and Paloma Picasso. Below: Harrison Ford with his daughter, Georgia, at one of the many lunches thrown at the McGraths’ L.A. home.
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO LUNCH? Above: Anjelica Huston at a lunch at the McGraths’ in 1985. Far right: Brooke Hayward with David Hockney. Right: at Thanksgiving in 1978 at the McGraths’ apartment on 57th Street are Earl, Keith Richards, and Bryan Ferry.
NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Miami Beach by Horacio Silva (Assouline, $95.00)
SUN AND SEA South Beach, left, and Miami Beach, above, are just two reasons the city is known as “The World’s Playground.” 38
JEFFREY ISAAC GREENBERG/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; © IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO, BOTH COURTESY OF ASSOULINE
The journalist, author, and Avenue’s own style editor Horacio Silva is a former Miami resident, and his knowledge of the city’s vibrant cultural, artistic, design, and fashion life is shared across the pages of Miami Beach. “Miami’s moment is now,” he writes. “The city is more vital and agenda setting than ever.” A hedonistic playground synonymous with the three S’s of sea, sun, and sin, Miami is undeniably seductive, but Silva makes a case for its also being America’s cultural city of the future. “The appeal of Miami is clearly more than the sum parts of bikinis and Bellinis.”
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Places and Faces Three coffee-table tomes offer esoteric escapism.
Perfect Strangers: New York City Street Photographs by Melissa O’Shaughnessy (Aperture, $50.00) Melissa O’Shaughnessy, the latest female street photographer to follow in the footsteps of Diane Arbus, spent the past seven years roaming her adopted city with her camera, capturing images of New Yorkers going about their everyday business. The monograph’s mix of striking, unexpected, joyful photographs—of people leaving restaurants, lingering outside bookstores, congregating on street corners, not a mask in sight—now feels like a hymn to New York in the time before Covid.
© MELISSA O’SHAUGHNESSY/COURTESY OF APERTURE; © VALENTINA JACKS/COURTESY OF LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
PRETTY IN PINK Left: Bridesmaids and guests send off a bride and groom in this image titled Fifth Avenue (2017) by Melissa O’Shaughnessy. Below: the very Wes Anderson pastel Hotel Opera in Prague.
Accidentally Wes Anderson by Wally Koval (Voracious, $35.00) Wally Koval’s book grew out of his Instagram account, a shrine to the visual universe of the director of The Grand Budapest Hotel and other quirky gems. Followed by more than a million “Adventurers” around the world, as Koval calls them, the site is a candy box of real places and things that bring to mind a Wes Anderson set, like a stylized cabin in Banff National Park, a mint green Florida cottage, or a retro peach-colored rail car in Genoa. (“That’s so accidentally” is now recognized art world speak.) Some 182 semiprofessional photographers contributed to the book project, to which the director—who says he intends to become an Adventurer himself—gave his blessing. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Books This winter's must-reads include gossip, crime, humor, fiction, and a presidential memoir
In her no-holds-barred memoir FRIENDS AND ENEMIES: A LIFE IN VOGUE, PRISON, & PARK AVENUE
(Pegasus Books), the writer, journalist, and exiled member of high society Barbara Amiel takes her revenge on the establishment. With her husband, the former newspaper tycoon Conrad Black, charged for fraud, social death arrives by a thousand cuts. One scene sees her feeling invisible, in a roomful of their peers, including Lynn Forester de Rothschild. “Where Fifth Avenue leads, as Edith Wharton wrote, Lynn followed,” Amiel recounts. “She really didn’t see me.”
The Chinese-born, London-based author Xiaolu Guo is known for her cerebral chick lit, and her latest novel, A LOVER’S DISCOURSE (Grove Press), is an absorbing tale of a young Chinese woman and a man of the same age (neither is given a name), who navigate complexities of courtship and cultural change while living together on a houseboat. 40
adventure tale about the creation of the Gikuyu people—could well be the ticket.
At 63, the humor essayist Publishers Weekly once described as “Garrison Keillor’s evil twin,” beloved for his collections including Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, has curated a greatest hits collection, from his 25-year career with THE BEST OF ME (Little, Brown, and Company). David Sedaris’s deadpan, quirky, laugh-out-loud comic gems make required pandemic reading.
Unusually for former presidents, Barack Obama can actually write, and in A PROMISED LAND (Crown), the first of his two-volume memoir, the 44th president gives a compelling account of the arc of his political and personal journey, starting with his early forays into public service to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory and finishing with the high drama of Operation Neptune’s Spear, the mission that eliminated Osama Bin Laden. Essential reading.
In THE COMPANY I KEEP: MY LIFE IN BEAUTY (Harper Business), the famously private billionaire philanthropist, art collector, and chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies, Leonard A. Lauder, pulls back the curtains on his life, reflecting on his New York childhood, growing up during the Great Depression, the boom years of the postwar period, and his work helping transform the mom-andpop business his mother, Estée Lauder, had started in the family kitchen in 1946 into the iconic beauty company it is today.
Our current love affair with Nordic noir continues unabated, and the Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø is a virtuoso of the genre, with his books selling more than 30 million copies worldwide. His latest crime thriller, THE KINGDOM (Knopf), is set in a small mountain town, where a mechanic’s life is upended by the unexpected homecoming of his younger brother, his brother’s mysterious wife, and the unspooling of chilling family secrets.
In her dazzling debut short story collection TO BE A MAN: STORIES (Harper), the author of The History of Love, Nicole Krauss, deftly weaves together tales of relationships that wrestle with sexual power, violence, obsession, loss, aging, and unexpected renewal. Krauss’s flights of magical realism and rumination on the mysteries of what connects us are strangely suited to these times.
The Kenyan writer, playwright, journalist, and academic Ngũg˜ ı wa Thiong’o, who wrote a novel on toilet paper while he was imprisoned for a year in Nairobi, was the first East African to be published in English with Weep Not, Child (1964). He has consistently been a contender for the Nobel Prize, and his latest novel, THE PERFECT NINE (New Press)—an ambitious, magisterial family epic and
The film historian, critic, and author Tom Shone calls Christopher Nolan, the writerdirector of Memento, Insomnia, and Interstellar “the most successful filmmaker to come out of the British Isles since Alfred Hitchcock.” Shone’s in-depth examination of the director’s body of work, THE NOLAN VARIATIONS (Knopf), amply proves the point.
From the award-winning author of Wickwythe Hall comes another historical fiction page-turner. In THE CHANEL SISTERS (Graydon House), Judithe Little reimagines the relationship between Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and her unsung younger sister, Antoinette, who were raised by nuns after their mother died and their peddler father abandoned them, and who shared the same fashion dreams. Essential reading for cinephiles.
The veteran environmentalist Sir David Attenborough, who must have the most soothing voice in broadcasting, calls A LIFE ON OUR PLANET (Grand Central Publishing) and its accompanying Netflix series his “witness statement” about the consequences of human activity on our world. A call to arms from the great evangelist of nature.
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A Pace in the Sun
O
nce upon a time, the majority of blue-chip art market transactions happened in the heart of Manhattan, London, or most recently Hong Kong. But with global events scattering collectors and their dollars to the four winds, galleries and auction houses are following suit, establishing themselves in seasonal hotspots from the Hamptons in the summer to St. Moritz and Palm Beach in the winter. The latest to do so is mega-gallery Pace, which has outposts in New York, London, Hong Kong, Seoul, Geneva, and Palo Alto. After expanding into East Hampton earlier this year, the gallery is setting up shop in Palm Beach, making its debut there with a showing of works by California-based light artist James Turrell
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AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT James Turrell's LED and etched-glass Mors-Somnus (07) from 2017 inaugurates the new Pace space in Palm Beach.
on November 9. The new gallery digs are in the Royal Poinciana Plaza, a 1950s architectural gem by John L. Volk that has already welcomed Acquavella Galleries and auction giant Sotheby’s. “For generations, Palm Beach has been a winter destination for our clients,” says Pace vice president Adam Sheffer, who is spearheading the gallery’s southern expansion. “Opening there seemed a logical next step in a fruitful business model. As we have learned from our East Hampton experience, when clients can view art in a more casual setting, it naturally leads to longer, more indepth engagement with the works on view.” “James Turrell” runs November 9–December 5 at Pace Palm Beach.
MORS-SOMNUS (07), 2017, © JAMES TURRELL, COURTESY PACE GALLERY.
After a successful summer debut in the Hamptons, mega-gallery Pace is expanding to Palm Beach, reports Angela M.H. Schuster
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“The artists have collectively explored the intersection between queerness and blackness.” Legacy Russell
CLOSE QUARTERS, 2018, © NAUDLINE PIERRE, COURTESY THE ARTIST; LEGACY RUSSELL BY DANIEL DORSA, COURTESY OF STUDIO MUSEUM.
Loading the Canon
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CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Above: Naudline Pierre's oil on canvas Close Quarters (2018). Top right: Curator Legacy Russell.
ith so much of our mission inters ecting with the concerns of the wo r l d r i g h t now, we are hyper-mindful in wanting to champion artists of African descent,” says Studio Museum associate curator Legacy Russell, who was tapped to lead the institution’s foundational artist-in-residence program on the eve of its fiftieth anniversary two years ago. Since then, Russell has expanded the mission of the residency and the support it provides participating artists, including the forging of a partnership with the Museum of Modern Art to showcase their work at MoMA PS1, while the Studio Museum awaits the completion of its new David Adjaye–designed home on 125th Street in 2021. The fruits of that partnership will be unveiled for a second time on December 10, with the opening of “This Longing Vessel,” an exhibition of works produced by the three artists who participated in the 2019–20 residency—E. Jane (b. 1990), Naudline Pierre (b. 1989), and Elliot Reed (b. 1992). With practices spanning new media, performance, and painting, Russell explains, “the artists have collectively explored the intersection between queerness and blackness as a waypoint: one to yearn from, one to reach toward, and one to leap beyond.” The exhibition, she says, both troubles and excites ways of seeing, seeking new language for the building of extraordinary futures. “This cohort has brought to the fore incredible types of practice that expand on the history and types of work produced in the residency, and is truly pushing the canon.”—a.m.h.s. “This Longing Vessel” runs December 10–March 14, 2021 at MoMA PS1.
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IN STITCHES A detail of Bisa Butler's vibrantly hued quilt, Asantewa (2020). 44
ASANTEWA, 2020, © BISA BUTLER, COURTESY CLAIRE OLIVER GALLERY.
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TRUE BLUE, 18TH HOLE–19, 2020 © ADEBUNMI GBADEBO; ANOTHER SIDE TO ME, 2020, © GIOVANNA SWABY, BOTH COURTESY CLAIRE OLIVER GALLERY.
“The artists are concerned with righting history’s slights and the erasure of the Black contributions to our society.” Claire Oliver
Harlem’s Own “Miami Art Week”
W RIGHTING HISTORY From left: Adebunmi Gbadebo's mixed-media True Blue, 18th Hole–19 (2020), which includes black human hair, cotton, rice paper, and indigo dye. Giovanna Swaby's thread and canvas, Another Side To Me (1) from a four-paneled work executed earlier this year.
ith Florida’s December art fairs going largely digital, gallerist Claire Oliver says she plans to channel the “magic of Miami” in her new Harlem space. “This will be the first year in two decades that we haven’t joined the art world in Miami and, like everyone else who loves art, we feared missing the energy and buzz of the fairs, discovering new artists, and reconnecting with old friends and clients, so we’ve decided to bring that energy into our own Harlem digs,” says Oliver, who in January traded in her Chelsea gallery space of nearly two decades for a historic brownstone on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.
She will be presenting the work of three artists in her gallery’s roster—Bisa Butler, Adebunmi Gbadebo, and Giovanna Swaby. “All three are concerned with righting history’s slights and the erasure of the Black contributions to our society as a whole,” Oliver tells Avenue, adding that “the advances we enjoy were built on the backs of their ancestors.” Gallery programming during what would have been “Miami Art Week” (December 1–6), she says, will include in-person conversations between the artists, curators, and critics; gallery talks; and socially distanced invitation-only events for collectors—complete with champagne and canapés. For those who cannot be there for the in-person experience, the events will be livestreamed on claireoliver.com. —a.m.h.s. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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“Galleries have always been hindered in terms of trying to collaborate. So, we decided to play the way the auction houses do.” Andrew Fabricant, Gagosian chief financial officer
The Allies Attack Art market players under pressure are forging novel alliances as galleries, art fairs, and auction houses aggressively compete for business, reports Judd Tully
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hanks in part to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the chill it has placed on public gatherings, the art world is changing in ways that would have seemed unimaginable just six months ago. Strange alliances are now forming between art fairs, galleries, and auction houses. The first cannon shot was fired back in February by blue-chip archrivals Acquavella Galleries, Gagosian, and Pace. The dealers joined forces to secure the right to collectively sell the extraordinary $400 million art collection of the recently deceased New York financier and philanthropist Donald Marron, shocking the auction house duopoly of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, each of which had confidently pitched their own indepth, financially guaranteed proposals. “Galleries have always been hindered in terms of trying to collaborate,” says Andrew Fabricant, the chief financial officer at Gagosian. “In competing against each other, we have gotten beaten by the auction houses. So, we decided to play the way the auction houses do. Using their model, we made a pitch to the family—as well as their lawyers, estate advisors, and financial people—that
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we would be best suited for this and provide every single safeguard, with all the belts and suspenders of what the auction houses offer.” “We have the collective expertise of these three aging lions,” Fabricant explains, referring to gallerists Bill Acquavella, Larry Gagosian, and Arne Glimcher. “With their acolytes—Marc Glimcher, myself, and the Acquavella kids—we have a ready-made dynasty of sorts with more expertise than anyone else in what we do.” The family’s timing was prescient in that the pandemic forced the postponement of the May auctions in New York when the Marron sale would have taken place. Instead, operating from the late collector’s art-filled suite in the iconic Fuller Building, the gallery partnership, known as AGP Ventures, sold all the significant works— including Cy Twombly’s Camino Real (2011) in the $30 to $40 million range and Mark Rothko’s masterful Number 22 (Reds) from 1957 for an undisclosed figure in the region of $80 million. “To their enormous credit, they pretty much sold everything they had to sell within a couple of weeks,” says Matthew Armstrong, an art advisor and longtime, private curator for the Marron collection. “I’ve never seen anything like it. AGP
simply came in and used Don’s showcase there as a selling space, rather than carting it off to this gallery or that gallery, and as a result, they lit up the building.” While the Marron deal blindsided the auction houses, the duopoly was busy on other fronts, including Sotheby’s freshly hatched Gallery Network, a “digital buy-now marketplace” for selected contemporary art galleries that provided each “partner” with a bespoke online presence consisting of a digital viewing room of works available for sale at publicly listed prices. The initial tranche of eight elite dealers, ranging from Gavin Brown’s enterprise to Sperone Westwater, quickly grew to 32, with Lévy Gorvy and Salon 94 joining their ranks. What is especially unnerving for the usual way of trade and fiercely guarded firewall between dealers and auction houses is that all inquiries are now channeled through Sotheby’s and handled by their private sales team. “Speak to our experts in the office,” urges a Sotheby’s pop-up window on each gallery’s digital viewing room, “and leave a message and we’ll get back to you.” Works and prices ranged from Andy Warhol’s Polaroid snapshot of Robert Mapplethorpe from 1983, at Kasmin Gallery for $22,000, to Fernando Botero’s rotund bronze Leda and the Swan (2018) at the David Benrimon Gallery for $2 million. “I don’t really see any conflict at all,” says Gallery Network participant Fergus McCaffrey, who has eponymous brick-and-mortar spaces in Chelsea, St. Barths, and Tokyo. “Sotheby’s private sales team was put together by Amy Cappellazzo and Allan Schwartzman, and you’ve got some really talented people there.” As of this writing, McCaffrey has yet to see any sales on his bespoke viewing room for selected works such as Carol Rama’s Surreal work on paper Untitled (1966), with glass eyes and ink, which is tagged at $80,000. “It’s a slow beginning, but I believe firmly this is a platform that is going to succeed and will succeed in a significant way going forward.” A chunk of that optimism is based on Sotheby’s market strength in Asia and, as McCaffrey notes, “it offers an opportunity to break into that market.” Just as galleries and auction houses are typically lunging at each other’s throats, so too is the global art fair business that competes with the auction houses. So heads turned with the announcement the celebrated fine and antique art fair La Biennale Paris had teamed up with Christie’s to
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UNTITLED, 1966, © CAROL RAMA, COURTESY OF FERGUS MCCAFFREY, NEW YORK AND TOKYO.
HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU Carol Rama's Untitled (1966), with glass eyes and ink on paper, is available from Fergus McCaffrey, one of 32 dealers who have joined the newly launched Sotheby's Gallery Network.
take its September brick-and-mortar event online. The 42 art galleries involved represent works from Egyptian antiquities and Chinese ceramics to Impressionist and Modern paintings. It was a shotgun wedding of sorts, as the Biennale’s Grand Palais venue remained closed due to the pandemic. “At first glance, these works may not seem connected, but [with the fair online, we have] brought together the best of art and history,” said Old Master dealer and Biennale president Georges de Jonckheere, in a statement released by Christie’s on the eve of the event. In late summer, these head-scratching scenarios
took another sharp turn when the Russian-owned Phillips auction house announced a close collaboration with Mainland Chinese–owned Poly Auction to conduct sales of 20th-century and contemporary art at the JW Marriott in Hong Kong beginning this November. “The art auction industry is currently undergoing significant changes,” says Jiang Yingchun, chairman of Poly Auction, adding that “we are witnessing a constant stream of breakthrough innovations and exciting collaborations.” Jiang’s sound bite muffled the aftershocks still being felt from that explosive marriage. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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COIF WITH HER HEAD Above: Gillian Anderson in Mrs. T’s trademark helmet hair and shoulder pads. Below: Thatcher addresses the 1984 Conservative Party Conference in Brighton, after being the target of a deadly IRA bombing.
The Princess and the PM
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Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana steal the show this month in a new season of The Crown. Harriet Mays Powell recalls 1980s Britain as an unprecedented moment of female power
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argaret Thatcher was hardly one to take a knee. As Britain’s redoubtable prime minister from 1979 until 1990, she oversaw her country’s transition from recession to boom; broke the trade unions; waged and won the Empire’s last colonial war; and thoroughly earned the nickname bestowed upon her by friend and foe alike: The Iron Lady. But as leader of the Conservative Party, she was also a fierce champion of the establishment. So in November 1989, when the Prince and Princess of Wales came for dinner at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official London residence, she sank into a deep and practiced curtsy. The image is telling: Thatcher, 64, at the height of her power (the Berlin Wall had fallen just 11 days before, for which she and her transatlantic partner, President Ronald Reagan, were not shy in taking credit) paying court to the 28-year-old Princess Diana, insouciantly dressed for a night on the town in a one-shouldered redand-black Catherine Walker evening gown. It’s a literal snapshot of an unprecedented moment of female political and cultural power in Britain, when women in supersize shoulder pads were breaking glass ceilings across the City and Fleet Street (as the financial and media districts are known), and equal pay was finally being recognized by the courts.
As a symbol of the times, the picture is— to quote a hit by the British pop artist Robert Palmer, which in 1989 was impossible to avoid— simply irresistible. The Princess and the Prime Minister are being reunited again in the fourth season of The Crown, Netflix’s hugely popular series about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Gillian Anderson, the American actress who has long made London her home, plays Thatcher; relative newcomer Emma Corrin portrays Diana. Revisiting these giants of 20th-century Britain has provoked a tsunami of interest, and it almost beggars belief than not one but two supporting characters could upstage Her Majesty (played once again by the formidable Academy Award winner Olivia Colman) in her own show. “Diana was extremely beautiful, grand in her own right and married into the ultimate grandness. But her overpowering magnetism came from her combination of insecurity, formed by a broken-home upbringing, and her wild outspoken attacks on the establishment she was born into,” Harry Mount, a veteran British journalist who now edits The Oldie, tells Avenue. “Maggie was different: born into a humble background and rising to the very top through intelligence, ambition and an extraordinary ability.” Simon Schama, writing in The New Yorker just after Diana’s tragic death in 1997, depicted the two women almost as diametrically opposed forces from myth. “Attempting to understand Princess Diana's appeal without taking Thatcher into account is like assuming that Glinda ruled the Land of Oz uncontested,” he wrote. “When Maggie barked, the country stood at attention; when Di smiled, the same country melted in adoration.” Mount puts it in simpler terms. “Diana was the born insider who wanted to become an outsider. Maggie was born an outsider and became an insider,” he says. “They were both huge box office.” Driving the media fascination, of course, was
COURTESY OF NETFLIX; BETTMANN/GETTY
CULTURE
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“Diana had one hell of a love life once she left Charles. She needed it as she’d had rather a sexless life for a while.” Drusilla Beyfus, British journalist and author
TIM GRAHAM/GETTY; COURTESY OF NETFLIX
TO DI FOR Left: The Princess of Wales, wearing the British couturier Victor Edelstein, dazzles at an Élysée Palace banquet. Above: Emma Corrin channels the earlier “shy Di” period.
the fact that Diana’s life proved to be a practically limitless wellspring of gossip. Both she and Charles had affairs that leaked into the press; the divorce provided its own spectacle; then she had a fashion makeover and embarked on dating adventures with thrillingly caddish men. “Diana had one hell of a love life once she left Charles,” says Drusilla Beyfus, the author and a former British Vogue features editor who met both women. “She needed it as she’d had rather a sexless life for a while.” Ironically, for all their influence, neither woman would have described herself as a feminist. Beyfus recalls, during an interview for Vogue, asking Britain’s first female prime minister: “How do you manage to combine a political career with a husband and children?” Thatcher replied: “It takes a supportive husband who believes you have a real contribution to make…[ And also] Parliament and my constituency were both near my London home. I really don’t think I would have been able to leave my children when they were small had my work taken
place far away.” Such an exchange would not be possible in our current world, warmed as it is by the flames of social media. As for the Princess and the Prime Minister, their worlds changed quickly after that picture outside Downing Street. Thatcher, having won three general elections, would be ousted by her own party almost exactly a year later—and photographed leaving Number 10 in tears. Diana separated from Charles in 1992, and gave a bombshell interview in 1995 (“there were three in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” she told the BBC), which wrenched public support firmly away from the royal family and toward the runaway princess. They divorced in 1996, and only a year later she died in a car wreck in a Paris tunnel beside Dodi Fayed, her Egyptian boyfriend. Diana, at 36, became the beneficiary of “Operation Tay Bridge”—the code name for the long-planned state funeral of the Queen Mother (who would not need it herself until 2002, when she died at 101).
Those arrangements were used just one more time—in 2013, when Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke at the age of 87. Her biographer and former party colleague, Jonathan Aitken, reported her family paid £100,000 to the royal courtier in charge of the plan, which included “coordination with the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Department of Defense, and the Metropolitan Police.” It was, he said, “a state funeral all but in name.” But in the world of The Crown, it is 1977, when Prince Charles (who was dating her older sister at the time) first met the 16-year-old Diana Spencer. That year, Mrs. T. was two years into her stint as Leader of the Opposition (a first for a woman) and two away from attaining the premiership. As P.M., she would be in the front row of St. Paul’s Cathedral, wearing a smart blue suit and pillbox hat, in July 1981, when Diana swept down the aisle, on the way to marry her prince. And if you don’t remember that dress—well, you’ll have to watch The Crown. Season four of The Crown premieres on Netflix on November 15. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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RISING STARS HARRY LAWTEY AND MYHA’LA HERROLD TALK WITH DELAINA DIXON ABOUT INDUSTRY, HBO’S NEW HIGH FINANCE DRAMA DEBUTING THIS MONTH
making bank Richard James velvet evening jacket, $1,195; sand-washed spun silk evening shirt, $445; and royal flannel trousers, $475. At richard-james.com
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STYLIST: ELLA-LOUISE GASKELL/STELLA CREATIVE ARTISTS. GROOMING: VICTORIA NUGENT
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARRY LIVINGSTONE
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Richard James Prince of Wales check bomber jacket, $1,095; and tobacco merino long-sleeved polo, $295. At richard-james.com NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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There’s no lack of bare skin and sex throughout the series.
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t the final casting session for Industry, the HBO series whose pilot was directed by Girls creator Lena Dunham, one staffer had a very unusual assignment. “Lena couldn’t be there, so there was a guy who had Lena on an iPad on Skype,” says Harry Lawtey, who stars in the new drama about young bankers. “His sole role for the day was to stand there and be Lena’s body, if you will. She was just sitting on a sofa in New York with her dog. It was very surreal.” Getting it done by any means necessary is apt for the new drama, which depicts the lives of young graduates competing for coveted positions at a fictional London investment bank. Industry also stars Myha’la Herrold, who plays Harper, an American making her way among the Brits. She’s crossed an ocean to face professional hurdles, along with experiencing culture shock, something this California native turned New Yorker can relate to. “My first stamp on my passport ever was when I went to test for this show,” she tells Avenue. Herrold uses the analogy of a well to describe her character’s ambition. “Groundwater, that’s like the purest and cleanest untouched source. There’s also mold, moss, critters, and things that crawl up. Harper’s kind of like that,” she says. “Once all of her raw talent, heart, ability, and passion come out into the world, it might be tainted.” Lawtey’s on-screen alter ego, Robert, is also struggling to define himself in the cutthroat environment of high finance. “He’s so excited about this new, fast world he’s entered. It’s something he’s probably dreamed about for a long time, maybe built himself an image of The Wolf of Wall Street,” Lawtey theorizes. “He’s very charismatic and confident, those are his main skill sets. And maybe he lags behind in some of the technical requirements of the job. But he’s going to power through that with charm alone.” Metaphorically, it’s a show about exposing yourself to get ahead. But it is also sometimes literal: There’s no lack of bare skin and sex throughout the series. One moment that stands out features Robert pleasuring an exuberant young lady in a club bathroom. 52
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Richard James forest royal flannel jacket, $1,095; and flame psychedelic printed shirt, $335. At richard-james.com NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Richard James rust dogtooth jacket, $1,095; bordeaux merino crewneck, $295; and drawstring trousers, $545. At richard-james.com. Harrys of London Terence F Oxford shoes, $595. At harrysoflondon.com
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“I’m a ‘free the nipple’ person.” MYHA’LA HERROLD
“I look at those scenes and go, ‘What does this tell us about the character that we don’t already know,’” says Lawtey, adding that his on-screen persona is “searching for a lot of validation, but Robert’s not able to see that he’s searching for it from completely the wrong people.” Focusing on the storytelling aspect rather
WORKING GIRL New York actress Myha’la Herrold plays a young American breaking into the world of British high finance.
than the scene’s blocking makes the whole physicality of the performance much easier as well, he says. Herrold is unfazed about baring it all. “I’m a ‘free the nipple’ person,” she says. And portraying the only African American woman vying for that top position isn’t a big deal either. “You’re seeing a story about this person in a bank who happens to be Black, which always colors every experience,” she says. “But they did a really excellent job of writing real specific characters and giving us the freedom to fill them with our own experiences.” Their characters might be rivals, but Lawtey and Herrold got chummy over the six months they spent shooting in Cardiff and London. “Mayha’la was definitely trying to perfect her British accent the whole time she was here. And she got pretty good in the end actually,” Lawtey says. “She’s just a real joy to be around. We gave her a bit of British slang along the way. Every now and then she’d say something and I’m like, ‘I think you’re British now.’ ” Well, almost British. “I started saying, ‘I can’t be asked.’ Everyone was too polite to correct me,” Herrold recalls. “But Harry was kind enough to let me know the phrase was ‘I can’t be arsed.’ Of course, after that, I couldn’t stop saying it.” Lawtey was also the one who introduced Herrold to her favorite spot in London. “I’m a sucker for shopping, so he took me to a fabulous open-air shopping mall, Coal Drops Yard, where I purchased one of my favorite pieces of clothing that I simply cannot live without, a black oversized linen dress with pockets. Needless to say, he won my heart.” Back in New York, Herrold has acclimated to pandemic life, perusing the socially distanced aisles at Union Market on East Houston in search of something interesting she can try in a new recipe. And like most New Yorkers, she’s looking forward to returning to a favorite haunt, DaleView Biscuits and Beer in Brooklyn. “When I first moved to New York, I lived in Flatbush and it was my favorite place to eat,” Herrold says. “Everything is gluten-free, which is amazing because I’m gluten-free, and beer and biscuits are two of my favorite things.” Industry, created and executive produced by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, will air on HBO beginning November 9. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Richard James forest royal flannel jacket, $1,095; made-to-order embroidered tobacco Swiss poplin shirt, price on request. Peacockfeather boutonniere, stylist’s own 56
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Richard James alpaca teddy-bear coat, $2,500; tobacco merino rollneck, $295; Prince of Wales check trousers, $565. At richard-james.com
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PLUTOCR ATIC FAMILY FEUDS, WHICH WOULD ONCE HAVE BEEN KEPT PRIVATE, NOW PL AY OUT AS MESSY PUBLIC SPECTACLES. SHINAN GOVANI CAN ’T LOOK AWAY ILLUSTRATIONS BY MIKE MCQUADE
Divide NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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the supermodel Karlie Kloss, appearing in a virtual campaign event for Joe Biden in September. In addition to hosting Bravo’s Project Runway, since 2018 the very recognizable Kloss has been married to businessman Josh Kushner— making White House advisors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner her in-laws. So her decision to stump for the Democratic presidential nominee elicited some attention. The event, focusing on education, constituted her most high-profile move yet to define her own personal political brand outside the family she married into. It was a striking example of how fissures within famous dynasties have become public like never before. The phenomenon has been spotlighted by the
EVEN THE YOUNG MURDOCHS PALE AS THE POSTER CHILDREN FOR SPLINTERING DYNASTIC FAMILIES WHEN COMPARED TO THE RUNAWAY DUKE AND DUCHESS OF SUSSEX.
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pervasiveness of social media—and instigated, very often, by socially conscious women inside those clans. Kloss and her husband’s political opposition to the Trump-Kushner axis has long made them an object of fascination. Addressing the rift in British Vogue, she said: “I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life.” Increasingly deft in using her platform, particularly on Instagram, the model went further still in the months leading up to the election, pleading for justice for Breonna Taylor—posting a photo of herself wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the face of the slain Black Lives Matter icon. Dr. Samantha Boardman, a psychiatrist who moves within some of these same circles, believes family divisions along political and social lines have been increasing in recent years. “I used to see it around the holidays,” she says of her practice. “Now, it is every virtual visit.” Partly, it is a symptom of our increasingly polarized political culture. But according to Boardman, it can also indicate a successful upbringing. “I take it as a good sign that the next generation has their own set of opinions and politics. It means you have been a good parent. Part of healthy adolescence and young adulthood is individuating—developing your own set of values and ideals, not being a carbon copy of one’s parents,” she says. “I know this can be hard for parents, but I believe this means they have done a good job in helping their child forge their own identity and find their own way.”
OPENING SPREAD: QUEEN ELIZABETH II/MONDADORI/GETTY IMAGES; DUKE AND DUCHESS OF SUSSEX/GARETH CATTERMOLE/GETTY IMAGES; MEGHAN, DUCHESS OF SUSSEX/ MAX MUMBY/INDIGO/GETTY IMAGES.
It was always going to raise eyebrows:
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IVANKA TRUMP/MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; JARED KUSHNER/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; KARLIE KLOSS AND JOSH KUSHNER/JACKSON LEE/GC IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES.
Very often, the split is highlighted in an adult child’s choice of spouse, which can reinforce their new identity. Take Kathryn Murdoch, who appears to have supported the decision by her husband, James—the younger son of media mogul Rupert—to resign from the board of the family business, News Corp, earlier this year. Something of a square peg in a round Fox hole, she has stood out for her environmental activism (including work done for the Clinton Foundation) and recently criticized Trump’s handling of Covid in an interview with CNBC. She seems a good match for James, who has long been a trust fund rebel without a cause. Jason Hirschhorn, a former classmate at the Horace Mann School, recalled him this way to the Financial Times: “His first day on the bus he had a shaved head and an earring. He was reading Catcher in the Rye and wearing Chuck Taylor sneakers.” Edgy. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Andrew Neil, a British editor who has been one of Murdoch Sr.’s key lieutenants, recently told another London newspaper of James: “He has always been a liberal and his wife and her friends are all incredibly woke, so that has encouraged them down that road.” Federal Election Commission records show that James and Kathryn Murdoch contributed more than $1.2 million to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising operation between the senator’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The couple even issued a statement criticizing Murdoch-controlled media in Australia for “denial” about climate change during the country’s catastrophic wildfires earlier this year. Where once such family divides would have remained shrouded from view, in 2020, the fights take place for all to see—on television, across social media, and sometimes inflamed by the factions’ dueling publicists. But even the young Murdochs pale as the poster children for splintering dynastic families when compared to their newly arrived West Coast counterparts, the runaway Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Having made her escape from royal drudgery, the erstwhile American actress is doubling
to the book Finding Freedom, was having to relinquish his numerous military titles, which included Honorary Air Force Commandant of the Royal Air Force Base Honington. When, and how, did Harry get “woke?” Victoria Arbiter (a royal commentator whose father, Dickie, was once the press spokesman to Her Majesty the Queen), has a view that may apply to the Windsors as much as any other entrenched and powerful family. “Inevitably, each generation is going to exhibit more enlightened views compared to those who’ve gone before, simply because they’re a reflection of our current society,” she tells Avenue. Harry, she says, “had a pretty well-rounded view of the world before meeting Meghan. Issues that might have been controversial 50 years ago won’t have been a big deal to him.” But it is not just Meghan, Kathryn, and Karlie agitating for change inside established families. The Mickey Mouse heiress, Abigail Disney, has given away about $70 million of her fortune to progressive causes, and has forsaken use of the family jet. She even used her platform last year to call out the enormous salary of Disney’s then CEO, Bob Iger. Not to mention the most infamous niece
“INEVITABLY, EACH GENERATION IS GOING TO EXHIBIT MORE ENLIGHTENED VIEWS COMPARED TO THOSE WHO’VE GONE BEFORE.” VICTORIA ARBITER, ROYAL COMMENTATOR
down on her own values—using platforms that include a recent blockbuster Netflix deal. In notable contrast to the House of Windsor’s studied impartiality, she has even been edging toward politics. In the months leading up to the election, Her Grace spoke about “change” (during an online voter drive, organized by the group When All Women Vote) without naming candidates, but making it clear nonetheless on which side she lands. A departure from protocol, for sure, but to what extent has Meghan been the driving force? While some observers argue that she only awakened something that was a part of Harry all along, others—especially in Britain—point out that preMeghan, Harry was one of the hardest-toiling royals. As recently as 2016, he completed 179 engagements, and took particular pride in his military service. Having completed two tours of Afghanistan, and risen to the rank of captain, the hardest part of leaving royal life behind, according
in America, psychologist Mary Trump, who sent the chattering classes into meltdown with her summer blockbuster, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Will Mary and Donald Trump find themselves sharing a bird this Thanksgiving? It seems unlikely, although Dr. Boardman, for one, still believes in using communication to overcome disagreements within families. “These days, we are increasingly isolated from people who don’t share our point of view,” she says. “The only people we are exposed to who disagree with our politics are often family members. Instead of becoming hostile, I ask patients to reframe the situation. Ask yourself, ‘What can I learn here?’ As the old saying goes, argue as though you’re right, but listen as though you’re wrong.” “Learning to talk across differences starts at home.” NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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PRÊTÀPARTY READY-TO-WEAR THAT ’S READY WHEN YOU ARE
STYLED BY MIMI LOMBARDO
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MEAGAN MORRISON
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Mull the holiday season in an orange Carolina Herrera strapless minidress, $2,990; available upon request at carolinaherrera.com.
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Jingle all the way in Chopard’s Haute Joaillerie Collection orchid earrings with white ceramic petals, Ethiopian opals, tsavorites, pink sapphires, and diamonds set in 18k white gold. Price upon request; at Chopard boutiques or chopard.com/us; and James Ganh x Fabergé white gold, diamond, and carved turquoise ring, $13,500; by appointment at Fabergé, 579 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1118, 646-559-8848. 66
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Light up the dance floor like a Christmas tree in Gucci “Double G” sandals, $950; at select Gucci stores nationwide. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Huddle around the Yule log in jeweled Roger Vivier RV slingbacks, $1,200; 750 Madison Avenue, 212-861-5371. 68
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Only a Scrooge would say “Bag! Humbug!” to a Bottega Veneta leather carryall. Price upon request; at Bottega Veneta, 740 Madison Avenue, 212-371-5511.
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Wives’ THAT RING ON YOUR FINGER DOESN ’T MEAN YOU CAN REL AX. LIS A MARSH ON HOW TO SPOT—AND THWART— THE WOMEN COMING FOR YOUR HUSBAND
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t was a thoroughly modern fairy tale—the brainy blonde marrying the billionaire, becoming wife number four. With two young boys and homes at 740 Park Avenue, in Southampton, and in Sun Valley, they seemed to be living happily ever. Until the next partner showed up. Even at a social distance, the pending divorce between Charles P. Stevenson Jr. and Alex Kuczynski has been the talk of the town. The New York Post reported he “blindsided” her with papers six days before Christmas. Kuczynski herself had disclosed the couple were in marriage counseling (in a 2019 book review she wrote for the New York Times), suggesting hopes for reconciliation.
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But when a third party entered the picture, divorce papers followed. A source told the Post that Stevenson is now keeping company with his new flame, a “family friend,” at the isolated (and luxurious) Middle Fork Lodge in the wilderness of Idaho. But while this story is still unfolding, it’s far from new. (Attorneys for neither Stevenson nor Kuczynski answered requests for comment.) The Next Wife is a well-known character around Palm Beach, the Hamptons, and the Upper East Side. She (or he) is an attractive free agent looking for what you’ve got: specifically, your partner. “Here’s the golden rule of relationships everywhere: he who has the gold rules,” explains Wednesday Martin, PhD, who has observed the populace of Manhattan’s Upper East Side from an anthropological perspective for her book, Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir. That environment, she says, is ideal for a Next Wife on the prowl. “On the Upper East Side, there are two women of reproductive age for every one man. This makes men on the UES what field biologists called ‘the limiting sex’ and gives them a lot of power. They get to be choosy. They are the prize,” she says. Such a dynamic brings gender inequality into stark relief. And the privileged lifestyle makes it easy for a Next Wife to move in on men of means, says Paul Wilmot, a retired publicist and manabout-town who was himself a third husband to the late heiress Mollie Wilmot. “This type of guy is on his own a lot of the time,” he says—whether in the city during the summer while the family is in the country, or out at business dinners that the wife, busy with kids, schools, and her life, can’t be bothered to attend. “Once he’s been married a long time, he’s not the same guy as he was before,” Wilmot adds, and neither is his wife the same woman. DR. WEDNESDAY MARTIN Look at the relationship that rocked the real estate and art worlds. Out of nowhere, Harry Macklowe, 83, took up with Next Wife Patricia Landeau, 66, after being married to wife Linda Macklowe, 82, for more than 50 years. If he were younger, conventional wisdom would scream “midlife crisis,” Wilmot says, “but what is this?”
“WOMEN HAVE EVOLVED AS EXTREMELY CANNY SEXUAL AND SOCIAL STRATEGISTS. IT’S ONE OF THE REASONS WE’RE HERE AS A SPECIES.”
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“ON THE UPPER EAST SIDE, THERE ARE TWO WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE FOR EVERY ONE MAN…[SO] THEY GET TO BE CHOOSY. THEY ARE THE PRIZE.”
Who to Watch Out For
DR. WEDNESDAY MARTIN
The Friend The flirtation started in 1986, when Mercedes Kellogg lobbed a dinner roll across a ballroom at oil heir Sid Bass. It didn’t seem to matter that at the time, he was married to her friend Anne Bass, and she to Ambassador Francis Kellogg. The couple ran off to Paris, returning to divorce their respective spouses and marry in 1988.
MIA FARROW, KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY IMAGES; MARLA MAPLES, CATHERINE MCGANN/GETTY IMAGES
The Assistant In retrospect, Bass should have seen her replacement coming, since Kellogg had worked the same modus operandi before. She met her first husband while working as an assistant at the UN in Switzerland, when Ambassador Kellogg was married to heiress Fernanda Munn. Mercedes followed him from Lausanne to New York, and they married soon after his divorce. Macklowe, whom the Post says fell asleep on one of his first dates with Landeau, handed over a portion of his reported $2 billion fortune (which included a $700 million art collection) with Linda to be with the French businesswoman. To celebrate his new boo, he had a 42-foot banner photo of them both hung on 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential building in New York, which he built. The New York Times called the move a “taunt.” Landeau, president of the French Friends of the Israel Museum and a former fashion executive, is among the new breed of Next Wife who is far more than just a pretty face. She’s often someone who comes to the relationship with something different than the incumbent she unseats—a career, a business, or simply the idea for a business that needs to be funded. Not all unions, however, take place between equals. And when social climbing is part of the equation, some Next Wives have to get creative with their tactics—like playing to the ego of their target. One uptown woman who has brought about two divorces explains how she snagged her first husband, an entertainment executive. “I made him feel like he was the center of my world and I became indispensable,” she says. “I introduced him to my crowd—people who could help him or were interesting.” She adds, “I don’t think his (now ex-) wife ever did anything to help him professionally but add her family members to the payroll. I actually made an introduction that resulted in a big deal for him.” “And I expected things in return—especially invitations to prominent events as his date, letting everyone know I was the important one, not his wife. And, you know, jewelry, first-class or private
travel, clothes, trinkets to accumulate. That sent the message that I was serious.” As Jennifer Aniston may have thought when she first saw Angelina Jolie: “Yikes.” So, if a Next Wife is coming for your husband, what can you do to fend her off ? The answer: take control of the situation. “There’s an old saying—nobody ever left anybody out of a warm bed,” Wilmot says, urging vulnerable spouses to step up their vigilance. “When you stop communicating and stop appreciating each other, of course someone can come in.” Short of hiring a private detective to tail your husband’s every move, there are a few signs to be on the lookout for. These may include new hobbies or workout regimes he suddenly becomes devoted to (a SoulCycle or barre instructor is quite a catch), new friends you don’t know (and he doesn’t introduce you to), or simply a lack of interest in physical intimacy. Martin, whose current book is Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free, says more drastic measures are called for: ask for an open marriage. She argues: “We know that other mateguarding strategies commonly used by women on the Upper East Side tend not to work. If your husband is having sex with someone new, why shouldn’t you be able to as well? “For some husbands, being with a woman on the DL might be a lot less erotic and interesting if it were permitted. They might also find their wife a lot more interesting if she too was having sex with a new partner.” Martin adds: “Women have evolved as extremely canny sexual and social strategists. It’s one of the reasons we’re here as a species.”
The Ingenue Mia Farrow’s first husband, Frank Sinatra, was 50 to her 21. After their divorce, she took up with the married composer André Previn, who, at 41 to her 25, was much closer in age. Still, it was messy—she gave birth to their twins in February 1970, before his divorce was finalized. His jilted exwife, songwriter Dory Previn, commemorated the betrayal in her song “Beware of Young Girls.” The Daughter Mia Farrow should have listened to Dory Previn. While comfortable in her decade-long relationship with filmmaker Woody Allen, Farrow discovered that her daughter Soon-Yi Previn, 21, was having an affair with him, age 56. Farrow broke off with Allen, who married Previn five years later in 1997. The Model They met, improbably, at Marble Collegiate Church. She called out his wife publicly on the ski slopes of Aspen and (again improbably) proclaimed their relationship included “the best sex I’ve ever had.” Marla Maples’s break-up of the marriage of Ivana and Donald Trump was made for the tabloids— and fed them for months. The Journalist It can behoove a journalist and subject to charm each other. But after the Harvard Business Review’s Suzy Wetlaufer interviewed retired GE CEO Jack Welch in 2001, they charmed each other right into bed. It cost him a hefty divorce settlement (with then wife Jane Beasley, who was herself trysting with a friend’s chauffeur) and Wetlaufer her job. Still, they married happily in 2004 and remained so until his death in March. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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IT’S A NEW WORLD OF “NOUVEAU FEUDALISM” FOR THE ELITES (AND THEIR STAFF) SEQUESTERING FROM MODERN THREATS. BRANDON PRESSER REPORTS FROM INSIDE THE BUBBLE ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOEY YU
Gated Family The
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owboys and Indians,” Madeleine Pickens responds with a girlish inflection, as though she’s ready to bring down a trunk of Stetson hats and feathered headdresses from her attic. It’s why she moved to the United States 50 years ago: “I’ve always dreamed of life on the frontier.” Born in the Middle East to British expat parents and raised in boarding schools in the UK, Pickens’s pioneering spirit had her serving moist towelettes and cigarettes on Pan Am flights before starting her own business staffing private jets with elite crews. Today, she lives in Southern California (Bill and Melinda Gates bought her former oceanfront home for $43 million earlier this year) and counts both aviation magnate Allen Paulson and hedge fund tycoon T. Boone Pickens as ex-husbands. Like Pickens, countless legions of Europeans have, over the centuries, heeded the call of the Wild West to manifest their destiny—a byword for what would later be rebranded as the American Dream. But along with their gold-digging trowels, these adventurists also carried with them the very European propensity to separate the haves from the have-nots. The dukes and earls of the old world found their equivalents in the magnates and tycoons of a modern nation where money—not family—formed its aristocracy. Social stratification is as old as the Pyramids, of course. But it was perhaps starkest during the Middle Ages, when lords and ladies of the manor ruled over serfs who worked their land until the Black Death swept through Europe, breaking the yoke of cloistered servitude. Ironically, it’s another pandemic that’s reviving this way of life once
again. In today’s nouveau feudalism, elites are gathering their staff and themselves safely behind the high walls of their fourth homes to keep themselves removed from modern threats. Pickens would know—she owns Del Mar Country Club, a grassy enclave that sprawls across one of America’s most affluent zip codes, close to San Diego. For the first time since the Great Recession, membership is noticeably up. Pickens used to be wistful when she’d reminisce about life at the club before 2008—the same twinges of longing when she imagines her frontier fantasies: the over-the-top galas, lavish weddings, and other such showboating of limitless wealth. But now, despite the Covid-related closure of the clubhouse, card carriers are once again lined up at the gates, clamoring to get in for brunch on the patio.
“Having everything— a restaurant, fitness center, movie theatre, medical care, and round-the-clock cleaning— at your fingertips is gold.” JULIE DANZIGER, EMBARK BEYOND MANAGING PARTNER
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Further up the coast in Los Angeles, famed hotelier André Balazs announced this summer that he would turn Chateau Marmont into a completely private venue, with an eye on expanding into international markets like London, Paris, and Tokyo in the near future. Sure, VIP lists have kept the plebs outside of its velvet rope for years, but Covid has been the propellant to formalize the members-only experience as clientele now require safety just as much as they do privacy. The property’s top 100 guests generate the majority of its profits, so by knowing outright who the most valued patrons are, staff can more swiftly ensure their care. A private club may solve the recent quandary of where businessmen can execute their midday meals-and-deals. But what about the location
dilemma for today’s “ladies who lunch”—now “ladies who crunch”… their abdominals? “I would say it was some time in the last two years that I started getting invited to Pilates classes rather than cocktail parties,” says Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director at Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand. Green juices and SoulCycle sweat sessions have replaced dirty martinis and lobster Cobbs. “Wellness is the perfect outlet for those who have plenty of time and ample money,” Godfrey-June notes, but unlike the hospitality business (where well-heeled diners can hopscotch between cordoned-off venues), fitness studios remain virus hot zones, which has forced the industry into the homes of its constituents— all of whom have been busily turning their extra bedrooms into spas and gyms with the same zeal as executives setting up home offices. Since the pandemic started, Peloton’s sales jumped 66 percent in its third fiscal quarter, Lululemon’s online business leaped 70 percent in the
early summer, and Goop can’t keep its products stocked on their virtual shelves—infrared sauna blankets ($500) and gemstone heat therapy mats ($1,050) are selling out faster than a Taylor Swift concert once did. “And our beauty products, too,” Godfrey-June adds. “Women can’t get their usual facials or treatments, so they’re finding do-it-yourself substitutes instead.” She recommends the Jillian Dempsey Gold Sculpting Bar (practically free at $195), which helps keep the face firm when your dermatologist’s arsenal of injectables aren’t at your disposal. While the lion’s share of high-net-worth individuals are working and welling from home (yes, it’s a verb now), there’s a subset of society that’s found a more unconventional way to pull life’s trappings into their quarantine bubble: five-star hotels. “There are challenges with stand-alone villas and summer homes that hotels can easily solve,” explains Julie Danziger, a managing partner of EMBARK Beyond, a luxury travel planning service based in New York City. After sending her clients on lavish summer getaways, they all
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The haut monde has quickly adapted to the gated life by throwing gobs of money at each problem as they arise—dining, wellness health, travel, and even education.
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Raise the Drawbridge
Resources for avoiding the pandemic in style
“It’s all about golf. You’re outside in your pod of four or six and you can talk distantly as you walk between each hole.” MADELEINE PICKENS, DEL MAR COUNTRY CLUB OWNER
came back in the fall wanting more. “Having everything—a restaurant, fitness center, movie theater, medical care, and round-the-clock cleaning—at your fingertips is gold,” Danziger says, “and resorts are adhering to the strictest sanitary guidelines in an attempt to garner guests.” Transforming full-service properties into souped-up gated communities has become such a fruitful endeavor for Danziger that’s she developed a special department—EMBARK Longer—to vet the surplus of long-stay requests. Dozens of hotels around the US and Caribbean are reporting threeto six-month stays, and most of the 63 rooms upstairs at the Chateau Marmont have been taken over by full-time guests who feel much safer on property than they do down the street in their own, fully staffed homes. Whether sequestered at their weekend retreat, or hidden away at the Chateau, the haut monde has quickly adapted to the gated life by throwing gobs of money at each problem as they arise— dining, wellness, health, travel, and even education. There’s just one conundrum that has yet to be adequately resolved: how do you put the “social” back in “socialite” when we’re all relegated to Zoom?
Pickens believes she’s found the answer. “It’s all about golf. You’re outside in your pod of four or six and you can talk distantly as you walk between each hole.” Interest in the sport may have been flagging before the pandemic, but Pickens ardently asserts that Covid has minted a new generation of enthusiasts who are now out on the greens and fairways, putting with their fathers—“it’s almost impossible to get a tee-off time at Del Mar,” she adds. “The summer has really been a boon to our community,” agrees Godfrey-June. “We’ve just taken our network outside.” Now, with the colder months upon us—as we coop ourselves back up in our gilded cages— Pickens is ready with another solution: the keys to Mustang Monument, her very own fiefdom in the high desert of northeast Nevada measuring 900 square miles, almost the size of Rhode Island. She purchased the land in 2010 in a bid to help save a thousand wild horses from slaughter, then conceived of an eco-lodge to help defray its maintenance costs. As Covid continues on, Pickens is leasing out her property wholesale to interested renters: you know, in case you want to live your dreams of frontier life too.
DINING Like Balazs and his collection of hallowed hangouts, legendary London members-only club Annabel’s is also primed to take over the world, making landfall on US soil at the end of the year with the opening of Oswald’s—named for owner Robin Birley’s grandfather—on New York’s Upper East Side. TRAVEL Exclusive Resorts is a club without a clubhouse: a private travel service that offers its 4,000 member families access to the largest privately owned portfolio of villas in the world, with more than 400 vacation homes worldwide. Despite travel restrictions and economic decline, the service saw a 540 percent increase in sales this April. After the $100,000 initiation fee for a ten-year membership, each holiday night costs $1,395 for any property in the collection. TRANSPORTATION The CARES Act suspended the federal excise tax on domestic flights, both commercial and private, chopping 7.5 percent off rates; low fuel costs and the need to keep pilots of grounded business planes licensed are also contributing factors to noticeable the dip in pricing. Call luxury planner Meredith Broder to skip the major airports and commute—or travel— around the country using crowd-free FBOs (fixed-base operators). WELLNESS Build your own spa with Goop’s curated items, like a Theragun, which approximates a masseuse’s hands as it unclenches muscles. Then, upgrade your home gym with Peloton’s new, top-of-the-line Bike+ or get a Mirror— recently acquired by Lululemon for $500 million—which streams live Pilates, barre, and yoga classes, if you’ve grown tired of FaceTiming with your personal trainer. MEDICINE Concierge health services like Forward or One Medical offer unlimited access to privatized care and may put you at the front of the line when a Covid-19 vaccine is released. Or, for $30,000 a year per adult, join the invite-only Private Medical, which, sources tell us, caters to only 800 families with its elite care. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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LIVING
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Miss En Scène
SIMON UPTON
AERIN LAUDER’S NEW BOOK, ENTERTAINING BEAUTIFULLY, SHOWCASES THE HOME DESIGNER’S CAPTIVATING STYLE. ON A VISIT TO THE GORGEOUS ESTATE SHE INHERITED FROM HER GRANDMOTHER, WENDY MOONAN SWOONS JUST A LITTLE
CANDLELIT WINNER Aerin Lauder lights candles for a small dinner for four in the foyer of her New York apartment, on the walls of which hang an 18th-century Beauvais tapestry. “Soon after we moved in, I found this tapestry and decided it would make a dramatic yet warm backdrop for the space,” she says in Entertaining Beautifully. “Perhaps it reminded me of my grandmother’s opulent New York City townhouse.”
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he Lauder family is known to be closely knit, at work, at play, and at home. In fact, asked about lockdown during COVID-19, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer says she continues to work remotely, and although she misses being able to travel, she is philosophical. “With the bad, you get the good,” she says, speaking one recent morning at the family home on the East End of Long Island she shares with her husband, Eric Zinterhofer, an investment banker, and their sons Will and Jack, 20 and soon to be 21, respectively. “It was special to be home with my two boys so much before they went off to college; dropping them off at the Wharton business school in late August was bittersweet. And I got to spend a lot of time with my father”—Ronald Lauder, chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies and president of the World Jewish Congress—“who is normally traveling all the time.” NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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s we learn in Aerin’s new lifestyle book, Entertaining Beautifully, in which she shares her personal thoughts about hosting and which encompasses more than twenty celebrations, the Lauder family famously celebrates holidays together, including the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas. In a normal year, she says, “We have Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house in the Hamptons, usually 60 or 70 people, including my sister Jane, the parentsin-law, and all the children.” This year? Probably not. “I think that it’s very important to still celebrate the holidays, even during this unique time,” she says. “The holiday season has always been filled with family, nostalgia, and wonderful memories, which will not change this year. I plan to decorate my home and spend quality time with the people who are most special to me. I’m looking forward to my favorite classic comfort foods and entertaining at home in a new way. “Entertaining doesn’t always have to be a large, formal gathering,” she adds. “Hosting a smaller group in an intimate setting can be just as meaningful.” We are seated in the pool house of the Greek Revival, Tara-style Hamptons mansion not far from Georgica Pond she inherited from her grandmother, Estée Lauder. Beautifully dressed in a chiffon print blouse, wearing gold jewelry and gold sandals from her own line, Aerin, 50, is poised, unpretentious, and candid. “Living in her house has been so comforting during lockdown,” she tells me. “Using her plates and silverware, I feel her presence.” The design of the pool house was adapted from a Slim Aarons photo of Babe Paley leaning on a pillar of her pool house in Jamaica. “That simple, elegant structure, open on two sides, was the inspiration.” Apart from a few 82
floral throw pillows, everything is white: walls, floor, ceiling, coffee table, garden seats, the canvas upholstery on the rattan seating, even the coral chandelier. The decor is pristine and calming. (“I hate clutter,” she confesses.) On the coffee table she has proudly arranged some of her products: faux-shagreen boxes, fragrance candles, flower vases, and an elegant woven raffia tray from a line that she has fabricated in Italy. They are, like her, traditional, chic, and well-mannered, not trendy nor cutting edge. These are pieces that won’t go out of style. This year, despite the pandemic, Aerin plans to participate in another beloved Hamptons family ritual she details in Entertaining Beautifully: a casual lunch the day after Thanksgiving with her mother, Jo Carole Lauder, and father. Her mother hosts the lunch in a rustic, centuries-old log cabin that was moved to their property from Virginia. “It is furnished with primitive Austrian wood furniture and filled with charm and history that transports us back to another era,” Aerin says. Her father served as U.S. ambassador to Austria in the late 1980s, when she was a junior in high school, and she has fond memories of Vienna. The atmosphere of the cozy cabin interior is gemütlich (for those without a Berlitz handy: “pleasant and cheerful”). A small antique Austrian trestle table is surrounded by simple Tyrolean country chairs with heart cutouts in their backs. The table is set with folkloric dishes, monogrammed redand-white gingham napkins, horn-handled flatware, and pots of red geraniums. “My mother has long collected a type of hand-painted earthenware pottery made in Austria,” she explains. “These ceramics have been made in the town of Gmunden, on the shores of Lake Traunsee, since the 1400s. The whimsical, green-and-white-striped and looped dizzy patterns, as well as the leaping green deer, are my favorites.
SIMON UPTON
FIRESIDE CHATS The library in Aerin Lauder’s Upper East Side home is the preferred spot for the Christmas tree and a place where she likes to entertain throughout the holiday season.
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ESTÉE LAUDER/FRED MAROON; FAMILY PHOTO/COURTESY OF AERIN LAUDER; LAUDER FAMILY PALM BEACH, 1972/ELIZABETH KUHNE; WEDDING PHOTO/COURTESY OF AERIN LAUDER
“THE HOLIDAY SEASON HAS ALWAYS BEEN FILLED WITH FAMILY, NOSTALGIA, AND WONDERFUL MEMORIES, WHICH WILL NOT CHANGE THIS YEAR.” AERIN LAUDER
FAMILY MATTERS Clockwise, from above: the Lauder family gathered at Estée Lauder’s home in Palm Beach in 1972; Estée at her formally set table in Palm Beach, where she spent her winters; Aerin on a ski holiday with her two sons; a young Aerin with her sister, Jane, and their parents, Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder, and grandparents Estée and Joseph Lauder, at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris; Aerin and her husband, Eric Zinterhofer, following their marriage ceremony in 1996. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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LIVING
“WHEN I WAS 15, ESTÉE TOOK ME TO PARIS TO SEE THE FASHION SHOWS. I WAS RIVETED.” AERIN LAUDER
“After the elaborate Thanksgiving feast, this simple, bucolic meal with turkey leftovers is an ideal antidote,” she continues. “It can be just as creative—if not more so—to entertain in a rustic, bare-bones space as an elegant, luxurious one.” Growing up with such stylish parents, is it any wonder that this Upper East Side entrepreneur has become the face of her own lifestyle brand, along with her own makeup and fragrance lines? After working for 25 years (since interning at college) at the Estée Lauder company, where she still retains the title of style and image director, in 2012 she launched AERIN, her own beauty, home, and luxury lifestyle label, where she serves as creative director. “The whole brand is about surprise and delight,” she says. Her elegant boutiques in East Hampton, Southampton, and Palm Beach showcase her creations as well as those of friends, including a line of dresses by Amanda Ross, a former Harper’s 84
Bazaar editor. “Fashion has always been part of my life,” says Aerin, who was regularly featured in the glossies, pre-COVID, at parties wearing Oscar de la Renta, Derek Lam, Stella McCartney, and Michael Kors. “When I was 15, Estée took me to Paris to see the fashion shows. I was riveted.” Inspired by her grandmother, Aerin is a hard worker, like her fellow Park Avenue women entrepreneurs Tory Burch, Cristina Cuomo, and Lauren Santo Domingo. “We are all in different businesses, but I love strong women.” Asked about her schedule, she says, “I am definitely an early riser; I don’t sleep very much. The first thing I do when I wake up is take the dogs out. If I’m working out, I prefer to do that in the morning as well, before I start my day. I love Pilates and going for walks outdoors. I like to go alone; I get my best work ideas when walking.” On weekday mornings she can be found walking her dogs in Central Park, not far from the family home on the Upper East Side.
Her work day? “After having a cup of coffee and getting dressed, I spend my day on calls or in different meetings. No two days are ever the same, which is one of the reasons why I love what I do. I am very hands-on. “Sometimes after work I meet up with friends like Lauren duPont and Samantha Boardman, since I find old friends are the people you depend on,” she continues. “Then, after a busy day, my favorite thing is to have dinner with my family. It helps me unwind, disconnect from work, and reconnect with the people I love most.” She proudly points out that Estée went to work every day until she was in her mid-eighties. It is easy to imagine Aerin Lauder doing the same. She shares a favorite saying of her grandmother’s with me: “There is no such thing as an ugly bride, only a lazy one.” In other words, if you try, you can be beautiful and have a beautiful life. She will show you how. Entertaining Beautifully is published by Rizzoli.
SIMON UPTON
CABIN FEVER The centuries-old log cabin Aerin’s parents had moved from Virginia to their property in the Hamptons is the setting for a beloved Lauder family ritual, a casual lunch the day after Thanksgiving. The antique sled table and Tyrolean chairs from Austria add to the rustic air. Opposite: Aerin at home on the Upper East Side.
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SIMON UPTON
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ART FEAST THERE’S NO BET TER TIME TO ENJOY AMERICA’S RICH VARIET Y OF CULINARY TR ADITIONS THAN DURING THE HOLIDAY S. ABBYE CHURCHILL DIGS IN
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LIVING
46 MILLION TURKEYS WILL BE EATEN IN THIS COUNTRY FOR THANKSGIVING ALONE.
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ure, the holidays are when we come together with loved ones. Yes, they are the times when we practice gratitude for all that we have. And, true, there’s gilding the home, reuniting with family, and all that, too. But, above all else, the holiday season means one thing: a feast. Growing up, our holiday meals were defined by the glorious, glowing bird. Roasted to golden perfection, glistening and lacquered from hours slow roasting and basting in the oven, and served alongside its juices simmered and thickened into a hearty gravy, the holiday bird has always been the focal point of the holiday meal. Achieving that perfect, glistening brown takes some doing—and seasoned cooks will have a
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wide variety of opinions on just how to achieve it. Some chefs pledge that leaving the bird out on the counter for hours to warm to room temperature before roasting allows the bones to better hold heat and roast from the inside out. Other cooks are devoted to letting their bird soak for a full day in closely guarded family recipes for brine to make the meat luscious, juicy, and fall-off-the-bone tender. Others swear by massaging the bird with salt and cream the night before. Yet dissenters insist that it is only ever about the basting—the constant, loving application of butter, butter, and more butter while
the meat slowly cooks to absorb all that liquid gold and those aromatic herbs until it has reached holiday nirvana. In our home, preparing the Thanksgiving turkey or New Year’s roast always begins early in the morning, alongside the last scrapes of dishes from the breakfast crowd of those fortunate enough to have slept in. We prepare a compound butter with sage, rosemary, and sea salt and slather it liberally across the bird. Some brave turkey masters insist on lathering their bird between its skin and meat, being careful not to wholly sever the connective tissues while they do—but we’ve always been a more modest over-the-skin-only household. After this buttery coating is applied, we rest it on top of a bed of mirepoix, liberally flood the pan with a bottle of good white wine and some stock, and pop it into the oven with our best wishes for a perfect outcome, while enlisting a rotating team of family members with basting duties. The holiday meal centerpiece—like the American table on which it is served—can contain multitudes. The seldom eaten parts of the turkey, secretly thought to be too gross for polite company, are often old-world delicacies. At holiday feasts all throughout my childhood, the neck of the turkey was the first item from the cooked bird to emerge from the kitchen. It was served for one man—my grandfather, the venerated patriarch of the family, whose tastes required this special preparation exclusively for him. At other households, it might be the gizzards, which I’m told (by braver feasters
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REPRINTED FROM WHERE COOKING BEGINS: UNCOMPLICATED RECIPES TO MAKE YOU A GREAT COOK. COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY CARLA LALLI MUSIC. PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT © 2019 GENTL AND HYERS. PUBLISHED BY CLARKSON POTTER, AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, LLC.
STUFFINGS, GRAVIES, SALSAS, SAUCES, AND CRANBERRY COMPOTES INSPIRE A DIVERSITY OF RECIPES AS VARIOUS AS THE PERSONALITIES WHO COOK THEM.
than I) are decadent and delicious when prepared as confit. Part of the joy of the family feast is to watch these divergent pathways of intergenerational tastes simultaneously at work. Elders and immigrants who, when they were children, were fed tripe, liver, or, in coastal northern locales, pungent fish like anchovies or fried smelts can find their prestige treats served up special, owing to the kindness of the holiday season, as well as their progeny. If it isn’t a holiday without a bird at your table, you’re not alone. In the American household around the holidays, odds are the centerpiece is roasted fowl: 46 million turkeys will be eaten in this country for Thanksgiving alone. But our country is vast and diverse, and so are our traditions. More likely than not, if it isn’t turkey, then it’s ham. In the South, you’ll find it glazed with mustard and brown sugar, garnished with cherries or pineapple, perhaps even studded with cloves. Americans in the South and across the nation make it a tradition to serve candied yams and black-eyed peas over the holidays; the legume is thought to represent good luck, and can be served along with pork and spicy jambalaya, or prepared with creamy rice gravy and greens as hoppin’ John. For many Americans, the holiday spread would not be complete without tamales as a key component of the feast, with beef, pork, or chicken surrounded by a layer of tender cornmeal and steamed in a corn husk, along with buñuelos, traditional Mexican fried yeast doughnuts laced with cinnamon and sugar, and sometimes flavored with sweet anise. For others, the sight of piping hot latkes being cooled by a dollop of sour cream conveys the holiday table, while in many other households the holiday centerpiece might be a crown roast of lamb, fragrant with nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, garlic, and rosemary, served over savory rice with pine nuts.
At a Greek-American family table, you might find stuffed grape leaves, deep green pillows stuffed with rice, herbs, or sometimes minced meat, topped with a traditional delicious egg-lemon avgolemono sauce. Or, for many households harboring connections (culinary or otherwise) to the British Isles, the feast’s focal point might be a beef Wellington, that classic savory and luxurious dish combining tender fillet of beef with goose liver pâté or a rich duxelles of mushrooms, all of it engulfed in flaky pastry. The holiday feast is not only an occasion to serve up the most delectable dishes, but also the ones that showcase the culinary traditions from among a panoply of American cultural heritages. Arguably, however, what makes the feast worthy of its name is the eclectic array of side dishes that fill the table with color and provide a harmonious assortment of flavors. Think of the way roast vegetables showcase transformative texture—how the humble and stonelike potato is elevated to the airy, velvety creami-
ness of a holiday mash. Or how the green leek, crunchy and verdant, becomes translucently layered on a savory leek tart, or lends invisible onion aromatics to a winter leek soup. Consider, too, how Brussels sprouts spring upward from their cabbagey peasant lineage and become tender pockets of earthiness when they’re halved, seared, and roasted with sage and pancetta. My favorite side dish, however, has always been potatoes Anna, which are really thinly sliced potatoes layered in a cast-iron skillet, brushed generously with a coating of butter atop each layer, crisped to golden brown, then baked. The result is a soft, biscuit-like dish you cut like a pie—a singular slice of heaven. Stuffings, gravies, salsas, sauces, and cranberry compotes inspire a diversity of recipes as various as the personalities who cook them. In the running narrative of a family’s holiday traditions, these accoutrements can inspire not just philosophies, but entire family feuds: Does the ideal gravy incorporate flour, for a thicker and richer NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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topping? Does a savory sage and sausage stuffing made with challah bread threaten to upstage the meat it stuffs? If a cranberry sauce features intact cranberries along with clove-laced chunks of orange and apple, is that more of a cranberry relish? Questions—and strongly held opinions—abound. However, such matters of opinion and dispute are in fact literally baked into our American traditions. Pies, not cakes, frequent the holiday dessert table—a tradition started when early American colonists outlawed the celebration of Christmas. Instead, they imported the English tradition of savory pie making into the harvest festival, incorporating North American vegetables like squash, sweet potatoes, and the now ubiquitous pumpkin. While the generous dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream is certainly a more modern advancement, the pumpkin or sweet potato pie dessert tradition is as American as, well, apple pie. The magic of the holiday feast is in the past coming to greet us in the present. Preparing the holiday meal gives us a chance to connect with 90
our traditions and to follow our family recipes. For as contentious or kept-secret as they may be, they are ours. We will carry them with us year over year, from one generation to the next, until questions like Is it a relish? or Do we brine our turkeys? or Is applesauce or sour cream a better latke partner? are no longer up for debate, but simply part of our family traditions: steadfast, delicious, and served at a table all our own. And, as an added bonus, the holiday feast often generates enough leftovers to keep us fed and happy for days after the big meal—which can inspire its own set of traditions. Here’s one our
family has recently taken up: The New Year’s Eve feast, which might feature smoked or poached salmon or a holiday roast, baked potatoes, or fresh-from-the-oven rolls, can find new life the morning after. As your hungry (and hungover) guests rouse from all corners of your home, greet them with leftovers transformed: last night’s salmon in their omelets and potatoes re-crisped into a salty breakfast hash, all served alongside a day-old roll, buttered and toasted on a griddle. It’s as fine a way as any to begin the new year, and usher in another year of new traditions yet to be discovered.
REPRINTED FROM BUVETTE: THE PLEASURE OF GOOD FOOD BY JODY WILLIAMS
AS AN ADDED BONUS, THE HOLIDAY FEAST OFTEN GENERATES ENOUGH LEFTOVERS TO KEEP US FED AND HAPPY FOR DAYS AFTER THE BIG MEAL.
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Holiday In
GUTTER CREDITS TKTKTKTKTKTKTKTK;
BRONSON VAN WYCK: STEPHEN KARLISCH/MEGAN CONNOLLY COMMUNICATIONS
THE BIG PARTY TREND THIS HOLIDAY SEASON? SMALL IS HUGE. MELISSA FELDMAN KNOWS EXACTLY WHO CAN HELP YOU THROW A CHIC, RESPONSIBLE GET-TOGETHER, FROM THANKSGIVING TO NEW YEAR’S EVE
T CHRISTMAS STAR Mood creator and holiday decorating maestro Bronson van Wyck.
he holiday months are typically a time of parties and dinners with family and friends, with homes decked, champagne and canapés flowing, and general merriment. This year “less is more” is the new mantra for entertaining, and that goes for guests as well as what’s served. While shoulder-to-shoulder tables were popular pre-pandemic, more intimate get-togethers are now the preferred model. The city’s top event planners, decorators, chefs, and caterers are adapting their work accordingly, downsizing on scale without diminishing their vision.
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B Floral Known for its ultra-sleek aesthetic, B Floral also offers unique bouquets for clients that broadcast the holiday season without going overboard. Their rule of thumb: Keep the overall aesthetic monochromatic and streamlined, while showcasing metallic flourishes and shades of blue. An alternative signature option includes an understated winter white floral arrangement that doesn’t clash with existing decor. bfloral.com Mieke ten Have Stylist Mieke ten Have has spent the past decade collaborating on interior photography for shelter publications including Architectural Digest and Elle Decor. Lately, she has channeled her passion into a new enterprise, providing holiday tablescapes for private clients who require a personal touch. With a secret stash of vintage dishes manufactured by Tiffany, Wedgwood, and the late Parisian decorator Alfred Pinto, she plans to deck the halls and create custom table settings adorned with flowers, china, silver, and crystal for intimate seated dinners of ten to twelve. mieketenhave.com
Bronson van Wyck, Van Wyck & Van Wyck ↑ Bronson van Wyck knows exactly who has been naughty and who has been nice: His eponymous firm Van Wyck & Van Wyck has masterminded multimedia environments for presidents, rappers, and socialites on the Upper East Side, among others. This year he is conjuring nostalgic themes of Christmases past for his client’s soirees. With motifs that include pine cones, yards of tartan ribbon, antlers in resin and gilded finishes, and plenty of glitter, a gay old time is guaranteed. vanwyck.net Erin Swift, Holiday Workroom After years toiling as a stylist and editor, Erin Swift launched Holiday Workroom two years ago, a custom decor service for sourcing and dressing the holiday tree. Her repertoire includes a compendium of seasonal trees and styles including Greenwood Essential, New England Classic, Scandinavian Modern, or Uptown Royal, offered in various heights and species from Douglas to Frasier firs. 92
Custom options may require a bit more elf time when a tree of their client’s dreams is being realized. Swift and her merry team can string lights, hang ornaments, arrange floral centerpieces, design bespoke wreaths, or wrap gifts, while leaving your abode as spotless as when they arrived. Professional installations can take from one to 10 hours, and masks and hand sanitizing are standard. Tree removal service is optional. holidayworkroom.com Laura Hurst, Morning Cloak Flowers “Using what the environment offers and refining it into an arrangement is my favorite way to decorate for the holidays,” Laura Hurst, flower farmer and owner of Morning Cloak Flowers, says of her organic creations. Hurst’s preference for foraged species, including garlands of greenery along with bayberry, pine, dried grasses, and holly, all make for sustainably forward arrangements. Hurst adds, “I don’t usually do trees unless the client wants an unconventional one.” morningcloakflowers.com
Social Studies ↑ For those who want to keep it simple, rental start-up Social Studies launched last year with the unassuming concept of a party in a box. Choose from inspired settings like Dark Nordic or White Out, equipped with all the accoutrements to set an Instagram-worthy table. Online instructions walk a newbie host through the process, from picking a theme to establishing a date, time, and guest count. Party kits get delivered to your door, in advance of the big day, with each order supplemented with recipes, tips, and playlists that add a virtual assist through the night. Customize with your own floral buds, garlands, or a sprig of green to complement your chosen style. When the party is over, repack everything and schedule a pickup. social-studies.com
CHRISTMAS TREE: STEPHEN KARLISCH/MEGAN CONNOLLY COMMUNICATIONS; TABLETOP: COURTESY OF HUNT & GATHER
Decor Directors
PRETTY WILD The "Noah’s Ark" holiday tree conjured up by Bronson van Wyck features vintage taxidermy, carved wooden decorations, hand-crafted papier-mâché and blown glass globes.
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of homemade cakes and holiday sweets. And tea, with all the trimmings. Champagne optional. kingscarriagehouse.com
Personable Chefs
COCKTAIL: NOAH FECKS/COURTESY OF MEAGHAN DORMAN; PORTRAIT OF CHEF RŌZE: CHANDLER BONDURANT/COURTESY OF CHEF RŌZE TRAORE
Cozy Caterers Ryan Maerz, Canard Inc. When it comes to the guest list, “twenty is the new 200,” says Ryan Maerz of the current mood. Maerz and head chef Jose Delgado consistently create sophisticated nibbles for clients in the 10022 zip code. This season, the pair, who relaunched this luxe catering company two years ago, are orchestrating tiered bento boxes containing three to four courses to be delivered, or in-home chef-prepared menus such as a salad of brussels sprout leaves, arugula, diced butternut squash, and toasted pumpkin seeds with lemon pumpkin vinaigrette; short ribs with cauliflower puree, horseradish bread crumbs, and green asparagus; and Pavlova with winter fruit compote for dessert. Self-serve pre-batch eight-ounce cocktails and wine will also be available for individual pours. canardinc.com Acquolina To Go For those too busy to make plans in advance, event producer David Stark recommends Acquolina To Go Catering for a festive holiday meal. “The food quality is very, very high,” says Stark, and “the finishing directions are very clear, while the food tastes as if it was made at home. They will pick up wine on the way to deliver to you. A great entertaining solution and a brilliant gift to give,” he adds. acquolinatogo.com Stephanie Nass, Chefanie Chef and caterer Stephanie Nass was hosting dinner parties in her apartment at the age of 23 and has since transformed that passion into Chefanie, a catering and lifestyle brand. Sweet treats are embellished with her signature Chefanie Sheets, a vegan confection in a variety of signature designs, including tartan plaid. Custom cakes, cookies, and lollipops, as well as donuts for Chanukah, are available for delivery in and around Manhattan. chefanie.com 6 Feet by Mimi Brown Mimi Brown has pivoted to the new intimate entertaining model, with her event production company highlighting contactless deliveries, unusual environments, and chic decor. Full disclosure: Brown, who is known for chic events
for the fashion crowd, is also moonlighting as an interior designer and is ahead of the curve, installing self-serve stations and producing monogrammed masks to match napkins and table decor. “Keep it small, keep it safe,” Brown says. mimibrownstudio.com
Laura Geraty and Rian Tompkins, What We Eat What to Eat is a small, yet mighty (in founder Laura Geraty’s words) Brooklyn-based group of all-female professionally and nutritionally trained personal chefs. Billy Cotton, the new creative director for Ralph Lauren Home, has used them as his catering go-to. This holiday season they plan to enter client kitchens to cook holiday meals in situ. Either seated or buffet, they will prepare traditional dishes from your auntie’s timeworn recipes or create mod menus that fit any occasion of your choice. Their health and safety protocols and interpersonal skills set them apart from the usual suspects and make their service unique. whatweeat.nyc
Meaghan Dorman ↑ For Meaghan Dorman, premade batch cocktails are the recipe for chic, easy entertaining. As bar director and consultant for downtown boîtes Raines Law Room and Dear Irving, Dorman has been creating cocktails for the past 15 years. Her Sweater Weather cider-based cocktail will keep you cozy, provided you don’t drink the entire batch. Dorman also advises hosts to keep refill ingredients prepped and accessible in advance to stay engaged with their guests. She’ll be offering a bevy of cocktail kits, including old-fashioneds, martinis, and Aperol spritzes, as well as custom orders available for delivery to your door. meaghandorman.com Jordana Blitz, Little Gem After spending a decade at accessories brand Coach, four years ago Jordana Blitz created Little Gem, a fashion-focused catering and events business. Her fashion and luxury clients include a coterie of bold face brands such as Valentino, Hermès, Tiffany, Burberry, and Tory Burch. Blitz is currently concentrating on private clients and is gearing up for Chanukah, with her version of a latke as a crisp parsnip pancake, served with crème fraîche and a choice of Russ and Daughters smoked salmon, caviar roe, or apple horseradish slaw. She says her one-bite s’mores tarts are the company’s most requested holiday treat. littlegemnyc.com Elizabeth King and Paul Farrell, Kings’ Carriage House If Kings’ Carriage House sounds like a throwback to old New York, it is. Installed in an actual former carriage house, this Upper East Side institution has created afternoon high tea for local patrons since opening in 1994. This holiday season, their traditional high tea service will be packaged to go, including their savory finger sandwiches, scones with cream and jam, and a delicious assortment
Rōze Traore ↑ Chef Rōze Traore’s side hustle might be modeling on the pages of GQ, but he’s become a pro in the kitchen after graduating from Le Cordon Bleu. A few years spent as a line cook at both the Nomad and Eleven Madison Park restaurants in New York led to launching his own company, Rōze LLC. As well as cooking for private clients he creates virtual and IRL dining experiences for brands, including Veuve Clicquot and Twitter. This Thanksgiving Traore will be creating dishes for his clientele, including a chicken roulade with brussels sprouts or delicate squash with mixed grains. His advice to home cooks? Always brine your chicken the night before in the fridge, which results in a juicy and tender bird. chefroze.com NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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Miami Confidential The party in America’s southern capital of sun and fun shows no sign of slowing down, writes local expert Dirk DeSouza
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FAENA HOTEL: TODD EBERLE/MEG CONNOLLY COMMUNICATIONS
¡B
ienvenidos a Miami! Boasting more titles than a Venezuelan pageant queen (America’s Riviera, The Magic City, The World’s Playground, and New York’s Sixth Borough are among its many monikers), this palm-fringed idyll is where New Yorkers go to drink their weight in rosé, repose in style, compete in Olympics-level rubbernecking, and party and shop like there’s no mañana. Squeezed between alligator swampland and Atlantic sunrises, Miami is a sexed-up, hip-swaying oasis joyously brought to life by its hypertoned Caribbean (read: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica) and South American (read: Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina) denizens, and by platinum-card-carrying tribes of Italians, Israelis, French, and Russians. The result is an haute mess of neighborhoods and cultures, luxury and grit, family fun and nighttime decadence, billionaires and pool boys all basking in the same sunlight. Miami’s micro-enclaves drip like sweat, from top to bottom: Sunny Isles, known as Little Moscow; Bal Harbour, with its fashionable shops and restaurants; South Beach, the skintastic oceanfront beehive; Miami Design District, the luxury brand and culture-vulture haven; Wynwood, the street-art-inflected hipster hub; Historic Overtown and Little Haiti, where African Americanism thrives; Fisher Island, the luxe moated fortress; Downtown and Brickell, the banking districts turned millennial havens; Little Havana, the epicenter of cigars and bongos; Key Biscayne, where wealthy tweens drive golf carts; Coconut Grove, the bohemian waterfront; Coral Gables, with its stately estates; Pinecrest, the OG of old school acreage; and Doral, also known as Little Venezuela. AVENUE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020
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INN CROWD Sun lounging at the Standard Spa. Below: The Faena Hotel pool and, opposite, its velvet-roped front door.
COURTESY OF THE STANDARD SPA, MIAMI BEACH; FAENA POOL: MEG CONNOLLY COMMUNICATIONS
You’ll Need a Place to Stay
Johnny Depp et al. made it their preferred watering hole in the mid-’90s. For private luxury home rentals by the week or month, Sobe Villas offers 60 exceptional houses across the city, many right on the water, perfect for hiding from paparazzi. But to live in the most Insta-worthy residential building of the moment, buyers need look no further than Zaha Hadid’s last residential project, 1000 Museum, with its intoxicating alien exoskeleton, full-floor residences, and private rooftop helicopter pad, or the gleaming black Porsche Design Tower, featuring a decadent freight elevator that transports owners’ cars straight into their units, even 60 stories in the sky.
Between hotels, rental housing and homes for sale across Miami, luxurious digs abound. Beau monde stalwarts such as the Setai, Faena, and the Four Seasons at the Surf Club are consistently ranked among the country’s top hotels. The perennially solid oceanfront W South Beach recently reopened after a major renovation of its 400 suites and its pool and resort spaces: think barefoot luxury celeb-magnet with a multimillion-dollar art collection, including works by Andy Warhol and Julian Schnabel. Elsewhere, Infinity Hospitality’s new Esmé Miami Beach, South Beach’s most ambitious boutique hotel in years, opens in early 2021, with 145 boho-chic rooms spread over eight historic French and Spanish Mediterranean revival buildings on Española Way, the beachside historic arts village turned tourist trap that’s poised to have another moment in the sun. For those seeking unadulterated pampering just off the beaten path, Acqualina Resort in Sunny Isles keeps winning accolades for its scene- and attitude-free spa and beach programs. Not all pool scenes are created equal, and three rule Miami: The Standard Spa is the hippest and most magical, featuring an enormous pool on the bay and arguably the best sunset vantage point in town, to say nothing of the young lovelies filling the chaises; the Biltmore Hotel’s 23,000-squarefoot, 600,000-gallon pool in the heart of Coral Gables offers a terrific dip after a spirited round of golf; and the Delano South Beach pool, still a ridiculous wonderland of palm trees and cabanas two decades after Kate Moss and NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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FASHION PLATES Clockwise from right: Sashimi at Chotto Matte; New York strip at Juvia; a chartered Azimut Yacht from YachtLife.
You’ll Need Water Transportation If you’re floating, you’re boating, and choosing an oceangoing vessel is de rigueur in Miami. While engaging a charter company like YachtLife will yield a day of house music and bubbly (and the attendant hangover), buying the sea dream embodies a never-ending IRL odyssey. Island Gardens on Watson Island is Miami’s only marina for giga-yachts, those complete with Airbus helicopters whirring back from Bahamian golf excursions, ideal for Jerry Jones’s 357-foot Bravo Eugenia, Lukas Lundin’s magnificent 274foot Savannah, or Farkhad Akhmedov’s 377-foot Luna. Discreetly tucked into an Aventura neighborhood is Magnum Marine, hand-crafters of Lenny Kravitz’s impossibly sexy 60-foot boat of choice. But for a luxurious thrill, book an appointment at the Ferretti Group’s luxurious in-water showroom in Fort Lauderdale, just 30 minutes away, where Pershing Yachts, Riva Yachts, and Wally Yachts are nestled for qualified tours. 96
It has been said that Miami is where dreams go to diet, but the city is a flaming hotcake of world-class restaurants (Juvia! Alter! Brava!), and mouthwatering tentpole events such as February’s South Beach Wine and Food Festival. South Beach’s Red the Steakhouse, chef Peter Vauthy’s vaunted steak and seafood house, specializing in Miyazaki Japanese Kobe A5, and baseball bat–sized Alaskan king crab legs, recently relocated to a bright, airy space on South Pointe Drive, debuting both brunch and an expansive outdoor terrace with marina views. After dinner, stroll to the ocean via South Pointe Park. On Lincoln Road, restaurant MILA by Gregory and Marine Galy quite literally offers the rooftop high life, serving Mediterranean and coastal Japanese cuisine in a breathtakingly glamorous indoor/outdoor bohemian chic motif, complete with a stunning water feature and a bar under the stars. On Collins Avenue, relax on Fi’lia South Beach’s outdoor terrace for honest Italian and cold prosecco, or patronize Byblos for delicious meze and mediterranean fare, like duck kibbeh and lamb ribs. Downtown, don’t miss Deme Lomas’s award-winning Niu Kitchen for contemporary Catalan, including his unforgettable cold tomato soup with mustard ice cream. And no trip to
CHOTTO MATTE: COURTESY OF TARA, INK; JUVIA: COURTESY OF CARMA CONNECTED; AZIMUT YACHT: YACHT LIFE
You’ll Need Sustenance
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Miami is complete without a meal at the iconic Joe’s Stone Crab on Washington Avenue on South Beach, or at Mandolin Aegean Bistro, the outdoor taverna in the Design District owned by husband and wife team of Ahmet Erkaya and Anastasia Koutsioukis, or Chotto Matte, the Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurant that brings Tokyo sophistication to the tropics. Miss Brooklyn? Make like Beyoncé and Jay-Z when they’re in town and visit Lucali in buzzy Sunset Harbour for mouth-boggling pizza.
© AMOAKO BOAFO, COURTESY OF RUBELL MUSEUM; THE WYNWOOD: ALEXANDER TAMARGO/GETTY
The international jet set (and yacht set) gather here like cashed-up spring breakers.
You’ll Need Culture In the last decade or so, Miami’s Art Week, including the storied Art Basel Miami Beach and Design Miami, has both attracted deep-pocketed collectors and made it a serious port of call on the cultural calendar. Elsewhere, The Underline, Miami’s $120 million homage to NYC’s High Line and the most expansive public works project ever, just opened its first phase, spanning from the Miami River to Coral Way with art and parkland. The Institute of Contemporary Art, in Miami Design District, is the city’s most important new contemporary art museum in a decade, with emerging and under-recognized artists, experimental installations, and an art garden for soaking up sunshine and entertaining lofty thoughts. In Allapattah, the recently relocated Rubell Museum houses one of the world’s most important private modern art collections, with 7,200 works by more than 1,000 artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, and more, and is a must-see. Downtown, adjacent to the always worthwhile Herzog & de Meuron–designed Pérez Art Museum Miami in Museum Park, is the Frost Museum of Science, complete with a rooftop shark-filled aquarium and a stellar planetarium, presented alongside thoughtful science exhibits and interactive workshops. Lastly, simply walk around Wynwood, the warehouse district turned art world stomping ground, for acres of vivid graffiti and genre-bending, large-scale street art. Between stops, galleries, and shops, grab cool-down cocktails and frothy pints in one of the neighborhood’s four local breweries.
PIGMENT OF IMAGINATION Above: Hudson in a Baby Blue Suit (2019) by Amoako Boafo hangs in the Rubell Museum. Right: The Wynwood Building, a local center for the arts.
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Giver values are the number-one guiding principle in life to most people in most countries.
Giver Takes All With his groundbreaking bestseller Give and Take, the organizational psychologist Adam Grant created a revolutionary way of thinking about personal success. In the following excerpt, he explains why it pays to give
PURPLE CURTAIN MAJESTY Adam Grant addressing the Pennsylvania Conference for Women in 2016.
MARLA AUFMUTH/GETTY IMAGES FOR PENNSYLVANIA CONFERENCE FOR WOMEN
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ccording to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of hard work, talent, and luck. But there is a fourth ingredient, one that’s critical but often neglected: success depends heavily on how we approach our interactions with other people. Every time we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can, or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return? I’ve dedicated more than ten years of my professional life to studying these choices at organizations ranging from Google to the U.S. Air Force, and it turns out that they have staggering consequences for success. Social scientists have discovered that people differ dramatically in their preferences for reciprocity—their desired mix of taking and giving. There are two kinds of people who fall at opposite ends of the reciprocity spectrum at work. I call them takers and givers. Takers have a distinctive signature: they like to get more than they give. They tilt reciprocity in their own favor, putting their own interests ahead of others’ needs. Takers believe that the world is a competitive, dog-eat-dog place. They feel that to succeed, they need to be better than others. To prove their competence, they self-promote and
make sure they get plenty of credit for their efforts. In the workplace, givers are a relatively rare breed. They tilt reciprocity in the other direction, preferring to give more than they get. Whereas takers tend to be self-focused, givers are other-focused, paying more attention to what other people need from them. These preferences aren’t about money: givers and takers aren’t distinguished by how much they donate to charity or the compensation that they command from their employers. Rather, givers and takers differ in their attitudes and actions toward other people. If you’re a taker, you help others strategically, when the benefits to you outweigh the personal costs. If you’re a giver, you might use a different cost-benefit analysis: you help whenever the benefits to others exceed the personal costs. Professionally, few of us act purely like givers or takers, adopting a third style instead. We become matchers, striving to preserve an equal balance of giving and getting. Matchers operate on the principle of fairness: when they help others, they protect themselves by seeking reciprocity. If you’re a matcher, you believe in tit for tat, and your relationships are governed by even exchanges of favors. It’s tempting to reserve the giver label for larger-than-life heroes such as Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi, but being a giver doesn’t require extraordinary acts of sacrifice. It just NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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GIVING
involves a focus on acting in the interests of others, such as by giving help, providing mentoring, sharing credit, or making connections for others. Outside the workplace, this type of behavior is quite common. According to research led by Yale psychologist Margaret Clark, most people act like givers in close relationships. We help our families and friends without keeping score. Many of us are intuitively drawn to giving. Over the past three decades, the esteemed psychologist Shalom Schwartz has studied the values and guiding principles that matter to people in different cultures around the world. One of his studies surveyed reasonably representative samples of thousands of adults in Australia, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. He translated his survey into a dozen languages, and asked respondents to rate the importance of different values. Here are a few examples: List 1: Wealth (money, material possessions); Power (dominance, control over others); Pleasure (enjoying life); Winning (doing better than others). List 2: Helpfulness (working for the well-being of others); Responsibility (being dependable); Social justice (caring for the disadvantaged); Compassion (responding to the needs of others). Takers favor the values in List 1, whereas givers prioritize the values in List 2. Schwartz wanted to know where most people would endorse giver values. Take a look back at the twelve countries above. Where do the majority of people endorse giver values above taker values? All of them. In all twelve countries, most people rate giving as their single most important value. They report caring more about giving than about power, achievement, excitement, freedom, tradition, conformity, security, and pleasure. In fact, this was true in more than seventy different countries around the world. Giver values are the number-one guiding principle in life to most people in most countries. On some level, this comes as no surprise. As parents, we read our children books like The Giving Tree and emphasize the importance of sharing and caring. But we tend to compartmentalize giving, reserving a different set of values for the sphere of work. We may love Shel Silverstein for our kids, but the popularity of books like Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power—not to 100
“Givers advance the world. Takers advance themselves and hold the world back.” SIMON SINEK, AUTHOR
mention the fascination of many business gurus with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War—suggests that we don’t see much room for giver values in our professional lives. The fear of being judged as weak or naïve prevents many people from operating like givers at work. Many people who hold giver values in life choose matching as their primary reciprocity style at work, seeking an even balance of give and take. In one study, people completed a survey about whether their default approach to work relationships was to give, take, or match. Only 8 percent described themselves as givers; the other 92 percent were not willing to contribute more than they received at work. Professionally, all three reciprocity styles have their own benefits and drawbacks. But there’s one style that proves more costly than the other two. You might predict that givers achieve the worst results—and you’d be right. Research demonstrates that givers sink to the bottom of the success ladder. Across a wide range of important occupations, givers are at a disadvantage: they make others better off but sacrifice their own success in the process.
Across occupations, it appears that givers are just too caring, too trusting, and too willing to sacrifice their own interests for the benefit of others. There’s even evidence that compared with takers, on average, givers earn 14 percent less money, have twice the risk of becoming victims of crimes, and are judged as 22 percent less powerful and dominant. So if givers are most likely to land at the bottom of the success ladder, who’s at the top— takers or matchers? Neither. When I took another look at the data, I discovered a surprising pattern: It’s the givers again. Givers dominate the bottom and the top of the success ladder. Across occupations, if you examine the link between reciprocity styles and success, the givers are more likely to become champs—not only chumps. What’s unique about the success of givers? Let me be clear that givers, takers, and matchers all can—and do—achieve success. But there’s something distinctive that happens when givers succeed: it spreads and cascades. When takers win, there’s usually someone else who loses. Research shows that people tend to envy successful takers
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DROPPING KNOWLEDGE The author delivering a TED Talk in Vancouver.
and look for ways to knock them down a notch. In contrast, when givers win, people are rooting for them and supporting them, rather than gunning for them. Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them. The difference lies in how giver success creates value, instead of just claiming it. What I find most magnetic about successful givers is that they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Armed with this knowledge, I’ve seen some people become more strategic matchers, helping others in the hopes of developing the relationships and reputations necessary to advance their own success. Can people succeed through instrumental giving, where the primary intent is getting? I have suggested that in the long term, the answer might be no. There’s a fine line between giving and clever matching, and this line blurs depending on whether we define reciprocity styles by the
actions themselves, the motives behind them, or some combination of the two. It’s a deep philosophical question, and it’s easy to identify with a range of views on how strategic matchers should be evaluated. On the one hand, even if the motives are mixed, helping behaviors often add value to others, increasing the total amount of giving in a social system. On the other hand, our behaviors leak traces of our motives. If recipients and witnesses of our giving begin to question whether the motives are self-serving, they’re less likely to respond with gratitude or elevation. When strategic matchers engage in disingenuous efforts to help others primarily for personal gain, they may be hoisted by their own petard: fellow matchers may withhold help, spread negative reputational information, or find other ways to impose a taker tax. To avoid these consequences, would-be matchers may be best served by giving in ways that they find enjoyable, to recipients whose well-being matters to them. That way, even if they don’t reap direct or karmic rewards, matchers will be operating in a giver’s mind-set, leading their motives to appear—and become—more pure. Ultimately, by repeatedly making the choice
to act in the interest of others, strategic matchers may find themselves developing giver identities, resulting in a gradual drift in style toward the giving end of the reciprocity spectrum. We s p e n d t h e majority of our waking hours at work. Th i s m e a n s t h a t what we do at work becomes a fundamental part of who we are. If we reserve giver values for our personal lives, what will be missing in our professional lives? By shifting ever so slightly in the giver direction, we might find our waking hours marked by greater success, richer meaning, and more lasting impact. From the book Give and Take by Adam Grant, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2013 by Adam Grant. Think Again by Adam Grant will be published in February 2021 by Viking. NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2020 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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WISH U WERE HERE Above: A photo-illustration of Winthrop House at Harvard, where the fall semester is fully remote; opposite: students at Grinnell College in Utah are among those re-creating dormitory life in rented houses for hand-picked groups of friends.
House Party Unable to attend elite colleges in person, thousands of wealthy students are renting group houses to serve as private dorms while they study remotely. Brandon Presser asks, What could possibly go wrong?
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he most important moment of a Harvard student’s undergraduate career happens in March of their first year. Housing Day is when freshmen receive a hand-delivered envelope containing the name of their house—the dormitory they’ll call home for the next three years of college. Traditionally, Harvard’s houses—named for a coterie of Boston Brahmin families—have been an inextricable part of each student’s on-campus identity. They sleep there, eat there, and compete against other houses in a variety of tournaments. Think: Hogwarts students being sorted into Slytherin or Gryffindor, except by an opaque lottery system instead of a magical hat.
At the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester, however, most students didn’t move into any of the 12 upperclassmen dorms as usual. Instead, new and unfamiliar houses were added to the storied nomenclature: Beach House, Mountain House, and even Farm House. When the country’s elite universities restricted the return of students at the beginning of the scholastic year due to Covid, thousands of wealthy teenagers sought to re-create campus life on their own terms (paid for by their parents), renting houses on the beach, in ski towns, and around big cities. Just because their classes were going virtual didn’t mean they had to give up their keggers. “After much Airbnb searching and a great many spreadsheets, we decided to live in an off-season resort outside Durango, Colorado,” says Erik Boesen, a rising sophomore at Yale. Hiking, fishing, and après-ski gatherings have now become just as commonplace as their homework. “While it’s impossible to fully re-create a college experience, this living situation has allowed us to grow in ways that we couldn’t have at Yale,” Boesen notes. “So far it’s come out great.” For many, however, relegating classes to Zoom has put the value of a quarter-million-dollar bachelor’s degree into question. “Right now I’m paying full-blown tuition for two children,” says Cheryl Smith, a senior vice president at Merrill Lynch. When news of campus closures were confirmed over the summer, neither of her children—a rising
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: WINTHROP HOUSE: PANORAMIC IMAGES/ALAMY; CAUTION TAPE: ISTOCK/BATAREYKIN (EDITED)
HEIR CARE
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“WHILE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO FULLY RE-CREATE A COLLEGE EXPERIENCE, THIS LIVING SITUATION HAS ALLOWED US TO GROW IN WAYS THAT WE COULDN’T HAVE AT YALE.”
LINDSAY D’ADDATO/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX PICTURES
ERIK BOESEN, RISING SOPHOMORE
freshman and rising senior—wanted to take time off. “My daughter is living with five girls; they’re online learning together, trying to create their college vibe,” Smith says; she’s found an apartment for her son in Manhattan, who had expected to start university at Parsons this fall. “I want him to get the New York feel: they’ve been having small group parties on rooftops—it’s great exposure.” Smith, like many of her friends with kids in university, is less concerned about the potential for off-campus housing to devolve into unsupervised fraternities, and more focused on the networking opportunities that on-campus learning inherently affords. “They did the Covid quarantining—stuck at home—it’s time for them to be with their peers,” Smith adds. “This is really about social skills and socialization; I’m paying [more than $100,000] so my children can have an experience.” While students and parents are grappling with re-creating college communities away from campus, the Silicon Valley buzzards have begun to swoop in on the educational components of distance learning. Just as major tech brands like Amazon and Apple have reshaped the entertainment industry over the past decade, digital platforms could profoundly disrupt academia as well. Both companies have trillions of dollars at their disposal—exponentially more than Harvard’s $40.9 billion endowment (the largest of any higher learning institution)—to recruit the best minds across every discipline, like they did with Hollywood’s top producers, directors, and actors. Before you write off the notion of, say, an Amazon University as dystopian fantasy, there is a precedent. Several colleges with cachet, like Carnegie Mellon and Vanderbilt, were built by the biggest brands that defined America’s Industrial Revolution only a hundred-plus years ago. (Fun fact: If steel baron Andrew Carnegie’s fortune were adjusted for inflation, he’d be worth twice as much as Jeff Bezos today.) Although there are currently a handful of standout virtual education platforms, “the offering still isn’t as good as online learning should be, which tarnishes its brand,” notes Michael Horn, the cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation and author of Choosing College. Horn is keen for our new reliance on digital classrooms to remain: “The longer
this persists, the more the experience should open people’s minds to alternative ways of creating tremendous learning opportunities.” Horn has watched as elite institutions bolster their offerings, “but students are now looking for alternative ways of learning that are less costly; it’s possible to have a selective institution that is affordable and creates an incredible [online] experience.”
There’s a reason many institutions glamorize their study-abroad programs: it opens up space in the dorms for more students—and their fees. Now, without brick-and-mortar constraints, an Ivy League school could easily take twice the number of incoming frosh—doubling both its revenue and the connections its student body will have with the next generation of elite. Even if none of them have ever met in person.
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Strictly Platonic Larry Levenson, founder of the notorious 1970s sex club Plato’s Retreat, is remembered by Anthony Haden-Guest, an occasional visitor to his establishment
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oing naked was like waving a defiant flag in the ’60s counterculture, as at muddy Woodstock. Al Goldstein founded Screw magazine in 1968, and Suck, the radical feminist mag, was launched in London the following year. Germaine Greer, a Suck stalwart, was involved in a landmark event I attended in Amsterdam in 1971—the second iteration of the Wet Dream Festival, a showing of international porno movies. The following year Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door opened, making Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers, their key players, cross-culturally known names. In 1974, Goldstein launched the
cable talk show Midnight Blue, and “porno chic”— a phrase coined that year by Ralph Blumenthal of the New York Times—was surging. Larry Levenson was more than ready to ride this wave. A friend of Goldstein’s from high school in Brooklyn, he had been working mundane jobs such as selling sodas in Coney Island and managing a McDonald’s. But after being plunged into the swingers’ milieu by a woman he met in a bar, he quickly decided he had found a calling that suited both his talents and his inclinations: swing parties. His skills developed to such an extent that in 1977 he opened a space for swingers to mingle (and get down to it) in the basement of a small hotel on East 23rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. This was the first Plato’s Retreat. Soon, Levenson was attracting such a following that the same year he moved his business into a more ample basement uptown, in the Ansonia Hotel, a handsome building on Broadway between West 73rd and 74th. Until 1974, it had been home to the Continental Baths, a gay club where Bette Midler launched her career and a place where even Chubby Checker performed. As New York’s sex-oriented spaces were traditionally for gay men, Levenson was aware that offering a venue for public straight sex was breaking new ground. He was outspoken on this subject, saying he was bringing to the straight world the liberty of the gay clubs. His sincerely held rationale was that no man was monogamous, and that swinging would replace cheating. Plato’s, Levenson said, was a “couples club.” Such a couple arriving at Plato’s was made aware of the rules at the door. “NO THREESOMES AT ANYTIME” was one. Also “NO ONE ADMITTED FULLY DRESSED” and “WHEN THE FEMALE LEAVES THE MATS, HER MATE WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE.” More on “the Mats” shortly. A couple paid $25. The deliberately unimpressive front door opened onto a steep flight of steps, which led down to the action, which was impressive. DJ Bacho controlled the music, and there was sometimes dancing, most of the dancers being wholly or partially naked. The crowd was largely couples; solitary women were okay but single men were a no-no. So too was man-on-man action, though random displays of female bisexuality were very much okay. Beginners would often wear towels, but these would usually be shed as they wandered the available venues, such as the Mats: the Mattress Room, which was furnished with mattresses that could be covered with a couple hundred interlocked bodies on a busy night. But there was also the bathhouse, the locker room, and private cubicles for the shy, as well as Ping-Pong and pool tables, which might also be unusably covered with heaving flesh. And, believe me, the rule that threesomes were not allowed was not too strictly enforced. There was also a swimming pool, and this saw action too, natch. In American Swing, an excellent 2008 documentary about Plato’s, codirected by Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart, a young woman is chatted up by Levenson who suggests that she take
© DONNA FERRATO
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ALWAYS TAKE SOMETHING OFF Opposite: Larry Levenson ready for action at Plato’s Retreat in 1980. Above: Letting it all hang out at Screw magazine’s tenth anniversary party.
© ALLAN TANNENBAUM
HIS SINCERELY HELD RATIONALE WAS THAT NO MAN WAS MONOGAMOUS, AND THAT SWINGING WOULD REPLACE CHEATING.
a dip. She says she needs to go to the ladies’ room. “Oh, come on in, “ Levenson coaxed. “The water’s nice and warm. And that’s how it got that way.” This was Mary, who would soon be sharing his life, and the drollery was not untypical of Larry, who struck me as open, friendly, and somewhat ingenuous. I was going to Plato’s now and again because I had arrived in New York just a few years before, and visiting Brit friends would often call upon me to take them to this worldwide notorious hot spot. That is why I was included in the aforementioned documentary, wherein I observe that I linked Plato’s to Studio 54 as elements that had made New York “the world’s most exciting city.” Yes, Studio 54 had also opened in 1977, discomania seized New York, and Plato’s benefited from that avid curiosity and hunger for nocturnal highs.
It became huge, Levenson was anointed “The King of Swing,” and just as certain individuals became Studio-famous, like Disco Sally and Rollerena, the Wall Streeter wearing a skirt and blades, so there were famous Plato’s regulars, like Jamie Gillis, Captain John, and some with wink-wink porn names, like Annie Sprinkle and Danny, the Wonder Pony. As with Studio, Plato’s was kept in the headlines by gossip about famous faces spotted there, whether Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, or cast members from Saturday Night Live. This was a specific moment in the development of the celebrity culture, its virginity you might say, a time when you could spot Michael Jackson in the foyer of Studio or a sports star in Plato’s, but nobody would be likely to approach them. The significant difference was that the famous face entering a happening disco would be
likely to disappear into the VIP room—but Plato’s had no VIP room. Photo reportage might give the impression that the place pulsed with high octane glam and getting into it was like penetrating the Playboy mansion. Not so, and some who had been drawn by the media heat were chilled. “I went there because everybody in New York was going to the place,” says Roger de Cabrol, a French friend who arrived in New York more or less when I did. He and his female partner had scooted around, but the scrumptious flesh he had been anticipating was not on display. “It was incredibly sleazy,” he says. “Ugly bodies. Everybody could have been your mother [or] your father.” He did not repeat the experience. “It was dark and scummy and scroungy,” says Matuschka, the artist and former model most widely known for making the cover of the New York Times magazine in 1993 after a mastectomy. “They let me walk around naked in my fur coat because it was too expensive to leave in the locker room. I remember people would select you. They would just point. The husband or the wife would want you. But I was just a voyeur.” In 1980, Levenson moved Plato’s again, this time to West 34th Street. The King of Swing was high on the place, believing that Plato’s was on its way to becoming a franchise. “Within three months there will be four more around the country,” he said on television.
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DO YOU COME HERE OFTEN? Swingers get in the mood.
In keeping with the spirit of the place, Mary, his mate, had an affair with their chauffeur. So when Levenson was robbed and badly beaten, some gossips implicated the driver. Others close to Levenson said dealings with wise guys must have gone askew. He showed up soon after at the club, in a wheelchair, but still cock-a-hoop. A reporter quoted him saying, “We don’t pay taxes.” This was an echo of what Steve Rubell said about Studio. The IRS swooped and got the books, 106
which contained records of three years of meticulous misstatements. He was now confronted by Peter Sudler, the assistant district attorney who had brought down Rubell and his partner, Ian Schrager. Levenson’s defense, which was that he had thought Plato’s was a nonprofit, amused the jury. He was sentenced to eight years and went to jail in 1981. He had a cheerful jailhouse interview with Al Goldstein, got out after 40 months, and had a terrific Welcome Back party at Plato’s. The time span of hot New York clubs is frequently short, however, and Plato’s was in precipitous decline. AIDS, Covid-19’s dark precursor, had struck. Sex had become self-destructive, and Mayor Ed Koch was closing the gay clubs. But it was learned not only gays were vulnerable. Compounding this new risk, half the women at
Plato’s were said to be on the game—four arrested for “working” there in November 1985. That New Year’s Eve, Koch, not wishing to discriminate against gay clubs, had Plato’s Retreat closed down. It would never reopen. Larry Levenson, who had always survived on a shoestring, was now penniless and started driving a cab. Former clients who spotted him at the wheel reported that he was still smiling, still cheerful, but that the King of Swing had somewhat wised up. “I thought we had a great family,” he told one. “But I guess I was mistaken. it was just me.” In 1999 he was at Screw’s 30th-anniversary party. Within a year, he died of heart problems at 62. So porno chic was truly dead…or is it? I hear on pretty good authority that, Covid or no, millennials are currently flocking to swing parties.
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PLATO’S RETREAT ENTRANCE AND DANCERS, BOTH © DONNA FERRATO; PLATO’S RETREAT RULES AND CUBICLE, BOTH © ALLAN TANNENBAUM
CHECKERED PAST Clockwise from left: A classic New York City cab outside the Ansonia Hotel; rules of the road; four friends relax before getting frisky; revelers on the smoky dance floor.
THE RULE THAT THREESOMES WERE NOT ALLOWED WAS NOT TOO STRICTLY ENFORCED.
THE MAT ROOM WAS FURNISHED WITH MATTRESSES THAT COULD BE COVERED WITH A COUPLE HUNDRED BODIES ON A BUSY NIGHT.
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ON THE
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PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE Carnegie Hall celebrated its 130th season with a virtual opening night featuring recorded performances by artists including Jon Batiste and Angélique Kidjo.
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Coco Rocha on the runway at ChristianSiriano
A scene from Alice + Olivia’s street performance
FROCK STARS
A pared-down New York Fashion Week featured live shows by designers including Jason Wu, Stacey Bendet for Alice + Olivia, and Christian Siriano, who invited guests to his Connecticut backyard.
Christian Siriano
The runway at Jason Wu’s show
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GREEN DAY
The Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy raised more than $300,000 with its Picnic for the Park, cochaired by Melanie Charlton Fowler, Shannon Davis Henderson, Kristy Korngold, Karen Thornwell May, and Jenna Segal, and supported by Nordstrom.
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Melanie Fowler and Lara Meiland-Shaw
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SOCIAL SKILLS
Monday I must say, this Netflix bag is a jolly good wheeze. The Duchess is so much more relaxed now that we have cameras everywhere. And the best thing is, she says as producers, we’ll get to keep the Oscar! Tuesday Met Archie’s new agent today—she says People magazine wants to put him on their “Two Under Two” power list of Hollywood babies. Smashing!
The Fresh Prince of Hot Air Posey Wilt imagines a week in Prince Harry’s Hollywood diary
We also saw prototypes for our new product lines, including bobbleheads of the Royal Family. The Duchess joked that their heads should be detachable, “just in case history happens.” I do adore my darling’s American sense of humour! Wednesday Some more good news—the Duchess tells me she wants to get the boat out. At last, an excuse to bring the Royal Yacht Britannia out of mothballs! Grannie will be so pleased, one can’t wait to tell her on the weekly family Zoom. Bit of rummy with the “Two Under Two” list. Apparently, the other child is something called a Duggar, and that’s a problem? Archie’s agent says not to worry, she’ll see if Madonna has a spare baby—or if not, the Scientologists are bound to have one. Thursday Honestly, one doesn’t know why one bothers with these Zoom calls if the family is just going to be rude. One can always tell when Grannie has been into the sherry. She starts making jokes about naming me after Henry VIII and asking when she can expect “the first” divorce. Then Kate accused the Duchess of making her bobblehead fat on purpose, and as soon as Grandpapa started bringing up Rudyard Kipling, one knew it was time to ring off. Friday Oh, good show! “Two Under Two” is happening again, thanks to our marvelous new friend, Angelina Jolie. A frightfully good sport, she has agreed to adopt a baby during her ayahuasca retreat in Suriname to make sure Archie stays in the “right” company. Saturday Unbelievable. Angelina adopted twins—pushing Archie off the list entirely. One is beginning to suspect that friendships in this town might not be what they appear. Silver lining: Archie’s agent has an audition lined up. Apparently, it’s an action-oriented Saved By the Bell prequel called Day Care: Bayside, and he’s up for the Mario Lopez role. One could not be prouder! Sunday Another blow. Now the Duchess is telling me she didn’t say she wanted to “get out the boat,” she said, “Get out the vote.” GUTTER CREDITS TKTKTKTKTKTKTKTK;
Complete miscommunication, she said. Just like the time she accidentally sent her headshot to Britain’s Royal Mint, with a note saying, “In case you want to put someone cuter on the coins, xoxo.” It does pain one that the Duchess continues to be so misunderstood. But no doubt once the public gets to see the real us on Netflix, all will be resolved. Also, by the by…what’s a “vote”? 112
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Beach Lane Oceanfront Gary R. DePersia Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker m 516.380.0538 | gdp@corcoran.com
Wainscott. Reigning over .55 acres, an impressive sea side edifice sprawls along 30 feet of beachfront on iconic Beach Lane. A awless symphony of architecture, construction, landscape design and interior composition has resulted in a stunning opus that finds harmony within 11,000 SF on 4 separate tiers of living space. asterfully built by ayfair Construction, the stucco, teak and granite residence has been exquisitely furnished by ulia Roth esigns. Barnes Coy Architects created a highly unique residence that in the words of Chris Coy is comprised of three separate pavilions.... offering opaque surfaces of teak, stucco, granite and inc that alternate with transparent swaths of tempered glass. The central pavilion is anchored on one end by the Bulthaup kithen from where you look out to the dramatic great room beneath a ft ceilings and framed by walls of glass and warmed by a fireplace anchoring the other end of the great room. The eastern pavilion incorporates the den media room and the master wing offering ocean view sleeping chamber, his and her bathrooms and a pair of walk in closets. The western pavilion is a two tiered compilation of five bedroom suites, a recreational room, pool bath and a four car garage. A separate staircase descends to an expansive gym augmented by spa bath with steam and sauna, a large room housing the golf simulator or possible screening room, two staff suites and ends back at the striking entry atrium with elevator.. Outside the expansive deck offers a covered area housing the outdoor kitchen, dining and seaside living room while uncovered areas find ample room for lounging around the 7 infinity edge pool with spa. Landscaping by the LaGuardia esign Group ties the whole estate together. Amenities include a Crestron, Lutron, Sonos and a whole house generator. A private walkway leads over the dune to find 30 of pristine, sandy white beach. The saying if you re lucky enough to live by the sea, you re lucky enough takes on a whole new meaning if you re actually lucky enough to make this incredible oceanfront estate your new home. Exclusive. $52M WEB# 870070 Real estate agents affiliated with The Corcoran Group are independent contractors and are not employees of The Corcoran Group. Equal Housing Opportunity. The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker located at 660 adison Ave, , 10065. All listing phone numbers indicate listing agent direct line unless otherwise noted. All information furnished regarding property for sale or rent or regarding financing is from sources deemed reliable, but Corcoran makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy thereof. All property information is presented subject to errors, omissions, price changes, changed property conditions, and withdrawal of the property from the market, without notice. All dimensions provided are approximate. To obtain exact dimensions, Corcoran advises you to hire a qualified architect or engineer.
GARY DEPSERSIA AD 1112.indd 3
10/7/20 3:24 PM
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BANK OF AMERICA AD 1112.indd 3
May Lose Value MAP3281588 | AD-10-20-0292 | 10/2020
10/19/20 12:09 PM
