Social Diary 12/6/05 - Last night there were cocktail parties

Snow predicted

Christmas trees line up along the northern wall of the Park Avenue Armory. 8:10 PM. Photo: JH.

Last night there were cocktail parties. With the best of intentions, I hit only two out of the three I’d targeted, having got a late start thanks to an uncharged Digital. The age of the techno-excuse.

Bunny Williams and John Rosselli held their annual holiday cocktail party at Mr. R’s famous Treillage, his emporium of drop-dead garden chic at 418 East 75th Street (between York and First). I think the place used to be a horse stall up until he took it over a few moons ago. Williams and Rosselli are so good at what they do and have such a powerful sensibility of what looks good and cool and comfy (and chic) that there are few in the design industry who don’t automatically follow their lead/instincts/notions. Or at least borrow heavily.

Inside John Rosselli's famous Treillage

Mrs. Williams (a/k/a Mrs. R) was in disposed last night and so Mr. R. held the fort. And the fort was mobbed with many fashionable followers, designers, editors and all-around creative people. I saw Sean Driscoll of Glorious Foods (his shop is just around the corner and a couple of blocks down), so I’m presuming that he supplied the hors d’oeuvres which were going fast. I saw Maryann Tucker from Greenwich loading up on ornaments (see picture). She wasn’t the only one. At another part of the forest-y shop, they were selling out what was left of Bunny’s new book which was featured on these pages a few weeks ago. It has to be one of the prettiest and niftiest House-in-the-Country books around and they’ve SOLD OUT the first printing already, no surprise.

I asked John where they were going for the holidays, assuming they were heading north to their fabulous farflung country place, but no, they’re headed south to their newly completed villa in the Dominican Republic just a stone’s throw for Annette and Oscar de la Renta’s famous retreat. Close enough to borrow a cup of sugar.

Virginia Coleman, John Rosselli, and Faith Geier

Howard Christian with Judith and Ward Landrigan

Charlotte Frieze and Marianne Tucker

Mary Hilliard

Duane Hampton

Robert Rufino and Suzanne Tolis

Tim Lovejoy

Margaret Russell

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Geoffrey Bradfield and Jill Roosevelt with the dryad

From there I traveled a few blocks down to interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield’s holiday cocktail party. The invite called for 6 to 8 and I arrived about ten to thinking it’d be me and the stragglers. Wrong. The place was packed and the chilled bottles of Veuve Cliquot were making the rounds and making the rounds.

Mr. Bradfield, the international interior designer only moved into this very large house a few months ago but as is his wont, it was done. To the teeth and to a tee. It’s already been featured in Architectural Digest. The color scheme in the entertaining gallery on the ground floor is white on white and then some more white. And mirrors. And black and white marble tiles. The party décor, provided by Peter Brown whom Mr. Bradfield considers a genius, was also white and gold and silvery white – wreaths, swags, etc. Along with a couple of local dryads, also (sorta) created by Mr. Brown (the local dryad-creator) stationed by the white fireplace. A pair, as they say in the biz.

Ann Rapp and Darcie Leeds

Roric Tobin

Mr. Bradfield is the constant host and a generous one. It wouldn’t surprise me if this cocktail was followed by dinner for forty at some snazzy restaurant down the street – he’s like that. He’d just come back from India and was wearing a smart looking Nehru jacket that some tailors had made for him over there in a day. Took the precise measurements and voila (or something Indian for voila).

Among the likely suspects quaffing the bubbly were some new faces in this part of the forest: Joe Jackson also known to the world as the father of Michael, LaToya, Janet, Jermaine, Marlon, Tito, etc. Mr. J has offices here for his JJP, Inc. and his “Worldwide Hip Hop Competitions” (www.HipHopBootCamp.com).