| Issue #38, December 14, 2006 |
WHEN MONTAUK FLEW TO LAS VEGAS FOR NICK
By David Lion Rattiner
“Did you hear that Nick is turning 90 this year?”
“Yes, I did hear that. We should do something really special for him.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“How about a surprise party? That’s always fun.”
“Hmmm. Not bad, not bad. But I was thinking, something a little bit more exciting than that.”
“What’s your idea?”
“Okay, just hear me out on this.”
This was what the conversation must have been like between Nick Monte’s wife Lola and her friends while she began planning one of the most incredible surprise birthday parties that this paper has ever heard of.
Everybody loves to plan a surprise birthday party. But when you are a Montauker and reach your 90th birthday, your friends pull out all the stops. Nick Monte, patriarch of the well-known Monte family that owns Gurney’s Inn in Montauk, was given the surprise birthday party of his lifetime, and the entire time he thought he was just taking a trip to his house in Las Vegas.
Lola Monte, planned the entire surprise from the beginning, which included about a hundred guests, flight plans, hotel reservations, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike and of course, keeping it all a secret. “That’s not an easy thing to do with Nick,” says wife Lola.
But using personal invitations, phone calls and e-mails, the entire Monte Family, the Gosmans, the Duryeas, the Hewletts and others all managed to get this entire party together as they piled into airplanes to Las Vegas giggling the entire journey to Sin City. How Nick was not let on to the party was truly an accomplishment in itself, but as the remaining guests checked into the Mirage and others into the Venetian, there was no turning back.
Unaware that all of this was going on, Mr. Monte simply thought that he was just having a regular trip to his house in the town of Henderson, which is located just south of Las Vegas. Under the guise of a casual dinner with an old acquaintance, the trap was set for Nick as he and his wife headed towards the Anthem Country Club, to meet their “another couple” for dinner.
“I was so nervous,” Lola tells me with a chuckle.
At around 4:30 p.m. on December 8, Nick’s birthday, a mad caravan of cars came barreling down the highway with the Montes and Gosmans and the rest of them screaming into each other’s cell phones as they headed towards the Country Club. There were about 120 people in all, and almost every single person there hailed from Montauk.
Bustling like little kids, the group gathered into the country club’s restaurant called Trumpets, owned by The Scottos, who are good friends of the family, are from Long Island and helped make the event possible. The restaurant was renamed for the night “Monte’s Venetian Room” after the 100-year-old business in Brooklyn that was started by the birthday boy’s father.
“Everybody be quiet.”
A sense of I-can’t-believe-that-we-are-actually-doing-this must have come over the group as they waited for Nick and his wife to enter the restaurant.
“SURPRISE!!!”
Can you imagine walking into a room on the other side of the country to see that many people waiting there in your honor? That must have been quite a scene. But the honors did not stop there; even the Mayor of Las Vegas got wind of this party and decided that such a celebration deserved a tip of the hat from him. And so he sent along to Paul Monte, Nick’s son who now is the CEO at Gurney’s, the keys to Las Vegas as a birthday gesture.
Of course, in true Montauk fashion, the surprise was just the start of the celebration.
Amongst laughs, hoots and hollers, a decked out Marilyn Monroe came down to sing “Happy Birthday Mr. President” and then immediately after this, a live performance of Rat Pack impersonators came down to sing to Nick all of the greats. It was a special moment for Nick, for the Monte family and all those that know them.
And here at Dan’s Papers, we’d like to wish Nick a Happy Birthday and many more.
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