ELISSA ERRICO
Broadway star and Yorkie mom GRETCHEN CARLSON Empowering women — and her Water Dog
DESIGNER CAROLYNE ROEHM ‘Going to the Dogs’ exquisitely
JUDGED A
TOP MAGAZINE IN NEW YORK STATE 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018
WESTCHESTER & FAIRFIELD LIFE APRIL 2020 | WAGMAG.COM
ART AND ANIMAL LOVERS James and Susan Dubin, Bob and Karen Madden
THE ORPHAN ELEPHANTS OF UMANI SPRINGS
CREATURES OF THE NIGHT Speakeasy-crawling in WAG country
critters & visionaries
We are
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CONTENTS APRIL 2020
14
Tough grrls
16
Fantastic beasts at Met ‘Crossroads’
18
The wonderful world of Hunt Slonem
22
Whale of a tale
52
26
Roehm’s birds, bees and more
30
48
Beyond the cliff
With a British accent
36
62
Love of art
Going to the dogs
38
The elephants of Umani Springs
42
44
Crafty critters
A horse of another color
64
For creatures of the night
68
Class menagerie
COVER STORY Melissa Errico: ‘Legrand Affair’ Avec Michel
This page: Courtesy John Rizzo Photography. (see page 38)
E VERY OBJ ECT HAS A STORY
worth telling, worth find ing.
VALUE YOUR COLLECTION.
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For buyers, consignors, and the passionately curious F I N D W O R T H AT S K I N N E R I N C .C O M
FEATURES HIGHLIGHTS
FASHION 88 She came, she saw, she contoured
HOME & DESIGN 56 Casual style in Old Greenwich 70 At home in the world with your pets 72 The cat’s meow
TRAVEL
72
74 ’Round the mount to Mohonk 78 Bau-wow!
FOOD & SPIRITS 80 Terreno, transformed 82 The flavorful wines of Umbria
HEALTH & FITNESS 86 Saddle up 90 Powering on 92 Have pet will exhale 93 Allergic to Fido and Fluffy
44
26
PET CARE 94 A sunshine boy 95 Dances with wolves
WHERE & WHEN 96 Upcoming events
WATCH 98 We’re out and about
86
WIT 104 WIT What’s your pet nickname?
ELISSA ERRICO
Broadway star and Yorkie mom GRETCHEN CARLSON Empowering women — and her Water Dog
DESIGNER CAROLYNE ROEHM ‘Going to the Dogs’ exquisitely
ART AND ANIMAL LOVERS James and Susan Dubin, Bob and Karen Madden
THE ORPHAN ELEPHANTS OF UMANI SPRINGS
CREATURES OF THE NIGHT Speakeasy-crawling in WAG country
critters & visionaries
JUDGED A
TOP
MAGAZINE
IN NEW YORK STATE
COVER: Melissa Errico. Photograph by Jenny Anderson.
2014, 2015, 2016, 2018
WESTCHESTER & FAIRFIELD LIFE APRIL 2020 | WAGMAG.COM
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PHOTOGRAPHY Sebastián Flores, John Rizzo, Bob Rozycki
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jena A. Butterfield, Olivia D'Amelio, Gina Gouveia, Phil Hall, Debbi K. Kickham, Doug Paulding, Giovanni Roselli, Bob Rozycki, Gregg Shapiro, Barbara Barton Sloane, Jeremy Wayne, Cami Weinstein, Katie Banser-Whittle
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Some readers think WAG stands for “Westchester and Greenwich.” We certainly cover both. But mostly, a WAG is a wit and that’s how we think of ourselves, serving up piquant stories and photos to set your own tongues wagging.
HEADQUARTERS A division of Westfair Communications Inc., 701 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY 10604 Telephone: 914-694-3600 | Facsimile: 914-694-3699 Website: wagmag.com | Email: ggouveia@westfairinc.com All news, comments, opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations in WAG are those of the authors and do not constitute opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations of the publication, its publisher and its editorial staff. No portion of WAG may be reproduced without permission.WAG is distributed at select locations, mailed directly and is available at $24 a year for home or office delivery. To subscribe, call 914-694-3600, ext. 3020. All advertising inquiries should be directed to Anne Jordan at 914-694-3600, ext. 3032 or email anne@westfairinc.com. Advertisements are subject to review by the publisher and acceptance for WAG does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service. WAG (Issn: 1931-6364) is published monthly and is owned and published by Westfair Communications Inc. Dee DelBello, CEO, dee@westfairinc.com
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WAGGERS
T H E TA L E N T B E H I N D O U R PA G E S
ROBIN COSTELLO
OLIVIA D'AMELIO
PHIL HALL
DEBBI K. KICKHAM
WILLIAM D. KICKHAM
RAJNI MENON
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COVER STORY: GREGG SHAPIRO, PAGE 52
OOPS! In our article on Storie Veneziane, the continuing collection of fragrances from the Valmont Group (March WAG, Page 88), we misspelled the last name of the group’s heads, Sophie and Didier. It’s Guillon. Our apologies to them.
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EDITOR’S LETTER BY GEORGET TE GOUVEIA
With this year’s animal issue, we thought we’d try something a bit different — seeing our furry, feathered, finned and four-legged friends through the human animal. Our opening essay sets the tone for this as we explore how the female of the species calls the shots in every group except one — us. But that has changed somewhat in China where a shortage of young women, thanks to the country’s nearsighted one-child policy that selected for boy babies back in the 1980s, has given these women their pick of men today. Meanwhile, Phil offers a different animal-through-a-human lens tale by way of a fascinating 19th-century take on the biblical story of Jonah and the whale that demonstrates the human capacity for imagination — and gullibility. Elsewhere, you’ll meet Gretchen Carlson, who fired one of the first shots in what has become the #MeToo movement when she sued Fox News and its then chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment — a move that would lead her to seek to empower women. The Greenwich resident — who’ll be a keynote speaker at the Westchester Women’s Summit that WAG is co-sponsoring Sept. 10 — is the parent of two teenagers and Lagotto Ramagnolo Water Dog Bella, who doesn’t much care for the water. Broadway and cabaret star, and cover subject, Melissa Errico — happily ensconced in Bronxville with husband Patrick McEnroe of tennis fame and their three girls, as Gregg discovers — is also mom to Yorkshire Terrier Pepper. Westchester art collectors and Neuberger Museum of Art honorees Jim and Susan Dubin are so fond of their Schnoodle Coriander (Cori for short) that they recently threw a “Bark Mitzvah” for him and their Cori-loving friends. The love of animals has turned the personal into the professional for many of our two-legged subjects. Fashion-turned-home-design goddess Carolyne Roehm is so passionate about animals that they are reflected not only in her new The Birds & Bees Collection but in her Going to the Dogs initiative on behalf of dog and cat shelters, as Mary explores. She also reintroduces us to Bob and Karen Madden, the Poughquag husband-and-wife artists of Rock and A Soft Place Studio, whose love for their Dobermans led them to support local animal shelters (Robin’s Pet Portrait). Knowing us as you do, however, you are assured that we’ve found animals everywhere this month — in Hunt Slonem’s bunny paintings and books, seen recently at Madelyn Jordon Fine Art in Scarsdale (Jeremy’s story); in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new British Galleries (Mary again) and “Crossroads” installations, both helping to mark The Met’s 150th anniversary; in the delightful creations that accent The Tailored Home in Greenwich; and in WAG alumna Martha Handler’s new novel “Winter of the Wolf,” which draws on her longtime relationship with the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem. Why our fascination with animals? They give us joy, says Scott Falciglia, co-owner of The Tailored Home. But it goes beyond that. We think Wolf Burchard, curator of The Met’s to-die-for British Galleries (the recreation of the dining room of the Neoclassical Lansdowne House alone is swoon-worthy), hits the nail on the head when he says that animals have given the button-down Brits (and, by extension, the rest of us) an emotional release. They calm, console, energize and inspire us, as psychotherapist Dana Dorfman notes in her piece. And we have repaid 10
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With “Hobson,” as art collectors Jim and Susan Dubin call their welcoming sculpture by Jack Dowd. (See story on Page 36).
this at times with cruelty. The Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet Club in Darien was once the Ox Ridge Hunt Club, although it hasn’t been associated with fox hunting for years, as Phil notes. Centers for orphan elephants like the one in Umani Springs, Kenya that John Rizzo brings us wouldn’t be needed if we didn’t have poachers. Nor would we need the SPCA, partner in our Pet of the Month feature, if there weren’t so many animals requiring rescue and forever homes. Dorfman urges us to adopt them — as a way of also rescuing ourselves.
A couple of postcripts about this month’s issue. We’re always innovating at WAG, so you’ll notice that in addition to Friday’s WAG Weekly, we now have daily e-blasts called Teatime WAGging — trends, inspiration and things to anticipate on your afternoon power break. Also, we go to press amid COVID-19. We’ve done our best to ensure that everything we’ve advanced here is actually happening. But hey, you never know. Please check with venues for the latest details. As for Debbi and Bill’s article on their cruise aboard the Regent Seven Seas Splendor, Doug’s story on wine-tasting in Umbria and Jeremy’s speakeasy piece, well, these places will come back and so will we. Spring, after all, is the season of hope. A 2018 Folio Women in Media Award Winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of the new “Burying the Dead,” “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and “Seamless Sky” (both JMS Books), as well as “The Penalty for Holding,” a 2018 Lambda Literary Award finalist (JMS Books), and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes. For more, visit thegamesmenplay.com.
V Neighirbtual or partnehr ood
WHAT'S TRENDING
WA G S P O T L I G H T S T H E N E W A N D N O T E W O R T H Y
RECLAIMING ROVER
RUGS THAT ROAR Burkelman, the home and lifestyle brand with shops in Cold Spring and Manhattan, offers a selection of tiger-themed, 100% wool rugs that are not only stylish but also ideal for high-traffic areas. Soft underfoot, the collection is from India, where the rugs are handhooked by skilled artisans. Available in several colors and two sizes (from $312), with the Richard Blue shown here. For more, visit burkelman.com. Courtesy Burkelman.
Nearly two million dogs are stolen every year, with only 10% of these ever finding their way home. The good news is that New York and Connecticut are two of the 15 states that address pet theft in their criminal codes. Indeed, New York ranks fourth in best dog-theft laws, making it a class E felony to steal a pooch, with up to six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. For more, visit caninejournal.com/stolen-dog Lassie, come home: You don’t have to have a valuable pooch like Lassie to be the victim of pet theft. Courtesy State Archive of Florida.
GRRRRRRRRRRR FOR THE BIRDS
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941) was one of the most popular designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with the architect also known for his furniture, ceramics, metalwork, wallpaper, carpets, tiles and fabrics. A new release, “Voysey’s Birds and Animals,” (Thames & Hudson, $19.95) by Karen Livingstone, is out April 14 and spotlights his nature-inspired designs. For more, visit thamesandhudsonusa.com. Courtesy Thames & Hudson.
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It’s a trend that just won’t quit, and it’s big again this spring — animal prints. Release your inner big cat or go with zebra stripes for a twofer, as black and white is another big trend. Use an animal print sparingly, as an accessory, or go full on, accenting it with a pop of hot pink or flaming red. Use a little, use a lot. Either way, get set to roar. For more, visit neimanmarcus.com. Animal magnetism shone on the runway for the “Neiman Marcus Trend Report” Feb. 5 at Neiman Marcus Westchester. Photograph by Bob Rozycki. – Georgette Gouveia and Mary Shustack
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Civilization may have given men the upper hand for millennia as they lorded it over women politically, economically and physically, but in the natural world, the females of the various species still call the shots. So what’s that got to do with all the single young women in China? More on that in a bit. But first, consider the mating challenges of the male of the species on land, sea and in the air. The male polar bear has to schlep over all that sea ice in April and May to hunt for a breeding female and fight off other males only to encounter a less than willing partner, because she’s not yet in heat. It is the mating ritual itself that induces ovulation. Then, too, polar bears can be cannibalistic. So you don’t know if you’re going on a hot date or about to be eaten. Bit of a problem that. But once trust is established, the guy still isn’t golden. The female now puts him through his paces in a display that can only be likened to tryouts for the alpine events at the Winter Olympics. There’s some schussing down the icy slopes, which she usually does more gracefully, because, well, she’s half his body weight. And that’s followed by some running back up the slopes, with her waiting patiently atop while he lumbers behind, because, well, he’s twice her body weight at anywhere between 772 and 1,543 pounds. (Maybe he should try the trending new intermittent fasting diet.) Honestly, watching this on PBS’ “Nature” and knowing he’s losing his chance to win this furball of a bachelorette, you just want to go right through the TV screen, put your hands on his butt and push him up that hill. And yet, you understand where she’s coming from. After a week of nooky, it’s going to be all on her to prepare the maternal den, have the helpless cubs, nurse them for two years — two years — fend off predators, maybe adopt an orphan, send the kids on their way and begin the whole cycle over again. A female can’t be too picky, no matter how big the male’s, uh, stock portfolio or waterfront property is. The female bowerbird, which does not have the advantage of a real estate agent, spends lots of time examining the bowers of various male bowerbirds, which may resemble twiggy maypoles or arcades, festooned with stones, berries, feathers, flowers, leaves, bits of sparkly glass and, yes, even plastic in an attempt to entrance and entrap. This is somewhat akin to the old seductive ploy: “Why don’t you come up to my penthouse for a nightcap and look at my, ah, etchings?” Sometimes, the female bowerbird takes an etching, um, blueberry and scoots off. She’s got other listings to look at — ones with better bowers and blue-black male birds who perform well. Left: Two bears playing on drifting ice, Canada. Right: Ready for love: A male bowerbird in Australia sets the scene for seduction. The male’s blue-black beauty is said to be in inverse proportion to the elaborateness of his bower.
In other words, it’s not just about dinner. It’s about dinner and a show. Similarly, the female white-spotted puffer fish may take to the fascinating three-dimensional sand mandala that a male sculpts on the sea floor off the south coast of Amami-oshima Island in Japan’s Ryukyu Islands in a kind of sand castle contest. Or she may swim away. If she stays, there will be some powerful undulating going on — along with what looks like some cheek-biting — for her to deposit the eggs that the male will then fuss over. Hey, not every female is cut out to be a homemaker. Which brings us to China and the pressure it’s putting on single women in their reproductive prime like lawyer Qiu Huamei to scratch that itch to get hitched. The pressure manifests itself in a full-blown media campaign to ridicule women who remain single and thus among the sheng nu (“leftover women”). In Qiu’s case, captured in the PBS “Independent Lens” documentary “Leftover Women,” she tries to breach the world of a dutiful Chinese girl from a small village south of Beijing — with all of the hapless, awkward encounters with speed dating and marriage brokers that implies — and that of a successful, independent-minded, English-speaking career woman who’s looking for more out of life than fulfilling a tradition. Let’s understand who put Qiu and some of her countrywomen in this position — men. In 1979, the Chinese government, decided to institute a one-child policy to control the population. Because Chinese tradition dictates that the oldest son care for his elderly parents — and because we wouldn’t want to mess with tradition now, would we? — many females were aborted or adopted overseas. The policy ended in 2015, but by then, there was a shortage of young women. As the French would say, quelle surprise. So the government has to pressure women to get married, because the reality is those who are around don’t just have their pick of blueberried bowers and sand castles, so to speak. Some of these choosy ladies are choosing not to choose at all. They are — in the brilliant turn of phrase by single actress Emma Watson — “self-partnered.” Or to borrow an idea from the Jungian analyst Esther Harding, they are psychological virgins — one in themselves. “Remember that famous scene from ‘Jerry Maguire’ ‘You complete me?’,” Paula Faris said in introducing a “Good Morning America” segment on the self-partnered Watson last year. “That’s not this.” What’s fascinatingly ironic is that by creating a policy that led to a form of gender selection, the Chinese government reinforced in humans the animal kingdom’s natural selection by female choice. I think Chinese guys should start brushing up on their schussing.
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FANTASTIC BEASTS AT MET ‘CROSSROADS’ BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
If “no man is an island” — as 17th-century poet John Donne observed — then neither is any culture. Trade, diplomacy and war have been three ways in which civilizations interact, sharing motifs and artistic styles, among other things. These intersections are the idea behind “Crossroads,” three provocative installations celebrating The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 150th anniversary that consider the cross-cultural currents flowing around certain themes. “Piety and Power” plumbs spiritual and political power in 12 magisterial, devotional works from Asia, the Americas, Africa and Europe in the Medieval Sculpture Hall. “Empires and Emporia” explores the mercantile link among Asia, Europe and America in 24 sensuous objects in the Asian Art Galleries Astor Forecourt. But for April WAG’s animal theme we’re focusing on the third “Crossroads” — “Mythical Beasts,” beginning in the Gallery for the Art of the Ancient Near East, Cyprus and the Islamic World and continuing in the Greek and Roman Galleries of Cypriot Art. Here viewers will recognize an example of the sphinx, originally a half-man, half-lion in Egypt — think the Great Sphinx of Giza — that has been familiar in the eastern Mediterranean since 2000 B.C. Leave it to the ancient Greeks to sex things up, turning the sphinx into an alluring monster with the head and bust of a woman, the wings of a bird and the body of a lion, as in The Met’s Cypriot limestone funerary stele of two sphinxes from last quarter of the fifth century B.C. All these years later, the Greek gift for sensual figurative sculpture is still evident in this work, as are the rich pink streaks in the limestone. (For added sphinx fun, take a short walk over to the
19th-century European painting and sculpture promenade that is Gallery 800 to view Gustave Moreau’s 1864 Symbolist painting “Oedipus and the Sphinx,” in which the tragic hero — meeting the merciless Sphinx at a crossroads, their eyes locked, her claws digging into him — answers her riddle correctly, defeating her but sealing his doom.) The centrality of Cyprus to Greek and Near Eastern cultures is such that The Met has underscored five additional objects in the adjacent Cypriot galleries, including a sarcophagus and two male figures that display Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek influences. Like the sphinx, the dragon is another fantastic beast transformed from culture to culture — a creature of beneficent power in China but a stalking gatekeeper in Babylonia, derived from an earlier Sumerian serpent god and later a fearsome force in Islam. It’s represented in “Mythical Beasts” by a glazed and molded brick relief of a proud mushhushshu dragon (604—562 B.C.) from the Ishtar Gate in Babylon, 53 miles south of Baghdad in modern-day Iran. Meanwhile, entwined, serpentine dragons figure in a 1640 blue-and-white dish from Iran that marries Near Eastern aesthetics to Chinese export ware. Early Islamic Iran also adapted the ancient Middle Eastern griffin — part lion, part eagle — in its decorative arts as a symbol of authority, much as medieval European heraldry would later do. Fittingly and majestically, the griffin on display at The Met rises from a throne leg (late seventh—early eighth century), a bronze work cast around a ceramic core, probably from western Iran. It’s a kind of treasure hunt, one that illustrates how distinct but neighboring peoples meet at the intersection of the imagination. For more, visit metmuseum.org.
Throne leg in the shape of a griffin, probably from western Iran (late seventh–early eighth century), bronze cast around a ceramic core. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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We brought the best pediatric specialists closer to you. The newly opened Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Pediatric Specialty Center brings top specialists to one convenient Greenwich location. From allergies to cancer treatment, your child will be cared for by specialists from a children’s hospital that ranks among the best in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. In addition, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital physicians provide 24/7 emergency services and onsite care for children at Greenwich Hospital. Everything your child could need from our top ranked children’s hospital is now close by. ynhch.org
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HE WONDERFUL WORLD OF HUNT SLONEM BY JEREMY WAYNE
“Chinesis Thurs. 23°” (2020). Images courtesy Hunt Slonem Studio.
With Easter just around the corner, April, often referred to as “the cruelest month” — thank you, T.S. Eliot — may possibly be one of the happiest for New York-based, bunny-rabbit obsessed artist, Hunt Slonem. Along with bunnies, Slonem — ample-framed and broadfaced, a cheerful cross between late actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bob Hope — is known, of course, for his series of butterflies, and tropical birds. Born in Kittery, Maine, in 1951, Slonem had a peripatetic childhood in Connecticut, California and Hawaii, as his navy officer father moved the family around the country. A year spent in Nicaragua as an exchange student further influenced him, giving him a lifelong love of what he calls “exotica.” Arriving in New York in the 1970s, Slonem worked with Andy Warhol, and the influence is clear, not only in the production line-type repetition of the subject — actually a religious reference for Slonem, akin to prayer — but also in the way his New York studio resembles a factory, as indeed Warhol’s did. A “typical” bunny — face and a pair of ears, black on a luminous green or vivid pomegranate red background — goes for around $5,000, although a new auction record was set last year for a work by Slonem. His 1986 oil on canvas, “Healer, Dr. Gregorio Hernandez,” which was featured on the cover of Tama Janowitz’s 1987 novel, “American Dad,” sold for $80,000 at auction in New Orleans in May 2019. Most closely associated with Neo- or Abstract Expressionism, he calls his bunny paintings his “warm-up paintings.” He is also Marie Kondo’s nightmare. He needs clutter around him, collecting houses (two in New York, two plantations in Louisiana), good porcelain, top hats, neo-gothic chairs and — wouldn’t you know — marble busts of Marie-Antoinette. Even the term “Renaissance man” can’t quite contain him, this multitalented artist who has
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also thrown himself into sculpture, architectural restoration and car design, in addition to his prodigious painting from nature. As for where Slonem has exhibited, the names read like an atlas — from Kansas City to Kazakhstan, from Anguilla in the British West Indies to Amsterdam. (In WAG country, his work was most recently seen at Madelyn Jordon Fine Arts in Scarsdale.) His paintings are currently in the permanent collections of more than 250 museums across the globe. This year, COVID-19 permitting, will see Slonem exhibiting in eight shows worldwide, from La Jolla, California, to Latvia. His industry and energy are frankly staggering. There is humor, too, of course, in the art. And pure joy. The delicious pastel colors of Raoul Dufy, the oddly satisfying repetition of Warhol, the childlike
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Top: “Scottsdale Remembered” (2019). Bottom: “Guardians & Luna” (2020).
sincerity of Henri Matisse, the utter sophistication of Leonardo da Vinci — all these elements can come into play in a Slonem canvas, where the almost fanatical retelling of the subject achieves a kind of religious potency. Yes, his paintings may be deceptively “simple,” but his art is never naïve. The concept of “simplicity” in art is, at least to my mind, fascinating. Slonem is the archetypal artist — think Fernand Léger, too, say, and Jackson Pollock — of whom you say, “that’s so easy, a child could do it,” but when you put paint to paper, all you end up with is a sorry mess. Writing this piece, I actually tried to draw butterflies (which Slonem paints by the score) on a thick piece of cartridge paper, to prove to myself how “easy” it would be, and before I had even drawn half a wing I was — forgive the pun — beaten. Interesting, too, because for all Slonem’s work that is lifelike and figurative, I always have the feeling that those paintings from nature are ephemeral, fleeting, will-o-the-wisp. And that, despite their sheer numbers, you will never trap the butterflies, never catch the bunnies, no matter how many Slonem paints. They are, in that sense, illusory — the bunny in the top hat (of which he is so fond of collecting.) It is also true that, despite first appearances, no two pictures are ever “the same.” It takes the artist’s eye to appreciate the infinite variety and latent beauty in that sharp, well-defined V of a rabbit’s ears. The same is true of the parrots, similar, of course, but no two the same. They are literally Slonem’s studio models, around 60 of them, caged and uncaged, whom he constantly observes, no swoop, no twitch, no flutter, not captured in Slonem’s art. He is also a shameless and dogged (or should that be bunnied?) merchandiser. Witty, too. The “Hop Up” shop on his website features bunny scarves, bunny pillows, bunny totes; also, bunny bowls, bunny napkins, bunny placemats and — naturally — bunny T-shirts. A lot of the bunny plates are currently sold out, but you’ll be notified when the product becomes available. Color is everything for Slonem, both professionally and privately. Electric blue, acid green or Schiaparelli “shocking” pink are favorite jacket colors when it comes to a night on the town (of which Slonem had more than his fair share of in the heady Studio 54 days of the 1970s), while his taste in furniture — heavy gilt 18th century French fauteuils (armchairs), for instance, for which he has a fondness — is either an elaborate tease or else not-so-borderline kitsch. Now in his 70th year, Slonem’s demeanor suggests the sharpest mind tempered with a touch of world-weariness. One thing’s for certain: He shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, he seems to be working harder than ever. So, if you’ve had the puppy for Christmas and are looking to broaden your pet collection, now may be the time to acquire a bunny — a Slonem bunny, naturally — for Easter. For more, visit huntslonem.com.
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WHALE OF A TALE BY PHIL HALL
During the summer of 1891, newspapers in North America and Great Britain began running a story regarding an extraordinary event that took place off the Falkland Islands. According to the story, sailors from the vessel Star of the East harpooned a whale that thrashed violently in its death throes and overturned a longboat, plunging its two sailors into the ocean waves. The men were not rescued and the whale died after several hours. The vessel hauled in the whale’s carcass and the crew spent the remainder of the day and the following morning cutting it into pieces and retrieving its fat. But during that second day, the story goes, the sailors noticed something moving within the whale’s stomach. When the stomach was cut open, the sailors discovered one of the missing men, James Bartley, had been alive inside the whale. According to the story, Bartley did not emerge unscathed — his skin was bleached white and wrinkled from the gastric juices within the whale’s stomach. After overcoming the psychological trauma of what occurred, Bartley reportedly said he had air to breathe but the heat of the stomach caused him to pass out during the nearly 36 hours of imprisonment. Bartley’s story would circulate for years and was cited by religious journals as confirmation that the Biblical story of Jonah being swallowed by a gigantic sea creature and surviving in its body for three days could have taken place. Among the books that are compiled into the Bible, Jonah always seemed to stand out in regard to content — and not just because of his miraculous survival. “Although the Book of Jonah is included among the prophetic books in the Bible, it is quite different from the others,” explains Jeffrey Peters, a scholar at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. “Normally, such books begin with God coming down,
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Pieter Lastman’s “Jonah and the Whale” (1621). Courtesy Museum Kunstpalast.
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Of course, squids don’t have bones, which would make their digestion easier. But what if Jonah’s whale was actually a marine creature that survived from the prehistoric period? There is precedent for that so-called “living fossil” scenario, most notably with the coelacanth that was believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period but was rediscovered in South Africa in 1938. “With extinct marine creatures that could potentially have swallowed a human whole, several possibilities come to mind,” Lamanna continues. “There is the very famous megalodon shark, Carcharocles megalodon (sometimes known as Otodus megalodon), and an especially gigantic pliosaur — a big headed, short-necked, four-flippered marine reptile related to the more famous long-necked plesiosaurs — such as Kronosaurus queenslandicus or Pliosaurus funkei. And the ‘killer sperm whale’ Livyatan melvillei. But all were extinct long before the dawn of modern humans.” For Rev. Adam Thomas, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic, Connecticut, the key is understanding the creature that swallowed Jonah was not just any old animal. “In the Hebrew text, it said the fish was appointed by God for this one purpose,” he said. “It was designated to do this specific act.” Thomas added that the creature should not be seen as a punishment vehicle for Jonah’s disobedience of God’s command, but as a “transportational vehicle to get Jonah back on track” by bringing him across the Medi-
anointing a prophet and sending him out to the world. It is this last part that is central to their stories, but this part is not the focus of Jonah’s story. Instead, his tale is of one running from God, and the plot of the story focuses on Jonah’s conversion back to following God’s command over him convincing others. It is a direct and personal story among works that focus more on law and society as a whole. In essence, Jonah represents us, and his story is our story.” Jonah’s story also prefigures that of Jesus, with the prophet’s experience in the belly of the beast mirroring Jesus’ death, Crucifixion and Resurrection in the Gospels: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah,” Jesus says in Matthew 12:39-40. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Nonetheless, the story of Jonah became baffling over the centuries as a greater understanding of marine biology found little evidence of any known ocean creature that could ingest an intact human without damaging its digestive system or its prey. “I think extant sperm whales are known to swallow large objects — big squid or at least large chunks of big squid, have been found in their stomachs,” says Matthew C. Lamanna, an associate curator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
terranean to Nineveh in order to fulfill God’s plan for him. Thomas is among the theologians who do not believe the aquatic aspect of Jonah’s life actually took place, but he acknowledged its mythic nature enhances the lesson. “I think it is kind of neat,” he adds. But what about James Bartley surviving inside of a whale? No photograph of him is known to exist, so there is no physical confirmation of his skin-bleaching experience. In 1907, the British academic journal The Expository Times published a letter from Mrs. John Killam, the widow of the ship’s captain, regarding what took place. “There is not one word of truth in the whale story,” she wrote. “I was with my husband all the years he was in the Star of the East. There was never a man lost overboard while my husband was in her. The sailor has told a great sea yarn.” Nonetheless, the Bartley story persisted for years — it even turned up in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” — and has been cited by Biblical literalists. In 1991, Edward B. Davis, a professor at Messiah College, a Christian institution in Pennsylvania, located the original records of the Star of the East in the archives at the Maritime History Archive at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland. What he did not find in those records was any sailor named James Bartley. Needless to say, the Bartley story exuded a distinctive piscine aroma.
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OEHM’S BIRDS, BEES AND MORE BY MARY SHUSTACK
Lifestyle icon Carolyne Roehm was scheduled to lead the lineup of guest speakers at the annual Lyndhurst Flower & Antiques Show in Tarrytown April 3 through 5. It has been suspended due to COVID-19, and ticket holders will receive a refund. The former fashion designer and noted tastemaker — whose career also touches on gardening, entertaining and the decorative arts — was to speak about her love of fine antiques and flowers during a presentation April 4, while also spotlighting her latest jewelry collection, “The Birds & The Bees,” and signing copies of her latest of a dozen books. Roehm, who has professed a love for both dogs and design, is also noted for her charitable efforts for animal welfare, specifically through her “Going to the Dogs” initiative, which benefits dog and cat shelters across the country. Recently, the designer, whose homes include those in Manhattan and Litchfield County, took the time to answer some questions from WAG: As we shared with you, at WAG, we theme our issues — and this one is our annual “salute to the animal kingdom.” Can you talk a little about your devotion to animals, from your latest jewelry collection, “The Birds & The Bees,” to your own beloved dogs? “I suppose being an only child dogs easily became the loves of my life. But I love all animals — horses, cats and birds. I am now at the stage in life that when I see an insect in the house, I will put it on a piece of paper and put it outside so it might continue its journey. When a bird or a chipmunk or anything gets killed, I give it a burial.” Can you share a bit about your background, specifically what were your most important influences and how they shaped your professional life?
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Carolyne Roehm with her Kelpie dog, wearing a Crystal Bee Chain Belt / Necklace and Double Door Knocker Crystal Bee Earrings, with a Crystal Bee Necklace on the dog. Photographs courtesy Carolyne Roehm. 27 APRIL 2020 WAGMAG.COM
Crystal Bee Necklace.
standing entities where I become immersed in the specific topic, and then I review and see all the topics as the collective approach to a lifestyle.
Gold Mix Textured Chain and Gold Dragon Pin.
“My important influences are the usual ones — my grandmother (for her artistry in the creative world), my mother (for her strength and discipline in life) and my two design and life mentors, Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass.” Your most recent book, “Carolyne Roehm — Design & Style: A Constant Thread,” touches on so many topics, from fashion to flowers, table design to interiors. Do you see those elements as distinct — or do you consider them part of a whole approach to life? “I have to say I consider (it) both ways. I see them as free-
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Can you share what you may be working on these days — a new collection or book? Are you always thinking of what’s next? “Yes, I am always thinking of what next, because I love designing product and ideas just pop into my mind and then I want to bring that design to life. I am currently working on a series of books and then a freestanding book on Charleston, South Carolina.” And finally, can you tell us how you would you spend a perfect day, when you had no work commitments and could simply do what you love best? “That is easy. I would spend the day in the garden amongst my flowers and veggies, with my pups running around me. I love listening to either a great thriller or mystery audio book as I work or simply to beautiful music or, if it is in the early morning or evening, I just listen to the sound of nature.” For more, visit carolyneroehm.com.
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BEY ND THE CLIFF BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Gretchen Carlson describes being fired from Fox News in 2016 — and her subsequent sexual harassment suit against its then chairman, Roger Ailes — as “jumping off a cliff.” The funny thing about jumping off a cliff, though, is that sometimes with a little luck and a lot of pluck you land on your feet. In Carlson’s case, she landed just fine. Hers was one of the first salvos in what has become the #MeToo movement, now a global initiative giving voice to the women — and men — who have suffered from sexual abuse in the workplace but have heretofore been voiceless. “We’ve been in a cultural revolution,” says Carlson, a Greenwich resident who is a keynote speaker (along with former United Nations Ambassador and National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice) at the Sept. 10 “Westchester Women’s Summit,” for which WAG is a co-sponsor. “ Women now know they’re being supported. Men are being held accountable. They’re being fired. But there’s still a lot more work to do.” Gretchen Carlson. Photographs by Brigitte Lacombe.
FINDING HER VOICE
That’s why five months ago, Carlson and former Fox colleagues Diana Falzone and Julie Roginsky formed Lift Our Voices, an organization devoted to ending nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), which are used to silence victims of sexual harassment and workplace discrimination. “Unfortunately, every woman has a story to tell,” says Carlson, who along with Falzone and Roginsky has sought to be released from her NDA with Fox. At press time, the three had not yet heard from the network with regard to their action, which was inspired, Carlson has said, by NBCUniversal being open to releasing its former staffers from their NDAs. Lift Our Voices is also pressing for states’ legislation like the bill New Jersey passed, neutralizing any part of an employment contract or settlement agreement that “has the purpose or effect of concealing the details relating to a claim of discrimination, retaliation or harassment.” Nationally, Carlson has testified on Capitol Hill for passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act, which would prohibit companies from requiring employees to arbitrate sex discrimination claims behind
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closed doors — yet another way to muzzle women, she says. The bill has bipartisan support in the House and Senate, which Carlson adds is key: “Nothing gets done without it. And after all, sexual harassment affects women and some men of all political persuasions.” She has also asked the present and recent 2020 Democratic and Republican candidates for their support to end the secrecy. So far, Carlson has received affirmations from former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, author-activist Marianne Williamson, former Gov. Deval Patrick and former Congressman Joe Walsh. She has not heard from President Donald J. Trump, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden — although Bloomberg, pressured by Warren in his Democratic Presidential Debate debut, said he would release three women from their NDAs with Bloomberg LP if they request it. The NDAs and forced arbitration are two reasons Carlson has mixed feelings about being portrayed recently in the Showtime miniseries “The Loudest Voice” (by Naomi Watts) and the feature “Bombshell” (by Nicole Kidman). On the one hand, it’s “surreal” to see yourself on-screen in productions that at the very least call attention to sex abuse in the workplace, she says. On the other hand, she can’t judge the accuracy of many of the stories depicted because of the isolation NDAs and forced arbitration foist on women. She knows what critics are thinking, what has been said to countless women: Why didn’t you come forward immediately with your harassment claims? Why acquiesce to forced arbitration and an NDA? Why settle? (Carlson received a reported $20 million settlement and an apology from Fox after more than 20 other women reported sexual misconduct by Ailes.) She says when she was removed from Fox’s “The Real Story With Gretchen Carlson” in July 2016 for rebuffing Ailes’ advances — after a stint at the network that included more than seven years as co-host of “Fox and Friends” — she had no idea how pervasive sexual harassment was. There was the occasional case that claimed national attention, as in Anita Hill’s 1991 Congressional testimony against then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, and that was about it, she says. As for the idea that the abused should be proclaiming their mistreatment, Carlson says, “Listen. That’s a copout. That’s an old school way of looking at things….Old school is the woman comes forward, and they get rid of her with an NDA. New school is the woman comes forward; she’s celebrated for it; there’s an investment in her. She stays working and they get rid of her harasser.”
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Just as Carlson couldn’t have imagined where her sexual harassment suit would’ve led, so she probably never imagined her role as an activist growing up in Anoka, Minnesota, the granddaughter of the pastor of the second largest Lutheran church in the United States. The young Gretchen was an excellent student and violin prodigy, appearing on radio and television and with the Minnesota Orchestra at 13. Her intelligence would take her to Stanford University, where she graduated with honors, studying organizational behavior, and Oxford University, where she read Virginia Woolf. Her talent and beauty would take her to the Miss America pageant, where as Miss Minnesota in 1989, she became the first classical violinist to win the competition. After Miss America, Carlson worked as an anchor and reporter at a variety of network affiliates before joining CBS News and “The Saturday Early Show,” for which she covered the George W. Bush-Al Gore 2000 election controversy, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s execution and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She also created a 30-part, award-winning series on domestic violence. From CBS she went on to Fox. Carlson says she is proof that there is life after sexual harassment. She was the host and executive producer of three Lifetime documentaries whose common thread is speaking out — “Breaking The Silence,” about sex abuse; “Beyond The Headlines: NXIVM Cult”; and “Beyond The Headlines: The College Admissions Scandal.” She will next produce an interview series for Blumhouse Television. One of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” whose TED Talk on sexual harassment has garnered almost 2 million views, Carlson is the author of the 2015 best-selling memoir “Getting Real” and the 2017 book “Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back.” Proceeds from the latter benefit her Gift of Courage Fund, which supports organizations empowering girls and women. Over two years and 13 cities, the fund has been providing free workshops to low-income women facing gender-based discrimination and violence through the Gretchen Carlson Leadership Initiative. It also supports the March of Dimes’ Gretchen Carlson Advocacy Fellows. Not all of Carlson’s activism has been without controversy. Elected chairman of the Miss America Pageant in 2018, she made waves in part by shifting the focus from contestants’ physical attributes to their overall presentations, eliminating the swimsuit competition in favor of onstage interviews. After securing the pageant’s return to NBC, a plum for which she is proud, Carlson stepped down a year later. Of that time and her year as Miss America, she says, “I took it on as a volunteer as I was recruited for the job, which was a huge task. Miss America gave me amazing communication skills and put me in my TV career. It needed to move on into the 21st century.” Carlson keeps moving forward with her activism. There are days when she feels unmotivated but then looks at her two teenagers — “they were my paramount concern (in the sexual harassment case)” — and she is both surprised and buoyed by the depth of their support. The family also includes her husband, sports agent Casey Close, and their Lagotto Romagnolo, an Italian Water Dog, Bella, whom Carlson says is afraid of the water. Looking back on all that has happened, she thinks that this is what she was meant to do all along. “I’ve always been supportive of women and women’s issues. I think it’s my calling.” For more, visit gretchencarlson.com and liftourvoices.org. For more on the “Westchester Women’s Summit,” taking place Sept. 10 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Tarrytown, visit theeventdepartmentny.com.
ASSISTED LIVING AND MEMORY CARE AT THE CHELSEA AT GREENBURGH The Chelsea at Greenburgh provides a home-like environment for residents who are cared for and cared about. Located just off I-287 and the Sprain Brook Parkway, the Town of Greenburgh offers the perfect balance between the quaint villages of the Rivertowns and the city conveniences of White Plains, 119 and Central Avenue. The Chelsea offers brand new, upscale apartments with large windows and high ceilings, gourmet meals prepared by our superior chef and served in a restaurant-style dining room, a 24-hour emergency response system and a registered nurse on site daily. Our signature Lifestyle Program has something for everyone on a daily calendar of activities including outings for shoping and entertainment. There are beautiful sitting rooms and common spaces to chat with new friends. Enjoy quiet time with a book or computer in our library. Have coffee or tea in our lobby lounge any time. Our beauatiful new building also has a fitness center, landscaped courtyard, patio, pub and full service beauty salon. The Chelsea at Greenburgh offers the perfect blend of privacy and community involvement. You can take part in as much or as little as you like and feel perfectly at home in your own apartment, decorated with your own treasured possessions. We have a special program for those with Alzheimer’s disease and other memory impairments, The Country Cottage, that features 24/7 care, a separate dining room and a secure environment, all supervised by a Certified Dementia Practitioner. Of course, families are welcome to visit any time. As construction completes on our building and we look forward to taking our place in the local community, we’ve already forged partnerships with regional first responders--police, fire and EMS--along with local civic leaders, volunteers and professional colleagues in the senior care industry. We already feel at home here on Dobbs Ferry Road and hope our future residents will feel the same way.
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LOVE OF ART BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI
When James and Susan Dubin celebrated their wedding anniversary March 15, they continued their tradition of not giving each other gifts. Instead the Harrison couple selected a piece to add to a Modern and contemporary art collection that features works by David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Jonathan Borofsky, John Henry and Dan Namingha, among others. Jim, the executive chairman of Conair Corp. in Stamford, is more of a Modern than a contemporary art lover, although he says he’s also fond of their Chinese antiques. While she adores 17th-century Dutch landscapes as well, “Suse” — as he calls her affectionately — is taken with contemporary art for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the variety of media. She mentions Borofsky’s mixed media paper “Man With a Suitcase,” a textural silhouette of an everyman that seems to jump out of a wall in their Modern, light-filled Westchester home. But Susan, former features editor at Harper’s Bazaar, also finds appeal in the relevance of contemporary art. “Many of the artists are still living. You can relate to what they are trying to bring about. They speak to something of their time.” It’s not surprising then that Susan would become involved with the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College, where she has been a member of the board of the Friends of the Neuberger for a quarter-century and is now its chairman. “I can’t believe it’s been 25 years. It’s like watching a bunch of kids grow up,” she says. Jim, who got involved with the college and museum when Susan was asked to join the Friends, sits on the Neuberger’s finance board. Together, they’ll be honored for their support at the museum’s “Big Party” gala
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fundraiser scheduled for early fall. Why choose the Neuberger for one of their philanthropic efforts? Start, Susan says, with its holdings, which began with a promised gift of 300 works from the dapper late financier Roy R. Neuberger (1903-2010) when the museum was founded in 1969. “I was impressed by the sheer breadth of Roy’s collection, from mid-century masterpieces to the contemporary pieces to the art of the Americas and the African collection.” Equally important, Jim adds, is the museum’s place in arts education: “I believe that when budget crises come along, the arts are pushed to the side. The Neuberger does so much outreach (to the underserved). It plays a very important role.” Education is a passion with each. Jim is vice chairman of the board of governors of Tel Aviv University, which he calls “one of the best universities in Israel. Twenty-five percent of the students are Palestinians and Arabs. It has international programs. For me, this is a way to give back.” Susan used to sit on the board of the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester, now The Leffell School, which their two children attended. She is the daughter of educator Shirley Schraub, whose column “Ask the Teacher” was carried in the Gannett newspapers and the now-defunct McNaught Syndicate. “Susan would say you should major in something that expands your mind,” Jim says, “then specialize in a career in graduate school.” To which Susan quickly adds, “when feasible. A liberal arts education is the best. But it’s not an option for everyone.” They are like that — finishing each other’s thoughts, complementing each other. “It’s true,” Jim says, “but I never looked at it that way.” But Susan has always seen it, her creativ-
James and Susan Dubin in front of “Man With a Suitcase,” mixed media on paper.
ity dovetailing with Jim’s business acumen. If you’re going into the arts, she says, it helps to have a relationship with someone who’s good with money. Susan’s youthful interest in the arts — she grew up in Mamaroneck with parents who collected — embraced the humanities as well. While earning a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University, she served as a French-English, English-French translator for the United States Information Agency, an erstwhile diplomatic organization, and spent a year studying philosophy and literature at the Universite d’Aix-Marseilles in France. Her love of language served her well as a staff writer at House Beautiful and a contributing editor at Town and Country, as well as at Harper’s Bazaar, before she turned to freelancing. Jim, who hails from Vermont, holds a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a juris doctor from Columbia Law School, where he served as an editor of the Columbia Law Review and was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar. But even as a lawyer, he says, he was always interested in finance and quickly gravitated to corporate law. As a senior partner of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Harrison LLP, he was for many years chairman of the firm’s corporate department, a member of its management committee and chairman of its finance committee. While retired from Paul, Weiss, Jim sits on the boards of many corporations and nonprofits, including the Lighthouse Guild, a leading vision and health care organization. Where these complements join forces is with a trio of twos — not only two children but two grandchildren and two houses, the other being in Snowmass, Colorado, where the couple’s tastes run more to art of the West, like the abstracted Southwestern landscapes of Namingha, a Hopi Indian. There is one other member of the family — a Schnoodle named Coriander, Cori for short, who at 13 recently celebrated his “bark mitzvah” with 20 or so of the couple’s closest friends, Cori lovers all. Still, when it comes to the artworks, Cori is kept at paw’s length. For more, visit Neuberger.org.
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HE ELEPHANTS OF UMANI SPRINGS STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN RIZZO
“Offering a haven so rescued animals can heal and join a family.” — Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Oliver Twist is the person I think of whenever I hear the word “orphan” and pity is the emotion it brings. However, lucky orphan elephants, rhinoceroses and giraffes are being cared for by one of the most successful rescue programs in the world, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. David Sheldrick was the founding warden of Tsavo National Park in Kenya and a wildlife conservation pioneer who died in 1977. Before his death, he and his wife, Daphne, had worked together to create the infrastructure to preserve elephants and black rhinos in this sprawling, untamed preserve of more than 8,000 square miles that was formerly the Taru desert. Daphne would continue his legacy and build a small home in Nairobi National Park, around which has grown the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant and rhino orphanage. It was in Nairobi that Daphne ultimately finetuned the milk formula and husbandry needed to hand-raise baby elephants successfully,
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knowledge that has gone on to save the lives of hundreds of elephants, not only in Kenya, but across Africa and into India, Myanmar and beyond. She helped people better understand these giants and their incredible capacity for love and forgiveness. While it’s true that they have all endured traumatic experiences, either from poaching, drought or human-wildlife conflict, they are watched over and nurtured once rescued to ensure they can return to their lives as wild elephants. The program at Umani Springs — located in the Kibwezi Forest within the Tsavo Conservation Area — is not for babies but older elephants who are ready to make the transition. It’s a slow process, one that involves a gradual reintroduction back into the wild. During this time, they are given milk three times a day and forage during daily supervised trips into the bush. With no ex-orphan herds to learn from, the interactions with wild herds is critical to helping them transition. The keepers try to stand back to allow the orphans to socialize with the wild elephants, conscious of the fact their scent could frighten them. Family is everything in the world of elephants. When the elephants first arrive here,
Feeding with big milk bottle.
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Philip with elephants.
they need to form new relationships with the other elephants. Sonje and Murera are two of the older females at Umani Springs. Before being rescued, Sonje’s right hind leg had been hit with a spear and over time the wound festered, creating a huge protusion on her joint when she was found. She was too weak and lame to resist when rescued. Murera was found severely lame after falling onto poison spikes, which had been placed in the bottom of a hole that had been concealed and covered with grasses. Now recovered at Umani Springs and with maternal instincts, they both dote upon the youngsters Mwashoti and Alamaya. Mwashoti had a horrendous snare wound that cut through his leg joint. When found, the difficult decision was made to separate him from his mother since they were both deteriorating because of the injury and neither would survive without help. Alamaya had already been ravaged by hyenas when rescued. His genitals and tail were bitten off and surgery was needed to allow him to urinate. Founded in 2014, Umani Springs has abundant food and water throughout the year. This location was chosen because it ensures the elephants do not have to travel huge distances to find food and can remain within this beautiful ecosystem year-round. There’s also an exclusive bush camp for tourism called Umani Springs Lodge that can accommodate 10 guests, with sponsorship of an orphan required before arrival. The keepers live nearby on the grounds, just a
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few minutes walk from the elephant compound enclosures. Most of the elephants return each night to sleep inside, although, depending on their transition progress, a few are allowed to remain in the bush at night, returning in the morning for their bottles. After eating, they will congregate together to socialize with one another and with human visitors, too. According to the main keeper, Philip, the work can be sometimes dangerous, as when Sonje brought a wild friend back to her enclosure one night. The wild elephant did not understand the relationship between humans and the orphans and reacted with hostility. Although they were able to manage the situation, it is important to understand the seriousness of working with animals that have often been referred to as “nature’s bulldozers.” Philip also told me about the incredible joy the keepers have experienced when the now wild-living orphan females breed and return to visit with their wild babies. The number of babies born into the wild by orphans raised by the trust is 30. In addition, there are 156 orphans living wild with many nearing breeding age. According to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust 2018 Newsletter, the goal is “Alleviating animal suffering, preventing poaching, saving the lives of wild orphans and sharing in the joy of the next generation born to those raised from infancy.” For more, visit sheldrickwildlifetrust.org and for more on John’s photographic tours, visit africaphototours.com and jrizzophoto.com.
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A HORSE OF ANOTHER COLOR BY PHIL HALL
There often comes a moment in the life of an organization when the people in charge take a good look around them and are forced to acknowledge that things are not working properly. For Darien’s Ox Ridge Hunt Club, that moment came three years ago when dwindling membership required dramatic action. But that action required uprooting more than a century of tradition. “We go back 106 years with the history of the Ox Ridge Hunt Club,” says Michelle Saldivar, a member of the club’s board of directors and chairwoman of its house committee. “We had fox hunts and polo matches here. But some of the polo team members moved away and things evolved. We started looking at reviving the club and what else could they bring to make it a staple of the community again.” This is not to say the club had no history of transformative change. The property was originally a dairy farm owned by the celebrated Irish tenor John McCormack. Saldivar credits the board of directors with not only recognizing the need to evolve yet again but coordinating the effort with gusto. “It was such a small group and they were really invested in the club continuing,” she continues. “So, they wanted to see it prosper and not go under.” The club agreed to sell 16 of its 38 acres to the town of Darien and signed for a bank loan, combining the funds into a $12 million upgrade project. In October 2018, ground was broken on a redevelopment effort designed to transform the Ox Ridge Hunt Club into the Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet Club. One of the major changes in the rebirth of the club was the creation of a state-of-the-art clubhouse. “This wasn’t here,” says club president Richard Colligan, pointing around the clubhouse. “We had an indoor riding arena here. It was an old steel airplane hangar moved here from Westchester Airport in the 1920s.” With polo matches off its itinerary — the fox hunting activities disappeared from the site many decades ago — the club decided to continue its professional equestrian focus on tournaments. “We hold several horse shows throughout the year,” says Saldivar. “There is one really big one held from June 9 through 14 called the Ox Ridge Horse Show. We are host to about 600 horses and we put up temporary stalls and big tents for food. It is a world-class event.” The club maintains three large outdoor riding rings to host events in the warmer months. When the whether gets chilly, a new indoor ring accommodates the equestrian activities. “We held our first indoor winter show in December in the new heated indoor space,” says Saldivar, who points out the pale soil lining the venue. “The soil is a proprietary mix of very fine sand
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and different gradings of felt. That makes a huge difference to both the rider and the horse.” The club has an equine residency population of approximately 50, some owned by members and some owned by the club for its riding classes. “You don’t need to own the horse to come here,” says Saldivar. “You can come and start using the school horse.” However, club president Colligan observes that the future of the venue could not rest solely on horses. “The members recognized that it’s hard to have a riding only club in the middle of Darien. It’s very expensive,” he says. “The only way to grow is to have a facility to allow more members to come in.” After consulting with town officials, other clubs in the area and the local schools, the club decided to bring in something that was absent from the area. Hence, the “racquet” aspect of the club’s rebranded name — but, in this case, the racquet sport was squash. “Squash has been gaining popularity across the country and going deeper into the schools, and now we have great levels of elementary and middle school competitions,” says Saldivar. “Public and independent schools in town and the surrounding towns had limited options to their facilities and where they would be doing their practice. This became an asset for them.” Colligan notes the club’s six single courts and two doubles courts makes it among the largest privately owned squash facilities in the world — and the world has taken notice. “We hosted international tournaments,” he says. “We had about 30 pros here, and a pro and pro-am tournament with a $25,000 purse. We’ve also had junior tournaments. The members really love to see high-quality playing.” The club also offers a fitness center and paddle tennis courts. Saldivar adds that while the club has space to install a tennis court and a pool, it will pass on those features because “most people have access to it either through another club or on their own.” Next on the club’s agenda is a food and beverage license from the town, which is pending. Since reopening under its new brand and with its new facilities last July, the club has seen its membership level rise to 115, with Colligan noting the town has a 250-member cap due to the venue’s location in a residential section of Darien. “This has been a labor of love,” he says. “We feel very good about where we are.” Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet Club is at 512 Middlesex Road, Darien. For more, call 203-655-2559 or visit .oxridge.com.
HORSING AROUND This year, Greenwich Polo Club marks its 40th anniversary with the Greenwich Cup (June 7 and 14), the Monty Waterbury Cup (June 21 and 28 and July 5), the American Cup (July 12 and 19) and the East Coast Open (Aug. 30 and Sept. 6 and 13). Expanded food and beverage options include The Cup Bearer, the club’s official bar provider; Palmer’s Darien, offering VIP dining; and Food Truck Park. The grounds open 1 p.m. Sundays for 3 p.m. matches General admission starts at $40. For tickets, which go on sale April 1, and more, visit greenwichpoloclub.com. Meanwhile, the Spring Horse Shows return to Old Salem Farm in North Salem May 5 through 10 and 12 through 17, with national, international and USA Olympic Team riders competing. The non-equestrian activities include face painting, pony rides, Ben & Jerry’s of Mount Kisco Ice Cream Parties for kids on both Saturdays and shopping on Boutique Row. For more, visit oldsalemfarm.net.
Young equestrian Benjamin Kelsey in the saddle. Photograph courtesy Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet. APRIL 2020
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RAFTY CRIFTERS BY MARY SHUSTACK
(Editor’s note: Please call or go online as many events are being posponed due to COVID-19.) Twice a year, the grounds of Lyndhurst in Tarrytown are filled with hundreds of artists and artisans showcasing their work. And when the next edition of Spring Crafts at Lyndhurst opens May 1, visitors can also expect a virtual menagerie. But there’s no need to fear any mayhem. No, the animal presence will be confined to the imagery found throughout the jewelry, fashions, art and decorative work offered by the nearly 300 exhibitors. There will be leopard-print handbags from New Yorkbased Arzadesign along with vivid paintings of creatures ranging from her signature wolves to whales, owls and raccoons by Elaine Thompson, whose studio is in the Shawangunk Mountains of the lower Catskills. As shared on Thompson’s website, her oil paintings “tell a story of peace, love and that magical place called home. Having always felt a connection to the wilderness and the spirit of nature, especially in the places she has called home, she came to create the larger-than-life wolf and little-footed house. Elaine hopes that simple, sweet moments between these two characters will remind viewers of the people and places that make their hearts and imaginations feel free.” In addition, there will be delicate depictions of birds in watercolors by Rhode Island artist Holly Wach and, by contrast, bold works by Nature’s Sake Photography, which features the creations of James Rodewald. His “Animal Abstracts” invites the viewer to pause and reflect — through
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Clockwise from top: Among the artists and craftsmen participating in Spring Crafts at Lyndhurst are Elaine Thompson, Arza Gilad, Holly Wach, Jeanine Pennell, Seth Carlson and James Rodewald.
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Ceramic sculptures by Polish-born, New Yorkbased artist Margaret Wozniak.
intensely up-close views — on the textures of fur, feathers and hides. Meanwhile, Jeanine Pennell’s Bonetown Studio sculptures put a whimsical spin on a variety of creatures, with fanciful animals, from ram to Pegasus to rabbit, again realized in the ceramic sculptures of Polish-born, New Yorkbased artist Margaret Wozniak. Sephi Itzhaki’s ArtZooo ornamental steel art, crafted in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, offers artful takes on the everyday in intricate metal sculptures peppered with birds and dogs, ducks, cats, fish, butterflies and more.
And for those looking for another bold statement, Seth Michael Studio’s jewelry artist Seth Carlson is set to showcase his memorable designs — think a decidedly industrial spin on insects and beyond — to offer yet another view of the animal kingdom. It’s all quite natural, says Jackie Jarit Sobel, the director of Artrider Productions, which has been producing Crafts at Lyndhurst for some 35 years. “A majority of the population loves animals — as pets or otherwise,” she says. “When you bring an animal home as a pet, it becomes a member of your family. They are a part of your experiences — your loss, your love, your life — all the big moments and the small ones in between. So owning an item (craft or otherwise) that depicts a beloved pet is meaningful, special and sentimental.” But it goes far beyond dogs, cats and birds, Sobel adds. “The more obscure or rare animals are a mystery to most people. They make you want to know more about them,” she says. “They become desired and coveted. Also, rare animals tend to be beautiful and unique and/or have beautiful and unique qualities, like the color of a flamingo, the grace of a horse or the pattern of a leopard’s fur. This transfers to the continuous purchase of craft depicting animals, because we love to have beautiful items in our lives — in our homes and on our bodies.” Spring Crafts at Lyndhurst is stated to be held May 1 through 3 at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown. For more, visit artrider.com.
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ITH A BRITISH ACCENT BY MARY SHUSTACK
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(Editor’s note: At present the Metropolitan Musuem is closed due to COVID-19.) In the midst of the recent press preview for The New British Galleries, featuring four centuries of decorative arts and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, WAG had the cheek to ask The Met’s Wolf Burchard about animals. This line of questioning, you see, was with this issue, our annual salute to the animal kingdom, in mind. During our leisurely walk through the sweeping suite of galleries, some 11,000 square feet housing about 700 works created between 1500 and 1900 — a truly dazzling display of silver and sculpture, furniture and textiles, paintings and more — we had spotted many an animal image, from horses splashed across tapestries to fish designs enlivening platters, from oversize peacock sculptures holding court to petite cat figurines prompting a little smile. And that was just for starters. Burchard, officially the associate curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts and lead curator for the new galleries, was game to participate in what was likely an unexpected approach. “Animals play a major role in British society, as (they) would in probably any society,” he said. A reflection of that role in decorative goods and art, he also said, is only natural, adding that in this case, it also reflects the British sensibility. “The English are quite a reserved people,” Burchard shared. “If one of your relatives dies, they can be quite uptight.” But, he continued with a laugh, if you said your dog had died, they would likely make quite a fuss over you, asking if you were all right, did you need anything, etc. It extends, he said, to the proverbial English country home, where the wealthy owner might offer a tour that reflects his true passion. A possible scenario envisioned by Burchard: “We’re not looking at the Van Dyck or the Rubens, but ‘Look at the picture of my dog.’” Burchard indeed pointed out several examples of such a kinship with animals reflected within these new galleries, touching on the importance of say, an elephant-shaped teapot, exotic to the British society for which it was made — or the layered meaning of an Indian tiger “fighting back” — actually against British colonialism — in another sculpture. And in those examples come perhaps the true purpose of these reimagined galleries, a highlight of The Met’s 150th anniversary. The space, at times sweeping in scope and at others intimate, showcases work created from 1500 to 1900 — the period when Britain was transformed from a simple island nation to a world power — and officially opened to the public March 2. The galleries, to note, were the result of a collaboration with Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, principals of the design firm Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors. The suite of 10 galleries was completed, museum materials share, to “provide a fresh perspective on the period, focusing on its bold, entrepreneurial spirit and complex history.” The galleries, which also boast three stunning, full-size 18th century interiors, were designed, we also learn, to offer
Lansdowne House Dining Room. Photograph by Joseph Coscia. Images courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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British, Staffordshire. Teapot (circa 1745), salt-glazed stoneware.The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
a “chronological exploration of the intense commercial drive among artists, manufacturers and retailers that shaped British design over the course of 300 years. During this period, global trade and the growth of the British Empire fueled innovation, industry and exploitation. Works on view will illuminate the emergence of a new middle class — ready consumers for luxury goods — which inspired an age of exceptional creativity and invention during a time of harsh colonialism.” There are indeed many layers to the works on display, from the dazzling array of 18th-century teapots in soaring glass cases to the 19th-century Asprey & Co. desk set featuring gilded bronze and malachite, displayed at the 1851 Great
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in London that was created by Prince Albert. Visitors will no doubt remember moments both small and large, from the study of an elaborately decorated 18th-century sugar box in silver to walking up the staircase from Cassiobury House, Hertfordshire. The English staircase, featuring intricate carving in pine and elm by Edward Pearce (circa1630-95), came to The Met in 1932. Walking that staircase “creates for our visitors an experiential understanding of life then,” noted Sarah E. Lawrence, the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor curator in charge, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts who with Burchard was the project’s curatorial team. All, it must be said, has been done with great thought — and purpose. As Max Hollein, director of The Met, said in advance materials, “Especially on the occasion of The Met’s 150th anniversary, we are thinking deeply about the stories told in our galleries and how every object on display is an outstanding work of art but also embodies a history that can be read from multiple perspectives: A beautiful English teapot speaks to both the prosperous commercial economy and the exploitative history of the tea trade. The curators have created a new narrative for the galleries that sheds light on four centuries of extraordinary artistic achievement alongside the realities of colonial rule. The result is a thoughtful examination of the British Empire and its astonishing artistic legacy.” Cheers to that. The New British Galleries are now open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, at 1000 Fifth Ave. For more, visit metmuseum.org.
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Melissa Errico. Photographs by Jenny Anderson.
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EGRAND AFFAIR’ AVEC MICHEL BY GREG SHAPIRO
Actress and singer Melissa Errico has had a professional, musical love affair with the late composer Michel Legrand since she was a child, with Legrand’s music playing in her parents’ house while she was growing up. She received a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Isabelle in Legrand’s 2002 Broadway musical “Amour.” So it’s no surprise that Errrico’s 2011 album “Legrand Affair” (Ghostlight), a musical celebration of and collaboration with Legrand, was reissued in a deluxe edition in late 2019, a few months after the Oscar-winning composer of “The Windmills of Your Mind” and “Summer of ’42” and “Yentl” passed away at the age of 86. I had the pleasure of speaking to Melissa – a Bronxville resident who is the wife of tennis star/commentator Patrick McEnroe and mother of three girls, plus Yorkshire Terrier Pepper – before her concert tour, which includes performances at Feinstein’s/54 Below in May: Melissa, I’d like to begin by expressing my gratitude to you for recording Joni Mitchell’s song “Night Ride Home” on your 2003 debut album “Blue Like That.” I’m grateful to you for recording something from Joni’s later catalog instead of something from her early 1970s albums as many other singers tend to do. Why did you choose that song? “My brother (Mike Errico), who is a very innovative singer/songwriter, was a big in-
fluence at that time on that record. He’s a professor in songwriting at the Clive Davis Institute (of Recorded Music) at (New York University). He was always playing his guitar in his lap, doing very weird capos and tunings. He worshipped Joni Mitchell. A lot of my love and appreciation for her was not what was popular or mainstream. It was deep music to Mike and he was a big part of making that album. I credit him for putting me on to that and for being his own kind of pioneer. “I was trying to bring a mix of singer/ songwriter material to my vocalist and Broadway acting background. I think I took to it because it was a beautiful poem/ story – the visual of the horse following the car. I was, at the time, looking for a way to deal with my first big heartbreak. We were drawn to the imagery and drawn to Joni as a songwriter. The song is beautiful.” Is there an especially fond memory that you have from your creative relationship with Michel that you would like to share with the readers? “I wrote the eulogy for Michel Legrand in The New York Times. This big appraisal of Michel is what got the reissue rolling. My father was a concert pianist who was drafted to Vietnam. He was obsessed with Michel Legrand’s music. When you think about Legrand, it’s actually period music. Most of it comes out of the 1960s. My parents were
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bonded by the (Legrand) song ‘I Will Wait For You,’ which was like an anthem for people separated by the Vietnam war. That song resonated with Americans. When I was growing up (in Manhasset, Long Island) in the ’70s, Michel Legrand was played in our house. My father would relax playing Michel’s music. The music was so dreamy and languorous and seductive. My relationship with Michel started in my parents’ house. “When I was in my early 30s, I got the audition for ‘Amour’ on Broadway. I was living in Hollywood and had been in Broadway and off-Broadway musicals and had done tons of television and film. I had this Hollywood manager who was perplexed that this fax came through about an audition in New York for this new musical. James Lapine is the director and they wanted me to fly all the way to New York to audition. I looked at the paper and it said, ‘Music by Michel Legrand.’ I said, ‘Michel Legrand wrote a musical?’ My manager turned to me and said, ‘I know. I love her.’” Oh, no. Did you fire her on the spot? “I fired, her, yes. I didn’t fire her right that second, but yes. I went to New York and I got the part. I was in the room with Michel Legrand. It didn’t take him 24 hours before he realized that I knew everything about him. I didn’t just know it, I loved it. I had a wonderful working relationship with Michel. I got to know him well. I did his play. We did the original ‘Legrand Affair’ album. I was slow in getting it done. We recorded the initial tracks in 2005 but didn’t release it until 2011. It was because I had three children. I also had a lot of people giving me their two cents about the orchestrations. In the long run, long before Michel died, I decided to defend his eccentricity and let it blaze. It got wonderful reviews, but I’m sure it confounded people. It’s funny, you know what he was inspired by? He was inspired by Joni Mitchell’s album with strings.” “Both Sides Now,” from 2000. “You have a very good sensibility. I had never thought about that. Also, the Shirley Horn album ‘Here’s To Life.’ Those were his two inspirations from his sensibility toward me. He thought I was like folk meets Ravel meets jazz. I just reissued ‘Legrand Affair’ with the demos, the practice sessions that led up to the recording.” In May 2020, you will be performing “Amour & After – Melissa Errico Sings the Music of Michel Legrand” at Feinstein’s/54 Below. “The show I am bringing to New York is a written show. It has commentary in it that I hope is funny and philosophical. I’ve been doing shows lately that have a through line, a script. I’ve heard people call it a ‘cabaressay.’ It’s the talking, as well, that people get excited by. It’s co-written by Adam Gopnik, this writer from The New Yorker.” We are speaking on the morning of the Academy Award nominations. In his lifetime, Michel Legrand won three Oscars and received 10 nominations. Do you think the days of Legrand style movie theme songs are a thing of the past or that they might come around again? “I love that you asked that. I don’t see it as nostalgia or a period piece to sing his music. His music is about a lot of things. One of them is sensuality without sexuality. When I do ‘His Eyes, Her Eyes’ from ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ or ‘The Summer Knows’ from ‘Summer of ’42,’ it’s not just about sexuality. It reminds you that at that time it wasn’t just a grab’n’ go culture. Things took time. It’s a reflection of permanent values that people loved.” Over the course of your recording career, you have recorded an album of Michel Legrand songs, as well as an album of Ste-
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phen Sondheim songs. Is there someone you have in mind for another themed album? “I definitely do have a couple of other ideas up my sleeve. I’ve started to do a swing show. It started in 2017 because of Adam Gopnik. It’s a little political, only in so far as the American Songbook is made up of immigrants and people who changed their names. Harry Warren was (born) Salvatore Guaragna and Jewish names like Irving Berlin (who was Isidore Beilin). It’s the idea that the American Songbook is not at all so-called American. It’s a wondrous and mixed bag of people. Most of them were on the (1950s) blacklist and didn’t have passports. The American swing album/talk show/cabaressay is fun, because people are getting all of these ideas about feminism and immigration and Jewishness and the incredible creativity of the time and the wars.” In addition to your theater and concert work, you talked about being in Hollywood, having done a lot of film and TV work. Are there any upcoming projects that you’d like to mention? “The only film thing is coming up this April on PBS. It’s a documentary on Sondheim. It’s for (the) ‘Poetry In America’ (series). I filmed it seven or eight months ago. I’ll be speaking, as well as singing something from ‘Sunday in the Park With George.’ It’s a beautiful documentary I worked hard on with a small group of people. The focus of the documentary is on gender, if you reversed some of the gender of Sondheim’s songs and what they would mean. The one we developed the most was ‘Finishing The Hat’ from ‘Sunday in the Park with George.’” Finally, you live in Bronxville with your husband, tennis star and ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe, and your daughters. How long have you lived in Bronxville and what was the appeal to you to settle there with your family? “We wanted to give the girls more space and a wonderful school but also a chance to grow up a bit freer to roam. For us, Bronxville had it all. Plus, we needed a place with easy access to tennis courts for our eldest, who is a competitive junior player. It was also an easy commute to the city for the two younger children, twins Diana and Juliette, newly age 11, who are dancers and commute in four to five days a week. “Ultimately, Bronxville became about the chance to have a house and absolutely wonderful neighbors. We’ve made terrific friends here. The first year we moved in, we participated in a great block party and offered to convert our lawn into a talent show, which quickly became a fundraiser for The Scarlett Fund (of Manhattan Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center — Pediatrics), named after one of my city friends whose child is a survivor and a great inspiration. There are talent shows all around the U.S. for this cause, and Bronxville has such great and generous kids and families who perform. Even if you do tricks with a lacrosse stick, that counts as talent. I love decorating and draping our house with striped circus fabric and seeing kids do Irish dancing or hip hop on our lawn. You can’t do that in SoHo.” Are there particular Westchester County spots that have become favorites for you? I don’t go often but I have been to Bronxville Wellness Center for classes and meditation. Underhills Crossing restaurant is always a special night out favorite. For groovy clothes? Toney Toni and The Gang has everything — dresses, shoes and the prettiest beaded jewelry. Many McEnroe tennis hours have been clocked in at (Sportime )Lake Isle (home of brother-in-law John McEnroe’s tennis academy).” Melissa Errico performs May 28 through 30 at Feinstein’s/54 Below, 254 W. 54th St., Manhattan. For more, visit 54below.com/ melissa.
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HOME & DESIGN
WAY
CASUAL STYLE IN OLD GREENWICH PRESENTED BY SOTHEBY'S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
4 BEDROOMS 1 MASTER SUITE 1 WALK-IN CLOSET 4 BATHROOMS 1 PLAYROOM
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Epitomizing Old Greenwich’s casual, coastal chic, this 11-room home on Tomac Court is filled with light and contemporary charm. Custom built in 2008, it feels brand new. All the interiors have been freshly painted with crisp whites and neutrals and all the hardwood floors refinished, creating an airy aesthetic. Features include a stunning kitchen with an island and top-of-the-line appliances, along with a separate breakfast nook that sits adjacent to a family room graced by a fireplace, a coffered ceiling and French doors. These open out onto a private, level backyard with a bluestone terrace. (The property is about 0.20 acres in total.) The four bedrooms upstairs include a bright, generous, master suite with a beautifully lit recessed ceiling, a walk-in closet and a sumptuous master bath — the perfect respite at the end of a busy day. A finished lower level with 9-foot ceilings has a large playroom, a rock climbing wall, “American Ninja Warrior” obstacles, monkey bars and a swing, along with an au pair suite with a full bath and access to outside. (Besides the five bedrooms, there are three full baths and one partial bath.) Best of all, the $2,395,000 house is on a quiet culde-sac that’s just minutes away from the Eastern Middle School; the Old Greenwich stop on the Metro-North New Haven Line; irresistible boutiques and eateries on Sound Beach Avenue (think Greenwich Avenue without the pressure) and the beach. As lyricist Ira Gershwin would say, “Who could ask for anything more?” But for more, contact Renee Haggquist at 203-570-5313 or email renee.haggquist@sothebyshomes.com.
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
HOME & DESIGN
GOING TO THE DOGS BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI
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Dogs are never far from thought when visiting the Poughquag home and studio of artists Karen and Bob Madden. It can range from spotting a Doberman-themed mug or cookie jar to recognizing the breed’s image on a treasured work of custom-made stained glass to a most enthusiastic welcome from the Dutchess County couple’s two Doberman Pinschers, 9-year-old Gina and Abby, the relatively new addition to the household at just under a year old. “We’ve had Dobermanns for 30-plus years. These are numbers seven or eight, or nine,” Bob says with a smile. “When we got the breed, we just fell in love with them.” It was a bouncy welcome from the pooches that WAG received during our most recent time with the Maddens, having been there before, first to profile stone artist Bob (October 2018) and then to turn the spotlight on fiber and metal artist Karen (October 2019).
Top: Bob Madden’s StoneBones are sculptures sold to benefit animal causes. Right: Karen and Bob Madden at home with their two Dobermans.
The Madden art story got its start with their previous careers. The married couple met decades ago when working for IBM in East Fishkill. They now look back on successful careers in the disciplines of science and engineering, with both having worked on leading-edge technology and holding U.S. patents for their work. Today, the couple’s art takes center stage and, as it long has, a segment of their work reflects their love of animals and animal rescue, which are intertwined with all they do. “We just got in the habit of donating money to animal rescue,” Bob says. From his earliest days of stone work, Bob created pieces with a charitable angle, most notably his StoneBones, which have raised money for animal-rescue organizations for years. Karen joined the effort with her FiberPaws, compact works that — no surprise — offer a colorful take on an animal paw and also raise funds for animal rescue. What might seem like small steps have truly taken off. Since forming their studio in 2008, the Maddens have continually created and sold animal-themed artworks with proceeds going to animal rescue. In recent years, those efforts have been stepped up and taken on a more local focus. “Last year we decided to start working with a specific organization,” Bob says. “Throwing money in the ‘animal rescue bucket’ didn’t appeal to us.” To that end, Rock and A Soft Place Studio has made a substantial commitment to the SPCA of Westchester
in Briarcliff Manor, a no-kill shelter (Page 94), as it raises funds for a new, state-of-the-art animal care campus that was featured in WAG’s February issue. As Bob says, “This year we decided to make a substantial donation to the SPCA. It’s public knowledge. We made a $50,000 donation.” And, he says, that donation was used to create a matching campaign, which a spokesperson for the SPCA confirmed did indeed meet its goal. In addition, the Maddens hope to expand their charitable work to other regional organizations. “We’re hoping that everybody does better,” Bob says. In addition, Karen — who has a long history of working with the family’s Dobermans as therapy dogs, currently taking Gina to Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie (where Gina dances on command) — has begun working closely with the Maddens’ local veterinarians at Hopewell Animal Hospital in Hopewell Junction. She has both exhibited her FiberPaws work and is curating exhibitions for the vets’ new offices, where a portion of art sales will go to animal rescue efforts. It is, clearly, a family effort for the Maddens, one that shows no signs of slowing down. As Bob says, “Our lives are wrapped around the dogs. We’re never going to not have dogs.” Karen and Bob Madden are scheduled participate in the annual spring open-studio tour, Artmostny, in May. For more on the Maddens and their work, visit rockandasoftplace.com.
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FOR CREATURES OF THE NIGHT BY JEREMY WAYNE
Editor’s note: Since Jeremy filed this story, bars and restaurants in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have been temporarily shut down due to COVID-19, except for takeout. As some wily old rumpot has wisely observed, the modern iteration of the Prohibition-era speakeasy is as likely to be identified by what it doesn’t have as by what it does. Modern speakeasies — of course the very term is an oxymoron, since without Prohibition there can be no real speakeasies, only imitations — shouldn’t have signs. They shouldn’t have websites either and they definitely shouldn’t have publicists. By rights they are — at best — hidden bars because a speakeasy by any other name is simply not a speakeasy. Speakeasies, as virtually every toddler must know, were illegal drinking dens that sprang up during the Prohibition era (1920-33), when alcohol could not be manufactured, transported or sold under the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, except under special circumstances, as in for religious use. (Connecticut and Rhode Island were the only two states that never ratified the amendment.) Interestingly, however, alcohol could be consumed. And consumed it was, in thousands of homes that just happened to have it on hand, so it was grandfathered in, and in speakeasies (the name is said to derive from the secret password you would need to say to gain entry) across the northern part of the country, especially in New York City and Chicago. Speakeasies were responsible for the ascent of organized crime in the U.S. and by all rights they should have died a death a long time ago, with the end of Prohibition. But somehow, they have lingered on, or at least the memory of them has, like tendrils caught forever in our imagination, like the ex-con who pines for jail, or the hypercritical pol who longs to be naughty. How else to explain the abiding appeal of speakeasies, those hugger-mugger dens of would-be iniquity, when nowadays we can drink freely more or less any place our heart and throat desires? (Except, of course, on MetroNorth, where the last of the companionable bar cars on the New Haven line closed in 2014.) Something in our psyche, as Eartha Kitt memorably reminded us, makes us want to be evil. “I wanna wake up in the morning with that dark brown taste. I wanna see some dissipation in my face.” This should not be a problem after a night at Apotheke, on 9 Doyers St. in Chinatown, marked only by a chemist’s sign outside the door. With menus marked ‘Prescriptions’ and bartenders by any other name in lab coats, a few Devil’s Playgrounds (gin, absinthe, dragonfruit and prickly pear) will leave your mouth pretty dry come the morning.
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Even perfectly innocuous things like chocolate take on a much more interesting slant when they are perceived to be bad. That’s why we say chocolate is “sinful,” and why cream cakes are “naughty but nice.” One thing’s for certain though. Cocktails — preferably strong ones, mixed by inked and dissolute bartenders dressed head to toe in black — are infinitely more enjoyable when imbibed in subterranean spaces or in box rooms concealed behind bookcases. Access to Please Don’t Tell, a brick-walled cocktail bar with Chesterfield booth seating, is through an old telephone booth at Crif Dogs, the upscale hotdog joint in Manhattan’s East Village. Open nightly until 2 a.m (3 a.m. on weekends), PDT breaks all the rules of speakeasy-hood, namely a published address, a democratic entry policy and — shame on it — spin-offs in Hong Kong and Barcelona. Yet somehow, this bar feels intrinsically right. As for those stuffed creatures looking down from their wall-mounted perches with disdain, do they know something we don’t?
Clockwise from above: Apotheke. Photograph by Matthias Gaggi. The Blind Pig of Westchester. Courtesy Darklight Studios.
Social media, of course, is the perfect tool to spread the word about speakeasies, although at the same time the medium that spreads the word is the double-edged sword. It destroys that which it seeks to protect. How many lions can you put in an empty cage?, the old schoolboy joke used to run. Just one, is the answer — because after that, the cage isn’t empty. That’s the trouble with speakeasies: They are utterly self-defeating. The moment the secret’s out, by definition they are not secret any more. Still, “A” for effort goes to bars like Angel’s Share, itself a “secret” spin-off of a secret that had become too widely shared. Angel’s Share Mark II finds itself (as the French would say — how les Français adore a reflexive verb) above a Japanese restaurant, at 14 Stuyvesant St. in the East Village and prides itself on classic cocktails, along with a bumper collection of Japanese whiskeys, many of them hard to find if not downright rare. Meanwhile at Banzarbar, a cocktail bar accessed through a restaurant at the end of a once sleazy alley, but where you must still wait your turn to be escorted to the small bar upstairs, you can pay tribute to the Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton. But now that the bar is an open secret, the exploratory factor is as much about discovering the cocktail list — a Fated Peel, for instance, with mezcal, amaro and white vermouth — as it is about locating the actual bar, now that the secret’s well out. ( Just head to Freeman’s restaurant.) Westchester County, meanwhile, has a new speakeasy of its own, The Blind Pig of Westchester, located (shh) at 174 Martine Ave. in White Plains. True, some speakeasy prerequisites are missing — no secret entrance, for one thing, and the thumping music is hardly an ambient vibe. But overall the Pig’s heart is in the right place. Opened by two former bartenders of the Brazen Fox, they mix exceptionally strong cocktails with risqué names, like the Well Slapped Arse and Purple Panties, and serve customers until 4 a.m., which is a dangerous time of the morning. I wanna be horrid, I wanna drink booze / And whatever I’ve got, I am eager to lose. While your boss or your partner might not appreciate these antics, Eartha would definitely have approved.
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KING SIMBA “WHY IS IT YOU CAN NEVER HOPE TO DESCRIBE THE EMOTION AFRICA CREATES? YOU ARE LIFTED. OUT OF WHATEVER PIT, UNBOUND FROM WHATEVER TIE, RELEASED FROM WHATEVER FEAR. YOU ARE LIFTED AND YOU SEE IT ALL FROM ABOVE.” – Francesca Marciano
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CAN YOU REMEMBER PLAYING AS A CHILD AND ROARING LIKE A LION? Having a contest
to see who could roar the loudest? MGM and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, have used a roaring lion mascot to begin its movies since 1916. One of those movies was “The Wizard of Oz,” featuring the lovable Cowardly Lion, played by Bert Lahr in the 1939 film classic. In all cases, the African lion commands respect. Our love for this magnificent creature has only grown with the release of more books and films, including Joy Adamson’s “Born Free” and Disney’s production of “The Lion King.” Did you know that Simba is the word for “lion” in Swahili? A male lion can be 4 1/2- to 6 1/2-feet long and weigh up to 420 pounds. In Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, with an altitude of 3000 to 6000 feet, males living in the highlands develop heavier manes than those in the more humid and warmer lowlands of Eastern and northern Kenya. There it is a common to find much smaller manes or even be completely maneless. Joy Adamson’s true story of raising an orphan lion cub in the 1950s and her successful release into the African bush is one of the great conservation stories of all time. Elsa the lioness lives on and you can feel her presence when you visit their home Elsamere, open to tourists, in Kenya. Joy and her husband George each left their entire estates to the Elsa Conservation Trust. During the last 40 years, the trust has donated millions of dollars to wildlife education and conservation projects, large and small, helping to create many famous Kenyan parks and reserves. For the Maasai people, peaceful pastoralists who make their homes in Kenya and Tanzania and can cross the border without passports, killing a lion used to be the ultimate symbol of bravery. Due to conservation efforts, the Maasai no longer kill lions, although a coveted, beaded mane collar that had been prepared in earlier times by Maasai women is bestowed upon those who display outstanding acts of courage in the protection of their village. There are so many fascinating things to discover about lions and all the other creatures that can be found on safari with John Rizzo’s Africa Photo Tours. It’s an unforgettable trip filled with lions, elephants, leopards, zebras and rhinoceroses – all waiting to be discovered by you. Rizzo, an award-winning photographer, leads a team of experienced guides, specializing in safari and tribal tours within East Africa – Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. His experienced team brings an intimate group of guests of all ages to see the “Big Five” (buffalos, elephants, lions leopards and rhinos) as well as visit with the Maasai, Samburu and Turkana people. It’s a once in a lifetime experience, far more beautiful than any of your childhood memories. For more, visit africaphototours.com africaphototours.com
WARES
HOME & DESIGN
CLASS MENAGERIE
BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI. When we first heard about The Tailored Home — a most unusual home design store in Greenwich — we thought we had missed our moment. This belonged in our March “Visionary Designs” issue, not our April animal issue, we thought. Were we ever wrong. Perched atop Greenwich Avenue opposite Pickwick Plaza, The Tailored Home makes the most of this maximalist moment in home design by housing a bewitching menagerie amid chinoiserie wallpapers; voluptuous furnishings in jewel colors; and white teapots, Asian soup bowls, pillows and pumpkin-shaped ottomans (“erottomans,” as co-owner Scott Falciglia calls them) with sensual
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black-line drawings of swimming or copulating nudes that recall Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Against this riotous backdrop, seated monkeys support steel candelabra. A headless dog in ceramic cream becomes a stand for a matching watering can. A seated canine in an Egyptian-style headdress offers a votive. Flamingos stalk off plates or swim across rectangular pillows shaped like butterflies. The 12 animals that make up the Chinese zodiac stand at attention in groups that suggest chess sets. Golden cows roller skate, balancing votives. Horses carrying Byzantine-like figures fly across one print while dragons face off on another. Why all the animals, apart from the idea that the three-floor shop is quirky and wildly creative? “We think they’re joyous,” says Falciglia, who owns the 2-year-old store with Jhon (pronounced John) Ortiz, along with a 5-year-old Tailored Home in Westport and a studio workshop in Norwalk that crafts furniture and window treatments. It’s all part of a business that offers a full range of interior design services. The pair are partners in life as well, complementary and yet similar, with overlapping talents and interests. “I was in textiles and retail and got into the idea of building furniture,” says Ortiz, who was born in Venezuela, raised in Colombia and came to this area via
A bunny peers out from a plate at The Tailored Home.
Florida. “So I started to take design classes and studied in Paris, Milan and Fairfield University.” “I’m from New Fairfield,” Falciglia says, “and attended Fairfield University, where I studied international business, and worked in finance for 12 years.” About 8 years ago, Falciglia met Ortiz, who was living in Norwalk. The two moved in together and soon found their basement had become a furniture workshop. (Today they live in Westport with their Yellow Labrador Retriever Spanky and Persian cat Baby.) The couple incorporated their business in 2014. While it would seem that Ortiz does all the design — as per The Tailored Home website, which says “Interior design by Jhon Ortiz” — and Falciglia handles the business end, the two share the yin-yang of interior design. Falciglia says Ortiz has a good business brain, while he contributes his aesthetic sense and helps with design. The two have a team of about a dozen who craft the furnishings in Norwalk, adhering, they say, to the highest standards in craftsmanship and materials. “Only high-end furniture is being made in the U.S.,” Ortiz notes. And they are part of that trend. “We use real glue, dowels and joints,” Falciglia adds. They also repair and reupholster furniture, while accessories are sourced from vendors they find in Paris and Milan — as well as closer to home. The Tailored Home carries candles from sister-in-law Natalia Falciglia’s Poured Love company in Brooklyn, which has such arresting scents as Leather and Sweet Bourbon.
The pair’s aesthetic dovetails with a moment in which color, texture, pattern and stuff are back in interior design. Falciglia sees this as a reaction to a momentous time in world history. “People are trying to shake up what we’re going through in civilization,” he says. The Tailored Home is doing just that. For more, visit thetailoredhomect.com.
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One of many charming Chinese zodiac sets at The Tailored Home.
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WARES
HOME & DESIGN
AT HOME IN THE WORLD WITH YOUR PETS BY CAMI WEINSTEIN
Pets are part of our families and require a tremendous amount of time and energy caring for them. Pets are a wonderful way to teach children to love and care for others and the love they return is immeasurable. We always had pets when our children were small. Our household over the years included two cats, one dog, lizards, a bird and many fish tanks. Their antics and the love they gave us and we gave them provided us with so much entertainment. There are some ways, though, to make living with pets less challenging and to enjoy the experience. Pets are happiest when they have their own spaces defined. Keep their food and sleeping areas in the same place so they don’t become confused. Many of my clients create an area for them in their home, such as the mudroom. They keep their food and water there and have even included a bath area for their pets. Many dogs have their own spot for their leashes, booties and coats. Keep pet areas clean and water and food fresh. More often than not, pet owners keep the food and water in the kitchen. Other clients prefer their pets’ sleeping beds be closer to the family action, and since most pets want to be included in every day living this makes sense. We have created dog beds to match the décor of the room. When making the beds, we use “performance” fabrics for bed covers that are easy to launder. We also recommend having at least two covers for the bed. While one is in the wash, you can use the other so your pet doesn’t feel misplaced. We also recommend “performance” or indoor/ outdoor fabrics on family room furniture to wipe up messes that both kids and pets can make. There are other ways to make life easier living with pets. Always keep a lint roller nearby to remove pet hair from furniture quickly. And vacuuming often keeps pet fur under control. I often select fabrics that are easy to clean and in colors that can hide a few stray hairs. For pets with dark fur we often select navy, dark charcoal, grays and cocoa colors. For pets with lighter fur, pale grays, creams and pale blues can easily keep a room freshly updated and hide stray fur. There are wide choices in area rugs and carpets now that can also stand up to both kids and pets and we often use them in designing homes. Today’s clients want both a stylish home and one that is easy to keep. Not only do we create homes to include our families and pets, we often design with animal prints. Animal prints such as cheetah, leopard, giraffe and zebra have been timeless motifs that can be used in either
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traditional or modern décor. In modern décor, faux furs are popular and often used on pillows and throws. There is even a trend of adding a “furry” chair or chairs as focal points in a room. A pale cheetah print can look great on a rug and can easily minimize stains created by your kids and real pets. Adding an accent chair in an animal print or even a faux fur adds a little spark of fun and sophistication to your room. Wallpapers also come in animal prints and when used can create a strong design statement. Think about using an oversized navy and white zebra print in a study to liven up the room. Also consider bird motifs in interiors. Traditional floral prints in both wallpaper and fabric designs often include birds, which are a particular favorite of mine. The travel industry has also catered to pets in the last several years. Many hotels now offer stays that can include the family pet. When traveling with your pets bring some of their toys and their beds so they feel comfortable and not frightened in new surroundings. Keep your pets with you as much as possible when traveling so they don’t get lonely or stressed out in an unfamiliar hotel room. Enjoy the spring and getting out and about with your pets. For more, call 203-661-4700 or visit camidesigns. com.
Even when traveling, pets can feel right at home – and not in your luggage. Remember to pack their toys, treats and beds and spend plenty of time with them.
WHAT’S NEW AGAIN
HOME & DESIGN
THE CAT’S MEOW BY KATIE BANSER-WHITTLE
Carl Kahler’s “My Wife’s Lovers,” oil on canvas in a period foliate motif gilt frame.
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Portraits, the likeness or image of a person, are among the most treasured and widely collected forms of art. There are famous museums devoted exclusively to portraits. The likenesses of beloved family members are prized possessions in many homes. Public buildings often feature portraits of notables. A special category of portraiture that captures our hearts and imaginations is animal portraits. Sometimes a portrait is made because of the subject’s fame, for example a prize-winning racehorse. More often, however, an animal is painted because the artist, or the animal’s owner, is fascinated by its beauty, charm or personality. We all know that cats are always going viral. (They are the unofficial mascots of the internet, the single largest subject of online images.) But felines also top the list of painted and paintable critters. Cats taking a catnap, grooming themselves, caring for their kittens or curled in their companion animal’s arms or lap have been a favorite subject for artists for generations. (It goes without saying that to a cat, the “companion animal” is the two-legged person who fills the food dish.) It’s well-known that cats were highly regarded in ancient Egypt, even worshiped in the form of the cat goddess Bastet. The Egyptians thought that cats brought good luck and symbolized justice, fertility and power. And from the ancient world until modern times, cats everywhere have been valued for their usefulness in controlling such dangerous pests as disease-carrying, grain-thieving mice and rats. Cat portraiture began to increase as cats grew in popularity as household pets. They were treasured for being soft and cuddlesome, clean and quiet, yet at the same time independent and less demanding of attention and space than dogs, their major rivals as domestic companions.
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The heyday of painted depictions of cats was the 19th century. Industrialization created a newly prosperous middle class that could afford to feed nonworking animals and could also afford to purchase cat pictures and even to commission portraits of favorite felines. Love of nature and of sentimentality, leading Victorian concepts, combined to make animal paintings enormously popular. That popularity continues today. Stephen Fletcher, executive vice president of Skinner Inc. and director of the Americana department, is a longtime collector of cat portraits. As often happens, Steve’s extensive collection started almost by accident, with the gift of a cat portrait from a friend. Then, as he was leaving a small antique show, Fletcher saw an irresistible 1830s painting of two tiger cats. His collection began to grow. Like these cats, many examples of feline folk art are an inheritance from the Victorian era. Fletcher notes that such informal depictions are often based on close observation of and affection for such expressive, endearing and often mischievous creatures. A bonus for collectors is that appealing examples can be found at flea markets and garage sales as well as at high-end auction houses and can often be acquired for modest sums. Fascination with felines as subject matter is not limited to amateur painters and little-known folk artists. John Singer Sargent, Gustave Courbet, Pierre Renoir and Paul Gauguin are among the many masters of 19th century art who painted cats. More recent renowned painters/ cat enthusiasts include Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. Like felines themselves, cat portraits transcend borders. In addition to the many American, French and Spanish artists who portrayed cats, several outstanding English illustrators — including John Tenniel, Arthur Rackham and Lewis Wain — were ailurophiles. Dutch painters, especially noted for genre scenes of everyday life, also frequently made cats prominent features of their domestic interiors. And Asian artists from Ming Zhen to Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige II studied cats closely and portrayed them with humor and affection. People often ask, “How can I begin to collect art?” Fletcher and other professionals in the auction world, who are exposed to the broadest possible range of antiques and collectibles, answer “Buy something that resonates with you, moves you.” For many people that something is a portrait of a cat, the familiar yet mysterious animal that has been called a canvas for human emotions. A cat portrait, whether humorous, sentimental, playful, or simply beautiful, may be the next best thing to sharing a home with one’s own personal feline. For more, contact Katie at kwhittle@skinnerinc.com or 212-787-1114.
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’ROUND THE MOUNTAIN TO MOHONK BY JEREMY WAYNE
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I am coming ’round the mountain, although I am not singing aye aye yippee. I am actually (confession time) singing along to K T Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See,” when — two miles past the gatehouse, where Kara has checked my credentials and asked me if I want valet parking or to self-park — suddenly I see Mohonk Mountain House. Actually, I don’t “see” Monhonk so much as Mohonk — a national historic landmark, just 20 miles northwest of Poughkeepsie — socks me in the jaw. Located in the Shawangunk Mountains in New Paltz, Mohonk has been owned and operated by the Smiley family since its founding by Albert Smiley in 1869. The Mountain House’s façade runs an eighth of a mile and its architectural styles — the house and resort have grown organically over the last 151 years — run the gamut,from Heidi-like chalet, to Dutch gabled townhouse to Fantasy Island stone house, with chimneys, turrets and angular red roofs that would not look out of place in Tibet. Talk about entering a different world. Mohonk’s modest front door gives no clue to what lies behind, although the nine waiting valets (what is the collective noun for valets? A bevy? A scad?) should have tipped me off that Mohonk was going to be big. Inside, it’s a city — which is to say a very wonderful city, lost in time,
Top: Mohonk Mountain House in summer. Right: Mohonk Mountain House main dining room. Photograph courtesy Mohonk Mountain House.
with an entrance lobby that manages at once to be vast and yet gemütlich; where the corridors radiating off the main hall are wide enough to hold an army; where the five-story central wooden staircase is an architectural wonder; and where, from the sublime to the ridiculous, the floral-patterned, 1960s-style, wall-to-wall carpet (and there are acres of it) will take you straight back to your grandmother’s, or greatgrandmother’s home. The Smileys did not think small. The Lake Lounge, where breakfast is served, is still very much the hub of the hotel. It is large enough to host a full symphony orchestra and still leave room for a marching band, neither of which would be out of place here, since the lounge, and with the parlor above it are the settings for many of Mohonk’s entertainments, which are legendary. There is music and there are other arts. There is dance and there is magic. Every weekend of the year brings a new theme or festival to Mohonk — from swing dance to ballroom dancing, from yoga and Ugly Sweater Weekends to rock ’n’ roll and birdwatching. There are girlfriends getaways and garden holidays, “Chefs on the Mountain” and winetasting weekends. In midsummer, there is a six-week long Festival of the Arts. The only problem at Mohonk is not what to do, but how on earth to find the time to do it. And then there is food. The dining room, with its peerless view across the Hudson Valley to the captivating Catskills beyond, has stayed virtually unchanged through five generations of Smiley
ownership. To be sure, it is the size of an airplane hangar, yet with fresh flowers on each table and good, starched linen, the vast hall feels surprisingly intimate. The staff serves half a million meals a year at Mohonk, so you could be forgiven for expecting some kind of institutional slush. But under Executive Chef Jim Palmeri and a partnership with more than 50 local farms, supplying the kitchen with the best local produce, “farm-to-table” is more than just an empty slogan here. (Fun fact: Ever since the French Huguenots planted some of the nation’s first grape vines in what is now New Paltz in 1677, the Hudson Valley has been chock-full of farms.) Venture out on to one of Mohonk’s two lakefront terraces, with their long lines of rocking chairs facing the almost mystical lake and you will be transfixed. Breathe. In mid-March, the lake is still frozen, but now spring is here and this winter wonderland has been transformed. Mohonk is a sporting paradise, everything from tennis and archery to kayaking and tomahawk-throwing. There is rowing, paddleboarding, swimming — of course — in the lake or pool, as well as hiking and rock scrambling and, for the riders or would-be riders among you, horseback riding is always an option. Or you can venture to the other side of the lake and climb the mountain to Sky Top Tower. Constructed in 1923, as a memorial to Albert Smiley, the tower enables you to see six states from its lookouts. All this activity calls for some serious relaxation, and it it’s no exaggeration to say that Mohonk is now considered by some to be the top resort spa in the country. (Condé Nast Traveller has called it just that.) With its 16 treatment rooms, along with relaxation verandas, a solarium, and outdoor heated mineral pool, eucalyptus steam rooms and dry rock saunas, this spa has it all — world class facilities combined with tip-top treatments and therapists. Though the spa menu is a cornucopia of sweet temptation, the way to go if you plan on having just one treatment is the signature Mohonk Red Massage, inspired by the indigenous red witch-hazel that grows on the property. If retail is your preferred kind of therapy, Mohonk takes care of that too. The spa has one of the best spa shops I have seen, where you can buy many of the therapy products used, in addition to an inviting range of athletic and leisure wear. If you need a bigger selection, Mohonk’s main gift shop, off the main lobby near the library, is the place to head for. It is the size of a supermarket but infinitely more interesting. Suddenly I see that my time is up and it is time to return to reality. But I’ll be back. If, like me, your travel plans are currently on hold, or you have already cancelled them because of the dreaded coronavirus, think about a short drive up the Hudson Valley this spring or summer. “Come Up for Air,” runs Mohonk’s clever advertising slogan. I’ll be doing just that. For more, visit mohonk.com.
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‘SPLENDOR’ ON THE SEVEN SEAS WANDERS
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BY DEBBI K. KICKHAM AND WILLIAM D. KICKHAM, ESQ.
Editor’s note: Debbi and William Kickham filed this story just as the coronavirus was ramping up. At present, the U.S. State Department is asking Americans not to travel by cruise ship.
Wouldn’t you love to travel on the world’s most luxurious cruise ship (once the coronavirus is all over)? Well, we just did, and we’re here to tell you not to miss the boat. Regent Seven Seas Splendor is one of the finest cruise ships ever to grace the oceans. “We want to make sure that we deliver an unrivaled experience,” said Jason Montague, Regent Seven Seas Cruises president and CEO. “We’ve taken care of every single detail.” At fares starting at about $1,000 per person, per night, the cruise includes (among other things) your pre-cruise hotel nights, a wealth of shore excursions (which are usually cost-plus on every other cruise ship out there), all gratuities and — are you sitting down? — all of your alcohol and spirits (top shelf, by the way, not bottom or middle). So, go ahead and order all the Champagne you want — and while you’re at it, get some caviar, too. And here’s just a small example of what sets Splendor apart the Pogessi towels in the bathrooms. These exquisitely soft linens are the type of towels you just want to sink into and we heard many passengers rave about them. All of the suites also feature 1,000-thread-count bed linens. “Seven Seas Splendor is the epitome of luxury perfected,” added Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., the parent company of Regent.
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The stunning Regent Suite on Regent Seven Seas Splendor features a $200,000 Hastens Vividus bed for the ultimate snooze. It’s the Rolls-Royce of rest. Photograph by Christina Moschetti.
“Every ship we launch gets even better, and Seven Seas Splendor is magnificent. The collaboration between the designers, engineers, craftsmen, hotel and restaurant teams and the crew onboard, all bring the renowned Regent experience to life on this beautiful ship. Seven Seas Splendor is a celebration of excellence, friendship, success and luxury.” From stem to stern, she’s a beauty — as is supermodel Christie Brinkley — who was asked to be the ship’s godmother. In a special interview aboard the ship, Brinkley told me, “As godmother, I’m the ship’s goodluck charm.” Brinkley looked stunning in a black gown with long sleeves, adorned with doublebreasted nautical buttons down the front. She attested to her love of the sea, ship’s anchors and all things nautical — even down to naming her daughter “Sailor.” “I wanted to instill in her a love of the sea,” Brinkley said. The entrepreneur proudly depressed a button, which sent a 1.5-liter Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut Champagne smashing against the ship’s hull to welcome the newest member of the Regent Seven Seas Cruises fleet symbolically. “My parents had cruised on Regent ships. If they were here today, they would be so excited and proud for me to be godmother to Seven Seas Splendor.”
HOW SUITE IT IS
Helmed by Capt. Serena Melani, a 30-year industry veteran who’s the first woman to captain a newly built ocean cruise ship, the Splendor offers her 750 guests intimate, gracious accommodations as she sails to the
world’s most iconic destinations as well as less-familiar, hidden destination gems. The ship features more than 46,000 square feet of Italian marble and a $5 million curated fine art collection that is the most discerningly curated collection of museum-quality 20th and 21st century art on the seas. (Del Rio even hung a few of the paintings himself.) The 375 suites include nearly 52,000 square feet of balcony space — among the largest allocation of balcony space in the luxury cruise sector. The suites range from the 307-square-foot Veranda Suite to the lavish (and we do mean lavish) 4,443-square-foot Regent Suite. The latter is in a league of its own. Its guests enjoy the ultimate comfort of a $200,000 Hästens Vividus custom handmade mattress and even a linen menu offering some of the world’s finest fibers. Debbi plopped herself down on it, reveling in those high-quality linens, and could only dream of spending an entire night on this unprecedented mattress. Mary-Jean Tully — a travel agent/designer at the helm of Tully Luxury Travel of Toronto and one of the world’s most powerful forces in the travel industry — told us that she typically sleeps only five hours per night. But she spent numerous days in the Regent Suite — and happily slept 10 hours per night. Vive the Vividus. It’s the Rolls-Royce of rest. The suite also features an in-suite spa retreat with a personal sauna, steam room and treatment area with unlimited spa treatments (sign Debbi up for a daily massage and blowout); unobstructed 270-degree views over Seven Seas Splendor’s bow from its 1,300-square-foot wraparound veranda; and a glass-enclosed solarium sitting area on top of the bridge for a captain’s view of the world’s most beautiful destinations. (Oh yes, complimentary teethwhitening treatments are also included.) Guests in the Regent Suite also delight in first-class air accommodations, a dedicated personal butler to manage all the details of the guests’ experience and a personal car with driver and guide in every port. The suite sells for $5,500 per night and was virtually sold out over the next six months before the virus hit, Montague said. (He also pointed out that passengers who book the Regent Suite have access to a special private dining room located right off of Prime 7, one of the new ship’s specialty restaurants.) We know given the current situation that the Regent Seven Seas Splendor remains a dream, and we feel blessed to have had this opportunity. But viruses abate — and dreams do come true. For more, call 1-844-4REGENT (1-844873-2381) or visit RSSC.com.
BAU-WOW! BY BARBARA BARTON SLOANE
The Bauhaus Art School — one of the birthplaces of Modernism — was founded in Weimar, Germany in 1919 and operated until 1933. There students studied not only architecture but created everything from art to furniture. Throughout the year Germany is continuing to celebrate the school’s centenary. Recently, I had the once-in-alifetime opportunity to visit all the Bauhaus hotspots and explore exhibits and events marking the design center’s founding.
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The Bauhaus (literally “Building House”) was founded by architect Walter Gropius with the idea of creating a “total work of art.” This style, which includes architecture and graphic, interior and industrial design, would later become one of the most influential currents in modern planning — clean, simple and contemporary. American architect Louis Sullivan, describing Bauhaus, coined the phrase “form follows function” — an apt description. The first city in my Bauhausland tour was Karlsruhe. Lying at the northern edge of the Black Forest, the town was mainly built in a charming Neoclassical style. The Landesmuseum is a massive, bright canary-yellow structure that is one of the most important cultural history museums in all of Germany. The works encompass pre- and early history, ancient cultures, the Middle Ages, the Baroque period and the rest of art history into the 21st century. Later, I explored the ZKM Center for Art and Media, housing painting, photography and sculpture as well as film, video, dance and performance. The museum’s mission is to continue the classical arts into the digital age. Meanwhile, the Daimler Collection’s “Light as an Artistic Installation,” featured 50 artists and 80 works from the 1950s to the present.
PUBLIC HOUSING FOR THE AGES The next day I was excited to tour the Dammerstock Estate, an impressive example of new architecture created by Gropius and Otto Haesler, among others. Built in 1929 in just sevent months as an affordable housing complex, it united the aesthetic principles of air, light and hygiene. Created with radiant white plaster, gray plinths, flat roofs, uniform windows and, scattered throughout, relaxing benches, sculpture and gardens, Dammerstock works just as well today as it did when first conceived. As sprawling as it is, you feel welcomed and cozy, especially resting on a bench under towering linden and elm trees fronting the iconic Goethe House. This was Romantic writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s first home as a young man and throughout his life he kept it as his retreat and studio.
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‘BAUHAUS GIRLS’ One of the best preserved medieval cities in Germany, Erfurt was first mentioned in the year 742. Among its treasures is the Alte Synagogue, beautifully maintained and dating from the 11th century. A little known fact: In 1919 more women than men applied to study at one of the first Bauhaus art schools, and this city’s Angermuseum sheds light on four of the “Bauhaus Girls,” uncovering the lives of Gertrud Arndt, Marianne Brandt, Margarete Heymann and Margaretha Reichardt and their work in photography, metalwork, ceramic and textiles.
UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES In April of last year, the New Bauhaus Museum opened in Weimar, showcasing a wide range of the world’s oldest collection of Bauhaus treasures. The building features a striking Minimalist glass cube over a concrete base with five levels of exhibit space. The city consists of 11 World Heritage sites. Two of the most engaging are the Goethe House, built in the Baroque style in 1709 and surrounded by a verdant garden, and the Friedrich von Schiller House,
Above Bauhaus Museum, Weimar. Right: Bauhaus Masters House.
the first memorial to a poet in Germany. Wandering through its rooms, I had a real feeling for the everyday life of the Schiller family as I glimpsed a lovely teapot made of local porcelain resting on a small stove top. In Jena, I lost my heart to the charming and amusing Auerbach House built in 1924 by Gropius for Felix and Anna Auerbach. As I climbed a hill to its crest, my first impression of the dwelling was of a floating asymmetrical building that seemed to change and reverse itself as I entered and moved through the rooms. Curiouser and curiouser, I found nothing symmetrical inside its walls, which were painted with 37 different gentle pastel colors — eye-catching and completely entrancing. These myriad tones illustrated how color relates to space and light and gave each room its own special ambience.
ONCE MORE — WITH FEELING During the Weimar Republic, the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle was a significant center of contemporary art. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, this collection was suddenly regarded as degenerate and the works were vilified in “Exhibitions of Shame” that opened in 1937. Thus 146 of these works were ultimately lost and today only 14 have been reacquired. Happily when I visited, I was able to marvel at parts of the reconstructed lost collection — glorious masterpieces by Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, among others, from international collections in France, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, the United States and Japan. The first historical mention of the city of Dessau was in 1213 and it became an important center in 1570. Fast forward to today: The Bauhaus Museum Dessau was recently opened to mark the school’s centenary. Until now, it was possible to view the prized collection of the Bauhaus Foundation only in a limited way, but the new museum provides a splendid showcase.
GOTHIC GRANDEUR Before bidding adieu to Bauhausland, I made sure I traveled to Magdeburg to view the oldest Gothic cathedral in all of Germany. First built in 937, the current Magdeburg Cathedral was constructed over a period of 300 years beginning in 1209. The cathedral is replete with art, both antique and modern. The statue of the Egyptian St. Maurice dating from 1250 was impressive and I was enthralled by a large relief of the “Ten Virgins,” depicting the importance of being spiritually prepared. Departing the cathedral and ultimately Germany, I felt curiously ensconced in all things medieval. Yet, returning home with my heightened awareness of the Bauhaus, I was amused, not to say amazed, to notice — all around me — examples of this symbolic design. Walls painted in bright, primary colors, the mauve New York City skyline at dusk with its straight lines slashing across the sky, the Met Life Building itself (by Gropius) and the Seagram Building (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe). Thus, I didn’t actually leave behind this fresh, forwardlooking style at all. As I light a Brandt look-alike lamp and settle down in my Mies-inspired chair, the thought hits me: Bauhaus is part of my house. For more, visit weimar.de/culture/sights/museum, haus-auerbach.de and bauhaus-dessau.de.
TERRENO, TRANSFORMED BY JEREMY WAYNE
WONDERFUL DINING
FOOD & SPIRITS
Hartford-bound? Me neither — at least, I wasn’t until I heard about Tyler Anderson’s new, or shall we say newly styled restaurant, Terreno, on the first floor of Hartford’s Goodwin hotel. Located in an 1891 building on a sunny corner site, the handsome, boutique Goodwin has really impressed the couple of times I’ve visited. I liked Porrón, too, chef Anderson’s Spanish restaurant, which sat alongside The Goodwin’s lively bar, Piña. Porrón closed one Friday in February to the disappointment of locals, who know their generic jamón (dry-cured Iberian ham) from their a corn-fed Ibérico (a variety of Iberian ham). But, with apologies to Julie Andrews, if ever there was a case of God closing a door and opening a window, it was here. Because, hey presto — the restaurant reopened just three days later, as Terreno amd Ibérico was swapped out for prosciutto, while Bar Piña remained unchanged and was still packing in the crowds. Sleight of hand? Smoke and mirrors? Not really. Anderson, a Californian with a clutch of restaurant awards to his name (Best Chef Northeast from the James Beard Foundation for the past seven years among them) and impeccable New England connections — to say nothing of a wife with a Sicilian heritage — has a knack of drawing various strands of his life together to create extraordinary food. At Terreno, the menu reads a little like a 1980s Cali-Ital throwback, which is all to the good, since that cuisine, inchoate 40 years ago, had a verve about it that sprang from newness and enthusiasm. But it was also substantial, unlike the cuisines of “nouvelle” and “minceur,” which were to follow (and don’t even get me started on the Kale-Ital years). So, let’s start at the very beginning, to continue “The Sound of Music” theme, with a wonderful appetizer of meatballs. They are not your average meatballs, these pork and veal beauties, but studded with currants and pine nuts in a subtle agro dolce, the whole dish laced with creamy stracciatella. Another appetizer, a spin on ubiquitous tuna crudo, creates an umami-rich dish, spiked with a brown butter soy and prinked with bitter radishes. If a rather joyless kale caesar, dropped a little lazily into the salad section, fails to excite, recovery comes quickly with Sicilian-style pizzette, baby pizzas that get the all-important relationship between a thin, crisp base and a cohesive topping just right. The tartufo, with ricotta and black truffle, is an indulgent couple of bites, while the Genovese, with braised beef, olives and raclette, is a celebration of the land, a successful three-way marriage of meat, fruit and dairy. Pastas, “all fresh and made here” as the menu boasts, have a little way to go. Gnocchi replaces the more usual penne as the pasta (or here, the potato) to be paired with a vodka-infused tomato sauce. While I get the slightly strained relationship between the spud and the vodka, this was a rather plodding dish. Butternut squash
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Terreno restaurant, interior. Courtesy Eat IN Connecticut. Right:Tyler Anderson. Courtesy Connecticut Food and Farm.
agnolotti, with brown butter and smoked chestnut, felt a little heavy, too, the agnolotti themselves lacking the essential lightness that lifts this pasta from an earnest parcel to a heavenly bite. We fared better in the mains. A perfectly cooked roast chicken — yielding breast, crisp skin — received added zing from a vibrant salsa verde. Served with creamy white beans and punctuated with a glossy olive tapenade, the swordfish piccata was likewise a winner. And while these more genuine-seeming Italian entrées are augmented by half a dozen burgers and steaks, which sound a distinctly less Italian note, there’s no arguing with an affogato for dessert. This simplest of Italian dolci, soot black espresso poured over virgin white vanilla ice cream, has me there on Piazza San Marco every time. With it elegant interior, comfortable, leather-upholstered modern Empire chairs and thoroughly Terreno has made flip from Spanish to Italian, obliging service, although I will sound a note of caution. I remember, years ago, embarking on a Spanish course in Madrid and finding half the class was Italian. I was surprised. We uselessat-languages, native English speakers tend to think that if you can speak one of those dulcety-sounding Romance languages, you can speak them all. Not so. The same goes for food. Just because you can cook one European cuisine, it doesn’t mean you can instantly cook another, which is not to say there is no common ground. But the art of Italian cucina is not something simply learned from a book, although a book (especially one by Marcella Hazan or Anna del Conte) is a perfectly good place to start. It is something to be built up, practiced and nurtured, a ray of golden sun always added, along with the rosemary and oregano, to any dish. That is why I feel Terreno still has a little way to go, though I’ve no doubt it will get there with time — no herbal pun intended. For more, visit terrenorestaurant.com.
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THE FLAVORFUL WINES OF UMBRIA STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG PAULDING
(Editor’s note: Doug filed this report as COVID-19 was ramping up. At press time, Italy was closed to tourists and President Donald J. Trump had banned flights to the United States from Europe.)
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I was invited to a Sagrantino tasting seminar in New York several years ago, hosted by the Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG. Sagrantino is a thick-skinned but small grape that produces a powerful and nuanced wine. Montefalco is one of the major walled hill towns of the Umbrian region just south of Tuscany and is at the heart of Sagrantino production. And DOCG, of course, is the Denominazione di Origine Contrallata e Garantita, the Italian federal organization that tests and jury-tastes the wines to guarantee the highest quality. I remember the Sagrantino wines we tasted were full-flavored and interesting on the palate but several were overly tannic, almost overwhelming the flavors. I was recently invited to Umbria to taste the just-released 2016 Montefalco Sagrantino and what a treat it was. Umbria, pronounced “Oombria,” long known as the “Green Heart” of Italy for its omnipresent agriculture, is also quietly known as “Tuscany without the crowds.” It has many small villages and walled hill towns that point to the ancient ways of life in Italy. Churches and town centers that anchor many towns date back many centuries. Just aimlessly wandering through the streets and alleyways, observing and interacting with locals, and taking in the local business ventures is a lovely adventure. From the hilltops the views go on forever, suggesting that peaceful and agrarian way of life tempered by the villages and hill towns borne of social desires and defensive needs. I tasted many Sagrantino wines and asked several winemakers how they softened the tannins in the past decade and the answers were mostly the same. Liù Pambuffetti of Scacciadiavoli winery told me, “Our tannins would have softened naturally just by the maturing of the vines. Many of the Sagrantino vines were planted in the 1980s and ’90s and even later and the grapes now are more texturally friendly. Also, many producers are employing destemming prior to crushing the grapes and many are using soft press air bladder equipment so the tannic seeds aren’t broken or disturbed. Sagrantino, in the past 10 years, has changed a lot.” Sagrantino, historically, was used to make a sweet wine known as Passito. The grapes are harvested and left loosely in open baskets or trays in a well-ventilated area to dry and concentrate flavors. These partially raisin-ed grapes are then pressed and fermented into a delightful sweet wine often served with dessert or as dessert. But one producer, Arnaldo Caprai, began in 1971 to make a dry wine with Sagrantino which became popular. In 1988, his son Marco took over and built a beautiful tasting room to receive wine guests, something unheard of in Umbria at the time. All of Arnaldo Caprai Sagrantino wines are carefully hand-harvested and soft-pressed before maturing in new French oak barrels. All of their wines are big and aromatic with dried dark fruit flavors, spices, licorice, pepper and decidedly present, but tame and pleasant, tannins. The biggest wine producer in Umbria is Lungarotti, now in the
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Peter Heilbron, owner of Tenuta Bellafonte in Umbria. It ‘s the most immaculate winery Wine & Dine columnist Doug Paulding has ever seen.
hands of the founder’s two daughters. It brings 2.5 million organic bottles to market every year and is exported to 47 countries. And the smallest producer I visited was Ilaria Cocco, making 10,000 bottles each year, her first vintage being 2013. She has a small startup winery and grows grapes on just 3.5 acres. Both mega- and micro- producers of Umbria show quality and flavor in their wines. Ilaria told me, “I don’t cover the fruit with wood. I prefer big barrels to impart texture but not oaky flavors. (With) every vintage I strive to preserve the freshness of the fruit.” Cocco wines are great. She and the winery are going places. And the Lungarotti Rubesco wines have been favorably compared to some of the top iconic wines from all of Italy. I also visited Tenuta Bellafonte, which translates “place of beauty.” Purchased by Peter Heilbron in 2007, the winery was rebuilt from the ground up, producing its first vintage in 2008. I have been in hundreds of wineries around the world, and I have never seen one as sparkling clean as Tenuta Bellafonte. Even Peter has a striking resemblance to Mr. Clean. The fermentation tank room, the oak barrel room, the visitors’ center and the tasting room, all look and smell as if they were just installed, as if no wine had ever been made there. And the vines are meticulously pruned to an art form. Nothing inside or out is out of place. And the wines — delicious. Virtually all the producers also make a few (or a lot of) white wines out of either Grechetto or Trebbiano Spoletino. Both show lemony citrus, perfumy essence and elegance. Peter said, “In central Italy we get enough from the fruit. We don’t need to add oak flavor. And we don’t press the seeds and the grape skins are empty but intact.” Giampaolo Tabarrini, owner and winemaker of Tabarrini, is a whirlwind of manic energy whose infectious laugh is entertaining by itself. The winery is toward the end of a major and beautiful rebuild. Again, the winery is spotless and the air in the oak barrel room recycles and renews 72 times per day. The winery is high on a hill with big diurnal temperature swings. Giampaolo is a fifth generation winemaker. His white wines and his red wines are wonderful and worthy. Most of the Umbrian producers also make a Montefalco Rosso, using a blend of Sangiovese, Sagrantino and Merlot or Barbera. All of the Montefalco Rossos I tasted had great fruit flavors and balanced tannins. Other producers worth looking into are Cantina le Cimate (pronounced chi MA tay), Antonelli, Romanelli, Colleallodole, La Veneranda, and Paolo Bea. Don’t let the long and difficult names deter you. Just look for Montefalco wines. They remain a largely undiscovered product in the shadow of Tuscany, which indicates a great price-to-quality ratio. It’s easy to buy a high quality bottle under $20 and even $12 should bring a well-made and enjoyable experience. Look for some, and now. Drink up. Italy and Umbria need our help. Now. Write me at doug@dougpaulding.com.
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VARIATION ON A SAVORY TREAT BY RAJNI MENON Dosa is a vegan crepe that is a staple for breakfast in Kerala, India. It’s my absolute favorite food as well. When I was growing up, my mom would make hot crispy dosas with a touch of ghee, a clarified butter, on it. Dosa uses a fermented batter made out of rice and lentils, which is what makes it 100% vegan. The batter is poured onto a flat pan to make a crepe. Here, I have used this batter in making savory rice donuts with a side of oniontomato chutney. This chutney is an amazing dip for these pillowy donuts. It’s a slight variation on my mom’s chutney because of the cumin seeds. For more, visit creativerajni.com.
WHAT’S COOKING?
FOOD & SPIRITS
VEGAN, SAVORY RICE DONUTS WITH ONION-TOMATO CHUTNEY ONION-TOMATO CHUTNEY Ingredients: 1 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped 6 curry leaves 2 cups red onions diced 2 cups Roma tomatoes chopped 4 tablespoons coconut oil 2 tablespoons turmeric powder 1 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder 2 teaspoons kosher salt 1 tablespoons cumin seeds 1 serrano chili slit in the middle 1 teaspoon mustard seeds Directions: 1. Heat a medium-size sauté pan and add coconut oil to it. Once hot, add in mustards seeds and let it splutter. 2. Add in the cumin seeds and curry leaves and sauté for 10 seconds. Now add the diced onions and serrano chili and sauté well. Once onions are carmelized, reduce the heat and add in turmeric, chili powder and salt. Combine well. 3. Add in chopped tomatoes and cook the mixture covered until the tomatoes are well combined with the onions. 4. Add in cilantro leaves and stir well. The chutney is ready to be served.
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VEGAN SAVORY RICE DONUTS Ingredients: 2 cups Basmati rice soaked in 5-6 cups of water for 2 hours 1 cup Uncle Ben’s parboiled rice soaked in 3 cups of water for 2 hours 1 heaped cup whole white gram lentils soaked in 6 cups of water for 2 hours 6 teaspoons kosher salt 10 tablespoons ghee Directions: 1. Drain the 2 types of rice and grind them well in batches by adding the water little by little until smooth. A Vitamix blender would be the best for this. Set the rice batter aside in a tall container. 2. Drain the lentils and grind them into a smooth batter. Add this to the rice batter in the tall container. Add in salt and water if needed and combine well. The batter must have a consistency of a crepe batter. 3. Keep this container in a warm place overnight. The next day it should be fermented and double the size. 4. Stir well to combine and now the crepe batter is ready to be cooked. 5. In a donut pan add ghee and, once hot, ladle in a small quantity of batter. Cook it until one side is fully cooked. Now turn it over using a fork to cook the other side as well. Repeat. 6. Serve with the onion tomato chutney.
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Pilates for Equestrians’ owner Megan Smith Ray. Photographs by Julia Dags.
SADDLE UP HEALTH & FITNESS
BY FATIME MURIQI
We met Megan Smith Ray at a horse show at Old Salem Farm in North Salem, a natural setting for the creator of Pilates For Equestrians. Recently, we caught up with her again to find out how this discipline benefits riders and others.
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Megan, we know Pilates was developed in the early 20th century by Joseph Pilates, for whom it’s named, but what exactly is it? “Pilates is a form of exercise that uses specialized machines to both lengthen (stretch) and strengthen muscles. The result are muscles that look longer and leaner, which is aesthetically pleasing (one reason Pilates is popular with celebrities), and also alleviates back pain and makes most people feel better. Additionally, long, lean muscles are healthier and more resistant to injury, compared with short, tight muscles, gained from typical gym workouts like weightlifting, running, biking, etc. Elite athletes from Roger Federer to Tom Brady have all used Pilates to improve their performance and prevent injury.”
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Why is it important for equestrians to do Pilates? “Pilates focuses not only on increasing strength and flexibility but also on improving core strength and isolating body movement – the holy grail for excellent riding. Essentially, with Pilates, you can train and retrain muscles to react as you wish they would in the saddle. They say that Pilates is the number one exercise that can make you a better rider. Thus, Pilates for Equestrians was born.” How did you get into this industry? Did you ride horses? “I started riding horses just four and a half years ago when I moved to North Salem from New York City. As I learned to ride, I quickly noticed the parallels to Pilates, including an independent seat, and used Pilates to troubleshoot my issues and build strength and flexibility where I needed it. I quickly realized that every rider should be doing Pilates to feel better and perform better. I don’t have many wishes left unrelated to my family except this – to help people feel better, perform better, and shine. Nothing makes me happier than that.” I have five minutes in the morning. What are simple Pilates exercises that I can do? “I will soon be launching online at-home Pilates workouts. In the meantime, I recommend five- to 10-minute workouts at home featuring these key Pilates exercises — roll down, toe taps, bridge, rolling like a ball, plank and side plank. You can find these on my online site when it launches and on YouTube in the meantime.” For more, follow Megan’s Instagram @ pilates4equestrians and look out for her upcoming website, pilatesforequestrians.com.
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Nationally certified and recognized fitness trainer and Precision Nutrition coach. • Mention this WAG Magazine ad and receive 20% OFF the program. As a thank you, veterans receive 50% OFF. • Daily nutritional habits and reminders guide you through your transformation. • Workouts come complete with videos and modifications specific to the individual. • At the end of the program, if not completely satisfied, you will receive a full refund. Visit www.GiovanniRoselli.com for more info or contact him directly at Gio@GiovanniRoselli.com.
SHE CAME, SHE SAW, SHE CONTOURED BY FATIME MURIQI
WEAR
FASHION
Manhattan makeup artist Katrina D’Onofrio — whom WAG first introduced to you when we wrote about shoe goddess Kristina Cavallo, most recently in our March issue — graduated from Long Island Nail and Skin Care Institute of New York and has since been working as a professional makeup artist ever since. She began her journey as a freelancer catering to brides and local professionals, working with all age groups and specializing in creating the appearance of flawless skin and captivating eyes. Her work became recognized by some of the industry leaders in PR, which then began her career in the celebrity world. Katrina’s work has been featured in print (Us Weekly), TV (Bravo, MTV, Fox News and OK! News) and on the runway (New York Fashion Week). Here she gives us the scoop on being a made (up) woman: How important is makeup to today’s woman? “Makeup is very important to today’s women. It enables them to feel confident, polished and pulled together no matter the occasion. Social media has created a strong sense of awareness regarding makeup and skin care that even women who don’t normally wear makeup are now looking for ways to get their makeup done by a professional.” What is the one essential makeup product that every woman should own and use? “Mascara. Mascara opens your eyes and helps the person look awake. Even their eye color looks more pronounced.” What’s the biggest mistake that women make in doing makeup? “The biggest mistake women make with makeup is using their hands. Using your hands not only wastes more makeup than brushes, but can also cause unnecessary breakouts. Our hands contain bacteria from touching surfaces. The most sanitary way to apply makeup is by using clean brushes or a clean beauty blender.” I have 10 mins in the morning. What is the essential makeup I must use? “Facial cream containing SPF, concealer, mascara, brow pencil/ shadow and lipstick. This can literally be achieved in 10 minutes, helping the person to look polished, awake, younger and ready to conquer the day.” When and how did you get into the beauty industry? “I have always had a love for makeup. In my early 20s, I would go to makeup artists to get my makeup done. I would walk out feeling disappointed and dissatisfied with the look. They would give
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Manhattan makeup artist Katrina D’Onofrio. Courtesy D’Onofrio.
me the complete opposite of what I would ask for and I would go home, take it off, look at the picture and patiently achieve it myself. I started to be very good and people would ask me to do their makeup. Ten years ago, my husband took notice and suggested I start a small business. I went to night school to get certified while I worked in corporate America and my son was still an infant. I began putting myself out there, and my work received attention by individuals in PR. I had no idea I would get this far or find my passion in helping people through makeup. I feel blessed and grateful God put me on this journey and I hope to continue making others feel and look their very best.” What, in your opinion, is the most important quality in a makeup artist? “Listening to your clients. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to ask your clients what makeup style they are looking for you to achieve and what they don’t like. This is the very reason I became an artist myself. We are artists yes. However, we are providing a service so in some cases it is our job to help create our clients vision, not the other way around. Also, continuing education is important. If you feel weak in an area, study how to master it. The worst thing you can do as an artist is limit your abilities and not do the best possible job for your client.” Do you have a signature look? How would you describe it? “My signature look that everyone seems to request is what I call my “soft glam” look. It’s a combination of a natural, radiant looking face with beautiful seductive eyes. Eyes have to be my favorite feature to work on, making them the focal point everyone notices first, along with their face never looking or feeling “cakey.” As a makeup artist myself, even I don’t want to feel like I have tons of products on my face. Listening to my clients through the years, I’ve mastered how to achieve a beautiful face without layers and layers of makeup to make them look and feel comfortable.” For more, visit Katrina’s Instagram @makeupbykatrina or makeupkatrinanyc.com.
TRUTH AND FICTION FROM WAG'S EDITOR
PROVOCATIVE POSTS ON POWER thegamesmenplay.com
A NOVEL OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT FROM JMS BOOKS
NEW FROM JMS BOOKS
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POWERING ON BY GIOVANNI ROSELLI
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HEALTH & FITNESS
I have had the great fortune to know Gwen Lawrence for many years. She has changed the air in the world of professional sports after developing her Power Yoga for Sports Program, called the “Best Innovation in Sports Medicine” by ESPN Magazine, more than a decade ago. Gwen has worked with the New York Giants for more than 18 years, as well as with many members of the New York Yankees, Mets, Rangers, Knicks and Red Bulls. She has appeared on the “Today” show, “Good Day New York,” and TV news and national radio shows. Gwen also co-hosted the nationally syndicated show, “The Better Man Show” and has written several books that include “Body Sculpting With Yoga & Tactical Mobility” and “Teaching Power Yoga For Sports”: Tell us your story. How did you get here? I started dating my husband when I was 15 and he was being scouted by Major League Baseball as a catcher. I watched each weekend and really learned the game. I sat next to the MLB Scouts in a folding chair with my own stop watching timing my husband’s throws and comparing the results with them and picking their brains. Long story short, he was drafted, injured, surgery, rehab, injured, rehab and I was there for the whole journey. I myself was a dancer and artist and had an insatiable thirst for anatomy and the workings of the body. Together my husband and I developed into trainers, where I continued to grow and learn. “I graduated from college with a degree in art and dance and then went on to go to a twoyear program to become a therapeutic massage therapist. My first day of massage school, the teacher went around the room to ask why people were here. The answers were noble, for example, to work with cancer patients, to help rehab patients, etc. I said, ‘I want to work with professional athletes.’ The whole room laughed at me and I guess I felt a spark. I then became certified three times over as a yoga teacher and built my own yoga school. As a massage therapist, I started working with very high profile actors and traveled on location to train and massage them. I also started with the New York Giants and, after a few years, I finally convinced them to start doing yoga and the rest is history. Now I have a training program and train people in 12 countries and 28 states and I love it.”
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Giovanni Roselli and Gwen Lawrence demonstrating power yoga. Courtesy Roselli Health & Fitness.
Tell us about power yoga. How is it different from other types of yoga? “Power Yoga for Sports was developed because of the special needs that athletes have. They would benefit from any yoga training. However, their lives are jam packed with a tight training schedule. In addition, the sense was that yoga teachers were trying to make athletes into yogis and that is the furthest thing they need to do. With this, Power Yoga For Sports was born, with my certification programs and certified yoga school. “I developed my program to design specific yoga programs — per sport, per position, preseason needs, postseason needs, pregame needs, postgame needs and the results are astounding in lowering injury levels, stress levels and much more. “These yoga teachers learn the games/sports, as I make sure the yoga teacher steps into the athlete’s worlds. Using my techniques, we create programs specific to the needs of specific players per sport and per position, since they all have drastically different body types, shapes and duties on the field.” What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from your experiences working in a male driven field? “Listen. Hear what they are saying. Stick to your intuition when working, and tough love always works.” What piece of advice do you have for young girls aspiring to succeed in this field? “If this is your dream, take action every day on that dream. Write goals. Follow through. Email people, and email them again. Do your research. Follow your heart and intuition always.” What is the main philosophy of your work? “The philosophy of my company is Strength + Flexibility = Power, and it happens to translate across life. I learned that in the past three months after being shockingly diagnosed with breast cancer. It certainly tests a person’s strength of character and flexibility of personal beliefs. I never thought I would be a person who would have to surrender to radiation and endless doctors, decisions and seeming powerless(ness). But what I really learned is to take my strength and flexibility and enhance my power to make decisions for myself and research my own decisions for my treatment and never surrender to circumstance. I am powerful.” For more, visit gwenlawrence.com. Reach Giovanni on Twitter @GiovanniRoselli and at his website, GiovanniRoselli.com.
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HAVE PET, WILL EXHALE BY DANA DORFMAN
Your dog’s excited welcome or your cat’s familiar purr are not just passing emotional perks but important players in improving your long-term mental health. Growing evidence suggests a link between ownership of pets — dogs, cats, birds and, yes, even guinea pigs — and a strong sense of well-being. And while many of us know how much we love our pets and how good we feel around them (or even thinking about them), now there is scientific research to explain and support what many of us have felt for years. Here are some of the specifics:
BRAIN CHEMISTRY: CORTISOL, DOPAMINE, OXYTOCIN
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HEALTH & FITNESS
Is the connection between pets and mental health simply a matter of perception? If animals make you simply feel less stressed, then are you? Or is there a physiological basis for this? Science indicates it is, indeed, physical. Researchers have determined that interacting with a friendly animal lowers blood pressure, slows heart rate and has a positive effect on the body’s levels of stress-modulating hormones, particularly cortisol and dopamine. Cortisol plays an important role in controlling blood sugar and metabolism and reducing inflammation. Dopamine is a chemical mood booster prompting feelings of pleasure and motivation. Pets offer unconditional love. Perhaps, that’s why human-animal interactions also seemingly stimulate production of oxytocin — sometimes called the “love hormone.” Oxytocin enhances social bonding and human sexual intimacy, while helping relieve anxiety and stress. The oxytocinergic system also is associated with a person’s feelings of empathy.
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL PERKS THROUGH LIFE’S STAGES Research has proven that lack of relationships, social isolation and loneliness contribute to depression and anxiety. While pets may not replace humans, their unconditional love, warmth
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and loyalty provide companionship, connection and a sense of purpose. These feelings may buffer depressive tendencies, quell anxious feelings and mitigate loneliness. A pet’s spontaneous interaction with a stranger can ease conversation and promote playful interactions among owners. Pet owners reap benefits throughout the stages of the life cycle. For example, pets in a family offer an opportunity for shared love and connection. For children, having a pet allows them to become a caretaker as well as a buddy. For older adults, a pet can help alleviate feelings of loneliness, provide opportunities for playfulness and a reason to get out of the house. And even for adolescents and college students, pets are found to help reduce stress and give unconditional acceptance during times of insecurity and sel-doubt. Among the most recent pet polls — this one involving more than 2,000 participants between the ages of 50 and 80 and reported in 2019 by Michigan Medicine and the AARP, a majority, nine of 10 respondents, concluded pets were helping lower their stress. Nearly three-quarters of older respondents, who at the time of the survey were either living alone or struggling with emotional or physical issues, said pets enabled them to cope. Sixty-five percent of poll participants credited pets for enhancing their ability to interact socially with others. Meanwhile, in a Harris poll of a few years ago, 95 percent of pet owners said they considered their pet to be a member of the family. Although much of the scientific investigation has focused on dogs, other kinds of animals are known to provide similar beneficial effects to the human psyche. In a report in the journal Developmental Psychobiology, for example, authors write that children who have ASD — autism spectrum disorder — demonstrated improved “social functioning” after ongoing exposure to guinea pigs. Some animal-assisted therapy programs to improve mental health, especially in troubled teenagers and young adults, include horses, which, some experts say, “have a sensitivity to people’s feelings.”
THE TAKEAWAY Buy a horse? Not necessarily, but a preponderance of evidence supports the contention that pets affect our overall health — mental and physical. They boost self-esteem and social attention. They help raise our energy levels; reduce our mental fatigue, our stress-related factors and our self-reported fears and anxiety; lower the risk for depression and feelings of social isolation; and beneficially effect our cardiovascular system. (People with dogs tend to get more exercise.) According to some limited studies, pets may even enhance our immune system and our ability to manage pain. The takeaway: Animals can play an important role in human lives. Indeed, one study investigator -- in BMC Psychiatry in 2018 -- even suggested that animals be included in patient care plans because of their benefits to mental health. Our federal government agrees. In a flyer, “Pets Promote Health,” for a National Pet Week celebration, the United States Public Health Service stated that “animals improve mental and emotional well-being in humans. Pet owners are less likely to suffer from stress, anxiety and depression than non-pet owners.” So, the next time your community is holding a “clear the animal shelters” adoption program, you just may want to consider acquiring a pet — for your own good. Dana Dorfman PhD, LCSW is a New York City-based psychotherapist and clinical social worker.
ALLERGIC TO FIDO AND FLUFFY BY SUZANNE FRIEDLER, M.D. Americans love their pets. According to a 2016 survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association (APPA), 68% of households had some sort of pet. This means that about 85 million households in the United States have been raining cats and dogs. Americans enjoy their pets for a whole host of reasons, including some more recent scientific evidence cited in a Washington Post suggesting that having animal companions can reduce stress and has many other mental health benefits. With all of these friends comes a lot of, well, fur. Our homes, clothes and lives are full of particulates left behind by Fido and Fluffy. An estimated 10% of people have pet allergies, with twice as many cat allergies as dog allergies. Many loving pet owners soldier through itches, sniffles and rashes to keep their pets. As a dermatologist, I often see patients like this, who want to find better ways to manage their allergies to their pets. If you suspect you or a family member may be suffering from a pet allergy, see a doctor for patch testing, which can help identify the particular allergen causing you discomfort. To best address your pet allergy, it’s helpful to understand the common causes and signs. Allergies of all types are caused by your immune system, a powerful bodily mechanism that exists to protect you from disease as it attempts to remove or kill harmful foreign substances. The immune system can cause parts of the body to become inflamed, which causes irritation of the skin, eyes and throat. In the case of pet allergies, your body is reacting strongly to harmless proteins from your pet’s skin, urine or saliva. Contrary to popular belief, pet hair itself actually does not cause allergies, but is a vehicle for all three causes, which is why it can make you feel sick. Pet hair and fur can collect around your home, on clothes or on furniture and exacerbate the effects of pet allergies even when your animal is far away. The symptoms of pet allergies can range from itchiness of the eyes, nose and skin to more severe breathing problems, rarely resulting in issues related to asthma. Though these symptoms are not typically life-threatening, they can be very uncomfortable and can interfere with day-to-day activities, which makes pet allergies a hot topic among pet owners and doctors alike. Children with allergies to pets are also at a higher risk for developing allergy-induced eczema, which is painful inflammation of the skin in response to an irritant. Adults who already have eczema are also at risk for increased inflammation if they are allergic to pets and are exposed. Many Americans choose to live with their pet allergies to keep their furry companions at home. For these people, there are a number of medical and lifestyle steps that can be taken to reduce the discomfort associated with allergies, so you can spend less time sneezing and more time snuggling with your furry friend. For some, over the counter antihistamines like Benadryl do the trick to calm the uncomfortable inflammatory symptoms. For eczema, I also recommend using a hydrocortisone cream to soothe the swelling, redness and discomfort.
Some pet owners use an allergy management strategy that includes immunotherapy, or the use of allergy shots. In this treatment, you receive a shot about once a week for up to seven months, and then you slow the frequency of the shots until you have a desired result. The overall process can range from a few months to a few years. The use of immunotherapy aims to train your immune system to tolerate amounts of the allergen without causing symptoms. Allergy shots are one viable solution for people who have interest in a more permanent strategy for reducing allergy symptoms. The effects of pet allergy can also be mitigated by adjusting your lifestyle to avoid contact with irritants from your pet. This can be as simple as preventing your pet from entering your bedroom, which can reduce discomfort and trouble breathing when you sleep, or using an air purifier to reduce the allergens circulating around your home. The act of stroking or petting a kitten or pup has been reported to release hormones that can tame stress and increase satisfaction and happiness, so I understand why pet owners are willing to go to great lengths to keep their pets around. I recommend a combination of lifestyle choices, like limiting your pet’s entry into certain rooms and medicines to help. For itchy skin, eczema treatments should help you get back to playing fetch and, if over the counter treatments are unable to soothe your skin, visit your dermatologist, as the allergy could require a more serious solution. Suzanne Friedler, M.D. is a board-certified dermatologist with Advanced Dermatology PC. For more, visit advanceddermatologypc.com.
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PET OF THE MONTH
PET CARE
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A SUNSHINE BOY PHOTOGRAPH BY SEBASTIÁN FLORES
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All of our Pets of the Month have poignant stories. But Jordan’s tale particularly touched our hearts. He’s a 10-year-old Jack Russell Terrier who’s as spry as a pup. Sadly, the same cannot be said for his elderly owner, who surrendered Jordan to the SPCA, no longer able to care for him. Jordan is a sweet, easygoing guy who walks well on his leash and goes with the flow. He’s truly a little gentleman. Not surprisingly, he does well with other dogs and loves people. Since he’s lived in a home most of his life, he should settle in with a new family easily. To meet Jordan, visit the SPCA of Westchester at 590 N. State Road in Briarcliff Manor. Founded in 1883, the SPCA is a no-kill shelter and is not affiliated with the ASPCA. 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.
DANCES WITH WOLVES BY ROBIN COSTELLO
Martha Handler, better-known to WAG readers for her conversations with Jennifer Pappas that ran under the banner Class & Sass, sees magic at work everywhere around her as an environmentalist and journalist. Raised in northern Illinois, she is a self-proclaimed “nature girl” who spent endless hours in her youth swimming and roaming in the forests and fields near her home. Nature always spoke to her and she listened. Martha knew from a young age: She was meant to be its advocate. With a degree in environmental conservation from the University of Colorado at Boulder, she worked as an environmental consultant in various cities. A move to northern Westchester in 1996 serendipitously put Martha right in “the wolf’s path.” She could not ignore the “call of the wild” when she discovered three wolves in an enclosure in the property just behind her home. They were the first ambassador wolves for South Salem’s burgeoning Wolf Conservation Center. Handler was enchanted and quickly devoted herself to promoting the cause. Little did she know those wolves would come to mean a great deal to her and play a major role in her creative destiny. Fast forward more than a decade. Taking care of a young family left her with precious little free time. But in quiet moments, nature’s creative muses were always at work, whispering in Martha’s ear. Eighteen years in the making, Handler’s debut novel, “Winter of the Wolf” (264 pages, $16.95) will be published by Greenleaf Book Group this July. The young adult novel brings together two significant pieces of her life. The book was influenced by the death of her best friend’s son and her work as president of the Wolf Conservation Center. Both inspired her to write a story rich with spiritual messages. In the novel we are introduced to Bean, a teenage girl whose beloved brother Sam has died. With more questions than answers, Bean sets out to discover the truth about his mysterious death.
Martha Handler with an owl from Animal Embassy, an advocacy organization in Stamford. Courtesy Martha Handler.
“Winter of the Wolf” touches on the themes of suicide, spiritual interconnectedness, shamanism, native Inuit culture, wolves and nature. Throughout the story, spiritual awakenings and signs (like the arrival of a rare black wolf) lead Bean on a path to truth, wholeness, healing and ultimately acceptance. An easy read, Handler has crafted a powerful story that should appeal to readers young and old. For more and to preorder “Winter of the Wolf,” visit marthahunthandler.com or amazon.com.
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WHERE & WHEN
(Editor’s note: These events are subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check with the venues directly for any postponements or cancellations.)
Through April 30 The New Canaan Sculpture Trail, features eight juried selections of outdoor sculpture at six New Canaan Land Trust preserves, the front lawn of the New Canaan Town Hall and the courtyard of the Carriage Barn Arts Center. Carriage Barn Arts Center, Waveny Park, 681 South Ave.; 203-972-1270, sculpture.newcanaanlandtrust.org.
Through May 31 Neuberger Museum of Art presents “Subversive Prophet,” a two-part exhibit that features the works of the poet, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Noon to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, 914-251-6100, neuberger.org.
April 3 through 5 The Harrison Players present “Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.” The plot follows two drag queens and a transgender woman as they journey across the Australian Outback, from Sydney to Alice Springs, in a tour bus that they named "Priscilla." Times vary, The Veterans’ Memorial Building, 210 Halstead Ave; 914-630-1089, harrisonplayers.org.
April 3 through 26 The Ossining Arts Council and Westchester Collaborative Theater (WCT) present the 2020 Living Art Event, showcasing the council’s artworks and seven original one-act plays inspired by selected works. Times vary, Westchester Collaborative Theater, 23 Water St; 914-263-4953, wctheater.org.
April 4 “An Evening with Steve Ross” — Called the “Crown Prince of New York Cabaret,” Ross will perform the music of the Transatlantic Songbook, with songs by and stories about such classic composers as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, and Noel Coward and special nods to interpreters Edith Piaf and Fred Astaire. 8 p.m., Magnolia Room, 57 Main St., Norwalk; 203-864-6964, bjryansmagnoliaroom.com. The Hudson Valley Writers Center and Masters School present the 10th annual Westchester Poetry Festival. Reginald Dwayne Betts, keynote reader, will be joined by Leila Chatti, Lynn Emanuel, Margo Taft Stever and two other poets as they read from their most recent collections. 1 to 5 p.m., Masters School, 49 Clinton Ave., Dobbs Ferry; 914-332-5953, writerscenter.org.
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Steve Ross.
April 15 Not only a singer-songwriter but also a watercolor artist, and environmental conservationist and outdoorsman, Brett Dennen generates more than good vibes, as he seeks to gather like-minded music fans to try to make the world a better place. 8 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road, 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.
April 17 and 18 Irvington Town Hall Theater presents the All Shorts Irvington Film Festival’s Fifth Anniversary Celebration, with two nights of curated international short film programs that travel backward and forward in time. 7:30 p.m., 85 Main St.: 914-591-6602, irvingtontheater.com.
April 19 United Way will hold a fundraiser to support teenagers and young adults aging out of the foster care system. “Dare 2B Free” features a cross-section of talent, including comedians and dance troupes. 6:30p.m., Westchester County Center, 198 Central Ave., White Plains; 917-997-6700, uwwp.org/event/dare-2b-free. Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts presents award-winning pianist Stephen Hough. The program will include one of Hough’s compositions, as well as works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah; 914-232-1252, caramoor.org.
Submitted by Arts Westchester (artswestchester.org) and The Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County (culturalalliancefc.org/FCBuzz-events).
PRINT JOURNALISM: BECAUSE IT STILL MATTERS. westfaironline.com
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ALL IN THE FAMILY
It was a night to celebrate good working relations in every sense of that phrase as the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals, WAG’s sister publications, presented “Family-Owned Business 2020,” recognizing 23 local businesses with a buffet ceremony at 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains on Feb. 25. The winners were AFC Urgent Care; Albert Palancia Insurance Agency Inc.; AMHAC, a heating and air conditioning company; Bilotta, making custom cabinetry; BMW of Darien; Cartwright & Daughters Tent & Party Rentals; Club Fit; D’Errico Jewelry; Eye Designs of Westchester; Gavin Audiology and Hearing Aids; Healthsearch Group; Little Friends childcare; McMichael Yacht Brokers and Yacht Yards; Milo Kleinberg Design Associates; Nazzaro Inc.; New Crystal Restoration; Oak + Almond Restaurant; Paraco Gas; Plaza Realty & Management Corp.; Trapp Opticians; Wagner Pools: Westchester Funeral Home; and Westerly Marina. Charles Slack — a business writer, editor and consultant who has also written four award-winning nonfiction books – delivered the keynote address. Photographs by Sebastián Flores. 1. McKenzie Clippinger and Arielle and Jarad Kleinberg 2. David Jones and Tara Elliott 3. Charles Slack 4. George Santangelo and Flavia Callari 5. Carmine Lippolis and Michelle Parinello 6. Zachary, Eli, Steven and Adam Heffer 7. Roger Mariusso, Saul Weinberg, Natalie Lloyd, Pat Morano and Mohan Persaud 8. Brenda Moynihan 9. Louis Cordasco Jr., Lisa Kane, Rosemary, Jessica, Louis, Sr., Lisa A. and Marie Cordasco, Nancy Cordasco Walsh, Don O'Dell and Anthony Villani Carly, Kathie and Michael Anechiarico 10. Adam Stern, Alan Gordon, Jeff Gordon, 11. Simon Gordon and Sherrie Dulworth
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BIOTECH ON THE RISE
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More than 125 people gathered on Feb. 27 at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown for a “State of the Healthcare and Biotech Community” Breakfast presented by the Westchester Biotech Project. Guests heard reports from the Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco and the status of how the biotech sector in Westchester is growing. With breakthroughs in oncology, immunology and gene therapy are providing unprecedented opportunity for biotech in Westchester County. Photographs by Lynda Shenkman. 1. Fritz Handtke, Joanne Gere, Peter Meath and Michael Welling 2. Grif Griffin, Carla Romney and Tara Seeley 3. Chris O’Callahan, Carolyn Mandelker and David Stockel 4. Danny Potocki and Joshua Levitt 5. Jonathan Bandel, Lisa Buchman, Chris Mitchell and Matt Werner 6. Rob Pizella and Dalfoni Banerjee
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Irish culture and conviviality were in full force at the Eastchester Irish-American Social Club Member Social. With a mission to encourage appreciation of Irish culture, guests gathered to make plans for the 16th annual Eastchester St. Patrick’s Day Parade, postponed until Sept. 20 due to COVID-19. 7. Margaret Murtagh, Debra Murtha and Christy McCloskey 8. John Fahy, Timothy C McGrath and Deirdre Fahy 9. Anne Hendry and Brenda NangleGeraghty 10. Valerie Quinn and Gary McCloskey 11. Christina Brady, Meg Stapleton and Nora Nangle
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GIRLS NIGHT OUT
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More than 350 guests were in attendance at the Crowne Plaza in White Plains for “Girls’ Night Out,” an annual fundraiser for the Westchester Medical Center Health Network Heart and Vascular Institute. The event celebrated female heart patients as survivors and “heart heroes” and recognized the physicians and medical teams whose groundbreaking techniques and compassionate care helped to save their lives. The “heart”warming event raised awareness about women’s heart health, as well as hope that new advances in cardiology will save more lives in the future.
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1. Christeena Kurian, MD, Carol O’Malley, Tanya Dutta, MD; Joanne Dunphy, Sei Iwai, MD, Marie Edouard, Arun Goyal, MD, Mary Calvi, Julio Panza, MD; Julie Loza, Sharon Thomas, Trudy Gessler, Gregg Lanier, MD, Mallory O’Shea, Gabrielle Fisher and Joanne Bennett
THRICE AS NICE More than 150 art lovers gathered recently at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase to celebrate the opening of three new shows — “Pier Paolo Pasolini: Subversive Prophet,” “Isaac Julien: Western Union Small Boats” and “Calder from the Collection.” The event was fun-filled with gorgeous art, smooth jazz and delicious hors d’oeuvres. Photographs by Ed Cody. 2. Karen Campbell and Lynne Kushner 3. Joe Fyfe, Shirley Kaneda and David Dorsky 4. Dennis Craig, Patrice Giasson and Tracy Fitzpatrick 5. Helaine Posner and Louise Yelin 6. Marilyn and Hugh Price 7. Susan and Jim Dubin 8. Jennifer Heinrich, Luka Heinrich and Edith Fassberg
B-DAY BOY
9. Steven Palm, Matthew, Clare Lawrence and Danny Villalva
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Long time New Rochelle resident Matthew Thayer O'Shaughnessy celebrated his 52nd birthday Feb. 13 at Underhills Crossing in Bronxville. O'Shaughnessy is a writer and the son of WVOX and WVIP radio President and CEO William O'Shaughnessy.
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SUMMONING COURAGE Greenwich Medical Spa CEO and Visionary Marria Pooya and KRW Consulting’s CEO Kathleen Ruiz joined forces on March 5 for an event at the J House in Greenwich to launch the spa’s inaugural campaign for International Women’s Day (March 8), #CourageisConfidence. As part of the spa’s commitment to confidence and championing women, the campaign aims to create and encourage conversations about courage and invites the public to join in. The month-long campaign features original content celebrating the fascinating stories of strong women who inspire confidence and embody empowerment. 1. Oksana Kulinska, Kristen Clonan and Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal 2. Kathleen Ruiz and Marria Pooya 3. Stefani Calvano 4. Lisa and Mallory Bankson
SAY ‘CHEESE’
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The tooth fairy, puppets, face-painting, balloons and games brought smiles to more than 50 local school-aged children and their families at Touro Dental Health’s third annual “Give Kids A Smile! Day.” The event, organized each year by students from Touro College of Dental Medicine in Valhalla aims to improve oral health and access to care for the local community’s most vulnerable patients. 5. The Tooth Fairy and Touro Dental’s mascot enjoy visiting with the kids.
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Julia Levin, a student at the Lagond Music School in Elmsford, was recently presented with the Shari McNulty Music Scholarship Award. Julia, who is also a junior at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, was selected as the winner of the award for her passion and determination to excel in contemporary music and performance on the guitar. 6. Charlie Lagond, Julia Levin, Shari McNulty and Rosanne Lana
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WAGVERTISERS APRIL 2020
Africa Photo Tours – 66, 67 africaphototours.com
Kitchen & Bath Source – 34, 35 kbskitchen.com
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Majestic Kitchens and Bath- 11 majestickitchens.com
Smith, Buss & Jacobs, LLP - 73 sbjlaw.com
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Briggs House Antiques - 51 briggshouse.com
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Sportime NY - 47 sportimeny.com/lake-isle
Cartwright & Daughters Tent & Party Rentals - 91 rentaparty.com
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The Chelsea at Greenburgh - 33 chelseaseniorliving.com
Penny Pincher - 69 pennypincherboutique.com
Val’s Putnam Wines and Liquors - 103 valsputnamwines.com
The Club at Briarcliff Manor – inside front cover theclubbcm.com
Property Protection Consulting – 47 ppcalarms.com
Vincent and Whittemore – 71 vinwhit.com
Prutting & Company Custom Builders - 9 prutting.com
Westchester Business Center – inside back cover westchesterbusinesscenter.com
ECS - Elite Construction Solutions - 46 myecspro.com Euphoria Kitchen & Bath - 91 euphoriakitchens.com
R & M Woodrow Jewelers – 1 woodrowjewelers.com Giovanni Roselli - 87 giovanniroselli.com
Georgette Gouveia - 89 thegamesmenplay.com Greenwich Polo Club – 25 greenwichpoloclub.com Gregory Sahagian and Son, Inc. – 41 gssawning.com
Robert J Rosenberg - Morgan Stanley Wealth Management - 50 advisor.morganstanley.com/robert.j.rosenberg/ Royal Closet - 51 royalcloset.com
Westmoreland Sanctuary – 83 westmorelandsanctuary.org White Plains Hospital – back cover exceptionaleveryday.org/liver White Plains Performing Arts Center – 77 wppac.com Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital – 17 ynhch.org
Our WAG-savvy sales team will assist you in optimizing your message to captivate and capture your audience. Contact them at 914-358-0746.
ANNE JORDAN DUFFY
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BARBARA HANLON
MARCIA PFLUG
FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1957
International Wines, Spirits and Beers Free Wine Tastings on Friday and Saturday Daily Sales and Specials Corporate and Client Gifting Programs Event Planning Services
Classes, Seminars and Tutorials Private In-Home Tastings and Classes Free Delivery Service (inquire) Wine Cellar and Collecting Consultation We Buy Your Older Wines and Spirits
VAL’S TIP OF THE MONTH — It’s Spring. Time to break out the whites & rose, but hang on to the reds too. Anything goes in the Spring. 203-869-2299
125 WEST PUTNAM AVE., GREENWICH, CT BOTH LOCATIONS OPEN EVERY DAY
203-813-3477
21 GLENVILLE ST., GLENVILLE, CT
valsputnamwines.com | valsputnamwines125@gmail.com
FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESS AWARD WINNER 2018
WE WONDER: WHAT’ S YOU R PET NAME ? *
Tara Elliott
Noelle Bianculli
Cathy DeMarchis marketing relations Montrose resident
dockworker at Westerly Marina Montrose resident
Dennis DeMarchis
Kathy DeMarchis chemist Ossining resident
marketing coordinator The SKG Team at Barnum Financial Group
“My dad use to call me Ellie. Not the most unique.”
“Poison Ivy is what my fatherin-law used to call me, not for any bad reason. We always had a good relationship. But when we met, he happened to be listening to the song ‘Poison Ivy.’”
“Dennis the Menace. I’ve just been a pain in the a—my whole life.”
“The 50-foot Woman, because when (my partner and I) met, I was rollerblading and he thought I was tall.”
“All my friends call me Tuna. It had to do with a college rugby initiation.”
pharmacist Middletown, Connecticut, resident
Cathy Hoffman
Tara Kowalski
Brenda Moynihan
maintenance sales Atlantic Westchester Inc. Ossining resident
pharmacist Colchester, Connecticut, resident
director of marketing and outreach The Kensington, Yonkers resident
architect and partner, MKDA Boca Raton Florida resident
Jeffrey Kleinberg
Paula Saraiva
“My father called me Boobsie Doodle. I have no idea why. I had four older brothers and they had lots of nicknames for me.”
“Sometimes I get Killer because of Killer Kowalski, the wrestler.”
“My father called me Witchy, ’cause I cast a spell on you.”
“It’s Poppy Seed. When I first had grandchildren, I was called Poppy. One day I was having a poppy seed bagel and the kids took it up and I was called Poppy Seed.”
“My husband calls me Hots. I guess he thinks I’m hot.”
Rye Brook resident
*Asked primarily at “Family Owned Business 2020,” presented by the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals at 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains Feb. 25.
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