WAG Magazine March 2013

March 2013

Michael Bolton between the covers (of his new book)

Edifice complex Grand Central at 100

Hometown hits Joe Torre, Mariano Rivera

Mastering the modern

June and Myron Goldfinger

‘Suburgatory’s’ muse Stylish hot spots: Westport

shelter

GIve ME

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MARch 2013

No place like it • 13 In a ‘Grand’ tradition • 29 Shelter from domestic Out with the old storms • 16 and in with the new • 31 Turning design on its Big ideas for head • 18 tiny spaces • 32 Destination design • 22 Studio, sweet studio • 34 Getting down Home on the stage • 39 with ‘Downton’ • 24 Best foot forward • 55 God, Mo and baseball • 26 REACH-ing out • 56 Station shop, Designer Jewelry • 28

A toucan folk sculpture from the June and Myron Goldfinger collection.

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march 2013

Features

35 hot spots

Westport, a home for sophisticated style

38 wonderful dining

Relationships reign at The Whelk

43 way

An oh-so-private retreat

47 wear

Oh, Oscar!

48 wear

Hands-on favorite

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Keen on green

52 wear

Sisterly smarts save skin

54 wear

Deluge refuge

58 wear

The eyes have it

60 w’reel deal

Real-life ‘Suburgatory’

62 wagging

Who’s in the doghouse? Plus, Pet of the Month

63 wanders

Living high inDubai

66 well

Finding refuge in a doctor’s care

68 well

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With Martha Handler and Jennifer Pappas

8 Waggers 10 Editor’s letter Cover photograph by Stuart Walls/Woodstock Studio.

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On March 11, 2010, I brought my Aunt Mary home from a physical rehab facility for what would be the final chapter of her life.

On March 15, I started my career at Westfair, WAG’s parent company.

But in between on March 13 at 8:40 p.m., amid a late-winter nor’easter, a 100foot oak tree fell on our house as my aunt lay asleep and I sat watching TV. It sounded like a freight train coming through the living room, a crash that rumbled on. I think I will hear that sound always.

As I look back on those events with a mixture of emotions almost three years later, I realize that my life changed forever in less than a week. Yet the defining moment was not my aunt’s endgame or my new job but the rehabilitation of the house. Indeed, I came to understand that the way to make my aunt’s last days as joyful as possible and succeed in a fragile economy that offered no guarantees was to save the only thing I really had and could hold on to.

The house in which I had grown up with nary a thought about its survival had come to represent something larger than myself, to give my life new meaning. In repairing the house, I was repairing my soul, much like the haunted nurse Hana in “The English Patient,” who shores up the bombed-out Italian villa in which she takes shelter with her dying charge.

I’ve thought a lot since about fictional stories in which people transform, or are transformed, by houses – the painter Charles Ryder, who finds faith through the memory of love at an English country estate in “Brideshead Revisited”; Bette Davis’ rejuvenated spinster in “Now, Voyager”; and, of course, Scarlett O’Hara resurrecting Tara and her people in “Gone With The Wind.” You’ll meet some of these in my essays on home and the home du jour, Downton Abbey, in this our “Give Me Shelter” issue.

But we wouldn’t be WAG if we didn’t play on “shelter,” would we? So you’ll also find stories about spas as shelters of the senses and the spirit as well as Andrea Kennedy’s take on rainwear as a shelter for the body. Guest Wagger Marshall Fine recalls his recent trip to a city that’s scaling new heights – Dubai. Speaking of grand, Mary Shustack says “Happy Birthday” to Grand Central Terminal, celebrating 100 years of sheltering commuters and shoppers alike.

The bedroom communities Grand Central serves are mined for broad laughs weekly on ABC’s “Suburgatory,” which w’reel deal columnist Sam Barron visits for some chuckles of his own. The sitcom is set in a place that sounds a lot like Larch-

mont, but surely its well-heeled denizens would be equally at home in the luxe confines of Westport, the subject of our retooled Hot Blocks, now called Hot Spots.

It’s the home of The Whelk, our restaurant of the month, and the hometown of cover guy Michael Bolton, who spoke to Andrea about his love of home and gave a special Valentine’s Day concert at the neighboring Ridgefield Playhouse.

Bolton, who’s becoming as well known for his charitable works as he is for his music, reminds us that in the end, any shelter is about the people who create it and use it, that people themselves can be shelters for others. People like the folks at the SPCA, who are collaborating with us on our newest feature, Pet of the Month, and New York Yankees’ closer Mariano Rivera, who’s helping to rebuild the North Avenue Church in New Rochelle.

For years he was managed by Joe Torre, who told WAG how the love of his wife, Ali, enabled him to confront an abusive childhood, share his story and establish the Safe at Home Foundation to save other children from the same fate.

She has, in the words of Bob Dylan, given him “Shelter From the Storm.”

Come into these pages. We’ll give you shelter, too.

Oops

In February’s Class and Sass, we neglected to thank Pam Fitzpatrick of the Candlelight Shoppe of Lingerie in Ridgefield for being so helpful and fun to work with. Martha and Jen had a blast with her, as the photo

by Martha’s daughter Skylar demonstrates. Thanks, Pam. And sorry.

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No place like it

Johannes Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson” (1662-65).

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Scarlett O’Hara and her beloved Tara, from “Gone With the Wind,” which Turner Classic Movies showed on Valentine’s Day.

The home as the shelter of the soul

I

n Nancy Meyers’ “The Holiday” (2006) – one of the guiltiest pleasures you’ll ever have – two lovelorn women decide to trade their private lives over the Christmas break. Society columnist Iris (Kate Winslet) – who’s been jilted by manipulative colleague Jasper (Rufus Sewell) – heads to Los Angeles, while movie-trailer producer Amanda (Cameron Diaz) – furious with her cheating beau Ethan (Edward Burns) – sets off for suburban London.

One of the great joys of the movie is the way Iris revels in Amanda’s sleek, white, high-tech manse with its perfect-for-cannonballs pool and shades that retract at the clap of the hands. And while the more cynical Amanda has trouble at first downsizing to Iris’ Surrey cottage – this being a Meyers’ film, it’s a cottage like something out of Architectural Digest, ok? – she’s soon charmed by Iris’ abode, particularly as it comes equipped with Jude Law (playing Iris’ handsome, conveniently widowed bro Graham).

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By Georgette Gouveia

The principals – including a sympathetic composersuitor for Iris (Jack Black) – ultimately wind up dancing in Iris’ Surrey living room on a snowy New Year’s Eve, because in Meyers’ movies (“It’s Complicated,” “Something’s Gotta Give”), home is where the heart – and thus, the romance – is.

She’s not alone. The home has been the shelter of our personalities, our relationships, our very souls ever since Neolithic Martha Stewarts set up house in caves that they decorated with little stick figures of people and animals (the better to hunt them, my dear). The ancient Greeks and Romans, the medieval Europeans and the Renaissance Italians aggrandized those primitive caves and mud huts into grand structures that had communal spaces and connecting rooms. But the notion of a house as a single unit comes from the independent-minded 17th-century Dutch, as illustrated in the intimate, psychologically acute interiors of painter Johannes Vermeer and other Old Masters. The Dutch sense of home as a place of both solitary comforts and

social pleasures is one we live with today.

For many, a house is their most important financial investment. But as culture has demonstrated, it’s a tremendous emotional investment as well, one in which the physical structure is inextricably bound to the idea of “home” and the feelings of pride and warmth it conjures.

There was a whole tradition in 18th-century British and American painting in which people of means were portrayed by the likes of Thomas Gainsborough and John Singleton Copley in plush domestic settings against the lush, commanding backdrops of their property – the home as status symbol. (Two centuries later, this would be played for laughs in film comedies like “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and “The Money Pit.”) The home was a kind of gigantic calling card for your place in society, so much so that 19th century literature is replete with novels, often by female authors such as Jane Austen, in which the loss of house begets

a loss of face. The Bennet girls in “Pride and Prejudice,” the Dashwood sisters in “Sense and Sensibility” and Anne Elliot in “Persuasion” are all made to feel the potential or actual loss of their familial estates as a threat to their status as marriageable gentlewomen – either because of financial imprudence (“Persuasion”) or because the property is entailed away from the female line (“Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility”) – something the Crawley women come to understand in “Downton Abbey.” (See related story.) It’s not surprising, then, that the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet begins to revise her opinion of the proud Mr. Darcy when she first encounters his magnificent estate, Pemberley.

Though women could be denied the right to hold property, the home, like all things domestic, is usually associated with women, even those who can’t be contained by it. Among the reasons Heathcliff returns to Wuthering Heights in Emily Brontë’s novel is because it’s the place where he was happy with Cathy and where he later believes her spirit wanders. He wants to possess Wuthering Heights just as he wanted to possess – and is possessed by – her.

But he also burns for revenge by real estate. The Heights and neighboring Thrushcross Grange were the sites of all the humiliations and abuses heaped on him as a child. As master of both, he is master of those who once brought him low.

The home is the battleground, then, where relationships are engaged for good or for ill. In the 1989 film “The War of the Roses,” Oliver and Barbara Rose (Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner) long to divorce but are each unwilling to cede ownership of their beautifully decorated mansion. So they wage war from

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within and in the end, the house buries them both.

Houses are weighted not just with murderously fragile chandeliers, but with memories. Sometimes, it takes a while to realize that’s what they’re really about.

It’s telling that Hollywood would produce three of its greatest films about the home at a time when many in America had lost theirs – “Wuthering Heights,” “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz,” all released as the Depression persisted in 1939.

In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy spends most of the picture trying to get back not just to Kansas, but to the family farm and in particular Auntie Em, who symbolizes everything she loves and believes she’s lost. “GWTW” is trickier. The self-centered Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) initially cares little for Tara, the family plantation, which she sees as a distraction from her glamorous self and her schemes to land the beautiful but already engaged Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard).

It’s only when she almost loses Tara during the Civil War and is forced to work it like the lowliest farmhand in the Reconstruction that she comes to realize its value. When her petulant sister Suellen (Evelyn Keyes) balks at the work, saying she hates Tara, Scarlett slaps her, telling her that hating Tara is like hating their mother and father.

In the end, having lost virtually everything that really matters – her parents, her child, her best friend, her husband, her illusions of Ashley and herself – Scarlett turns to the one thing she has left. And goes home to nurture and reinvent herself.

Because she understands that whether it’s a tornadoswept farm, a resurrected plantation or anything in between, there really is no place like it. n

For many, a house is their most important financial investment. But as culture has demonstrated, it’s a tremendous emotional investment as well, one in which the physical structure is inextricably bound to the idea of “home” and the feelings of pride and warmth it conjures.

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Shelter from domestic storms

By Georgette Gouveia

As the youngest of five growing up in Brooklyn, Joe Torre would come home, see his father’s car and hightail it over to a friend’s house.

That’s how frightened he was of Joe Sr., a New York City police detective.

“There was a lot of fear,” acknowledges the former New York Yankees’ manager, who led the team to four World Series titles. “I never got hit. But the fear was there.”

That’s because his volatile father would take out his temper on Joe’s mother, Margaret. It left their youngest child feeling insecure and unworthy.

“I thought I was to blame for what was going on,” Joe says. “Fortunately, I had the ability to play baseball and could hide my feelings there.”

But not everyone is so gifted and besides, hidden feelings often have a way of hurting you. That’s why Joe and wife, Ali, who live in Los Angeles but maintain a home in Westchester County, decided to provide a haven for youngsters experiencing or at risk for domestic violence.

In 2005, the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation launched Margaret’s Place, a program named for his mother that offers these students a safe room at school in which they can talk with a master’s-level counselor. To date, there are 12 Margaret’s Places in the New York metropolitan area and Los Angeles, including those at Cross Hill Academy in Yonkers, Pelham Middle School, Peekskill Middle School and White Plains High School.

Margaret’s Place is much more than a shoulder to lean on. It’s a multilayered program, Ali says, that takes a proactive approach to preventing and intervening in domestic violence. Participating schools have a curriculum in which students receive weekly instruction. Individual and group counseling, teacher training and parent outreach are also offered.

Some 8,000 students a year are served by the program, which is evaluated by an independent third party. The results have been encouraging. So has the response from program alumni, Ali says.

“To see how resilient they are and have confidence to go forward, they touch my heart.”

Ali’s place

In a conference call, Joe and Ali, who’ve been together more than 30 years, are both candid about their own long road to healing.

“When I first met Joe, he didn’t talk about his family,” Ali says. “It was a gradual process of being able to talk about it.

It’s a very complex dynamic.”

Joe acknowledges that it would have 16

Joe Torre and Bill Clinton at a Safe At Home golf fundraiser.

been difficult for both his parents, who have passed on, to encounter the reality of Margaret’s Place.

“If my mother were still with us, she would have a hard, tough time with this.

If my dad were around, at least I could confront him.” Joe says it was his brother Frank, a onetime first baseman with the then-Milwaukee Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies, who “stood up to him and kicked him out of the house.”

Joe credits Ali with being his Margaret’s Place.

“Ali took the main role. She’s one of 16 kids in a very tight-knit family. She had a beat on how to be a healer.”

Sixteen kids?

Ali laughs, saying, “There’s a lot of stress involved but also a lot of love, commitment and honesty. My parents were great role models. Joe and I are blessed that we have each other and that we complement each other.”

Joe – whose storied baseball career has embraced playing, managing and broadcasting with the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers and Mets as well as the Yanks – has long been associated with children’s charities.

When he and Ali were headed to New York, where he would become the Bronx Bombers’ manager in 1996, Ali – then pregnant with their daughter, Andrea

– suggested they sign up for a Life Success seminar, which teaches participants practical ways to resolve issues that prevent them from enjoying their lives to the fullest. To Ali’s surprise, Joe said yes and discovered not only that he wasn’t responsible for his parents’ relationship or tethered to the insecurity he felt as a child but that others have been through the same experience.

“It gave me the courage to talk about it,” he says.

He began with a Bronx middle school.

In 2002, the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation was born.

A baseball sundae

Recently, the foundation celebrated its 10th anniversary with a gala at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan hosted by Katie Couric to honor NBC sportscaster Bob Costas. (See Watch in this issue.) A fundraiser is scheduled for June at Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor.

It’s a measure of Joe’s gifts as a baseball manager that such events always draw many of the men who played for him, including former Yankee teammates David Cone and Jorge Posada. For all his brilliance as a player – nine trips to the All-Star Game, the 1971 National League batting crown and MVP Award – it was as a manager that Joe shone most, pilot-

ing the Yanks to 10 American League East Division titles, along with six American League pennants and the four World Series titles. Key to that success – which led the Sporting News and Sports Illustrated to name him Manager of the Decade in 2009 – was his ability to shield a stable of thoroughbred ballplayers from the demands of owner George Steinbrenner. It led to “Joe Torre’s Ground Rules for Winners” (Hyperion, 1999).

So what’s the key to being a successful manager in any field? Says Joe: “You have to listen. I never asked someone to do something he’s not capable of, but at the same time, you’re going to have to carry your own weight. Trust has to be earned, year in and year out. And I never got tired of winning.”

Though he’s Major League Baseball’s executive vice president of baseball operations, might he return to managing one day?

He answers by saying he will be managing this year – the USA team at the World Baseball Classic.

“I’ve had a wonderful baseball career,” he says, adding that everything from here on in is “the cherry on top.”

For more on the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation and Margaret’s Place, call (212) 880-7360 or (877) 878-4JOE or visit joetorre.org. n

Dinosaurs.

Oceans.

Eggs. & the Bruce MuseuM Greenwich, Connecticut 203 869 0376 brucemuseum.org

AvantGarde.

Turning design on its head The geometric stylings of

June and Myron Goldfinger

By Jane K. Dove

At home with June and Myron Goldfinger.

Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

“Myron and I believe that any place you live should not only provide shelter but resonate with your spirit and be a real home,” says Waccabuc’s June Goldfinger. “With that in mind, my husband, Myron, and I work seamlessly together to create strong geometric forms that showcase architecture as sculpture.”

June is a well-known custom interior designer and her husband, Myron, a celebrated contemporary architect with a career spanning four decades. The two complement each other beautifully, with Myron creating his breathtaking contemporary homes while June designs interiors that harmonize exquisitely with his “sculptures where people can live.”

Over the years, the pair has teamed up on magnificent contemporary homes 18

with soaring spatial qualities that range from small weekend and vacation dwellings to large residences and two celebrated multi-villa resorts on the island of Anguilla in the British Virgin Islands.

Starting out

The Goldfingers live in the first contemporary home ever built in Waccabuc.

“I designed and built our 2,500-squarefoot contemporary geometric home around 1970 at a time when contemporary architecture, especially the geometric style that I favor, was frowned upon in this area,” Myron says. “As a result, we built on 10 acres off of Mead Street, back from the road. Although the house won praise from my associates, I guess you could say we had a love-hate relationship with our neighbors, at least at first.”

The Waccabuc home is a house and

studio connected by a bridge. Turning traditional design upside down, the kitchen, sitting room and a large greenhouse dining room are on the second floor instead of the first. The home is full of dramatic paintings, large photographs and dozens of folk sculptures of varying sizes and subjects, much of the art originating in the Southwest where the Goldfingers have a home in Santa Fe. The couple later built a second harmonizing contemporary house right next door, home to their daughter.

The Goldfingers have been in harmony right from the start.

“We met through friends in 1965 when Myron was a young architect and I was finishing up my master’s in interior design,” June says. “I saw the amazing work he was doing and just went totally nuts. I said to myself, ‘This guy is just too good

to be believed.’ We got married a year later and have been working together ever since.”

Geometric designs

When asked to describe her husband’s work, June says, “It is the exploration of geometry as expressed in architecture.”

Myron is intent on creating shelters that are not only lofty and inspirational, both inside and out, but are also based on function.

“I create spaces that people can call home and June makes sure that my goals are realized when she designs the interiors.”

Myron has obtained a good deal of his inspiration from studying indigenous dwellings in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He is best known for his large sculptural homes in the United States and

Just some of the Goldfingers’ folk art collection that adorns their home. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

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on the island of Anguilla, where he designed a vacation home for himself and his family in 1982.

Over the years he has built scores of vacation and year-round homes in Westchester and other parts of the New York metropolitan area, including the Hamptons. He always takes great care to make sure the homes are in synch with their sites, preserving trees and rock outcroppings where they exist.

“And my design philosophy is always to put the private spaces to the back,” he says.

Before the couple met, each had collected folk art and they now have hundreds of pieces by well-known Southwestern artists and others – everything from sculptures of people to pigs, cheetahs and puppets. Many of the pieces grace their Waccabuc home and inspire June’s interior designs for their clients.

On to Anguilla

The Goldfingers have always felt a strong attraction to the Caribbean, spending a portion of every winter there since 1970.

One 20 of Myron’s favorite designs.

“We had friends with a yacht and would island hop,” June says.

Eventually, Myron decided he wanted his own home, on the tiny island of Anguilla.

“Anguilla is only 14 miles long,” June says. “We were able to get land there through a friend of a friend and built a vacation house on the then-totally undeveloped island in 1982. Eventually we built four more houses and the prime minister asked us to develop a full-scale resort. We decided to do it.

I guess we were too stupid to know better. But against all odds we succeeded.”

Nothing succeeds like success and today the resort, known as Covecastles, is celebrated in travel and architectural circles for its striking contemporary architecture, refined luxury and attention to every detail of gracious living.

Covecastles has been voted “the most unique architecture in the Caribbean” by Caribbean Travel & Life magazine. The stark, white two-story villas facing a crescent curve of white sand beach and sparkling aquamarine water have hosted many luminaries, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep.

Following the success of Covecastles, the Goldfingers went on to complete a second project on Anguilla – Altamer, an enclave of private villas built again in a geometric style on a pristine and secluded beach.

At this point in their careers, the Goldfingers could sit back, relax on their laurels and reread the many articles and accolades in Architectural Digest and other publications. But they are not quite through yet.

“We still want to do more, creating soaring, light-filled geometric spaces that knock your socks off, but are also warm and welcoming homes,” June says. “It’s capturing volume and space.

That’s what great architecture and design are all about and that’s what we want to continue to do.” n

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Destination design Fresh-faced designer brings beachfront chic to the Northeast

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By Andrea Kennedy

A Venetian palazzo commands the coast of Sarasota, Fla., a commission by circus mogul John Ringling for Dwight James Baum of New York’s famed Fieldston mansions. The Cà d’Zan (House of John), brimming with Gothic aesthetic and ogival arches, recalled beloved memories of Ringling and wife Mable’s favorite canalled city.

It’s human nature that one’s home reflects elements of self, whether memories, achievements, possessions, predilections, or, in the case of interior designer Brittany Zachos, origin.

The recently local designer hails not far from Cà d’Zan herself and is armed with a bachelor of fine arts from Sarasota’s Ringling College of Art and Design. Graduates of the interior design program consistently take home the esteemed Angelo Donghia Foundation prize. And as the Ringlings transplanted a taste of Venice to Florida’s Gulf Coast, so this designer instills influences of her hometown’s beachfront chic in the Northeast.

The vibrant hues and contemporary lines of Brittany’s Zachos Design Group caught the eye of young Manhattan professionals while she was living in New York City before she, like many a client, took to the suburbs. She’s fresh-faced at 25 and, like her interiors, the picture of polish. Though young, she’s by no means green, dedicating herself to interior design for nearly 10 years and practicing for more than half a dozen. At 19, a European couple moving from Norway to Sarasota wired her $180,000 to furnish every detail of their 3,000-square-foot stateside abode from furniture to flatware.

Since hanging her designer hat just shy of two years ago in our snowy state – several clients snowbird to her hometown and yearn, like the Ringlings, for their own versions of waterfront paradise – Zachos has finished commercial and residential spaces in Armonk, Eastchester, Montrose, Mount Kisco, Pleasantville, Scarsdale and Stamford. She designed the interior of an Upper East Side children’s boutique and is currently working with Lighthouse Enterprises’ David Mann on the Apouvia condos in White Plains, set to debut in the spring. Her design of a Rye cottage particularly highlights her sunshiny Sarasota style – which happens to translate beautifully to lush Hampton-esque – incorporating ocean hues and bright pops of color in classic-chic comfort pieces.

“People think interior design is a luxury. I think it’s a necessity,” she says. “If people took the time to finish their homes and their workspaces, I think they would be happier.”

So WAG sat down with Brittany to gain her top tips on tasteful, functional, expressive and, of course, beautiful interiors.

Bright Dollops

“Don’t be afraid to use bright colors or a lot of whites,” she says, especially in tighter, enclosed spaces. “At the cottage in Rye, there were only two little 3-foot windows and no French doors, so I wanted to brighten it up. I left the walls white and added little pops of yellow and blue to really highlight that.” Brittany says she gravitates toward blues and teals on the color wheel and reminds clients that adding hues to a room doesn’t mean it should look like a Dr. Seuss illustration. Instead, aim for balance. “Don’t go overboard thinking that if you want green, it has to be everywhere,” she says. “Try it on a lamp, in a rug or on a bookshelf.”

Brittany Zachos of Zachos Design Group. Photographs

by Alexander Johnson.

22

Mix it up

“I personally like to mix modern with traditional elements,� she says, which is also a favorite of clients. “I incorporate mid-century modern pieces once in a while to each room. Those are just timeless and they’re not going anywhere in the design world.� To refresh the classic cottage in Rye, she added geometric textiles instead of damask or paisley for a modern finish. “You can even put a geometric print on a fauteuils chair,� she says.

think naturally you go toward rich fabrics like chenille and velvets.� And fear not the union of woods and mixed metals, especially today’s trendy antique brass. “You could use a brass table and pair that with a deep espresso end table, or even a bronze lamp,� she suggests.

Don’t knock vanilla

Even neutrals can make a statement, Brittany advises all the ivory and tan lovers out there. “I think brown is also a big statement maker,� she says. “I did a living room with an espresso wall and floors, but the rest was neutral.�

Plus, she adds, the nice thing about neutrals is they don’t have to match: “An all-white room really stands out, too, even different shades of white.�

Be yourself

“One woman I worked with was from South Africa, so she loves the vibrant oranges and mustards and deep, deep espressos,� she says. “That’s her culture and what she’s used to.� For another client’s office space, Brittany found inspiration in his fashion choices – particularly a crisp plaid shirt. “He wants it relaxed, but polished because it’s his business,� she says. “So I came up with a mid-century modern design for him. The plaid shirt inspired a plaid-type strip flooring and he loves it.�

Smooth and coarse

“Mix in linens like burlaps – those natural fibers that are unexpected,� she says. “It’s so much colder here, I

Stick to a floor plan

Of anyone, Brittany gets the thrill of furniture selection. So if people opt to choose furnishings on their own, at the very least call in an interior designer to work out the floor plan. “A lot of times, homeowners will fall in love with a piece and bring it home, but it doesn’t work,� she says. “They’ve invested all that money and they’re stuck with it. Then I get called to fix it.� To avoid a shot in the dark – plus a potential waste of time and money – determine with a pro the piece’s relationship with the rest of the room.

Accessorize

Brittany’s design of a cottage in Rye. Photograph by Alexander Johnson.

Get functional

“The biggest mistake with homeowners is that they don’t understand the functionality of their home,� Brittany says. In home and work spaces, this most important element of interiors – decisions like selecting the right storage pieces for small spaces or facing desks against a window versus a wall – dictates everything from mood to efficiency. For corporate clients, consider employees’ needs first to maximize productivity. For retail clients, consider brand first. (Who ever passed an Anthropologie and for a moment wondered where they were?)

“It’s like Coco Chanel said, ‘When accessorizing, always take off the last thing you put on,’� Brittany reminds. And, yes, interior design is not too far from fashion. “You need that one pop of color and maybe even a statement piece,� she adds, suggesting options from Jonathan Adler and Restoration Hardware for its rustic modern spin. “You may not need a new sofa, maybe just refresh with new lamps. Or keep the lamp base neutral and change out the shades.�

Limit modern

“I don’t go super modern,� she says. “It’s not cozy.�

Though sophistication is key, so is livability. “It’s about having your family there and enjoying the space – not just looking at it,� Brittany adds. Count on design experts to nail down the fabrics and finishes that are right for your friends and family – even kiddos straight from the outdoors. Because nothing says a waste of space like a sumptuous sofa nary sat upon. n

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Getting down with ‘Downton’

By Georgette Gouveia

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or Julian Fellowes – the Oscar-winning writer (“Gosford Park”) behind PBS’ “Downton Abbey” – the great English country homes are shelters not of the past, but for it.

“We woke up to the idea that these houses were an integral part of our history,” he writes in the foreword to “The World of Downton Abbey” (St. Martin’s Press) “that the life formerly lived in them had involved us all, whether our forebears had been behind the green baize door or in front of it, that they were not simply huge and unmanageable barns, no longer viable without sufficient staff, but expressions of our national character that we should be proud of.”

That character – tested and tempered by tragedy – lies at the heart of “Downton Abbey,” now filming its fourth season after a three-year run that has inspired praise and parody, as well as a slew of calendars, cookbooks, puzzles and similarly themed novels.

Such commercialization would no doubt alarm the fictional post-Edwardian Crawleys, who possess – and are in many ways possessed by – Downton, the family’s equally fictional countryseat in Yorkshire. One can just hear Lady Violet – the Dowager Countess of Grantham and family matriarch, played with withering wit and wisdom by Maggie Smith – saying, “Oh dear, how very middle class.”

Keepers of the flame

The Crawleys upstairs – and their servants downstairs – are defenders of tradition even as they adapt to changing times. Indeed, one could say that the reason they adapt to change is so they can hold on to what is most dear, a theme that is crystallized by the house itself, depicted in the series by Highclere Castle, the Victorianstyle countryseat of the Earl of Carnarvon in Hampshire.

Each episode opens not with glimpses of the stars, but snippets of domestic details – a path in the park leading up to the house, a bell ringing in the servants’ quarters, a feather duster caressing a chandelier, a maid with flowers stepping gingerly over an Oriental rug being unspooled by two male servants. The house as shelter to a way of life is the raison d’etre. Certainly, it is for its head, the noble-hearted Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), who informs the eldest of his three daughters, the strong-willed Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), early in season one that he is not Downton’s owner but its custodian. It’s a conversation that eerily echoes the moment in “Gone With the Wind” when Scarlett O’Hara’s father tells her that Tara is the only thing that matters.

“I have given my life to Downton,” he says in the series. “I can claim no career beyond the nurture of this house and this estate. It is my third parent and my fourth child. Do I care about it? Yes. I do care.”

It was to save Downton that Lord Robert entered into an ultimately happy arranged marriage with Cora, a rich American heiress (Elizabeth McGovern). It is to secure Downton that he refuses to fight the entail – that bane Dan 24Stevens as Matthew Crawley.

of Jane Austen heroines – which requires him to leave both the estate and Cora’s fortune to his closest male relative, the solicitor Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), rather than his three daughters. (As all Downtonians know, this, too, turns out to be felicitous when after much travail, cousin Matthew and Lady Mary happily wed at the beginning of season three.) And it is to safeguard Downton’s future that Lord Robert acquiesces to a modern management style championed by Matthew and Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the former chauffeur and Irish revolutionary who marries daughter No. 3, the loving Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay).

But Matthew and Tom – both new to the aristocracy – have to yield as well. In a pointed exchange from season three revolving around yet another financial crisis, Lady Mary tells Matthew that if he’s not willing to save Downton, then he’s not with “us.” And that’s the crux of it: The people may serve the house, but the house is its people, not just the family but the servants they employ, the tenant farmers who work the estate and the villagers who take pride in it. This is shelter in its most powerful expression, a community.

The real Downton

If Fellowes were to pen a contemporary “Downton,” you would have to think it would be something like life at the present-day Highclere. The kitchen and servants’ quarters and some of the family bedrooms were actually built and filmed at Ealing Studios in West London.

Situated on 6,000 acres in Hampshire – 1,000 of which are parkland gardens – and remodeled in 183942 by Charles Barry with touches of Italian Renaissance Revival, Highclere has a juicy story of its own to tell.

The site, which has been in the Carnarvon family since 1679, was once the medieval home of the Bishops of Winchester. The first earl redid the park in 1774-77, gracing it with Cedars of Lebanon. (Follies dot the property as well.) The third earl rebuilt the house.

But it was the fifth earl, George Herbert, who lent Highclere an air of “Downtonian” drama, marrying a Rothschild heiress to ensure the estate’s survival and in 1922 fund the expedition that unearthed Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb. Herbert’s death a year later from an infected mosquito bite in Cairo gave rise to the King Tut curse. According to a PBS documentary on Highclere, his beloved dog back home howled and keeled over at that precise moment. In 1988, 300 Egyptian treasures were discovered at Highclere in a secret passageway.

Luckily, no such drama attends the present Lord and Lady Carnarvon, who are busy playing host to tour groups and weddings when they’re not watching “Downton” on the telly and behind-the-scenes.

Like the Crawleys, they have sheltered their home from the vagaries of time.

“We’re doing OK,” Lady Carnavon told People magazine.

Yes, but would Lady Violet approve? n

Elizabeth McGovern portrays Cora, Countess of Grantham on “Downton Abbey.”

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God, Mo and baseball Mariano Rivera breathes new life into New Rochelle church

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n baseball, as in business, the closer is the one who seals the deal, who protects that fragile lead in the ninth and by extension, guards the tenuous, ever-shifting line between victory and defeat.

For more than 15 seasons, Mariano Rivera has been not merely the New York Yankees’ closer but baseball’s as well. The 12-time All-Star and five-time World Series champ holds the Major League Baseball records for career saves (608) and games finished (892) with a superb earned run average of 2.21.

That success led The New York Times – as stingy with its compliments as Rivera has been with runs – to describe him as “a kind of living god of baseball.”

“While his regular-season statistics are remarkable, in postseason play, where the pressure is at its highest, he is sui generis,” James Traub wrote in The New York Times Magazine’s June 29, 2010 cover story.

“Well, you look at the fishbowl in which he’s pitched, there’s no bigger stage than New York,” says Joe Torre, who managed him during the glory days of the late1990s and the early part of this century. “The way he’s performed, the only way you can do it is if you’re comfortable in your own skin.”

Even in tough times, Torre says, Rivera never blamed teammates but instead encouraged them.

“He’d talk to the team and always it was spiritually based, because he has such a deep spirituality.”

How much longer Rivera, 44, will continue to dazzle on the diamond and in the clubhouse remains to be seen.

He missed most of last season with a torn right ACL, sustained when he twisted his knee May 3 in a pregame ritual of shagging fly balls. There had been speculation that the 2012 season would be his last, but he vowed not to go out with an injury, underwent surgery and rehabilitation, inked a one-year contract for $10 million and told USA Today he is good to go for the Yanks’ 2013 season, which begins April 1 against the archrival Boston Red Sox. Whatever happens, he will no doubt face it with the same equanimity he brings to bases-loaded situations.

For all his stratospheric achievements, Mo, as he is affectionately known, has cut his deepest impression as a man who lives his faith. In an age when steroid abuse continues to haunt baseball, Rivera has been a refuge for troubled teammates, disenchanted fans and disadvantaged citizens alike.

The refuge is not merely metaphoric: Rivera, a Westchester County resident who’s married with three boys, and other members of his Pentecostal church have been working to rehabilitate the 122-year-old North Avenue Church in New Rochelle. Recently, he teamed with UHY Advisors NY for a church fundraiser at Siro’s in Manhattan, a restaurant in which he’s an investor. (See Watch in this issue.)

The North Avenue Church will serve as a house of worship, a day-care center, a food pantry, a clothing closet and a place for after-school programs.

Baseball may be America’s pastime, but it is really a sport of the Americas, particularly Latin America. Rivera honed his kindness along with his baseball talent in his native Panama where he grew up the son of a fisherman. Like many who have become supernovas in their profes-

26

By Georgette Gouveia sions, Rivera was something of a late bloomer, flirting with the fishing industry, soccer and other baseball positions – shortstop, starter – before becoming the setup man for reliever John Wetteland on the magical Torre-led 1996 team that came from behind to beat the vaunted Atlanta Braves in the fall classic, restore Yankee pride after a World Series drought of 18 years and usher in a new Yankee dynasty.

Rivera, who had signed with the team in 1990, was one of the “core four” – including Derek Jeter, starter Andy Pettitte and now-retired catcher Jorge Posada – of the new dynasty, nurtured through the farm system. But it was Rivera, perhaps because of the delicacy of the reliever’s job, who came to symbolize the topsy-turvy, oft-triumphant fortunes of the Yankees. Those fortunes are encapsulated in his cutter, or cut fastball, a combo slider and fastball that breaks sharply on hitters, striking fear into the hearts of sluggers and bringing delight to the hearts of us fans.

Sportswriters have said that Rivera discovered the pitch accidentally while playing catch with pitcher Ramiro Mendoza in 1997. But to Mo it was no accident: “It was just from God.” Becoming a born-again Christian in his 20s, Rivera has let his faith guide his pitching and his charitable work, which has included building an elementary school and church in Panama and annual gifts of

$500,000 to underprivileged children there and in the United States. His glove is inscribed with “Phil 4:13,” for the fourth chapter, 13th verse of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”

No doubt he has considered that inscription in moments of Kipling-esque triumph and disaster. Few fans will forget the gutsy, inspiring performance he turned in against the Red Sox in the 2003 American League Championship Series, hurling three scoreless innings in a nailgnawing, come-from-behind win. Yet his finest hour may have come not in victory but in defeat when he blew a chance to close out the decisive seventh game of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Later, Rivera said he was glad he lost that day. Had he won, the Yanks would’ve been treated to a victory parade up Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes, which meant teammate Enrique Wilson would’ve departed for his native Dominican Republic on the fateful American Airlines Flight 587 that crashed in Queens on Nov. 12 of that year, killing everyone aboard.

“It means I still have a friend,” Rivera said.

For the people of New Rochelle and the children of Panama and this country whose lives Rivera has touched, they have a friend as well. n

Mariano Rivera proudly displays the flag of his native Panama during the Yanks’ 2009 victory parade.

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Station shop, Designer Jewelry

By Mary Shustack Photographs courtesy of Erwin Pearl

The Grand Central Celestial Blue silvertone clock key ring features handpainted French enamel and is also available in other metals and hues.

The silvertone chandelier drop earrings, which feature Austrian crystals, are based on Grand Central Terminal’s distinctive lighting.

Erwin Pearl has created a selection of bracelets depicting Grand Central Terminal’s famed celestial ceiling, limited edition works featuring hand-painted French enamel in cerulean blue.

Those inspired by the beauty and grandeur of Grand Central Terminal can take a very stylish piece of it home with them.

Erwin Pearl, the fashion jewelry company established in 1952, was granted exclusive rights to design a line of jewelry that reflects the history and elegance of Grand Central.

The result is “The Centennial Collection: 100 Years of Grand Central Terminal,” which is filled with collectible – and charm28

The Grand Central Clock chain necklace is available in goldtone and silvertone.

ingly wearable – pieces that interpret many of the most iconic aspects of the terminal.

There are earrings, necklaces and bangles that depict the vibrant celestial ceiling and earrings and necklaces that reflect the unique pineapple-shape chandeliers.

Charms based on the famed eagle sculptures perched outside the terminal now adorn necklaces, while the clock – the foursided timepiece in the middle of the termi-

nal floor that has proved a meeting place for families, friends and lovers for decades – is featured on necklaces, charms and sleek keychains. There are also charm bracelet pieces such as a locomotive engine and the terminal itself, along with a large selection, including cuff links, which carries the graphic GCT logo.

With pieces in silvertone, goldtone and sterling silver, the Erwin Pearl line showcases

Austrian crystals, French enamel, brass and man-made pearls. Made in the USA, the commemorative jewelry ranges from $48 to $295.

The Centennial Collection is available at the company’s GCT location, Forever Silver

by Erwin Pearl, in the terminal’s Lexington Passage.

For more details, call (212) 922-1106 or visit erwinpearl.com. n

In aTerminal ‘Grand’ tradition marks its centennial with plenty of fanfare

By Mary Shustack Photographs by Bob Rozycki

O

ver the years, Grand Central Terminal has played host to shoppers and soldiers, filmmakers and preservationists – not to mention countless commuters. Now a yearlong centennial celebration of the iconic building has begun, putting the spotlight on its historic past, bustling present and plans for the future.

The party – complete with a cake in the shape of its famed clock and the singing of “Happy Birthday” – officially began Feb. 1 with a rededication ceremony

Grand Central Terminal, its 42nd Street entrance featured here, is celebrating its centennial.

filled with dignitaries and celebrities alike.

It led seamlessly into a full day of performances (including one by the Westchester Philharmonic), exhibitions and centennial events, with special 1913 prices at a number of destinations (5-cent coffee, anyone?).

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg kicked off the program that morning with a tribute to the Beaux Arts landmark.

“It’s not easy to last 100 years in a city of constant change,” Bloomberg said, noting that with the ever-growing list of restaurants, shops, shows and entertainment sheltered within Grand Central, it’s become “a city within a city.”

But, he added, “At its heart, this is a commuter train station,” one poised to address the needs of contemporary society.

“It represents beauty and art but also commerce and industry.”

And that is clear from even the quick-

est trip through the terminal, which today houses nearly 70 shopping destinations and three dozen dining options.

Everyone who has walked, or more likely hustled, through the iconic hallways, concourses and platforms surely finds different, perhaps always changing, reasons to visit.

For some, it might simply be the way a day starts and ends, the place to grab the Harlem, Hudson or New Haven lines.

But, of course, Grand Central’s so much more. It’s the place for a seafood feast at The Oyster Bar & Restaurant, an elegant cocktail in the swanky surroundings of The Campbell Apartment or perhaps even a slice from Two Boots. You can grab a best-seller at Posman Books or sample Junior’s cheesecake, select treats from Li-Lac Chocolates or a new lipstick from MAC, pick up a bouquet of flowers from a bloom-filled stand in Grand Central Market or a new tote from Tumi. You

29

can even get your shoes shined at an oldfashioned stand or play a game of tennis.

Centennial days

And that’s besides taking part in the exhibits and special events that have kicked into high gear for the centennial.

“Grand By Design: A Centennial Celebration of Grand Central Terminal,” which continues through March 15 in Vanderbilt Hall, chronicles the history of the terminal and its effect as one of the world’s most famous transportation sites.

“On Time/Grand Central at 100” will be presented March 6 through July 7 at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex & Store at Grand Central, one of the terminal’s perennially popular exhibition spaces. For this special event, more than a dozen contemporary artists will showcase work inspired by Grand Central and its stories.

Australian singer, songwriter, author and artist Nick Cave will present “HeardNY,” an installation and performance piece choreographed especially for Grand Central, March 25 to 31 in Vanderbilt Hall. A rare public display of train cars is set for May. And the list goes on.

All tie back to Feb. 1, 1913, the day the first set of keys was handed to the terminal’s stationmaster, with the first train departing just after midnight.

Today, the terminal celebrations mark those days – and move things ahead.

The festivities fall into a series of themes – “Happy Birthday to Grand Central”; “Preserving a Landmark”; “Creating a Legacy,” focusing on the renovation of the 42nd Street entrance and other physical improvements; “Grand Centennial Parade of Trains,” which features a rare public display of historic train cars and offers related programming; and “Grand Central: The Next 100 Years,” which continues the celebration throughout 2013.

A companion book, “Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark,” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) by the New York Transit Museum and Anthony W. Robins, has just been published. It’s a wonderful trip through the terminal’s history, one filled with historic images of its iconic elements, from the Paul-César Helleu celestial ceiling on the Main Con-

course to the information desk clock, from the operations control center to details of the statuary that makes its façade so memorable.

Always in motion

Change is a constant at Grand Central, with old-timers remembering the Kodak Colorama display (honored by the Transit Museum recently), while the youngest visitors will likely always recall the Apple Store being on the balcony.

Holiday markets, along with tours to explore the terminal’s history and secrets, like the underground features, abound.

Of course, there are always moments to pause. Who can forget how a condolence book invited New Yorkers to leave signatures and memories when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a driving force in Grand Central’s preservation efforts in the 1960s and ’70s, died in 1994? Her legacy is honored with a plaque. Her efforts are also credited with fueling the preservation movement throughout the country.

The terminal has also been host to movie scenes and flash mobs, art installations and photo shoots. They all seem to want to capture a bit of Grand Central’s enduring allure.

On the birthday

Back on Feb. 1, as the centennial got under way, the variety of speakers and performers signified just how broad Grand Central Terminal’s reach is.

Those sharing personal memories along the way included actress Cynthia Nixon, former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins (who spoke of his Westchester roots), former New York Mets’ star Keith Hernandez and author and attorney Caroline Kennedy (who offered the words her mother had written in the bid to save Grand Central).

There were also songs from Melissa Manchester, joined by a choir from The Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music.

It was, though, perhaps Howard Permut, president of the MTA Metro-North Railroad, who summed up the timeless spirit of Grand Central Terminal best: “It heralded to New Yorkers, then and now, you have arrived – and you have places to go.”

For more on the centennial, visit grandcentralterminal.com/centennial. n

The departure boards are an iconic element of the Main Concourse at Grand Central Terminal, pictured here after the Feb. 1 rededication ceremony.

30

S PA Out with the old and in with the new

By Georgette Gouveia

F

or years, Lanphier Day Spa & Salon was a fixture in the Goodwives Shopping Plaza in Darien – a cheerful space of clean lines and warm tones.

But when Eileen Lanphier had an opportunity last year to move nearby to a larger space in a former bank overlooking serene Tilley Pond Park, she realized the spa’s look was one thing she wouldn’t be taking with her.

“That was the old place,” says Lanphier, who owns the spa with her husband, Nusrat Rizvi. “I wanted to leave everything there and go forward.”

The new space – a cooler, more modern design, she says – has a blue, white and silver palette that evokes images of a tranquil sea. And peaceful is just what you feel the moment you enter the spa wing of the roughly 10,000-square-foot space. The lighting is low and so are the voices. The comforting cream-colored treatment rooms swathed in Decléor Paris towels and blankets feature names like “Iris” and “Geranium,” after the skin care company’s various aromatherapies. Since 2000, Lanphier has been a Decléor flagship spa, which posed some challenges for Brian St. Pierre, principal of the Insite Design Group in Huntington, Conn., which did the spa’s interior design. Using his thumb and index finger, St. Pierre indicates the telephone book-size bible of Decléor requirements for display of its products. Judging from the way its bright yellow boxes, containing golden liquids in frosted, tearshaped bottles, stand at attention in the creamy reception area and equally immaculate retail shop, it’s safe to say the Decléor display could stand up to the most rigorous inspection.

The airiness of the reception area makes an effective

Decléor spa room products at Lanphier Day Spa & Salon. Above, manicure area at Lanphier Day Spa & Salon. All photographs by Insite Design Group in Huntington, Conn., which did the spa’s interior design.

transition from the spa to the hum of the salon. Here the wood and stone textures are bolder; the lighting, which makes great use of skylights, more pronounced.

The colors are fairly neutral, particularly in the haircare area – and for good reason: The last thing you want, St. Pierre says, is for a patron’s hair coloring to be compromised by the interference of a bright-colored wall. It sounds as if he got quite an education in designing for a spa and salon from Lanphier and general manager Patricia Mavrides.

One thing that’s true of any good business is service, something that remains foremost with Lanphier – the woman and the place.

“We hire only very talented people and train our own staff,” she says of the 50 to 60 employees, all of whom must pass muster with Lanphier before they’re allowed to work on clients.

Says Mavrides, “Consistency is the key to the client’s experience. …We cater to everyone’s needs.”

There are full-body, prenatal, aromatherapy and healing stone massages; Reiki and Thai-yoga experiences; manis and pedis; exfoliation, bronzing and tanning; and special packages for teens, brides and guys on the go – all of which enable Lanphier Day Spa & Salon to shelter mind, body and spirit. Over the silvery white sectional sofa in the lounge area is emblazoned the mantra: “When all your senses are awakened, beauty becomes synonymous with well-being.”

But Lanphier’s idea of service extends to fundraising and giving back to the community as well. She’s had strong ties to Fairfield County since arriving 30 years ago from Ireland. (You can still hear the lilt of the Emerald Isle in her voice.) Lanphier began as coowner of a hair salon in Greenwich. In 1993, she and her husband opened a hair salon in Darien, expanding the business to include a small spa in a space that grew from 2,600 square feet to 6,000 square feet in 1998.

Why the spa biz?

“That was the future,” she says.

At the new Lanphier Day Spa & Salon, the future is now.

Lanphier Day Spa & Salon is at 20 West Ave. in Darien. For more information, call (203) 656-4444 or visit lanphierdayspa.com. n 31

Big ideas for tiny

spaces

By Mary Shustack Photographs by Bob Rozycki

Julia Grunberg, an interior designer working with Resource Furniture, demonstrates the space-saving features of the micro apartment at the Museum of the City of New York.

F

or anyone who’s ever dreamed of living large in Manhattan, the Museum of the City of New York suggests a decidedly different approach.

Its newest exhibition is all about innovative ways to make the most of your space – small space, that is.

“Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers” (through Sept. 15) is a timely glimpse into the future of residential life in the city, looking at housing trends that will affect city dwellers ranging from the young professional just starting out to the retired suburban couple looking to reconnect with the city and its cultural attractions.

While many of the exhibits at the museum are historical in nature, the museum also prides itself on looking ahead, says Donald Albrecht. The museum’s curator of architecture and design, Albrecht organized the show with Andrea Renner, the Andrew W. Mellon post-doctoral curatorial fellow at the museum.

“It’s about change,” he says of the exhibit, a copresentation of the museum and the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC). “It’s about how architecture can accommodate change.”

The spotlight is on design solutions for the city’s changing demographics, which include a growing number of singles. New housing options for the 21st century include shared space for single adults and modified homes for extended families. Today it is estimated that 15 percent of the city’s population is made up of couples with no children, while 33 percent consists of single people living alone.

The exhibition originated with the launch of PlaNYC, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s report that projected an increase of 1 million residents by 2030.

CHPC then began to examine how the current population is being served and found that the available housing did not always match up with needs.

32

The exhibition, Albrecht says, is a response to these very real concerns about housing this new population.

“The question is ‘Where will we make room for them?’”

“Making Room,” he says, is set up in a most logical of ways. The opening area is a multimedia section that lays out the facts and figures.

“This is the problem and that is the solution,” Albrecht says, pointing to how the remainder of the exhibition offers suggestions.

Visitors will also see models and drawings of housing designs by architectural teams commissioned by the CHPC when it partnered with the Architectural League of New York in 2011. The exhibition further features winning designs from the Bloomberg administration’s new pilot competition to test new housing models. The adAPT competition invited developer/ architect teams to design a building of micro-units for smaller households (one to two people). The winning submission is being developed at a site on East 27th Street.

Rounding things out are examples from other cities across the nation, including Seattle and San Diego, as well as international cities such as Tokyo.

But the centerpiece of the exhibition – and the feature garnering the most attention so far – is a fully furnished micro-studio apartment. At just 325 square feet – a size that falls below current regulations for most of the city today – the apartment is a study in creativity.

“It’s kind of a prototype of the kind of things you could live with,” Albrecht says, pointing out spacesaving standbys such as a Murphy bed and a secretary-style desk that folds open for use.

“They’re very fancy versions,” he says with a smile.

The unit was designed and furnished by Clei s.r.l. and Resource Furniture, with architecture by Amie Gross Architects.

“We wanted to give people the experience of what

we call a micro unit,” Albrecht says.

And it is quite an experience, even though the mission here is to educate, not to dazzle.

“This is not a show about aesthetics,” Albrecht says. “It’s about the social dimension of the architecture.”

But stepping into that micro apartment indeed is eye-opening.

Besides the Murphy bed and the desk, the television screen slides to reveal a bar hidden behind it.

An ottoman comes apart to turn into a quartet of small stools. Pull a dining-room table out from under a counter and take down folding chairs from their perch on the wall and one can imagine an intimate dinner party.

Throughout, there are also decorative touches ranging from vases to plants, art to mirrors.

“I think people are surprised at how stylish it can be,” Albrecht adds.

Julia Grunberg, an interior designer working with Resource Furniture, is demonstrating the features of the micro unit on a recent afternoon, taking down the bed, opening the desk and pulling out the table.

She says the older museum visitors seem most intrigued by the ease and compactness of the space, but overall, the exhibition is clearly resonating with locals.

“It’s mostly just people coming from New York to see new ideas.”

And it’s no doubt they’ll take a new perspective back to their own homes, no matter their size.

“Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers” continues through Sept. 15 at the Museum of the City of New York, at 1220 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. “Small + Shared = Green,” a conversation on smaller housing and sharing units as a means of sustainability, will be offered at 6:30 p.m. March 19. Tickets are $12. Make required reservations by calling (917) 492-3395. For more details on the museum, call (212) 534-1672 or visit mcny.org. n

spring 2013

EXPERIENCE. SOMETHING. REAL. MARCH

APRIL

Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Co. + SITI Company • A Rite

Imago • ZooZoo

Collaborative dance/theatre piece March 2, 8pm

Dance, music, humor...and giant penguins.

April 7, 3pm

Circus Incognitus • Jamie Adkins

Joan Rivers

One-man circus, LOTS of laughs March 3, 3pm

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields World renowned chamber orchestra March 9, 8pm

Sir James Galway & Lady Jeanne Galway, flute Crossing musical boundaries March 23, 8pm

The one and only returns to Purchase this spring April 7, 7pm

Barbara Cook

Be mesmerized her legendary voice April 20, 8pm

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

With composer/vocalist Gabriel Kahane.

April 21, 3pm

Paul Taylor Dance Company Modern dance pioneer April 27, 8pm Paul Taylor Dance Company © Tom Caravaglia

The Declassified

Chamber music’s freshest new faces.

April 28, 2pm

MAY Lila Downs

Her voice will take you on a musical journey to Mexico and back May 4, 8pm

Brentano String Quartet

An afternoon with one of today’s most popular string quartets May 5, 3pm

EACH MONTH Harlan Jacobson’s Talk Cinema Say you saw it here first.

March 5 & 19, April 9, May 7. 7pm

TICKETS NOW ON SALE

914.251.6200 w w w.ar tscenter.org Major sponsorship for the season is provided by

THE VIVIAN AND SEYMOUR MILSTEIN ENDOWED FUND. The Center’s 35th season is made possible, in part, by ARTSWESTCHESTER with funds from Westchester County Government.

The Great Orchestras and Chamber Music Series are made possible by generous support from the TANAKA MEMORIAL FOUNDATION. Special thanks to our corporate sponsors STEINWAY & SONS and PERNOD RICARD USA.

33

John Fanelli

Studio, sweet studio John Fanelli creates a

new home for the arts

By Mary Shustack Photograph by Bob Rozycki

W

hen people imagine their ideal home, it might be a cottage at the seashore, a cabin in the mountains or perhaps a well-appointed apartment in a favorite city.

The founder and artistic director of Lighthouse Youth Theatre always had something very different in mind, though.

Leading an informal tour through Standing Ovation Studios in Armonk on a recent morning, John Fanelli clearly delights in showing off the features that fill his theatrical company’s new home, from the acting studio that replicates a cozy theater to the memorabilia-accented music and vocal rehearsal rooms to the light-filled, 1,800-square-foot dance studio complete with the requisite piano and wall of mirrors.

“This has always been my dream,” he says.

Fanelli, a professional in the arts for nearly 20 years, trains students in theater, music and dance. For the past seven years, his award-winning Lighthouse Youth Theatre was based in Thornwood. Now, he is building on that program’s success by expanding its scope as it settles into the 34

state-of-the-art studios.

Like any “homeowner,” Fanelli has experienced the pains of outgrowing his original space, searching for something new – and then spearheading renovations, more than once.

Lighthouse’s first home in Thornwood was a basic space of 3,000 square feet.

“I went in and painted the walls,” Fanelli says of the quick settling in. “We outgrew that space in a year.”

So he moved the company to a space twice as big, after a bit of sprucing up. That was five years ago and when the lease was up, Fanelli decided it was time for a major move.

“We wanted to find a new space and build it,” he says. “This is it. This is home.”

The raw space was ideal for Fanelli’s designs.

“It was an old manufacturer, warehousetype thing. We ripped everything out.”

One might not notice, but the Armonk space is actually not as large as Thornwood.

“It’s smaller – 4,700 square feet,” Fanelli says with a smile. “But every inch is designed for its purpose.”

That means the acting studio (“really my favorite room, because it’s my room,” he adds with a laugh) is complete with theater-style seating and the latest in lighting and video capabilities.

It’s a place where students can run scenes or do monologues, learn about lighting – and how to audition and critique, as they are encouraged to “give notes” to fellow students.

Cameras throughout the spaces allow parents to monitor their children’s classes as well.

The entire project, Fanelli says, took about four months, with work concluding in recent weeks.

There is, Fanelli adds, room to grow.

“I have 1,200 square feet waiting for me, plus,” he says, adjacent space he hopes

eventually to transform into more dance and music space.

“We raised a lot of money to put this together,” Fanelli says, showing an impressive plaque near the main entrance that recognizes supporters. “It took a lot to get this done. Everything had to line up perfectly.”

The new space, Fanelli adds, was the final ingredient in his long-term plan. He was always confident in his staff and was secure in his philosophy and approach.

“Now we just added this space, which is the missing element.”

It was created, he adds, in a way that it can remain home “for 20 or 30 years.”

And that would suit Fanelli just fine, as he savors his East Coast home base.

The Dobbs Ferry native lived for 11 years in California.

He received a degree in theater arts from the University of California, San Diego, and worked throughout California and New Zealand for the Metropolitan Educational Theatre Network.

Along the way, he met his wife, Nannette, who is now Lighthouse’s executive producer. They started a family, but Fanelli says he still felt the pull of his boyhood home and extended family.

Returning to New York, Fanelli developed Westchester Broadway Theatre’s Young Artists of the WBT and was artistic director for the Times Square Group before forming Lighthouse, which trains students generally from ages 4 to 19 through classes, workshops and productions presented in professional theaters rented out for the shows.

When we met up with Fanelli recently, he was on his way next to the Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford, where he is directing the current production, “In the Heights,” with a cast that includes some actors he already knew.

“We have former students that are in it with me, which is exciting,” he says of the show produced by Standing Ovation Studios.

“The only reason I started doing professional work was so my students would be around the professional actors,” he says. “There’s only so far I can take them, then they just have to sit in awe of the professional actors.”

The production, like Lighthouse and Standing Ovation, benefits from its strong relationship with its benefactors.

Fanelli gives special mention to arts patrons Sandra and Sheldon Mallah.

“They have the same feeling about the arts that I do,” he says. “When you add beauty to the world, it can only help.”

Fanelli says much like a young athlete might be prepped for a football scholarship, he trains students who might get to college on the basis of their artistic talents.

“That’s really my goal for these kids,” he says. “It’s not Broadway.”

Of course, he has former students who have performed on the Great White Way, as well as off-Broadway and in regional theater around the country.

Down the line, Fanelli sees people coming in and shopping at the Dress Rehearsal Boutique in the lobby, taking a fitness class (such as one planned for moms while their children are in class) or even renting out music studios to the guys Fanelli calls “old-men” bands.

As he talks about also expanding into that adjacent space and hopes for creating an amphitheater-style outdoor classroom, Fanelli smiles at how much has been accomplished – with so many possibilities ahead.

“I still can’t believe it,” Fanelli says. “I walk around here going, ‘Is this really my space?’”

It most certainly is.

For more on Standing Ovation Studios and Lighthouse Youth Theatre, 1 Labriola Court Armonk, call (914) 741-4205 or visit standingovationstudios.org or lytshows.org. n

hot spots

Westport, a home for sophisticated style

Story and photographs by Mary Shustack

35

The distinctive façade of Addison Wells is a Main Street landmark.

Dovecote shows how to bring together varied elements to create one-of-a-kind flair.

Garden ornaments make a strong style statement outside Spruce Home & Garden.

W

estport offers an adventure in style, as a recent day spent wandering throughout the downtown that spreads out just beyond the banks of the Saugatuck River proved.

Sure, you’ll find the “big” names here, the stores so familiar to most every shopper these days.

You can’t walk Main Street without seeing, among so many others, J. Crew or Banana Republic, Gap or Ann Taylor, Brooks Brothers or Williams-Sonoma, Coach or West Elm. And the adjacent Post Road East, a more meandering street, is home to Tiffany & Co., Urban Outfitters, Patagonia and Paper Source.

But even big names have a special intimacy in Westport. Jonathan Adler, for example, which has some twodozen boutiques around the world, has a charmingly vibrant home in the décor store on Main. It’s filled with bold colors, playful designs and a touch that any decorating fanatic would envy. It’s a mix of bold style and delightful humor with a bit of retro thrown in for good measure.

Pick up a figurative vase or a travel book on Capri, a Charlie Chaplin-inspired pillow or a chair upholstered in a mod fabric. Each has a signature style, as do the walls, which sport the designer’s quirky encouragements (from “enter our groovy world” to “take tambourine lessons”), while his traditional manifesto near the door – including the line “We believe in irreverent luxury” – is localized to proclaim what seems to be quite true: “We believe that Westport is chic.”

And that is further echoed by those shops that are per36

An eclectic mix of designer shoes and bags is offered at Addison Wells.

haps less familiar in the broadest sense. They are not often found in this area, an individual shop with a single location or one that’s part of a smaller, regional group.

That is where some of Westport’s fun really begins.

Take Addison Wells, which is dedicated to offering an eclectic mix of designer shoes, bags and accessories in a space reminiscent of a very ladylike shoe salon of an earlier time. But the choices are hardly staid and include Loeffler Randall pumps and Robert Clergerie boots.

“We buy a really wide range of designers,” says manager Ashley Kuehl, mentioning additional brands ranging from Frye to See By Chloë to Jil Sander to Henry Cuir.

The last, she shares, is “all handmade in Italy. Besides Barneys, they’re really hard to find.”

With other shops in Nantucket and Sarasota, Fla., Kuehl says travel-savvy Westport residents are a built-in audience for Addison Wells.

“A lot of people do know who we are and have shopped our other locations,” Kuehl says. “Everyone seems to be super excited we are here.”

At Francois du Pont Jewelers, a 35-year-old family business, Noel du Pont says that Westport residents have a wide range of taste, so his shop offers a broad selection of watches, jewelry and small accessories.

“It’s mixed,” he says. “It’s a little of everything.”

That seems to be a running theme here, where lighting at Klaff’s on Post Road East ranges from dramatic chandeliers dripping in crystals to simpler models that would be right at home in a traditional Colonial.

Patty Scozzafava at Spruce Home & Garden.

Dovecote, a sweeping store filled with an eclectic mix of furniture, decorative accessories and personal finds ranging from colorful tunics to sweet bracelets, is the place to find a leopard-print pillow or a shapely turquoise vase. There are Asian-inspired cabinets, stately mirrored armoires, brass-and-glass coffee tables and more than a few geodes dotted throughout. It’s a mix that offers yet another moment of signature style, exemplified by a vintage bamboo fan-shaped chair.

Curb appeal continues on the Post Road East, where peacock-themed linens and pillows add a lively air to the window of Fig, a boudoir and bath store, while oversize garden ornaments beckon the shopper into Spruce Home & Garden, set within a distinctive stone building that once served as the town hall.

Inside the calming space, it’s all garden accessories and planters, birdcages and jewelry, scarves and the shop’s new line of soy-based candles and reed and clay diffusers.

One of seven regional shops, Spruce has also launched a collection of cashmere sweaters.

And if it’s clothing, perhaps a bit out of the ordinary, on your shopping list, then amble up the Post Road to Vintage Virtuosa, one of those proverbial “worth-thetrip” destinations. Fashions and accessories from the 1940s through the ’80s offer a stylish walk through recent fashion history.

“Our ’70s is doing really well,” says Amanda Burns, the curator and niece of owner Karen Ellman.

But other eras are also proving popular, she says. “We

do see demand for the flapper styles.”

The shop often buys collections. On this day, fashions from a prominent surgeon with homes in Greenwich and on Park Avenue were in the spotlight, from an I. Magnin jacket to an Albert Nipon dress to pieces from Adolfo.

When the items were purchased for the store, Burns says, “It felt like Christmas.”

Her enthusiasm continues as she shows off other fashions, along with shoes, hats, bags, home accents – and what makes them special.

Here, she said, “You see the stories behind (them).”

And that’s also the sensibility of DAVIDsTEA, a charming spot back on Main Street and the ideal way to end a visit to town.

The loose-leaf tea shop, where more than 150 options – from English rose to cocomint cream to licorice twist – are featured, is part of a Canadian chain that’s making its way into America.

“We spend a lot of individual attention to make it less daunting,” says manager Julia Ambrose, before adding with a laugh, “I can find a flavor for anybody, even if they don’t drink tea.”

This is the kind of place where they’ll offer you a sip of the daily featured flavors (recently blueberry jam and cinnamon rooibos chai) and explain the various types of teas, brewing methods and more. You can buy the tea by the ounce, the teapots and accessories, or simply have them brew you a cup, hot or iced, for $3.

Flavors change by season, Ambrose says: “We sort of treat tea like fashion.”

And Westport, she adds, has proven a welcoming home since the shop opened in October.

“The reception’s been wonderful. Westport is a great place and it’s been wonderful for us.” n

Manager Julie Ambrose pours samples at DAVIDsTEA.

Amanda Burns shows off popular flapper-style dresses at Vintage Virtuosa.

Above, there’s a colorful selection of spring hats at Vintage Virtuosa.

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37

wonderful dining

relationships reign at The Whelk

By Andrea Kennedy

In the changing tides of the restaurant industry, The Whelk is relatively nascent at 15 months. But spend an evening there and you’ll swear it’s been a fixture on Saugatuck’s riverfront for generations. The key is Chef Bill Taibe’s mindful marriage of caliber and character that makes one a homey haven for feasting.

Anchoring the developing New England-style Saugatuck Center, this beacon of artisanal eats cozies up against the docks like a lighthouse for famished mariners with a taste for fresh sea fare. Offering casual comfort with bench seating, communal tables and charming chalkboards decorated by hand, The Whelk also presents diners with a requisite list of daily-delivered oysters, clams and caviar plus more than two-dozen small and large plates prepared with Taibe’s top technique and signature ingredient ingenuity.

“We don’t overdo it,” he says. “It’s about what’s new, what’s fun, what would put a smile on our face if we were eating it. What would highlight its flavors without changing or altering it?”

This is not the place to find fried calamari. It’s more like the place to find cornbread-fried oysters on deviled eggs, warm peekytoe crab fondue over grits with green tobiko and fried onions (“fronions’) or squid ink cavatelli with red shrimp and possibly the most spirited chorizo in the tristate area. But don’t mistake unconventional for pretentious. Taibe is less white tablecloth and more reclaimed wood tabletop. And don’t mistake authenticity for simplicity. Taibe is less sculptural plating and more “California sloppy” – if you’re the type to call Chez Panisse sloppy.

“I have been every kind of chef you can imagine,” he says. “I have plated things, squished things, used tweezers and been so concerned with the presentation of the dish. I’ve realized that there’s such beauty in a natural expression.”

That’s not to say chef and his crew don’t have fun concocting in the kitchen.

“We’re trying to make the most delicious pork sandwich in the world,” says The Whelk’s chef de cuisine Andy Hayes with relative nonchalance. To encourage creativity, Taibe and his team thrive on lack of confines.

“You go through this evolution as a chef – cooking to prove, then cooking for people, then cooking for yourself,” he says. “When you get to the point of cooking for yourself, that’s where I think chefs get most successful, because they’re not worrying about anybody else. We design for ourselves, we cook for ourselves. I don’t have limitations on what we do.”

Taibe has also broken out of catchphrase cuisine. He rebukes trendy terms “local” and “organic” and even goes beyond “farm-to-table,” or ocean-to-table, as it were. Instead, he’s coined the term “relationship cuisine” to highlight the fishers and farmers that make his dishes extraordinary. From this perspective, Taibe really acts as a seasoned producer assembling his finest players under the ideal conditions to let them shine.

“Everything comes to us with quality being the first 38

Chef Bill Taibe

thing in mind,” he says. “We put ourselves with business with people that feel just as passionate about it as we do, and if you’re really concerned about me and my quality and my business, then in turn I’m going to pay that respect. That’s kind of lost somehow, someway in the restaurant business, and we really focus a lot of attention to that.”

With The Whelk’s launch, Taibe, who also heads Westport’s renowned Le Farm, made a career change to restaurateur – a big-picture position overseeing both menus, preparations and inventory (with a steady flow of iced-coffee to keep him going), then trusting his master kitchen staff to execute. Though not always physically in the kitchen at dinnertime, his philosophy is ever-present – to stock the best products he can find, then highlight the prized ingredients with time-tested technique.

Lucky for landlubbers circa Connecticut, city life doesn’t draw this Queens boy – a self-proclaimed homebody who coaches his sons’ sports teams and keeps home and garden in Wilton. “You have a larger national audience in New York City, but that was never why I’ve done this,” he says. “I just fell in love with cooking and I wanted to be really good at it.”

Through honing his talents at Fairfield’s Wildfire, G/R/A/N/D, Relish, Napa & Co. and, of course, his Westport hotspots, he’s earned three “excellent” ratings from The New York Times, a bevy of statewide accolades and has been named a semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast by the James Beard Foundation in 2011 and 2012.

But success hasn’t brought complacency. Rather, Taibe and his troupe “work nervous.”

“We are humble,” he says. “We are apologetic. We are always concerned that yesterday wasn’t good enough.”

The Whelk itself is a humble creature, yet Taibe managed to elevate the provincial bivalve to star status when a matter of days before the eatery’s opening, a foodie

blogger pressed him to name his (then, working titled) Oyster Bar in Saugatuck. With “no thought,” he says, the chef peeked at his computer screen where he had pulled up old English whelk preparations and a splitsecond decision gave birth to the name. Serendipitously, it turns out, the title reinforces his relationship with the sea.

“Whelks are, especially in this area, all over the waters going out into the Sound,” Taibe says. “Oystermen hate them. They’re also known as oyster drills, because they eat oysters.”

Clientele does the same in droves. Friday and Saturday reservations are booked a month out. To keep up with demand, Taibe orders oysters from the Long Island Sound every morning, has more over-nighted from Massachusetts, with more still coming in from western waters like the Washington state’s Hood Canal.

The self-described shameless shopper admits to the thrill of engaging with his suppliers, whether ordering oysters from the Sound, calling North Carolina for the best trout and Rhode Island for the best scallops, or taking his staff on field trips to local farms to flip through seed catalogs or plan pig programs. In May, he’ll take crews from both restaurants to a farm to put in a full day’s work during the first harvest.

“This morning,” he says, “I had them in 12 degrees outside at Millstone Farm. We were happy as could be.” n The Whelk (seafood), 575 Riverside Ave., Westport, (203) 557-0902, thewhelkwestport.com

For other fine dining destinations in Westport, visit: Le Farm (American), 256 Post Road East The Spotted Horse (American), 26 Church Lane Pink Sumo (Sushi), 4 Church Lane The Dressing Room (American), 27 Powers Court

Home on the stage Michael Bolton reveals self and soul

By Andrea Kennedy

39

M

ore than 15 years ago, Michael Bolton cut his hair and people are still talking about it. Those reinventions meant to shock the public perception are supposedly what keep celebrities’ images interesting. Yet Bolton, that same artist and performer for more than 40 years, is back in the limelight less for a reinvention than a revelation. Over the past two years, a never-beforeseen Bolton has come to light, exposing a truth on which fans and nonfans can agree: Michael Bolton is a lot more fascinating than the public may think.

You may know he’s sold more than 53 million albums. You may not know he got kicked out of Hebrew school, got high instead of attending high school and opted for the school of hard knocks by bumming around Greenwich Village in his early teens and hitchhiking penniless across the country.

You may know he co-wrote the hit “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You” and has also written songs for Cher and Barbra Streisand. You may not know he co-wrote songs with Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga and has also written songs for artists from Conway Twitty to Kanye West. He also wrote the U.S. Army jingle, “Be All You Can Be.” You may know he’s a two-time Grammy winner who’s earned three American Music Awards for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist. You may not know his AMA record is matched only by Barry Manilow, Eric Clapton and Michael Jackson.

You may know that “Dancing with the Stars’” judge Bruno Tonioli called his jive the worst in the ABC show’s history. You may not know that he’s a sports all-star and that his golf benefits for Michael Bolton Charities have helped raise more than $10 million for at-risk women and children. He recently told Katie Couric on her eponymous daytime talk show that growing up, his family was an “inch away from being homeless.”

He’s also a relentless jokester, a revelation that stunned the public in May 2011 with the music video release of “Jack Sparrow,” a collaboration with The Lonely Island comedy trio that to date has more than 100 million views. The hilariously irreverent and unequivocally goofy track defied his one-dimensional, gossamer soft rock image by, really, just revealing the Michael Bolton authentic.

A vault of these revelations rub pages in his new book, “The Soul of it All,” a breezy read packed with entertaining accounts of his coming of age, plus some downright shocking tales of his hazy, crazy days playing street corners for change and how he inexplicably survived some legit brushes with death. He recounts with humor and tenderness – along with the poeticism of a songwriter – how playing ball with Dad inspired his lifelong competitive streak, how Mom had to co-sign his first contract with CBS’ Epic Records

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when he was 16, and the down and dirty intricacies of his rise from a New Haven garage band singer to performing with Luciano Pavarotti and B.B. King.

And yes, he certainly speaks of his relationship with longtime love Nicolette – Sheridan, for you Bolton newbies – on whom he bestows a flood of admiration and accolades, including, how “she’s the only person I’ve met who can kick my ass in Scrabble.”

Last month, Bolton, a Motown devotee, launched his new tribute album, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” and a week later returned to his home state’s Ridgefield Playhouse for a Valentine’s Day performance in front of a packed house. Amid his frenzied schedule, the legend revealed to WAG some details of his current life that readers can’t find in his book – specifically, his home life in Westport. Here you can read where he finds R&R, what it’s like at home with his three daughters and two granddaughters, who of the crew does most of the crying and how he looks dressed as a woman.

Michael, you’re currently on tour around the country. How much fun have you had with fans so far?

“My fans are the best and most loyal fans in the world. Being able to see them when I am on tour is the best part of performing. We have fun onstage and off. I wish I had more time to spend with them in each place, but we are usually moving on pretty quickly after the shows.”

You live in nearby Westport. When you perform in Ridgefield, do you experience a feeling of homecoming?

“Absolutely. Coming back home to perform always feels great and brings me kind of full circle – performing in my home state, where I had my first fans when I started out, in Connecticut and New York. This time the enjoyment came with a feeling of sadness, knowing that people affected by the recent tragedy in neighboring Newtown (would) be in the audience.

We hoped to bring some light and love on Valentine’s Day and celebrate the meaning of the day, loving each other.”

You’re originally from New Haven, so is that what drew you to settling down in Westport? What else makes you call the area home?

“I wanted a safe place with great schools to raise my daughters. We have the privacy we need in this smalltown setting. When I was shopping for homes over 20 years ago, I fell in love with this charming, beautiful town and most importantly, its close proximity to New York airports. I love getting the chance to drive my own cars around town when I am home.”

We imagine you wrapping a packed tour run and not wanting to leave the sofa for weeks. Is that ac-

curate in your case, or do you find it hard to slow down? When and where do you get your best R&R? “That is a very accurate description of my touring life, and R&R is hard to grab. I stay active all of the time, even when I’m home. I have a home office and studio and I rarely stop working. The couch and I don’t get together very often. Golf and tennis are my R&R outlets.”

Any favorite eateries or hangouts?

“One of my closest friends, Tommy Febbraio, owns amazing restaurants. One of his newest in downtown Westport (Spotted Horse) is my favorite. I also love Italian – I am a junk-food vegetarian, and pasta, eggplant, etc. are available – and I have two real favorite Italian restaurants, one in Westport, one in Greenwich.”

When you retreat to your home, do you find it a quiet refuge or a bustling abode?

“My house is definitely bustling. My girls come and go and there is noise and laughter and crying – not the babies, but me, trying to work in the midst of love and chaos and lots and lots of squeals and jumping up when they try to eat a pen, or get too close to the stairs. Millie and Gwen, my granddaughters, steal the show. There is baby gear everywhere, lots of pink and horses on wheels and tricycles and things they jump up and down in. It is crazy and wonderful. And yes, pets included. My girls rescue Boxers and two of them come and go as well.”

Beside your music career, do you enjoy particular hobbies at home?

“Golf. Hands down, golf. I also have a tennis court and friends come over and play. I do not cook or garden, but I read, write and enjoy driving my own car freely around town, stopping at Starbucks or a juice bar. I am also a bit of a referee. With three daughters – all bright, beautiful and very independent thinkers – things can get … interesting.”

As an artist, what kind of creative inspiration do you glean from your home surroundings?

“My inspiration comes from different sources, in different ways. At home, the love I have for my girls and family and the heartbreaks that all families experience, speaks to me. I live on a lake and the view is breathtaking. Sitting on my own patio, enjoying my home on the rare occasions I am home creates the perfect backdrop for writing.”

How did you enjoy collaborating with The Lonely Island on the sidesplitting music video “Jack Sparrow”? How did the process compare with other recordings?

“Surprisingly, it was not much different. Behind the scenes when I am recording there are a lot of jokes

Michael Bolton perfomed Feb. 14 at Ridgefield Playhouse.

Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

and laughing and irreverent behavior.

With the Lonely Island guys it was that times 10. They are crazy and we had a lot of fun … laughing till it hurt.”

Not only did you lend your world-famous vocals to “Jack Sparrow,” you also dressed like the Johnny Depp pirate character, Forrest Gump, Scarface and even in drag as Erin Brockovich. We can only imagine … what was that like?

“Much different than I thought it would be. It was actually fun. I loved ‘Scarface’ and ‘Forrest Gump,’ so portraying those characters was really enjoyable. As far as the Erin character is concerned – that was scary, because I looked just like my mother.”

How much did you enjoy revealing your sense of humor to the world beyond your typical fan base?

“Immensely. I am a shameless jokester. For so many years, many people did not see this side of me, but it is definitely a huge part of who I am and I have so much fun revealing that to my fans. A huge perk is that I have a whole new set of fans as a result of the comedic side.”

People magazine recently named you one of their Sexiest Men Alive 2012. It’s not the first time you’ve been given the title, but you’ve mentioned in the past that you were an “ugly kid”” How does it make you feel – newly 60 – to still make generations of women swoon?

“Very humbling. I am an incurable romantic and I feel that comes through in my music and is a big part of how women see me.”

We can’t avoid the question: How do you stay looking so fantastic?

“Thank you! I do have a home gym, but am hardly ever home to use it.

I work out in hotels, in my dressing room, wherever I can. I do not work with a trainer. I play tennis whenever I can.”

What can your fans look forward to on the horizon?

“I have other projects I am working on but not quite ready to reveal those.”

Clearly, fans will just have to stay tuned. n Michael Bolton perfomed at Ridgefield Playhouse.

Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

way

retreat

An oh-so-private Modern-day masterpiece offers luxury lifestyle

Presented by Houlihan Lawrence

888 BEDFORD HOUSE at a Glance

• Bedford • 12,000 square feet • 75 acres • Bedrooms: 6 • Baths: 9 full, 2 half • Amenities: Main house surrounded by deer fence, privacy, sports facilities echo resort offerings, soaring ceilings, extensive windows, French doors, gourmet kitchen, elevator, wine room, designed gardens, guesthouse.

• Price: $14.5 million

Photographs by Tim Lee.

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hen the goal is to find a grand estate where the wealth of amenities is matched only by the level of privacy, the search just might end at 888 Bedford House.

The stately manor house, set high on a hill and designed by noted architect Ralph Mackin, is the showpiece of the sprawling 75-acre spread of protective forest combined with open vistas.

Mackin’s work displays a creative blend of classic design and fresh modern style, a mix that adds up to simply stunning results.

Built in 1999, the four-columned Colonial offers expansive living space at 12,000 square feet that includes six bedrooms and nine and a half baths.

Superb materials and beautiful finishes distinguish every room of the residence, which is further refined with soaring ceilings and exquisite detailing, including custom moldings, furniture-quality woodwork and statuesque fireplaces.

In addition, countless walls of windows and French doors flood the home with natural sunlight.

Balancing the classical influences found throughout the home is a wealth of modern comforts. These include a tour-deforce kitchen where a generous, marbletopped island complements an incredible amount of storage space. Features also include an internal passenger elevator, expansive family spaces and a wine room.

There are, of course, the basics expected for this style of living, from an alarm sys-

tem to walk-in closets to staff quarters. For those with pets, the property offers its own kennel. A four-car garage with additional ample parking courts makes large-family living or entertaining a breeze.

And when it comes to recreation, you might wonder if you are at home or at a resort, since the facilities are unparalleled.

There is an indoor lap pool complete with artful skylights and adjacent is a mirrored gym. A sauna is also featured.

In addition, there is an outdoor pool, an outdoor sunken tennis court and perhaps most notable, a specially permitted and rarely available indoor tennis pavilion that delivers a professional-caliber facility in a residential setting. The pavilion’s features also include a dressing room, bath, kitchen and viewing lounge.

All these offerings are contained within a breathtaking setting, where beautifully designed gardens and sylvan lawns invite outdoor living in style.

Elsewhere on the property, which offers access to Bedford schools, is a handsome guesthouse. That property, set artfully aside the outdoor pool, includes two spacious bedrooms, a large central living room and a modern kitchen.

The privacy of this gated property is further enhanced by having 10 internal acres protected by a 9-foot deer fence and the spread itself being buffered by 18 acres of conservation land.

In all, this exceptional property represents the very best that Westchester County has to offer, unrivalled in its scope, privacy and amenities.

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For more information, contact Camille Branca at Houlihan Lawrence Bedford Village Green Brokerage at (914) 403-3754, (914) 2349099 or cbranca@houlihanlawrence.com.. n

46

wear

Oh, Oscar!

Fashion design icon brings his home to yours

By Andrea Kennedy

S

ince his days dressing Jackie Kennedy, designer Oscar de la Renta has adorned high fashion-minded celebs like Sarah Jessica Parker, classy, sassy dames like Tina Fey and funky recording artists like Rihanna. But lately the name so popular with red carpet couture has graced the fashion pages less for who flaunted Oscar’s styles at the Oscars and more for glamorizing shelter.

In January, de la Renta opened the largest of his brand’s 14 worldwide stores near London’s Berkeley Square. A grand opening set for spring follows the expansion of his Madison Avenue flagship store, which once completed, will be slightly larger than the new 3,000-square-foot shop overseas. After going big in London, the next abode for his alluring designs is set to open in Atlanta this year.

As de la Renta’s new store raised sales among Brit shoppers, a recent guest at his studio raised eyebrows.

In January and February, he opened his New York design studio to John Galliano, Dior’s dishonored former couturier. Shunned from the fashion world two years ago after an anti-Semitic outburst, Galliano may be attempting a comeback through sanctuary within de la Renta’s open door.

Table decorated with Oscar de la Renta’s Island Gift and Entertaining Collection. Courtesy of Bloomingdale’s.

“Everyone in life deserves a second chance, especially someone as talented as John,” de la Renta told women’s fashion publication WWD. “I think that life is about forgiving and helping people.”

The move, lauded by the Anti-Defamation League, also spurred speculation that the 80-year-old designer may be seeking a successor – a rumor de le Renta quickly dismissed. Instead, this month he’s busy releasing a new line of premier home goods, the Oscar de la Renta Island Gift and Entertaining Collection, set to furnish fine affairs from coast to coast.

The line of 70 luxury mix-and-match pieces creates lush environments inspired by the chic island living of his native Dominican Republic. Earthen dinnerware, carved-handled flatware, hand-blown glassware and picturesque platters stun in a palette of indigo and ivory with abundant texture, hits of teak and zests of red. Hand-painted plates replicate brushstrokes from de la Renta’s own hand, and linen designs are taken from a 1970s’ resort-wear print from the designer’s archive.

Sculptural and functional items like the Dip Dye Fish Water Jug transform entertaining environments, while an unexpected accessory accompanies serving pieces – a recipe from de la Renta’s kitchen.

“Mr. de la Renta is taking his signature elements of bold patterns, vivid color and elegant styling from the

runway to your home, inviting you to set a table that is just as stylish as your wardrobe,” says Emily HullMartin, fashion director for home at Bloomingdale’s White Plains.

The chance for haute hosts to adorn their tables in the designer’s finery doesn’t stop with his Dominican-inspired collection.

His country home in Kent, Conn. influenced the upcoming summer 2013 line, and new iterations will launch twice a year based on various geographies and lifestyles.

In April, Westchester welcomes de la Renta not just in product, but in person. The designer will trek to our home turf for his April 25 fashion show, a Champagne gala event in partnership with bucket in ivory Mary Jane Denzer that celebrates the 120th anniversary of White Plains Hospital. n 47

wear

Hands-on favorite From the first lady to Lady Gaga, Alexis Bittar’s jewelry has wide appeal

J

Jewelry designer Alexis Bittar has had his eye on Greenwich.

“I’ve been looking for a little while and wanted to be on that avenue,” he says.

And with the opening of an Alexis Bittar boutique late last month, he has become one of Greenwich Avenue’s newest – and most artistic – neighbors.

The new address marks his first East Coast shop outside Manhattan, joining eponymous boutiques in Chicago and California. His award-winning designs, spotted in fashion magazines and on redcarpet walkers alike, are also carried in boutiques and department stores around the world.

“Greenwich, to me, is a really interesting, obviously an interesting, microcosm of taste,” he says, adding it has “the best the world has to offer.”

Bittar says whenever he would visit Greenwich, he felt he was in a “small, tight-knit” community.

And that held great appeal for the artist who lives and has his studio in Brooklyn, where he was born and raised.

Bittar got his start in jewelry design 22 years ago, carving his pieces by hand. Today, he has 350 employees who continue the hand-carving tradition.

“I don’t know if I’m a dinosaur or a pioneer. I can’t tell,” Bittar says with a laugh.

Today, with a growing emphasis on the importance of handmade goods, there seems to be a fresh perspective on Bittar’s dedication to such intricate production methods.

“They now appreciate it,” he says.

“Years ago, they didn’t care.”

The Greenwich boutique, he shares, has opened in perfect time to showcase the newest collection, one that has Bittar very excited.

“Each season I do multiple stories, so it’s a well-versed season,” he says of the spring/summer 2013 line.

A particular grouping he singles out includes a floral pin in a shape reminiscent of a pansy, the Lucite’s coloring creating a truly iridescent, shimmering effect.

Evolving designs

Design is constant, says Bittar, who builds on past collections and reaches out in new directions.

“It’s always an evolution, because I have 48

By Mary Shustack Photographs courtesy Alexis Bittar three collections,” he says. “Each one has an iconic DNA.” The collections include Miss Havisham, which he calls “architectural,” based on the 1930s and influenced by the Bauhaus movement. Elements is perhaps softer, a home for paler colors and a lighter mood, while the most famous is the Lucite collection, which dates back to his earliest days when the light-catching plastic was all but ignored.

Called “The Lucite King” by some, Bittar became known for his iconic Lucite bangles. But those early hits are now just one aspect of his extensive work.

In his years in the business, Bittar says he’s “seen tremendous changes.”

“I grew up in the ’60s, late ’60s and ’70s, and I feel like the jewelry was such a powerful statement in the ’70s and ’80s.”

In the 1990s, he says, there was a real move to minimalism, but with the millennium, “I felt it was almost an explosion of ‘maximalism,’ and in jewelry, that definitely played out.”

No matter his work, Bittar says with a laugh, a common thread does emerge: “I think there’s ’80s thrown in everywhere, to be honest.”

He notes that today there are more jewelry designers than ever, with the competition always there.

“I think the Internet has really created this constant movement toward creativity.”

When he won the Council of Fashion Designers of America Accessory Designer of the Year Award in 2010, he joined a select group of jewelry designers (including Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso) so honored. He knew, though, there would be “way more expectations” placed on him and way more imitators.

“I knew when I won that people were going to be much more focused,” he says.

Indeed, when a mass-market designer’s name and reference to an eerily similar recent collection is mentioned, Bittar reacts as expected: “Don’t get me going.”

But no matter the imitators, Bittar’s work stands alone and accomplishes that rare feat of being both contemporary and timeless.

Shop within a shop

The Greenwich shop will also have a special section devoted to antique jewelry,

as selected by noted dealer Ronald Kawitzky, president of DK Bressler on 47th Street in Manhattan.

A longtime associate, he has followed Bittar’s rise to success and says it’s certainly merited.

“He understands what’s wearable,” Kawtizky says. “He has a great eye for what looks good on women.”

Bittar says he was pleased to have “dedicated a space for him,” and Kawitzky says he was happy to fill it.

“We’ve been talking for a while about a way we could work together,” Kawitzky says. “When he told me about Greenwich, I thought that is the profile. That’s very, very much the sophisticated customer that understands his great design and also has a passion for antiques.”

And the teaming up, he adds, serves a deeper purpose.

“Alexis loves antique jewelry, too. It’s inspiration for him,” Kawitzky says, which is why the pairing will be so appropriate.

“We wanted to show how the style has no date.”

He speaks of a gold bracelet he recently showcased. One might guess it’s from 1940, but it was from 1840. And price doesn’t guarantee style.

“Its doesn’t have to be precious to be fabulous design. Look at plastic jewelry from Courrèges,” he says, referencing French fashion designer André Courrèges, who rose to fame in the 1960s.

In Greenwich, Kawitzky will showcase an eclectic mix spanning a few centuries, jewelry that easily “can be worn today,” with selections rounded out by objects such as Deco boxes and other gift items.

Bittar’s fan club

“As much as I love designing and want to push the limit, I don’t want to take it so seriously,” Bittar says. He still wants “to have fun.”

That means collections are filled with playful colors and quirky accents, such as the little monkey dotting a few of the new pieces.

Now in the third decade of production, Bittar’s designs have already proven the test of time. He loves nothing more than hearing how someone has long worn a piece of his jewelry.

“It makes you feel great,” he says.

Bittar’s schedule is filled with special

events and personal appearances. He plans to be on hand for the Greenwich boutique’s grand opening next month.

Alexis Bittar

Though the year is still young, 2013 has also included quite a few highlights, from Bittar designing the earrings for Phillip Lim’s runway show during New York Fashion Week last month to selling his pieces to the l’Eclaireur boutique in Paris to opening his fourth Manhattan boutique.

Throughout, he looks to continue connecting with a diverse group of jewelry lovers.

“I think if you look at the range and who’s wearing it, it’s such an eclectic mix.”

And he’s right, as he reels off names from actress Cameron Diaz to singers Lady Gaga and Rihanna to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to first lady Michelle Obama, who sported an Alexis Bittar floral brooch for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last month.

“It’s bizarre, that kind of combo under one roof,” he says of his celebrated clientele.

All his admirers, though, seem to share a common trait. They are, he says, “drawn to the artistic elements of it.”

They want to stand out and “not be one of the many.”

Just like the Greenwich boutique.

Alexis Bittar is at 371 Greenwich Ave. in Greenwich. For more, visit alexisbittar.com. n

A selection of jewelry from the spring/summer 2013 collection by Alexis Bittar, featured in the designer’s new Greenwich boutique.

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6.

Keen on green wear Get your hands on the color of the year

By Andrea Kennedy Pedro Calderón de la Barca, poet and playwright of the Spanish Golden Age, once observed: “Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”

Since ancient times, emerald, green’s deepest hue, has suggested everything from prosperity and luxury to renewal and fertility. According to the Gemological Institute of America, ancient Romans considered the stone soothing to the entire being. Pliny the Elder’s “Natural History” described ancient lapidaries who restored the strength to their eyes by gazing at the gemstone. In Hindu culture, healers use emerald to align the heart chakra and let love flow freely from the core. Cleopatra was known to drape herself in emeralds, and 2,000 years later, so did Elizabeth Taylor, the woman who played her on the silver screen.

This most famous member of the beryl family also gained fame in literature and film with L. Frank Baum’s Emerald City of Oz, a shimmering symbol of beauty, commercialism and illusion that gets

another tour in the new movie “Oz the Great and Powerful,” opening March 8 and starring James Franco as the Wizard.

The real-world Emerald Isle – Ireland, of course, whose kin go green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this month – takes the name from its pastoral, evergreen landscape. The country has little relative connection to the gemstone at all, considering her national stone is in fact the pea-green Connemara marble. If the moniker did indicate the geographic location of emerald mines, the likeliest winner would be the non-isle of Colombia, home of the emerald-hued Amazon and more than half of the world’s emerald excavation as Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner discovered in the 1984 flick “Romancing the Stone.”

In 2013, Pantone Color Institute, the industry standard of color classification, voiced its own ode to emerald naming it the institute’s Color of the Year. Leatrice Eiseman, Pantone’s executive director, says, “As it has throughout history, mul-

tifaceted emerald continues to sparkle and fascinate. Symbolically, emerald brings a sense of clarity, renewal and rejuvenation, which is so important in today’s complex world. This powerful and universally appealing tone translates easily to both fashion and home interiors.”

To the delight of emerald enthusiasts – and May babies who call the gem their birthstone – Pantone’s declaration has spurred a frenzy of goods in the easy-onthe-eyes shade. With pieces so stunning, it’s especially fitting that emerald is the richest shade of green, the color of envy.

1. In the 19th century, the highly potent, anise-flavored liquor nicknamed “the Green Fairy” bedeviled writers and painters like Baudelaire and Van Gogh.

Now from the mind of Alessandro Gualtieri – the fragrance designer for Helmut Lang, Versace and Valentino – comes this Nasomatto perfume, intended to ignite the same wicked behavior.

2. From the Gräf & Lantz studio

in Los Angeles comes the laptop sleeve in loden green. Produced from merino felt with a snappy leather flap, this German design protects your work gear with playful color.

3. Tiffany & Co. sets rich green tourmaline within a stage of 18-carat gold and diamonds for this remarkable pair of earrings.

4. Invite happiness to your table with this flourish of friendly foliage, the Kate Spade Gardner Street serving bowl in elegant Lenox bone china.

5. A beautiful bucket bag by Michael Kors debuted for spring in deep green with gold accents. Miranda, as she’s named, features dyed deer leather and a suede interior to glam up everyday garb.

6. For the topmost travel style – or an addition to any timeless home collection – hail the India-inspired Nappa Dori Classic Trunk from the Singapore-based Benares lifestyle line. A simple phone order brings you this emerald trunk featuring Old World opulence in hand-crafted metal and leather. n

DISTINCT COVERAGE. EXCLUSIVE SERVICE My goal is to combine concierge level service with some of the world’s finest carriers in order to bring special coverages not available in normal homeowners markets.

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wear

Sisterly smarts save skin

By Andrea Kennedy

VENeffect co-founders Cecil and Dr. Rebecca Booth.

W

omen’s jaws drop when they hear one startling fact: Collagen in women’s skin peaks around age 27. Women may argue it’s all downhill from there. They’re fighting gravity, of course, plus a losing battle with fine lines and luminosity. Some seek skin-care specialists to reduce the wear of their years. Some seek physicians for rejuvenation from the inside out. But what if women could benefit from both?

Nearly 10 years ago, 25-year beauty industry pro Cecil Booth began collaborating with her sister, gynecologist and hormonal wellness expert Dr. Rebecca Booth, on a skin-care line that combines cosmetic and medical smarts. Last year, the duo launched their Chicago-based company, VENeffect, a product line featuring a blend of plant-derived molecules to shelter skin from the signs of aging.

Around her 40th birthday, Cecil consulted her sis for insider secrets on why her skin wasn’t quite what it used to be.

“She shared with me the direct correlation between estrogen and collagen,” Cecil says. “Estrogen, which is the hormone of beauty and fertility, directly affects the collagen in your skin. It actually stimulates collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid, which are the building blocks of elastic, healthy, vibrant, glowing skin.”

According to Cecil, for women in their childbearing years, estrogen’s monthly peak is “Mother Nature’s gift” – when they, and their skin, look and feel their best.

“We don’t want to have that effect for only a week out of the month. We want to have that effect every week throughout our lifetime.”

That effect – what the Booth sisters call the “Venus effect,” hence VENeffect – drops off most significantly when women experience what Rebecca calls “programmed ovarian retirement,” essentially estrogen withdrawal and its subsequent menopause.

“No one was talking about it,” says Cecil, who professionally stays abreast of the latest beauty buzz and industry innovations. “People talk about the sun environmental factors 52

and chronological aging – and those are real – but probably the most dramatic way we uniquely age as women is related to estrogen.”

After this “aha moment,” Cecil with Rebecca – a full-time practitioner who also penned the book “The Venus Week” (Da Capo Lifelong Books) – applied their synergistic backgrounds to develop a topical that inspires the Venus effect in the skin. Since collagen can only be directly applied via injection – and not always with a natural result – the sisters sought a potent formula to stimulate collagen’s production instead. They found the solution in the plant world with phytoestrogens, naturally derived molecules that mimic estrogen’s effects on the skin.

“They attach to the estrogen receptors that we have throughout our lifetime so your skin produces collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid the way it was meant to happen naturally,” Cecil says.

Years of research led them to key ingredients like grape seed and grapefruit seed extract, soy and soy isoflavones, clover and red-wine superstar resveratrol. (No fragrances here, folks, just natural citrus extract.) Many names have appeared on the market before, though often as antioxidants, Cecil says, and in a significantly more diluted form than the sisters found satisfactory.

“It’s one thing to find these molecules,” she says. “It’s another thing to formulate them at a high enough level to make a difference.”

The duo developed a luxury skin-care line with phytoestrogen potency at 10 to 20 percent higher than other products they found. It includes a moisturizer intensive, moisturizer with SPF 15 and eye and skin treatment. (They recently launched a firming serum and neck and décolleté crème and plan to also develop cleansers, exfoliates and masks.) According to Cecil, more than 100 clinical trials show – and grateful clients confirm – a week’s use leaves skin more elastic, eventoned and vibrant with a lessening of fine lines.

“People love it,” she says. “They love that it’s plant-based, and it just feels so good.”

The ladies didn’t stop at skin care. Their website also offers Rebecca’s whole-body wellness regimen intended to intensify the Venus effect on more than just the face, including a supplement list and lifestyle and nutrition tips for women regardless of their particular hormonal balance. The lesson here, Cecil says, is that healthy habits generally make women feel – and, yes, even look – more beautiful.

“Our mission is higher than just anti-aging skin care,” Cecil says. “It’s about educating women about the beauty of their hormones. We shouldn’t live in fear of them. We need to understand them.”

Women ages 35 to 55 are in the “sweet spot” for anti-aging skin-care products, she adds, although women as young as their mid-20s will benefit from the VENeffect skin-care and recommended wellness routine. Cecil also specifies that since products are topical, not systemic, the VENeffect line is safe to use whether women are on hormone replacement therapies, have undergone hysterectomies or even are breast cancer survivors.

To learn more, chat with one of the VENeffect co-founders in the flesh at Neiman Marcus, the line’s exclusive retailer. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call (914) 428-2000, ext.

2053. n

YOUR BUSINESS. OUR FOCUS

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wear

Deluge refuge Forget stopping traffic, you might just stop the rain

By Andrea Kennedy

March marks the magical month when we gain that prized extra hour of daylight (March 10) and the sun passes the equator during its trek north, bringing us – the theory at least – the beginning of spring (March 20). It’s also when New Yorkers and New Englanders swap shivering snow bunnies for chocolate Easter bunnies and commence their annual defrost.

But on the heels of often snowy February, March also brings precip of the liquid kind, requiring rainwear that stands up to hardcore storms in form and function. Since dodging pesky pellets isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – and, let’s face it, the makeshift newspaper-over-the-head routine is only charming until you resemble a wet dog – it’s wise to invest in solid rain-gear.

But not just any slicker from the city will do. After all, it’s got to look good, too. And just because you don’t want to ruin your Jimmy Choos doesn’t mean you need to step out in ratty shoes. Check this delightful and durable collection by high-end designers that can weather the elements in style and get you puddle-jumping in no time. Whether you’re practical or whimsical, high fashion or just high on staying dry, WAG has you sheltered from the storm: 1. Humphrey Bogart’s got nothing on this beauty, a sensational twist on a classic trench. Burberry’s Bright Metallic Trench Coat, water-resistant and lightweight with a feminine feel and fine details, would get any glamour girl geared up for a fashionable forecast.

2. Durable enough in a downpour, adorable enough for a day at the races, Eric Javits’ widebrimmed Driptidoo patent rain hat makes a statement on stormy days. The nylon mesh interlining maintains the shape while the elasticized inner band keeps your headgear, and the water-repellent canvas underside, from blowing away. Also in barn red.

3. Say sayonara to getting soaked with a sassy smooch. The generous coverage of Felix Rey’s Kissy Face Umbrella protects everything from hair and mascara to apparel and accessories, plus it offers an unobstructed view out – and in.

4. For days where your wellies are a bit too predictable, step out in Loeffler Randall’s Rain Slip-On Mini Lynx printed boots. Glossy and feisty, they feature a slight wedge and lining in jersey cotton for extra comfort.

5. To stride through a storm with all the elegance of a fine dress shoe and durability of a waterproof boot, try Ferragamo’s Wing-tip Chelsea weather boot from one of the foremost shoemakers in the world.

6. Stutterheim produces “the last raincoat you will ever need.” Hand-sewn in Sweden, this men’s Arholma design uses craftsmanship tested by generations of Swedish fisherman to be 100 percent wind- and waterproof. The company’s latest color, British racing green, pays homage to the family Jaguar. n 54

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Best foot forward

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By Andrea Kennedy

t wouldn’t be a bad idea to scatter fainting couches around The Museum at FIT’s “Shoe Obsession” exhibition. Each of the 150 designs takes your breath away.

The exhibition, made possible in part by shoe lover’s paradise Saks Fifth Avenue, explores the modern woman’s fascination with extravagant shelters for the tootsies. What a great excuse to ogle the most lavish and inventive designs from Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford, Pierre Hardy, Ferragamo, Prada, Gucci, Chanel and more than 40 other historic fashion names.

“We knew we would start with the big two – Blahnik and Louboutin – and we also wanted to show all the up-and-coming exciting designers, the Nicholas Kirkwoods, the Brian Atwoods, the Charlotte Olympias,” says Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, who co-curated the show with associate curator of accessories Colleen Hill.

Christian Louboutin of the envied red sole lent his “Pigalle” pumps – the racy, red-spiked style that made waves in fall 2012 – and Manolo Blahnik lent his 2003 rhinestone-buckled silver “D’Orsay” shoes as seen on footwear fiend Carrie Bradshaw in the season six episode of “Sex and the City,” “A Woman’s Right to Shoes.”

Ms. Bradshaw no doubt is more than a little responsible for the footwear fetish examined in the exhibition, though for centuries shoes have indicated social status and sexuality. In the 16th century, the fashion-conscious French nobility – men and women – took the trend from European royalty. But it wasn’t until the latter part of the 20th century that American fashion designers ran with the reins. As evident in the stunning FIT show, shoes these days do so much more than protect one’s piggly wigglies.

(Many a sore-soled damsel would assert the exact opposite.)

FIT’s display presents a refreshing eye-level view of the shoes (as opposed to hand-level at retailers or floor-level in closets) that is clearly meant to encourage observation and admiration, a purpose in itself, says co-curator Steele.

“Women I talked to would say, ‘Well, even if I don’t wear it much, I can look at it on the coffee table and admire it,’” she recounts, adding that footwear’s freestanding form separates it from other modes of fashion like apparel. Just look at Roger Vivier’s Eyelash Heel ex-

pressing its elegant plumes.

Steele suggests another shoe-inspired pleasure factor – building a collection – that taps into “that Imelda Marcos in so many of us.” She says women on average own about 20 pairs, double what stocked closets 20 years ago.

“So many women told me that shoe shopping is the most pleasurable form of shopping,” says Steele, who drew from several collectors for the show. “I think that also fits into why our shoe obsession has grown even more in the last 12 years.”

Really, it’s no mystery why women adore heels and why designers keep feeding the need: A glamorous shoe makes women feel downright sexy and if you build it, they will come. More than anything, “Shoe Obsession” is a study of how shoes have evolved into wearable art – the canvas, our most humble body part – and their unlimited potential for opulence, imagination and fun.

“I used to design clothes and I was frustrated by the gap in what I wanted to make and what I was making,” says Kyoto designer Masaya Kushino via translator, one of the newest names in designer footwear, who is featured in the show and its eponymous book (Yale University Press). “After I won a contest for leather in Japan (JILA Leather Goods Award 2007), I realized that shoes is how I can realize my ideas in the actual product.”

Kushino boldly removed the line between footwear and artwork, creating sculptural, though wearable (he tries all of them on), shoes that depict enchanted spins on the natural world. Designs feature veritable botanical gardens and steam-punk mechanisms. His mythical “The Wind Horse” (on display) uses lacquered Japanese cypress wood, leather, leavers lace and human hair.

Other highlights include the wingheeled “Flutterby” by Alberto Guardiani, “Glass Slipper” by Maison Martin Margiela, the multi-mirrored “Invisible”

by Andreia Chaves and “Lady Pointe”

by Noritaka Tatehana for Lady Gaga, a pair of 18-inch tall toe shoes. And don’t miss Rupert Sanderson’s gladiator sandal designed for Verdi’s “Aida” at the Royal Opera in London, 2010. The platform is a pair of crouched figures holding up the sole like images from a Roman fountain.

It’s a shoe fit for the Roman empress in every woman.

“Shoe Obsession” runs through April 13. For more, visit fitnyc.edu. n

Christian Louboutin.

“Pigalle” pumps, fall 2012. Photograph courtesy Christian Louboutin.

Roger Vivier (Bruno Frisoni). “Eyelash Heel” pumps, fall 2012-2013. RendezVous (Limited Edition Collection).

Photograph courtesy Roger Vivier.

Photograph by Stephane Garrigues.

Masaya Kushino. “The Wind Horse.” Photograph courtesy Maiko Fukui.

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REACH-ing out

By Georgette Gouveia Photographs courtesy of REACH Prep

S

heltering young minds is what REACH Prep is all about.

The Stamford-based nonprofit helps high-achieving students in low-performing schools find academic success in competitive independent schools. And REACH – an acronym for Responsibility, Excellence, Achievement, Courage and Honor – does it by reaching out to talented students in schools that are under-serving them while they are still in the fourth grade.

These students – who are identified by teachers, principals, social workers and church leaders – enter the program through the Reach Prep Academy, which begins with a six-week intensive curriculum in the summer after they finish the fourth grade.

“We’re definitely about back to basics,” Peggy Sarkela, REACH’s executive director, says of the Academy’s classes, taught by six teachers from independent schools.

Math is what she calls “the holy trinity” of the nittygritty – fractions, decimals, percentages. Language is a focused study of grammar leading up to the study of Latin, which will be introduced in 2014 and which is still taught in independent schools as the springboard for learning foreign languages. There’s American history and literature and science, including lab time so that students will know their way around a microscope as well as a computer, though there’s time for technology, too. What’s heartening is that there’s also physical education, including swimming, and visual arts and dance classes.

“What you see in our curriculum is what’s been cut in public education,” Sarkela says.

But the introduction to the Prep Academy is just “the tip of the iceberg,” she adds.

As students return to their own schools for fifth grade, their summer experience is reinforced in Saturday morning classes. Meanwhile, REACH helps students apply to independent schools like Greenwich Academy, Fairfield Country Day School, Hackley School in Tarrytown and School of the Holy Child in Rye. REACH then follows these students throughout middle and high school, helping them apply to college and fill out financial aid applications and ensuring they have enriching summer experiences.

The numbers speak for themselves: Of the approximately 300 students who’ve come through the program, 100 percent have been admitted to college. Eighty-four percent of the most recent class of seniors finished in four years, Sarkela adds, way above the national average (roughly 60 percent) and far exceeding the rate for the African-American and Latino communities REACH mostly serves (30 percent).

REACH does this with an annual operating budget of $1.4 million and a staff of 10 that is augmented by the faculty of six and REACH alumni who return as volunteers.

Next year marks the organization’s 20th and with applications up 79 percent, Sarkela would like to extend the nonprofit’s reach.

“The need is there,” she says. “The demand is there.

We’d like to find a way to serve more kids.” n 56

Celebrate The REACH Prep Class of 2013

April 22, 2013 Hyatt Regency Greenwich Annual Benefit Luncheon 11:30am to 2:00pm

REACH Prep affords talented and motivated Black and Latino students access to rigorous independent schools.

Measures of Success 2011-12 The majority of REACH Prep Scholars are the first in their family to attend a four-year college or university.

60 REACH Prep Scholars were enrolled in 92 Honors and AP Classes.

100% of REACH Prep High School Seniors graduated from rigorous schools.

100% of REACH Prep Scholars were admitted to and will enroll in a

competitive college or university.

20th

In 2013 REACH Prep will admit it’s cohort of Scholars from Fairfield and Westchester Counties and the Bronx.

For a Benefit Luncheon invitation please call 203-487-0750

www.reachprep.org

wear

The eyes have it Mascara adds power to the wink

By Andrea Kennedy

Estée Lauder amps up lashes for a luscious look. Photograph courtesy of Estée Lauder.

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hey flutter and flirt, winging the eye with delicate décor. Since the days of ancient queens, lashes have been laced with enhancement, adorned at one time for medicinal purposes as well as for women of the redlight persuasion. They’ve been the eye-popping hallmark for stars from Twiggy and Cher to J. Lo and Kim Kardashian – and for good reason. Lashes are showstoppers.

“Lashes are so feminine and sexy,” says Gretchen Bednar, Neiman Marcus cosmetics manager at The Westchester. “If you have long, beautiful, thick lashes, you could have no makeup on and still look glamorous. People just envy you.”

Though mascara rises to the top of the list of beauty must-haves, not just any wipe of the wand will do.

“We have a brand-new mascara that’s going like crazy by Chanel,” says Bednar, who for years has listened to customers dish on their choicest lash allies. This latest product, which builds on an already strong Chanel mascara legacy of longtime bestseller Inimitable, actually expands once applied for a maximum plump factor. The exclusive “Snowflakes” brush includes long and short bristles to coat every corner for lasting length.

There’s also the tried-and-true Lancome Définicils – its narrow wand especially suitable for those pesky barely there lashes or

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the waif-like lower level so easily forgotten.

And try a month with Définicils Precious Cells Mascara, a 2011 winner of “Best Lengthening Mascara” in Allure magazine’s Best of Beauty awards, to see lashes strengthened for more fullness and less fallout.

For other trouble lashes – from brittle to blond – Bednar suggests the Estée Lauder Double Wear with the patented LashXtender brush that uses polymers to lock product onto each individual lash.

“This wand is extremely narrow, but it gets right underneath the eyelashes to accentuate what you have and really bring those lashes to life,” she says. “It’s great if you don’t have a lot to work with and overall it’s a really easy everyday mascara.”

It’s also the choice of Bednar herself.

“My lashes are pretty thin and not very long, so I like a brush that’s a little bit thinner,” says Bednar. “The thick brush just kind of makes eyelashes wet.”

Women know – and beauty “don’t” lists show – that while the dew-kissed look may work for the complexion, water should leave the lashes alone.

Just because the word mascara comes from the Italian word for “mask” doesn’t mean you should end up with drippy raccoon eyes for a romantic stroll in the rain. So Estée Lauder’s Double Wear has a patented Smudge-Shield, and Armani’s Eyes To Kill – also a big seller with its Microfill Technology – is available in waterproof as well.

In other lash law, Bednar says, adhere to the mascara life span of three months and don’t forget mascara’s partners in crime – curlers and primers. Look for the trio in product packs like Lancome’s.

“Lancome has a great primer that actually has a motor in it!” she says, imitating the buzz of the Oscillation Powerbooster.

A few sweeps of your vibrating accomplice right before mascara application shows an even more voluptuous visage.

And also remember those encouraging lash growers that help stubborn strands reach their full potential. After daily use for two weeks, Chantecaille’s Longest Lash users reported 25 percent thicker and longer lashes thanks to its stimulating keratin formula.

Though not a mascara, the Style lashes with Chanel’s new mascara offering. Photograph courtesy of Neiman Marcus.

NeuLash Enhancing Serum has earned countless devotees for its clinical cocktail of amino acids and Vitamin B-fortified formula, designed to grow lashes longer and fuller in 30 days.

If lashes demand a quick fix or a special event cropped up on the calendar and mascara just won’t cut it, hit a MAC store for the best selection of falsies on the market. First produced in the states by a wig maker when silent film director D.W. Griffith’s commissioned them for an actress, false eyelashes today range from natural enhancement to high drama. MAC’s are numbered one to 49.

“I recommend 36 LASH for someone that wants something natural but a little dramatic,” says a MAC representative of her flare-fashioned bestseller. “The 33 LASH is also really big with brides and bridesmaids who are looking for that boost of something extra.”

For those who fear falsies will send them strutting like Sesame Street’s Mr. Snuffleupagus, MAC also carries lash separates – short wisps of lash in varying length – letting users further customize their look. For the most natural appearance or full lash replacement in the case of medical conditions, try synthetic blends or natural hair lashes. Store associates even offer free applications and tutorials, breeding a brand new generation of showstoppers. n

THERE’S A LOT OF LOVE IN THE AIR UP HERE. It’s just the way people feel about Westchester. We know. We’re the 1,200 people who help run Indian Point, and we live here too. Indian Point generates more than one quarter of the power for New York City and Westchester, with virtually no greenhouse gas emissions, and at lower cost than other sources.

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w’reel deal

Real-life ‘Suburgatory’

By Sam Barron

I

watch a lot of TV, but there’s only one show that makes me feel at home.

“Suburgatory,” in its second season on ABC (9:30 p.m. Wednesdays), follows the lineage of classic sitcoms like “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “The Facts of Life” and “Maude” that are set in Westchester County. And yes, I did put “The Facts of Life” on a par with “Dick Van Dyke” and “Maude.” Mrs. Garrett rules.

“Suburgatory” is about Tessa Altman (Jane Levy), a teenager with an acerbic wit, who is uprooted from Manhattan to “Chatswin” when her father, George (Jeremy Sisto), finds a condom and fears the worst. The show mines laugh from the cartoonish world of the suburbs and how it slowly melts away Tessa’s tough New York City exterior.

I flipped out when I read the plotline. Then I saw the pilot, which included a map of where the Altmans live, and it was clearly Westchester, Sound Shore area to be exact. Instantly, I was hooked.

Throughout its two seasons, the show has thrown out little nuggets to indicate its Westchester location. The Altmans’ area code is 914, the ZIP code is 10598 (New Rochelle), and in one episode they drove to New York City and took the Hutch. I freaked. This year, they have gone to the Chappaqua Opera (OK, that doesn’t exist) and done some things in Yonkers.

The show itself is based on the book of the same name

by Linda Erin Keenan, who lived in Westchester. Emily Kapnek, who created and runs the show, moved to Larchmont when she was in fifth grade, which she called a traumatic experience. Kapnek has also used her Larchmont experiences for a Nickelodeon animated drama, “As Told By Ginger.” She has said in interviews that Chatswin’s location is supposed to be non-specific, but there is a Chatsworth Avenue in Larchmont, and having driven around the Sound Shore a few times, I do get a Chatswin vibe.

As an (almost) lifelong Westchester resident, I think “Suburgatory” gets a lot of things right. A lot of what goes on here, particularly in the mega-affluent communities, is silly.

The phrase “white-people problems” could be used for many of the things that happen in this town. I once read a full-page article in a local weekly about a woman who lived in Armonk on the border of Greenwich and could exit her gated community only through Connecticut.

The horror! Westchester is the place that has made a big move to increase affordable housing, yet a.) It really isn’t that affordable, and b.) Neighbors act like “The Wire” is moving into town.

And yeah, Westchester is totally the place where someone could be named Kimantha without a trace of irony and being on the PTA is considered prestigious, as is being on the board of directors of any nonprofit, no matter how tenuous the cause. Having a small dog is a status symbol. A dog psychiatrist is just icing on the cake. Oh, and life coaches are an industry. Wealth management is an actual thriving industry here, too.

That’s why I enjoy the character of Tessa Altman so much, besides the fact that she’s hot. Coming from New 60

Jane Levy plays Tessa Altman, an acerbic teenager plucked from Manhattan to live in Westchester, reveling in the absurdity of it all.

York City, she gets that much of what goes on here is bull and reacts accordingly. It’s fun watching her respond to the cartoonish world of First World problems around her. Even though I grew up in Westchester, I did not live a life of affluence, so I can relate. My bar mitzvah didn’t even have a theme.

But I also like some of the other aspects of the show that remind me of home. The gated communities; the country club being the center of town (disclaimer alert: Aside from the time I snuck onto Sleepy Hollow Country Club to watch the filming of “The Good Wife,” I’ve never actually been to a country club); marriages being a means to get an expensive divorce; housewives running businesses that only stay in business because of rich husbands: Kapneck knows where she was raised.

A recent episode of “Suburgatory” rang way too true.

On the show there’s Chatswin and then there’s East Chatswin. East Chatswin is the area that nobody visits.

Like how Pelham Manor has Pelham, Rye Brook has Port Chester and Briarcliff Manor has Ossining. My grandparents lived in Briarcliff and had a hard time selling their house, because it was in the Ossining school district. I grew up in Pleasantville, and despite it being well off, you just didn’t go down Marble Avenue. Businesses in Greenburgh have Scarsdale mailing addresses.

In this episode, Dallas Royce (Cheryl Hines) – the stereotypical rich divorcée who has a dog named Yakult; bought her daughter, Dalia Oprah (Carly Chaikin), a kangaroo; has launched more than 100 charities and uses her divorce money to start a crystal store – finds out that 58 percent of her home is in the dreaded East Chatswin.

She’s kicked out of her country club, her daughter gets sent to East Chatswin High School (where people she says are tanner than she) and she’s forced to use the YWCA without its fruit-flavored water.

A little over the top, but I could see a crisis happening if

someone in Rye Brook found out he or she actually lived in Port Chester.

Of course, “Suburgatory” isn’t perfect. The reason for moving from New York City always struck me as a bit odd. I appreciate George Altman thinking that kids in Westchester are like me and don’t have sex in high school.

But I was more of an outlier, no matter what my mom said to reassure me.

And this is an age-old TV criticism, but really “Suburgatory” – no episodes about how George can afford to live in such a neighborhood as a single father? Think of the property taxes. Everyone else does.

Also, “Suburgatory” treats New York City like it’s some mythic white whale where every time Tessa wants to visit, it’s a big TV event. Come on, she’s only a six-stop, 40-minute train ride away.

Also, that Chatswin is a thriving community during the day and little thought is given to New York City is a glaring plot hole. Chatswin, Larchmont, almost every place in Westchester is a glorified bedroom community.

“Suburgatory” is at its best when the show lets the action flow naturally and keeps the plotlines grounded and honest, when viewed as a drama that happens to contain some funny moments.

Some of the worst moments on “Suburgatory” occur when it tries way too hard to be big and broad or sometimes views the people of Westchester as a little too mean.

Maybe I’m biased, but I like it when “Suburgatory” shows us as people with real hearts and character on the inside, who use our loud personalities to mask some insecurities.

Part of what makes the show tick is watching Tessa’s tough exterior melt and how her thinking about life and people slowly changes.

I’m like that with Westchester. I mock it, make fun of it and often roll my eyes at some of the things that go on here. But there’s no place I’d rather call home. n

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wagging Who’s in the doghouse?

By Sarah Hodgson

When I was a kid, we had a three-sided, flat-topped plywood box—generously referenced to as “the doghouse”— positioned on the back porch, beneath our kitchen window.

Over the course of my childhood, it would house three dogs, several cats – often simultaneously – and countless rodents and bugs.

I remember the day my brother erected it, carving an off-centered opening with his rusty saw, perforating the sides with three holes. He answered my quizzical, 4-year-old stare with just one word –“ventilation.” And while I bemoaned our dogs sleeping outside, vowing never to enact such cruelties when I was a grown-up, our dogs were no worse for the wear. They’d trot into the mudroom to eat their breakfast and trot back outside to enjoy a day of off-lead adventuring. The ’70s was a good era to be a dog.

Those early days, sitting on the porch – often folded into the wooden box, alongside my pets – taught me a valuable lesson.

Dogs, like people, need a cozy, protected nook to call their own. Think of a toddler’s crib: The security of a portioned space sig-

nals safety while the restrictive enclosure induces calm.

Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find a doghouse in the tristate area, let alone a dog cavorting about unattended. Our 21stcentury canines lead a structured existence, confined to leashes or outdoor enclosures and fully adapted to a more expansive floor plan, namely, the family residence.

Without hesitation or embarrassment, people laud their dogs and elevate their rank, regarding the responsibilities to care for their four-footed companions on par with raising children. Dogs are welcomed inside, share luxurious furnishings and are provided a human-grade diet fit for an Olympian. Many are assigned attendees to scoop their poop and satisfy their daily need for exercise and play. Dog people would consider it cruel and dangerous to leave their pets outside after dark.

This raises the question, Are doghouses really necessary? Should these structures be deemed relics that will go the way of the rotary phone, typewriter and outhouse?

While a fanciful doghouse can embellish a garden, has it become more ornamental

than utilitarian in our neck of the woods?

Ask me and I’d say, “Yes, yes, yes.” Dogs should be brought inside and given a special nook in all the rooms you share. The days of leaving dogs out on the porch are happily behind us.

But then I would pause to consider my own backyard. Outside my kitchen window sits a monolithic eyesore – a Step Two Playhouse, purchased for my daughter’s second birthday. Seven years later, it has served its purpose. Why have we not dismantled it? Simple: Our dogs adore it.

They race around the house’s exterior, dig beneath its foundation, play hide-and-seek as they dart through the door and leap through the windows. And when they grow tired of roughhousing, they all venture in for a nap. And heaven forbid they would be left outside after sunset, I would know exactly where to find them. Though I bought it for the kids, the dogs have taken it over.

A quick search of doghouses on Google shows they’re still a hot commodity. You can purchase plans for under 10 bucks or spring for a deluxe model that will cost into

Pet of the Month

Herein we introduce our Pet of the Month feature, spotlighting a pooch or kitty from the SPCA of Westchester. Our first poster boy really puts the “pep” in Pepe, his name. This 4-year-old, 20-pound male Pomerian is a fun-loving little guy looking for a second chance and a new family to call his very own. He may have a tiny body, but he’s tall in personality.

Pepe would do best with an active family with older children. He will make for a loyal companion.

The SPCA of Westchester was founded in 1883 by Ossining resident Mary Dusenberry after she saw horses being whipped and beaten as they trudged up nearby hills to deliver loads of coal. Together with friends, she obtained land on which to build the society’s first home and established a fund to prevent cruelty to animals. The SPCA is still on the same spot, making it one of the longest landholders in Briarcliff Manor.

Originally, the SPCA of Westchester was affiliated with the ASPCA of New York City, but became an independent organization in the 1920s. Today, it is the only humane society in Westchester County empowered to enforce laws relating to animal cruelty. Despite this, the SPCA gets no federal, state or county funds. So the organization relies solely on the financial support of people who love animals.

To meet Pepe, please visit the SPCA of Westchester at 590 N. State Road.

Please note, the SPCA does not accept deposits, make appointments or reserve animals for adoption even if it has spoken about a particular dog or cat with you. It is always first come, first served among applicants, pending approval. The SPCA is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. To learn more, call (914) 941-2896 or visit spca914.org.

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Pepe sports some bling, a CC Skye heiress necklace ($275), courtesy of Roam in Greenwich.

the tens of thousands. There are your basic wooden A-frame and plastic igloo versions as well as more elaborate structures that include a fenced pen area. Want to get fancy?

You can commission one to match your home or go as far as reflecting your dog’s heritage – say a Swiss Chalet for a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. Prominent architects have even been commissioned to build miniaturize homes – referring to the activity as “barkitecture.”

Finally, a customer who makes as good a client as he does a companion, never voicing a criticism or complaint.

I’ve been in homes where a Pomeranian’s artful abode livens up the kitchen decor and other homes where the family bed is the hot spot. At the end of the day, dogs are quite resourceful and will find a quiet place to rest their heads, whether it be a box on the back porch, an ornate, pre-fab minimansion or the pillow next to your head.

For dogs, what is most important is the family. The one place they need to live is in a person’s heart.

Dogs—they’re not so different from us after all. Go figure. n

wanders

Living high inDubai

By Marshall Fine

A canal at the Madinat Jumeirah.

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A

s I sipped a cocktail in At.mosphere, the world’s highest restaurant located on the 122nd floor of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, I turned to my wife and indicated what looked like shreds of detritus floating in my drink.

Except that these smallish bits were not trash but treasure, flecks of gold leaf afloat in a martini glass that held the restaurant’s signature cocktail, a drink consisting of rose Champagne, fresh green apple and vanilla-and-cinnamon-infused vodka.

“Are you going to drink those?” she asked.

“Oh, absolutely,” I said, “because this may well be the most expensive drink I’ll ever have.”

Indeed: At 180 AED (the Arab Emirates dirham), which was trading at roughly 3.6 to the American dollar, that cocktail ran about $50.

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The Al Qasr exterior, featuring a fountain with gold horses in front.

In other words, if you’re going to travel to Dubai, the burgeoning cosmopolitan city-state on the Persian Gulf, you had better feel at home with high prices. It’s an expensive place to visit, let alone live.

I spent a week there in December as a guest of the ninth Dubai International Film Festival, a weeklong gathering focused on bringing attention to Arab film and filmmakers. It was an adventure in luxury travel and accommodations, as well as an immersion into a foreign culture that seems torn between the impulse to embrace modern Western values and the pull of religious tradition that stretches more than a millennium into the past.

In this case, the modern seems to be winning, as represented by, among other things, the film festival itself and its environs. The festival headquarters and the housing for festival guests comprise

a string of three luxury hotels along the Persian Gulf west of downtown Dubai, all part of the Jumeirah chain, each more lavish than the next.

We stayed in the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, which offered us a breathtaking view of the Burj al-Arab, the trademark hotel (also a Jumeirah property) that juts up from the gulf like a lofty steel-and-glass sailboat, its sail unfurled in the warm breeze. Our room offered everything from a daily gift of fresh oranges and bananas to touch-screen-activated curtains that opened to give us that panoramic view of the Burj (a hotel property so exclusive that you need a reservation just to visit the bar on the 60th floor).

Just down the beach – past the Wild Wadi water park – is the Madinat Jumeirah, another luxury hotel, which served as headquarters for the festival and the site of two of the festival theaters. It’s also

the site of the Souk Madinat Jumeirah, a multistory market full of shops and restaurants for everything from traditional garb and artwork to frozen yogurt and Starbucks.

Right next door is the Al Qasr Madinat Jumeirah. (It’s about a 10-minute walk from Jumeirah Beach, far enough that it’s connected to the Madinat by a series of canals, which you can traverse by electric gondolas). The Al Qasr is the most luxurious of the three hotels, with a lengthy driveway full of large golden statues of stallions. The driveway itself is like an artwork of multicolored marble in mosaic patterns. And the interior – as much as I saw of it while visiting for a couple of interviews – seemed like a palace, again with marble and crystal and a fine-toothed attention to the tiniest detail.

If you travel to Dubai and do any sort

of research about cultural dos and don’ts, you inevitably come up against that clash between the Western world and the traditions of Islam and its many strictures, particularly as regards women’s dress.

Certainly we ran up against that during a trip into the old city of Dubai.

(A thumbnail history: Dubai was an oasis and trading center for both desert tribes and ships well into the 20th century, transformed by the discovery of oil in the 1960s and independence as part of the United Arab Emirates once Britain left in 1971. It is ruled by Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, a descendant of the sheik who founded it and who, in turn, was descended from the sheiks who once ruled the oasis.)

In the old city, my wife wore a long skirt and a dress with sleeves and a shawl for her arms (despite mid-December temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s), as we walked through the fabrics souk (or market) and then caught a motorized taxi-skiff across Dubai Creek (actually, a salt-water river, roughly a halfmile across) to the spice souk. On one water taxi, a woman in a burka essentially pushed my wife aside to sit next to her, rather than next to me, a man to whom she was not married.

The hard-sell in the souks is intense, with the owner of virtually every stall trying to shepherd you into his store. “My

friend, come inside – you want saffron?

I have herbal Viagra – best prices,” we heard repeatedly in the spice souk.

But those traditions either coexist or disappear altogether when you visit the modern sections of Dubai. And Dubai seems to thrive on the modern. The landscape is littered with construction cranes – a building boom that’s been in the works for more than a decade and that includes the Burj al-Arab and Burj Khalifa, as well as buildings we glimpsed to the west from our hotel, which have sprouted up at the Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and other free economic zones that seem to pop up like mushrooms in the landscape.

The architecture we saw riding to and from the old city was dazzling, with colors and geometric shapes that somehow never find their way into American design. American cities seem trapped in an endless cycle of large glass boxes, while Dubai – a city that barely existed 50 years ago, perched on the edge of a desert – is awash in buildings that swoop and curve, jut and teeter. Everywhere, there’s evidence of the past – and yet the future intrudes at every turn.

That was particularly true at the Mall of the Emirates, where we found the 14-screen multiplex that housed the majority of public screenings for the Dubai International Film Festival. The mall itself

seems to stretch into infinity. Wandering its marble-and-crystal hallways can, at times, feel like you’ve stumbled into one of M.C. Escher’s optical-illusion drawings.

We had most of a week at the film festival and spent at least part of every day wandering the Mall of the Emirates, which includes a pair of luxury hotels as anchors at either end.

And yet, with more than 500 stores, the Mall of the Emirates offers fewer than half the 1,200 stores at the even more lavish and elaborate Dubai Mall (the world’s largest), which is part of the “Centre of Now,” the almost-square mile development near downtown Dubai that includes the Burj Khalifa. Our trip to At.mosphere was the closest we got to the Dubai Mall, which we also glimpsed from an elevated section of the Dubai Metro as we rode back from the old city.

The Mall of the Emirates provides visitors with what seems to be an endless menu of designer and luxury stores – everything from Céline and Christian Louboutin to Ted Lapidus and Tiffany & Co. – as well as a mammoth Targetlike big-box store called Carrefour, the Gap, Tommy Bahama and more. Dozens of fast-food outlets in the numerous food courts – everything from KFC and Burger King to Shake Shack – sit next to a football-field-size food court with sit-down restaurants offering everything

from steakhouse fare to Middle Eastern food to pizza.

And that’s not to mention the indoor ski area, which makes its own snow.

But the modern and the traditional stand in stark contrast to each other in the mall’s hallways. Young Dubai teens dressed in tight jeans and low-cut tops wander the aisles of Prada and Phat Farm or line up at Pinkberry, next to young women covered head to toe in burkas (though the burkas may be decorated with sequins around the slits for the eyes).

Eventually, our time in Dubai came to an end – which was almost the best part, because it meant a return flight in business class on Emirates Air. The roundtrip alone, in what felt like a tiny airborne luxury hotel room, was an experience I still feel slightly giddy about when I recall it. As someone who regularly travels coach, it offered comforts and amenities for the 12-hour direct flight – three separate meal services, hot cloths to refresh you at regular intervals, a bar and lounge at the rear of the cabin – that seemed like something someone in a parody commercial about air travel would dream of.

It almost made me sorry to get home.

My parting words to the festival organizers were, “I hope you’ll invite me back.”

For Marshall’s latest reviews and interviews, visit marshallfine.com. n

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well

Finding refuge in a doctor’s care

By Erika Schwartz, MD

Imagine this: Going to the doctor and finding the doctor’ office is a place of solace, a haven from fear and danger.

Does that ever happen to you?

How many doctors do you know whose offices are places of calm and kindness? How many doctors’ offices do you look forward to going to? To just sitting in the waiting room for 15 minutes, skimming through crisp, new magazines – yes, WAG – and enjoying beautifully appointed walls with artwork that appeals to you and seats that are clean, shiny and comfortable?

How many receptionists and nurses in a doctor’s office can you think of who are lovely, responsive and supportive of your needs? How often is the conversation about those needs instead of your insurance?

And what about the doctor? How many of you can honestly say you are looking forward to seeing your doctor, because when you leave his or her office, you feel empowered, fearless and ready to take on the world and enjoy your life?

Unfortunately, I know the answer to all those questions and all too often it is “Are you crazy? The doctor’s office and the doctor are sources of intimidation and fear. All they care about is getting me in and out like cattle and sending me a huge bill. I feel I’m there to pay the doctor’s mortgage”.

Isn’t that so totally unfortunate and unnecessary.

I’ve been a practicing physician for more than 30 years and I can tell you without a doubt, at this point in my career, people come to see me from all over the world and invariably tell me they look forward to their visits with me. They also constantly tell me how wonderful our nurse, other doctor and all our support staff are. And I am proud of it. I’m not being arrogant here. I’m just trying to make a long overdue point.

It took many years to get there.

When I first started to work in private practice in Irvington in the 1980s, I had left the world of the ER, because I wanted to have a relationship with my patients and make it personal to boot. I wanted to be part of my patients’ lives, because even though I was young and not very experienced at life, I felt that knowing my patients personally was going to make me a better doctor. No one had taught me that in medical school. Unfortunately for all of us, they still don’t’ teach it there.

I just felt that while I was a total hot dog about the science and the most up-to-date ways to treat disease, that information may not have applied the same way to every patient. In my gut I knew everyone was different, even if on the inside on the operating table we look the same for the most part.

So I thought that making house calls and learning about my patients’ family lives would be another helpful part of the healing process. No, I didn’t have any intention of becoming a psychiatrist, although many still ask if my main approach to medicine today

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Find a doctor whose office is a safe haven of kindness, support and yes, love for you. See how much better you will do. And yes, this is all evidence- based medicine I am referring to. The evidence is always based on one. Just one.

You. is that of a psychiatrist because my office no longer has examining rooms but holds comfortable armchairs and coffee tables instead.

My answer has always been that medicine that splits people up into pieces, organ systems, surgical options and separates body and mind can only do harm, and I was not in that business. In fact, the business I’m in is doing good and preventing disease.

A new business in medicine these days.

In time, while I still did physicals and focused a lot on disease and the organs we human beings have inside of us, I started to realize that the better I knew my patients as whole people and the better they knew me, the better they did when it came to my treating their diseases.

This transformation was incremental. As per my education unless it is evidence-based (whatever that may mean) and scientifically proven (that is works in

many people with the same problem in large populations), the information and treatment of one person means nothing and is immediately discarded as quackery. This is the sum of medical science 101.

Well, initially I did believe our imperfect scientific approach to be true and the only way to practice medicine, because I was brainwashed by the medical education I received and I was afraid I might be wrong to go a divergent route from academic medicine.

But nothing works better than the wisdom one accumulates in time, and nothing reinforces a clinician who cares better than watching the individual patient do well.

One by one, slowly at the beginning and now all the time, I started to drop my façade that dictated I was a doctor and the patient was a patient.

First, I dropped the use of the white coat. I thought it stuffy and there only to put distance between me and my patients. If I got anything undesirable on my dress, I could always have it cleaned.

And besides, people knew my name before they came to see me, so why the name tag or the fancy embroidered white coat with my name and title.

They certainly don’t provide any hygienic or sterilizing effects.

Next, I realized the only way to help was to eliminate the third party in the examining room. By that I mean, no more drug information in my head, no more fear of malpractice, no more insurance company dictating how long we would talk or how I should treat my patients.

Finally, I hit pay dirt. I eliminated my ego. If a patient thought I was wrong or came with a bad attitude, I didn’t take it personally. I am here to help.

Most people don’t go to the doctor for fun. They are scared or feel sick. So who am I to tell them how to express themselves or get offended when they ask questions I may not have answers for.

In time, with all these obstacles to being a good doctor and serving the patient out of the way, I noticed people becoming happy to see me and happy when leaving the office. Smiles replaced sadness and courage replaced fear. My patients did well and do even better these days.

It may be the placebo effect, but we now know scientifically that is a good thing.

So many things change from bad to good in our confused and confusing medical world that I feel quite comfortable with the way I practice medicine just because my patients do so well.

So come on down. Find a doctor whose office is a safe haven of kindness, support and yes, love for you. See how much better you will do. And yes, this is all evidence- based medicine I am referring to. The evidence is always based on one. Just one.

You. For more information, email Dr. Erika at Erika@drerika.com. n

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well When smaller is better

By Michael Rosenberg, MD

Breast reduction, which is also known as reduction mammaplasty, removes extra breast skin, fatty tissue and glandular tissue to leave a breast in proportion to the size of the individual. What’s unique about this cosmetic surgical procedure is that it also carries a significant functional component, relieving pain in the back, neck or shoulders often associated with large breasts. Patients who undergo breast reduction surgery are among the most satisfied in any plastic surgical practice, because the individuals not only look better but feel better as well.

Breast reduction surgery can also be very liberating for women with large breasts, as they are no longer confined to limited bra styles and more significantly, limits on their activities. Many of my patients for reduction complain that they can only play tennis or golf while wearing multiple bras and even then, they suffer from discomfort in the back and neck. For many, swimming is out of the question. Being freed from the extra size and associated weight in their breasts often allows them to return to regular activities and a healthier lifestyle.

Breast reduction can be done at any age, but most surgeons recommend trying to

R

wait until the breasts are fully developed. So what other qualifications make a woman a good candidate for this operation? Patients should be in good health, maintain their weight and have a realistic expectation of the potential results of the surgery. Smoking can delay or even impede healing and should be avoided when considering any elective surgical procedure, including breast reduction.

Being completely candid with your surgeon prior to surgery is critical to a good outcome, as there are many decisions as to size and incisions that need to be made, and patients are best served when they actively participate in those decisions.

The surgery is done through incisions that surround the areola, and often include a reduction in size of the areolar complex in addition to the breast. The incision then continues down towards the inframammary fold or area where the breast meets the chest wall. Many surgeons also extend the incision underneath the breast in this inframammary fold to hide the scar and improve the shape of the breast. Extra skin and breast tissue is removed, ranging from a half-pound to two or more pounds per breast, depending on the individual. Often the incisions

are closed around a small drain which is removed the day after surgery.

Many patients stay in the hospital overnight. Typically, the sutures are absorbable so no further procedure needs to be done on the breast. Patients go home after surgery with a support bra and need recovery time before resuming normal activities. Because surgeons have different approaches to the surgery, it is a good idea to see more than one surgeon before deciding on surgery.

Typically, patients are left looking more symmetrical and proportionate and feeling much better, as if a weight has been lifted from their backs. There are risks to the surgery and it is extremely important to look for a surgeon who has had experience with this operation. Also, be aware that breast reduction surgery can interfere with certain diagnostic tests on the breast and that breast feeding can be limited after surgery. As always, be prepared with these and other questions if you seek a consultation with a plastic surgeon for this surgery.

Because breast reduction surgery improves function and can relieve pain and frequent skin infections, the procedure is often covered by health insurance policies. One of the most

common questions I’m asked is whether insurance will cover the surgery. That depends on a number of factors as well as your particular insurance policy. The first point to understand is that insurers insist on pre-certification, meaning that they will make a determination as to whether the procedure will be covered by the policy prior to the surgery being performed. Among the factors they consider are the size of the breasts, whether the patient has documented symptoms of pain and infection that are directly related to the size of the breasts and what treatments, including weight loss and exercise, the individual has had before considering surgery. They require a letter from the treating surgeon, supporting documentation from other physicians the patient has seen for related problems and preoperative photographs. If the criteria they have established are met, then the surgery is covered by insurance.

In the end, breast reduction can be extremely liberating for women bothered by large, heavy breasts and is an option that can provide great relief to appropriate candidates.

Please send any questions or comments to mrosenberg@nwhc.net. n

Monteverde at Oldstone

ecently purchased by the Perrott family, Monteverde at Oldstone, a private catering and banquet facility, is located in Cortlandt Manor in Westchester County, New York.

Originally built by Pierre Van Cortlandt in 1760, Monteverde, rich with history and situated majestically overlooking the Hudson River, is less than a one-hour drive from Manhattan. Beautifully appointed and historically restored, the mansion seamlessly integrates the charm and elegance of its past with today’s modern luxuries.

Monteverde is a perfect venue for weddings, corporate retreats, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, or an intimate party.

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2 8 B E A R M O U N TA I N B R I D G E R O A D ( R O U T E S 2 0 2 A N D 6 W E S T ) • C O R T L A N D T M A N O R , N Y 1 0 5 6 7

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Features Very private hilltop retreat situation on over 15 open acres and surrounded by 150 acres of nature conservancy.

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For more information, please call Lia Grasso of Douglas Elliman at (914) 584-8440 or email Lia at lia@liagrasso.com for more information about this Waccabuc, NY masterpiece.

worthy Architects (a sampling) A M ARCHITECTS 15 Highview Road Pound Ridge, NY 10576 (914) 514-8966 amarchitect.net

DEANGELIS ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES L.L.C. 451 E. Boston Post Road Mamaroneck, NY 10543 (914) 777-2727 dasllc.com

HOWARD S. RAABE JR. RAABE ASSOCIATES 30 Tersana Drive Easton, CT 06612 (203) 374-5001 howsthings.com

DEMOTTE ARCHITECTS 635 Danbury Road, Suite 1A Ridgefield, CT 06877 (203) 431-8890 demottearchitects.com

IH DESIGN STUDIO 30 Commerce Road Stamford, CT 06902 (203) 969-7227 ihdesignstudio.com

BADALY & BADALY ARCHITECTS 2 Wilson Place Mount Vernon, NY 10550 (914) 699-4200 westchestercountyarchitect.com

DENNIS NOSKIN ARCHITECT P.C. 100 White Plains Road Tarrytown, NY 10591 (914) 631-2345 dnarchitect.com

BARTELS-PAGLIARO ARCHITECTS L.L.C. 27 Elizabeth St. Norwalk, CT 06854 (203) 838-5517 bartels-pagliaro.com

DOUGLAS CUTLER ARCHITECTS A.I.A. 221 Danbury Road Wilton, CT 06897 (203) 761-9561 modulararchitecture.com

JONATHAN WAGNER AIA ARCHITECT 11 Riverfield Drive Weston, CT 06883 (203) 454-1825 jwaia.com

CAROL KURTH ARCHITECTURE P.C. 644 Old Post Road Bedford, NY 10506 (914) 234-2595 carolkurtharchitects.com

ELTERMAN FINER ARCHITECTS 208 Delancey Ave. Mamaroneck, NY 10543 (914) 835-3113 eltermanfinerarchitects.com

KENNETH W. SIEGEL A.I.A. 90 Finch Road North Salem, NY 10560 (914) 669-6754 architectinwestchester.com

FAESY-SMITH ARCHITECTS 523 Danbury Road Wilton, CT 06897 (203) 834-2724 faesy-smith.com

LOTHROP ASSOCIATES L.L.P. 333 Westchester Ave. White Plains, NY 10604 (914) 741-1115 lothropassociates.com

FIVECAT STUDIO ARCHITECTURE 48 Wheeler Ave., Second floor Pleasantville, NY 10570 (914) 747-1177 fivecat.com

MACKIN ARCHITECTS 112 Titicus Road North Salem, NY 10560 (914) 277-3152 mackinarchitects.com

GRANDBERG & ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS 117 E. Main St. Mount Kisco, NY 10549 (914) 242-0033 grandbergarchitects.com

MARK P. FINLAY ARCHITECTS A.I.A. 96 Old Post Road Southport, CT 06890 (203) 254-2388 markfinlay.com

GRANOFF ARCHITECTS P.C. 30 W. Putnam Ave. Greenwich, CT 06830 (203) 625-9460 granoffarchitects.com

MCCANN-CRAFT INC. 190 Broadview Ave. New Rochelle, NY 10804 (914) 576-2142 mccann-craftinc.com

HOBBS INC. 27 Grove St. New Canaan, CT 06840 (203) 966-0726 hobbsinc.com

NY SUPER STUDIO ARCHITECTS 11 Heatherbloom Road White Plains, NY 10605 (914) 645-2940 nysuperstudioarchitects.com

ANDREW NUZZI ARCHITECTS L.L.C. 62 London Lane Stamford, CT 06902 (203) 327-7950 nuzziarchitects.com

CHRISTINA GRIFFIN ARCHITECT P.C. 10 Spring St. Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706 (914) 478-0799 christinagriffinarchitect.com CLARK CONSTRUCTION OF RIDGEFIELD INC. 51 Ethan Allen Highway Ridgefield, CT 06877 (203) 431-2699 clarkconstruction.net DAVENPORT CONTRACTING INC. 78 Harvard Ave. Stamford, CT 06902 (203) 324-6308 davenportcontracting.com DAVID MOONEY ARCHITECTS 5 Blind Brook Lane Rye, NY 10580 (914) 967-0960 mooneyarchitects.com

One of Myron Goldfinger’s favorite designs.

KEITHE E. SIMPSON ASSOCIATES 3 Forest St. New Canaan, CT 06840 (203) 966-7071 kesainc.com

PETER A. COLE ARCHITECT 75 S. Greeley Ave. Chappaqua, NY 10514 (914) 238-6152 petercolearchitect.com R. FRANKLIN HEIN ARCHITECTS 132 Larchmont Ave. Larchmont, NY 10538 (914) 834-1414 rfharchitects.com ROUNTREE ARCHITECTS 130 Compo Road South Westport, CT 06880 (203) 227-1766 rountreearchitects.com SPEARMAN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN P.C. 7 W. Cross St. Hawthorne, NY 10532 (914) 769-0012 spearmanarchitectural.com STEVEN MUELLER ARCHITECTS 32 Field Point Road Greenwich, CT 06830 (203) 869-3758 stevenmuellerarchitects.com SULLIVAN ARCHITECTURE P.C. 31 Mamaroneck Ave. White Plains, NY 10601 (914) 761-6006 sullivanarch.com TDS HOMELINE INC. 39 Fort Point St. Norwalk, CT 06855 (203) 866-3777 tdshomeline.com TIMOTHY P. LENER ARCHITECT P.C. 394 Bedford Road Pleasantville, NY 10570 (914) 747-1220 timlener.com TRILLIUM ARCHITECTS 409 Main St. Ridgefield, CT 06877 (203) 438-4540 trilliumarchitects.com

when&where SATURDAY MARCH 2 THROUGH SUNDAY MAY 26 ‘AVANT-GARDE PERSUASION: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF HAROLD HALIDAY COSTAIN’

An exhibit devoted to Costain’s recent work, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays to Saturdays, 1 to 5 p.m.

Sundays; Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich. $7; $6 students (5 to 22 with valid ID) and seniors (65 and older). (203) 869-0376, brucemuseum.org.

THURSDAY MARCH 7 ‘STORIES OF COURAGE’

My Sisters’ Place gala includes dinner, dancing and a silent auction, with special guests and alumni from the New York Giants, 6:30 p.m.; The RitzCarlton, Westchester, 3 Renaissance Square, White Plains. $300. (914) 683-1333, mysistersplaceny. org.

FRIDAY MARCH 8 ‘SHELTER FROM THE STORM’

The Women’s Center hosts its 11th annual gala, 6:30 p.m.; The Amber Room, 1 Stacey Road, Danbury. $125. (203) 731-5200, ext. 237, wcogd.org.

THURSDAY MARCH 14 ‘BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL DIVISION SPRING BREAKFAST’

Ron Cohen, president, CEO and founder of Acorda Therapeutics Inc., an Ardsley-based public biotechnology company, serves as guest speaker at an outreach event for UJA-Federation of New York, 7:45 a.m. registration, 8:15 a.m. program; Old Oaks Country Club, 3100 Purchase St., Purchase. $54.

(914) 761-5100, ext. 122, shapiron@ujafedny.org.

SATURDAY MARCH 16 ‘SOUNDS OF BRAZIL & MENDELSSOHN’

A program featuring Mendelssohn’s Octet and Brazilian music, 7 p.m.; Concordia College-New York, 171 White Plains Road, Bronxville. $28; $14 children and seniors. (914) 395-4507, concordiaconservatory.org.

MONDAY MARCH 18 AN OPEN BOOK

Author Mara di Sandro De Matteo discusses her book “The Summer of the Spanish Writer,” 7 p.m.; Harrison Public Library, 2 Bruce Ave., Harrison.

(914) 835-0324. harrisonpl.org.

SATURDAY MARCH 9 ‘14th ANNUAL HEARTS & HAMMERS GALA’

THURSDAY MARCH 21 ‘SPIRIT OF ACHIEVEMENT AWARD DINNER’

‘BUBBLES & BLING’

SATURDAY MARCH 23 ‘EVENING OF WISHES’

Habitat Humanity of Coastal Fairfield County honors Bridgeport and Mayor Bill Finch, 6 to 10 p.m.; Brooklawn Country Club, 500 Algonquin Road, Fairfield. Call for ticket price. (203) 3332642, habitatcfc.org.

Jewish Community Center’s (JCC) annual spring gala dinner dance, 7:30 p.m.; Fairview Country Club, 1241 King St., Greenwich. $195; $100 guests under 40 years old and attending the JCC gala for first time. (203) 487-0944, stamfordjcc.org.

SUNDAY MARCH 10 ‘AILEY II’

A benefit performance with Alvin Ailey dancers for Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County, 7 p.m.; Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport. $75. (203) 227-4177, westportplayhouse.org.

CONCERT SEASON KICKOFF

Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic presents its 53rd season, 4 p.m.; The Palace, 61 Atlantic St., Stamford. $25; $20 seniors. (203) 325-4466, stamfordcenterforthearts.org.

Junior Achievement of the Hudson Valley hosts its Spirit of Achievement Award Dinner, 5:45 to 6:30 p.m. reception and silent auction, 6:45 to 9:30 p.m. dinner and award presentation; Westchester Marriott, 670 White Plains Road, Tarrytown. $350.

(914) 524-9760, hudsonvalley.ja.org.

A gala event with dinner, dancing and auction to benefit Make-A-Wish Connecticut, 6 p.m.; Mohegan Sun, Uncas Ballroom, 1 Mohegan Sun Blvd., Uncasville. $200. (203) 261-9044, ct.wish.org.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 27 QUEEN OF SOUL

Aretha Franklin in concert, 6:30 p.m. doors open, 7 p.m. concert; Westchester County Center, 198 Central Ave., White Plains. $49.50 – $149.50.

(914) 995-4050, wmconcerts.com.

Alfred Guzzetti. Photograph by Michael Onnifrey

THURSDAY APRIL 4 BEHIND THE SCENES

An appearance by filmmaker Alfred Guzzetti, Osgood Hooker professor of visual arts at Harvard University, with a discussion to follow, 5:30 p.m.; Heimbold Visual Arts Center at Sarah Lawrence College, 1 Mead Way, Yonkers. (914) 395-2412, slc.edu.

FRIDAY APRIL 5 SATURDAY APRIL 6 ‘FACES OF PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION IN THE 21st CENTURY: INFANCY THROUGH COLLEGE’

A two-day forum on progressive education’s opportunities and challenges, featuring a keynote address by poet, writer and educator Joseph Featherstone, 5 p.m.

April 5, keynote, 8:30 a.m., April 6, sessions open; Sarah Lawrence College, 1 Mead Way, Yonkers. (914) 395-2630, slc.edu/cdi.

Joseph Featherstone

SATURDAY APRIL 6 ‘ROARING ’20s’

Live music and Jazz Age-style dance performances, wine tasting, silent auction and raffles to benefit SPARC Inc., 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.; Sleepy Hollow Country Club, 777 Albany Post Road, Scarborough. $110. (914) 243-0583, info@sparcinc.org.

‘TIME FOR LYME’

A gala event held by Lyme Research Alliance includes dinner, dancing, a live and silent auction, celebrity guest appearances and live entertainment, 6 p.m. to midnight; Hyatt Regency Greenwich, 1800 E. Putnam Ave., Old Greenwich. $375. (203) 9691333, events@lymeresearchalliance.org.

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Bedell

Bonforte

D’amato

Dreyfuss

Feldman

Fountain

wit wonders: What’s your dream home?

“As a realtor who lives and works in Westchester County, I meet with a variety of buyers who are all looking for their dream home. I enjoy helping them crystallize their ideas and image – focusing on their needs, wants and must-haves. While we show them homes that reflect their wish list, ultimately we help the buyer understand that buying a home is a compromise. It is a matter of one’s finances, setting priorities and a hierarchy of what is negotiable. Isn’t that what life is all about?

— Michele Silverman Bedell Owner/broker, Silversons Realty in Scarsdale, New Rochelle resident “For me, it would be Park City, Utah, because I took up snowboarding and my daughters enjoy it.”

— Michael Bonforte Mount Kisco resident “It’s the house I have now. It’s in Cold Spring and my husband and I built it from scratch. That’s what really makes it special.”

— Nancy D’Amato Director of marketing, O’Connor Davies, Cold Spring resident “I think I live in my dream house now. But having been there for 10 years, one always thinks about it.

If I had to choose, I think my dream home would also be in a great community – perhaps somewhere a little warmer than the Northeast – and it would also be a very eco-friendly home.”

— David Dreyfuss Principal, Dreyfuss ICG, Westport resident “Bangkok, Thailand.”

— Michael Feldman Bedford resident

Gibbons

“My dream home would be in Las Vegas. The weather makes a big difference and also because of my business. I could take that to Vegas as well.”

— Rhonda Fountain Owner of RLF Marketing, Mount Vernon resident “I would like one of those mansions that are in Bronxville, but you would have to move it to Montauk.”

— Bridget Gibbons CEO and founder, Gibbons Digital Consultants, Bronxville resident “I would like to have two or three dream homes.

One would probably be in the Bedford area. That’s where I grew up. And then I would want one in the Killington area in Vermont, and one on an island somewhere.”

— Benjamin Palancia Partner, Albert Palancia Insurance, Somers resident “Through my profession as an interior designer, I have the privilege of working in some of the most beautiful homes in Westchester County. Over the years, I have put together my hypothetical ‘dream home,’ which gleans a bit from the breathtaking homes I’ve had the honor to work in. My dream home is rich with character and history like an old, stately Victorian. I want the original wide plank floors to shine beautifully but creak a bit from the years of love. My dream home has modern conveniences like radiant heat in the floors and central air conditioning. The house would have original crown moldings and solid doors with crystal knobs.

My dream home would be 100-percent efficient for me, my business, my family and the environment.

Every room would be usable, durable and beautiful – no museum rooms in my dream home. My dream

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home would have a bit of a sense of humor. There would be a bit of whimsy in the décor, nothing too stuffy or serious. Most importantly – my dream home would be filled with love – family, friends and festivities. After all, a home is just the stage on which we live our lives.”

— Joanne Palumbo Interior designer/Allied ASID, Homestyling101 L.L.C., Yorktown Heights resident “I think I live in my dream house.”

— Sharon Parker Account executive, InspiraMedia, Rye Brook resident “I’m a big sports fan, so much of my life rotates around sports and entertaining around sports – whether it’s inviting kids over after a game or gathering friends to watch the game. I also love being outdoors, so my dream home would combine my love for sports with entertaining. To make this happen, I’d need a large gourmet kitchen and very large great room with a large flat-screen television. The great room would open up to a large, flat backyard that has plenty of seating – both covered and in the sun. Outside, there would be a kitchen area with a state of the art grill, sink and refrigerator. The backyard would also need to be properly lit for nighttime sports activities and it would, of course, have a hot tub and 25-yard pool to cool off in during the summer months.”

— Erica Schietinger Vice president of corporate communications and community relations, Chelsea Piers, N.Y. and Conn., Yorktown Heights resident

Parker

Compiled by Alissa Frey. Contact her at afrey@westfairinc.com.

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DOYLE COFFIN ARCHITECTURE SINGER SONGWRITER SERIES

JEWEL Greatest Hits Tour MONDAY march 18 7:30PM With Special Guest Holly Williams

UPCOMING HIGHLIGHTS: 3/8 3/9

COUNTRY STAR CLINT BLACK

RENT’S ADAM PASCAL & ANTHONY RAPP

3/13 MARSHALL TUCKER BAND 3/14 IRISH COMEDY TOUR 3/21 JUDY COLLINS

3/22 THE HIT MEN - THE ORIGINAL STARS OF FRANKIE VALLI & THE 4 SEASONS

3/23 DAVID BROMBERG & HIS BIG BAND 3/24 SINGING LEGEND NEIL SEDAKA 3/29 ROBERT DAVI SINGS SINATRA

3/30 ARRIVAL FROM SWEDEN - THE MUSIC OF ABBA

4/5

BROADWAY BACKSTAGE! - AN INSIDER’S LOOK AT BROADWAY

THE RIDGEFIELD PLAYHOUSE /ridgefieldplayhouse

• (203)438-5795 www.ridgefieldplayhouse.org

80 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT

@RPlayhouse 73

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1. Alysa Haas 2. Bira Rabushka and Yuri Tsarev 3. Marc and Birgit Schmidt 4. Judith Simon and Andrey Savenko 5. Marian Rissenberg and Yuri Tsarev 6. Veronica Glickenhaus and Eugene Sanches 7. Carol Steiner and Yuri Tsarev 8. Loren and Ellie Fisher 9. Olga Soltis and Yuri Tsarev 10. Cancan boys

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They like it hot

Ballroom dancers Yuri and Elena Tsarev, owners of the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Bedford Hills, recently presented an array of ballroom dances based on a theme from the Marilyn Monroe movie “Some Like It Hot.� After the cancan, the Tsarevs and instructors Andrey and Inna Savenko partnered students in waltzes, boleros, salsas, swings, foxtrots, rumbas and a paso doble. Following the showcase, guest cabaret singer Alysa Haas entertained the audience with selections from her soon-to-bereleased CD. Photographs by Francine Walker and Stephan Neary.

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All photograph identifications are from left unless otherwise noted.

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Fashion Week at home

Who needed Fashion Week in Manhattan when White Plains had the Estrada twins? Recently, Jesus and Antonio, WAG’s August 2012 cover boys, debuted their fall line of goddess and mermaid gowns, plus tweed and brocade ready-to-wear outfits, with a nod to Audrey Hepburn and their equally ladylike partner, Marteal Boniello. Besides the long-stemmed models with their hair arranged Veronica Lake-style (courtesy of Julius Michael of the eponymous Scarsdale hair salon), the throng at Gaucho Grill enjoyed Champagne, tapas, bopping to a salsa/pop rock beat and just seeing and being seen. “It’s exciting,” one guest exclaimed. And indeed it was.

Photographs by Georgette Gouveia.

1. Pat Simons Cindy Stempel, Chris Simons and Olivia and Alyssa Kapush wait for the show.

2. Claudia Leitenberger and Rocio de La Vega catch up.

3. The Estrada fab four – Jesus Estrada, Julius Michael, Antonio Estrada, Marteal Boniello.

4. The models get ready.

5. Nothing says “love” like desserts by Gaucho Grill’s Luis Gorado.

6. Jesus Estrada addresses the troops.

6. Anita M. Buffem and Gina Marie Rittale have their groove on.

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Honoring good works

The Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester (BGCNW) recently held a kickoff event for its 2013 Humanitarian Award Dinner committee, hosted by John Crabtree at Crabtree’s Kittle House in Chappaqua. The 19th annual Humanitarian Award Dinner will be held June 1 at Lexus of Mount Kisco.

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8. Brian Skanes, executive director, BGCNW and Jim and Ashley Diamond, 2013 Humanitarians of the Year 9. Deirdre Farrell and Muffin Dowdle, Humanitarian Award Dinner committee co-chairpersons

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watch Happy birthday, Grand Central

Dignitaries, celebrities and a very large birthday cake helped mark the official kickoff of Grand Central Terminal’s centennial celebrations in Manhattan. A rededication ceremony got underway with comments from New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on the Beaux Arts masterpiece’s Main Concourse. The morning included memories shared by notables ranging from author and attorney Caroline Kennedy to actress Cynthia Nixon, poetry from former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins and entertainment by singer Melissa Manchester. Joined by a choir from the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, Manchester led those in attendance in singing “Happy Birthday” as Grand Central’s cake, in the shape of its iconic clock, was brought in.

Photographs by Bob Rozycki.

1. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg 2. Chef Eric Bedoucha of Financier Patisserie with the birthday cake 3. Melissa Manchester performs with choir of the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music.

4. Caroline Kennedy, author and attorney 5. Actress Cynthia Nixon, far right 6. Peter Stangl, chairman, Grand Central Centennial Committee

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Lights for Leukemia

The Westchester/Hudson Valley Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) “Light The Night” 2012 events collectively raised a grand total of $850,000!

Of this, $604,000 was raised from Westchester County.

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7. Barbara Gallagher, senior campaign director, Light The Night; Daniel Carlton, corporate walk chairman, Westchester Light The Night Walk; and Christina Rae, president, Buzz Creators 8. John Walter, president and CEO, LLS; Tom Roach, mayor, city of White Plains; and Dennis Chillemi 9. Court Ingraham, 2012 honored patient, a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 10. Rob Astorino, center, Sabrina Marciante, 2012 honored patient, and parents Barbara and Stephen Marciante

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Celebrating healthy babies

Recently, the New York March of Dimes held its 75th anniversary celebration at The Lounge at 42 at The Ritz-Carlton, Westchester in White Plains.

Photography by Lash to Lens.

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1. Event host Martin Ball and Kris Ruby 2. Lori Snyder, Karen Hoyos and Jen Groover 3. Runway models 4. Anthony, Isadora, Michael and Lucille Santoliquido; Joe Leo; Lucille Nunno and Michael Verino 5. Tara Rosenblum, event host, and Joseph Apicella 6. Nina Chillemi

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Literary inspirations

Bookworms rejoiced as the Westchester Library System recently held its 15th annual “African American Literary Celebration” at the Abigail Kirsch Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown.

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7. Terry L. Kirchner, executive director, Westchester Library System; honoree Bettye H. Perkins, founder and CEO, Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Teachers; Kevin Plunkett; and Deborah Fay 8. Eddie Jenkins, Massachusetts Department of Transportation diversity chief and former NFL star 9. Dave Donelson

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A home run for charity

UHY Advisors NY President and CEO Michael Mahoney teamed recently with All-Star closer Mariano Rivera for a special fundraiser at Siro’s Restaurant in Manhattan. The event raised more than $50,000 for the Mariano Rivera Foundation to assist in the rehabilitation of the historic North Avenue Church in New Rochelle, which will feature a food pantry, day care center and after-school programming. UHY hosted event just days before Rivera, a 12-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, headed south for spring training and the start of his 19th season in New York. UHY Advisors NY, a leading tax and business-consulting firm, with offices in Rye Brook, Manhattan, New Haven and Albany.

A play for breast cancer

Darien field hockey players recently presented Dr. David Gruen, Stamford Hospital’s director of women’s imaging and co-director of the Women’s Breast Center, with a portion of the proceeds from the annual “Play for the Cure” week, which also raises awareness for screening and early detection of breast cancer.

2. Liz Ferguson, Cammie Lattimer, Megan Johnston, Charlotte Byrne, Molly Weinstock, Bridget Lattimer and Dr. David Gruen

1. Michael Mahoney and Mariano Rivera

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Not your usual beer parties

Heineken USA sponsored two parties during inauguration weekend – serving as the exclusive beer sponsor for both celebrations.

Photographs by HEINEKEN USA. 3. John Nicolson, regional president of Heineken Americas; hip-hop recording artist 2 Chainz; and Dolf van den Brink, President and CEO of Heineken USA at the Hip-Hop Inaugural Ball, Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. 4. Actress Rosario Dawson and Stacey Tank, senior vice president and chief corporate relations officer at HEINEKEN USA, at the Voto Latino’s 2013 Inauguration Celebration, Oya Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

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Food for thought

The Stamford Family YMCA recently raised more than $100,000 with its second annual “Fine Food for a Cause” event. Some 180 people, including Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia and Stamford native (and former New York Mets manager) Bobby Valentine, attended the fundraiser at the Stamford Yacht Club. Proceeds from the evening will help support a multipurpose teaching kitchen, which will be used to provide underserved local kids and families with cooking skills and nutritional education.

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5. Honorees Sam Cingari, Andy Pforzheimer and Sasa Mahr-Batuz 6. Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia; Ernest Lamour, Stamford Family YMCA CEO; and Chris Hansen, “Dateline NBC” correspondent

Making kids “Safe at Home”

Broadcasting and baseball all-stars alike teamed up for the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation’s 10th annual gala at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. The foundation honored Bob Costas and raised $1.36 million to maintain and expand its programs, which aim to end the cycle of domestic violence and save lives through education. (See story in this issue.)

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2 1. Joe and Ali Torre with Bob Costas and wife, Jill Sutton. Credit: Josh Sailor Photography.

2. Jorge Posada, former catcher for the New York Yankees. Credit: Josh Sailor Photography.

3. Katie Couric serving as master of ceremonies for the 10th anniversary Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation gala. Credit: AM Media Group.

4. Safe At Home Executive Director Judith Lynn. Credit: Josh Sailor Photography.

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Kicking off 2013

The Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors held its installation of 2013 officers and directors at the Clubhouse at Patriot Hills in Stony Point. There was a cocktail party, followed by a brief program, DJ and dancing.

5. Matt Bevilacqua, Barry Kramer, Donald Arace, John Kope and Donald Mituzas, HGAR directors 6. Russ Woolley, president, Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors; Katheryn DeClerck and Ann Garti 7. Nancy Kennedy, Adam DiFrancesco, Leah Caro and Sean Patrick Maloney, U.S. congressman 8. J.P. Endres-Fein and Kevin O’Shea

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Team spirit

The Bank of Fairfield and Chip’s restaurant recently established the Community Spirit Awards to recognize outstanding service in Fairfield County and the surrounding areas. An awards ceremony will take place at Chip’s restaurant March 12.

9. George Chatzopoulos, owner, Chip’s restaurant; and Bob Hojnacki, head of business development, Bank of Fairfield 9

Want to be in Watch? Send event photos, captions (identifying subjects from left to right) and a paragraph describing the event to afrey@westfairinc.com.

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class&sass

What makes a house feel like a home? According to the Chinese, it’s having good feng shui (that is, balanced energy). But I’m not necessarily convinced. Years ago, a friend bought me a feng shui consultation as a housewarming gift. By the time I finally called the feng shui master, I’d already built and furnished our home. But I called, figuring he could offer advice about how I could tweak things to create more positive energy flow. Instead, he walked around issuing dire warnings. The one I remember most vividly was, “Your marriage will be a short and unhappy one, because the beams above your marital bed lie perpendicular to the direction your bodies lie in.”

I was horrified to hear this, but with our 25th wedding anniversary fast approaching and our beams still firmly in place, I’ve stopped stressing. He also told me never to place a mirror directly facing my bed because this brings a third party into the marriage (no worries there either as I’m about as likely to have a mirror above my bed as I am likely to indulge in a three-

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By Martha Handler and Jennifer Pappas

way). And lastly, he cautioned me never to leave laundry hanging outside through the nocturnal hours (again, not a problem). From my experience, what makes a house a home is having loving, positive energy emanating from those who reside within its walls – and that requires constant tweaking.

I often think that the mysterious enJ ergy behind feng shui comes from within oneself. Once my sister (who was single at the time) was told to place red roses in the corner of her bedroom. This, she was assured, would bring her love and indeed it did. She met her future husband a few weeks later and they have been happily married for 10 years now. But what if by putting those roses in that corner she brought herself out, stood a little straighter, let her gaze linger a bit longer, smiled a little brighter and became more approachable? You really can’t underestimate the power of body language. It speaks volumes. On that note, what do you think about the “Kama Sutra?” Someone was really thinking creatively when he came up

with those positions, several of which are not very user-friendly. That book should come with a warning label. But if you can manage to execute them, talk about energy flow.

“Kama Sutra” positions are M Those crazy – especially given the fact that the males pictured look like sumo wrestlers who are not exactly known for their flexibility. But speaking of energy flow, a few years ago, in my ongoing effort to keep things spicy in the boudoir, I signed my husband and myself up for a tantric sex workshop, which promised “full-body orgasms,” sans genital touch, among other things. I figured if it works for Sting and Trudie, who appear to be one of the happiest, sexiest and most spiritually connected couples on the planet, it could work for us. Though at first it was a bit awkward to lounge around (fully-clothed – lest you get the wrong idea) in a room with 15 other couples, by the end of the day we’d begun to master synchronized breathing, which is the “path to higher levels of interconnectedness and heightened sensual plea-

sures” – according to our tantric guru. But one of the most interesting aspects of the workshop was eyegazing, which involves staring intensely at your partner (and later, others in the room). At first, you see only the person’s physical attributes. But then it’s as if he cracks open before your eyes and you begin to see all his fear, pain, splendor and vulnerability. It’s incredibly unsettling but also hauntingly beautiful.

But wait: How did we go from talking about homes to talking about sex? we always? It’s no wonder: J Don’t The mind does wander. Actually, it has been proven that gazing into another person’s eyes for an extended period of time releases a hormone called oxytocin.

It’s the hormone responsible for creating a sense of bonding. The highest levels of this hormone are released when a woman is breastfeeding, hence causing bonding between mother and child and between new lovers, who have a tendency to gaze into each others eyes longingly, as they are discovering each other at the onset of their relationship. So, that would make sense, the eyegazing that was part of the workshop you attended. This release of oxytocin would enable you to feel more bonded with your partner and enhance the intimacy between the two of you. FYI: You can now get oxytocin in a nose spray.

What will they think up next? But I M guess what they say is true: The eyes are the windows to the soul. At least that’s what Michael Ellsberg, inventor of Eye Gazing Parties, believes. He gathers single strangers and has each spend two minutes looking into another’s eyes before moving on to someone else. When everyone has had his two minutes with everyone else, the party begins at a “heighted, electrified pace.” Elle magazine called these parties “New York’s hottest dating trend.” Don’t think I’ll be partaking, but it’s certainly intriguing. Anyone out there game?

Wag Up: The tantric sex guru Barbara CarrelM las (Urbantantra.org(asm)).

“The Kama Sutra” position The TraJ peze – for flying (not so effortlessly through the night).

Wag Down: People who avoid direct eye contact M – a bit suspect if you ask me.

Not stretching before attempting J “Kama Sutra” positions and trying more than five positions in one night.

Email Class&Sass at marthaandjen@wagmag.com. You may also follow Martha and Jen on Facebook at Wag Classandsass or access all of their conversations online at wagmag.com.

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