| Issue #31, October 27, 2006 |
South O’ the Highway (and the North too)
It only took a few days for word to get out that Las Vegas casino king Steve Wynn had put his elbow through a $139 million Picasso earlier this month. The witnesses were sworn to secrecy but it didn’t last long. They included Hamptonite Barbara Walters, Louise Grunwald, David and Mary Boies, Hamptonites Henry and Nancy Silverman, Hamptonite Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi. Wynn had just agreed to sell it to hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen for $139 million, a deal that’s since been canceled.
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The final show at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater before it closes for renovation is a staged reading of the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber comedy The Royal Family. Broadway actors Marian Seldes, Mercedes Ruehl, Paul Hecht and Daniel Gerroll head the large cast in this Barrymore family parody. Directed by Tony Walton, the performance is Friday, October 27, 8 p.m. Visit www.guildhall.org.
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Sculptor and Hamptons resident Fernando Botero, who has an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery, celebrated his birthday this week with fifty friends, including East Hampton’s Martha Stewart, at La Grenouille, which was decorated with reproductions of Botero’s oversized nudes made of moss.
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The Stern vs. Stern vacation-house construction race in Southampton is still on. Leonard Stern, dog-food czar, seems to be in the lead with construction on the first floor in progress. Next-door neighbor Howard Stern’s home is still in disarray. Both Sterns paid in the mid-$20 million range for their 4-acre oceanfront lots.
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Howard Gittes will be getting back most of the money that his socialite employee, Catesby Kilmer, was convicted of stealing from him last summer, to buy and furnish her Hamptons home. To pay him back, she sold the house on Hill Street in Southampton for below its $2.25 million asking price. The socially prominent Kilmer received a three-to-nine year sentence earlier this year for absconding with more than $2 million from Gittes, also known as East Hampton’s Ronald Perelman’s right-hand man.
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Since his split up with Bridgehampton’s Christie Brinkley, Peter Cook has taken up residence in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in the Noyac area that a source called the “Salty DogHouse.”
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Emily Spielberg, the woman who claimed to be the niece of East Hampton’s Steven Spielberg, has been dropping his name in a bid to get red-carpet treatment at Los Angeles Fashion Week. When the imposter, actually his third cousin, was figured out, she said, “Whatever works. Wouldn’t you do that, too?”
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The Blue Parrot in East Hampton is officially closing down after years of good fun at the bar! Hamptonite Ralph Lauren has purchased the property and is reportedly planning to start a restaurant there.
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On Thursday, October 26, Frances Hayward, of East Hampton, and Couri Hay will meet Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States at Christie’s Auction House. The event, a private viewings of Christie’s upcoming fall sales, will take place at from 6 to 8 p.m. and will include pieces of impressionist and modern art.
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Jens Lien’s Norwegian film, The Bothersome Man, won a pair of jury prizes at the 14th Hamptons International Film Festival this weekend. Lien’s follow-up to his 2003 feature, Jonny Vang, won the Golden Starfish Competition, nabbing the in-kind production services package, valued at $185,000, and also the Kodak Award for best cinematography, for the work of John Christian Rosenlund.
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Multi-mediums Amy Zerner and Monte Farber of East Hampton recently inked a co-production deal with Sterling Publishing to exclusively carry their spiritual books and tools. The first line of zodiac gift books, Astrology Gems, with a first printing of nearly 200,000 copies arrived in stores this week. Barnes & Noble, Sterling’s parent company, is carrying Zerner/Farber’s titles nationwide. Zerner and Farber are also meeting with Patti LaBelle this week to discuss doing their spiritual goddess couture for her upcoming tour in support of her long-awaited gospel album, The Gospel According to Patti LaBelle.
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Hamptons artist John Chamberlain will be at the Ross School in East Hampton on Saturday, November 4 at 7 p.m. for a benefit which will feature the premiere of the documentary John Chamberlain and Miss Lucy Pink, created by Ross 11th Grade student Alexandra Fairweather.
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If purchasing the Blue Parrot weren’t enough, it is now rumored that Ralph Lauren will be turning the 5- acre, $55 million East Hampton Point into a private club.
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