Social Diary 10/3/05 - American Friends of Versailles week in NY

American Friends of Versailles in NY

The View of the Hudson River Valley from the terrace of Kykuit. 3:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Last week was American Friends of Versailles week in New York for a select and lucky group of supporters and friends of the organization which is “committed to improving and promoting positive goodwill between France and the United States on a long-term basis. APV “aspires to heighten awareness of the Palace of Versailles,” which is the largest museum in the world with great historical ties to the US going all the way back to our Forefathers, and most specifically Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. More Americans visit Versailles every year than almost any other museum in this country. It is recognized by UNESCO as an international world treasure and universally inspires people.

That said, let’s get down to the day-to-day business of the American Friends, an organized formed by Catharine Hamilton, a Texan who later became a prominent member of the community here in New York and in Chicago. NYSD readers may recall our trip to Paris and Versailles in June of 2004. This was under the auspices of AFV and was to celebrate their restoration of Les Trois Fontaines, which had been not only out of operation since the 18th century, but virtually lost from abandonment.

Catharine and David Hamilton

Last week’s schedule was very glamorous for those fortunate friends and members of the organization. It started on Wednesday with a champagne reception hosted by former Ambassdor Felix Rohatyn and Mrs. Rohatyn at their Fifth Avenue apartment. This was followed by a luncheon and lecture at the French Consulate. Christian Duvernois, the author and scholar on French gardens and Versailles presented a talk on the Petit Trianon. That night the group celebrated the birthdays of Le Vicomte de Rohan and La Comtesse de Mortemart at Le Perigord on East 52nd Street.

We missed all that, unfortunately. But then on Thursday, we were guests of the group on an excursion to Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills on the Hudson, for a luncheon and a tour of the main house, hosted by Kimberly and Steven Rockefeller. Mr. Rockefeller is a great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller Sr. who founded Standard Oil and who created the estate at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Pocantico is part of Tarrytown, about a forty-five minute to hours’ drive up the Saw Mill from Manhattan. The aforementioned timing is if you’re lucky. JH and I went up by car and, ignoring the official directions to take the Deegan because of the chronic bumper-to-bumper on that road, we took the Henry Hudson. Or thought we were going to take the Henry Hudson, having forgotten about the collapse of the embankment a few months ago that inundated the highway.

It’s still inundated, for any of you uninformed (like us) motorists who haven’t taken the river route lately. There’s a detour through that section of Manhattan. Actually, I’d never been through that neighborhood (West 181st Street) and it’s really lovely. So, as a result, what would have been a forty-five minute drive was more like an hour and a half.

It was overcast with the promise of rain that day but the ride up the Saw Mill to the Rockefeller estate was beautiful. We got raindrops at just about the moment we entered the gate to the property.

I’m not an expert, but the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico must be one of the great estates in America. There is a sense about it that reminds me, in terms of vastness, of the Hearst estate at San Simeon in California. Although Hearst Castle comes close to resembling Versailles in lavish grandeur, while the Rockefeller property still reflects the native Baptist austerity of its creator.

Steven and Kimberly Rockefeller

Both Pocantico and San Simeon are on hilltops with water views: the emperors in their lairs. Although the Rockefeller property looks out over the Hudson and north toward the Catskills, while San Simeon commands the Pacific.

The property itself, however, although no longer occupied except perhaps by a couple of older members of the family, is a document of another time – the late Industrial Revolution – of this country. If you lend your imagination, you can feel the presence and the power of the first Mr. Rockefeller whose income in the days he developed this property was said to be upwards of $60,000,000 a year. That was when a man could support a family comfortably on $2000 annually, or to be arithmetical, this one man was annually earning enough to support 30,000 families comfortably. To his credit, it should be said that old Mr. Rockefeller created a philanthropic legacy that bequeathed almost $20 billion to the world, and mainly America over the following century.

Meanwhile: Kykuit, (which means “Lookout” in Dutch) the main house, built by Mr. Rockefeller in 1911 – 1913 with Delano and Aldrich as the supervising architects and Ogden Codman providing the interior décor, after a design, along with gardens and landscaping by William Welles Bosworth, is now part of the National Trust and is open to the public. In the past it was occupied by Rockefeller Sr. until his death in 1937, then occcupied by his son John D. Jr., until is death in 1960 and last occupied by Jr.’s son Nelson Rockefeller and his wife Happy and their sons Mark and Nelson Jr., until his death in 1979.

The aerial photographs of the house somehow do not provide an authentic sense of its size. Although it is not a behemoth like some of the Newport mansions, or other Vanderbilt mansions, it is very large and sits on a hilltop with a commanding view of its beautiful natural surroundings and the far off distances to the west, namely the river and the Catskills. It is a view that for me always conjures up Washington Irving and his characters Rip van Winkle and Ichabod Crane, and so there is something haunting and mysterious about its massive, sleepy grandeur.

The Playhouse at Kykuit

We started out meeting at the Playhouse which is a rambling Tudor style building which is still privately owned and frequently used by the family (there are many Rockefellers living within the immediate proximity of the estate). Catharine Hamilton called the meeting to order.

Christine Albanel, Olivier de Rohan, and Pierre Arizzoli-Clementel, all from Versailles, told us about the planned restoration of the Pavillon de Frais, or the Salon de Frais, the site of which is located in the gardens of the Petit Trianon. The Pavillon was built and used by Louis XV and Mme. de Pompadour for little private dinners.

Like so many of the chateau’s buildings and constructions, it fell into disrepair and even oblivion more than two centuries ago after the French Revolution. It was John D. Rockefeller Jr., who in the early 1920s, began the long and rigorous campaign to restored and revive Versailles. His enormous contributions inspired others – both French and Americans -- over the following decades to contribute to the cause.

The Salon de Frais

After the talk on the Salon de Frais, we adjourned to luncheon in the indoor poolhouse which contains an Olympic-sized swimming pool and terraces surrounding that are large enough to accommodate ten tables of ten. During lunch Catharine Hamilton and Anne-Marie de Ganay told us about the planned “La Semaine Enchantee” in Paris and Versailles on June 20th through June 26th, 2006.

That week, which is a major part of the AFV’s fund-raising effort will include a remarkable array of luncheons, dinners, and tours that will include the opening and a dinner of the American Art Exhibition at the Louvre, a private tour of Coco Chanel’s residence; a concert at the Louvre conducted by Kurt Masur, a champagne reception given by M. and Mme. Pinault, a lunch or dinner at the Elysee Palace, a luncheon at the Hotel Talleyrand with a lecture by Antonia Fraser who wrote the fantastic biography of Marie Antoinette; cocktails at the British Embassy with Ms. Fraser, cocktails with the guests of Honor, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Kissinger at the American Embassy; a champagne reception hosted by Princess Caroline of Monaco, cocktails at the de Ganays’ Chateau de Fleury de Biere and then a dinner dance at the de Ganays’ very famous Chateau de Courrance which is only 7 kilometers from Fleury, followed by fireworks.

There wil be a fete champetre at Valentino’s Chateau Videville; a reception at Versailles at Les Trois Fontaines “In memory of Liliane de Rothschild” who was an esteemed (probably the greatest private) collector of Marie Antoinette artifacts, followed by a Dejeuner sur l’Herbe at the Bosquet des Bains d’Apollon, a site that has been rarely used for entertaining since the days of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, followed by “Le Promenade du Roi” through the Royal apartements, the Petits Appartements, the hall of Mirrors and other rooms “enveloped in the history” of Versailles. That evening, the final event will be the “Sous les Ponts de Paris,” cocktails and a private boat ride on the Seine with a chateuse to assist everyone in soaking up the romance and nostalgia of Paris.

After the description of the June 2006 week in Paris and Versailles, dessert was served, after which everyone adjourned to the main house on the hilltop for a brief tour. The tour was quick and disappointing (because we had little time to see it) and we were back in our car on the way back to Manhattan at four o’clock. Rain had come and gone, the sun had come out and we’d somehow had a long day making that trip.

The entrance, grounds and interiors of Kykuit

On the Molyneux terrace

Alexis Tobin wearing Tuleh

That night Pilar and Juan Pablo Molyneux threw a cocktail party at their beautiful East Side townhouse for the Friends. The Molyneux have a small pool on the terrace roof of the house with one of those machines that creates waves so one can swim against the current. It must be some workout.

I missed the last day of the AFV week which began with a champagne reception at the art filled Fifth Avenue apartment of Anne Bass, followed by another reception at cocktail time at the Park Avenue residence of Francine LeFrak and Rick Friedberg. This was followed by a buffet dinner at the Park Avenue apartment of Catharine and David Hamilton.

The American Friends of Versailles gathered from all over the US and France for the week. Many friendships have been forged from the activities of this organization.

To learn more about the organization and its June 2006 program, you can write them at:

American Friends of Versailles
100 East Walton Place
Suite 6W
Chicago, Illinois 60611
312-943-0173
fx 312-664-1637