Flame-haired prince-of-hearts Harry Windsor is touching down in the city today, wrapping up his latest U.S. tour with visits to Harlem and New Jersey, before rounding off the week by captaining a Polo match in Connecticut.
The third in line to the English throne will visit the Tri-State area less than nine months Read More
“This is insane…it’s like a Fellini film,” The Observer overheard one guest murmur as we arrived at the Southampton Hospital gala last Saturday evening. The theme of the evening was Grand Prix Monaco, though many of the high-paying donors didn’t seem to have gotten the memo—or known what it meant, perhaps. Women wore colorful dresses in every conceivable hue and style, while the men ranged from casual checkered shirts to top hats and tails.
Though this was a charity event, there was a measure of self-interest on the part of the attendees: after all, the Jenny and John Paulson Emergency Department of Southampton Hospital is the only emergency room facility for 50 miles. As opposed to say, giving money to Haiti, this was clearly a cause that could potentially affect donors directly.
“This benefit is considered sort of the social benefit of the season,” gala chair Laura Lofaro Freeman told The Observer. “It’s really to update and upgrade the equipment in the emergency room, make sure it’s cutting-edge…et cetera.” Read More
Not long ago, I attended a party thrown by gym magnate Bob Roberts and his wife, Lauren Day Roberts. Walking around their opulent Southampton villa, I found myself talking to a small cluster of people hanging out by the infinity pool—the outdoor one, not to be confused with its heated indoor companion—asking what they do for fun. Besides cluster near infinity pools, that is.
“Well, polo season is about to start,” former rock journalist and current PR maven Liz Derringer told me.
“I love polo,” I said. “I used to play it all the time.”
I received some incredulous stares, since I guess no one suspected a sleek urbanite such as myself actually spent her formative years in Newark, Delaware, where everyone who was anyone played water polo.
“Well, then you have to meet Nacho Figueras next weekend at the Bridgehampton Polo Club kickoff,” my dear friend (and publicist) R. Couri Hay suggested. “Maybe we can even set you up with a lesson. When was the last time you rode a horse?”
That’s when it dawned on me that they were talking about polo polo: the kind played by very attractive men who appear in Ralph Lauren campaigns. The kind that’s like croquet on horseback, where you gallop at full tilt while bending over to hit a very small plastic ball with a 10-20 pound mallet. Read More
Arriving to the Pier 66 boathouse on the Hudson River Wednesday evening, The Observer admitted we hadn’t been in a kayak for at least ten years. Even then, we just splashed around at summer camp.
“Do you know how to swim?” asked Lev Grote, president of the New York Kayak Water Polo Club. “That’s key.” Read More
THE SUNDAY TRAIN TO GREENWICH left near the brunch hour and wound fast from Grand Central up out of the city, through the tree-dotted commuter towns, decrepit cities and expanses of green space. Just across the Connecticut border we stopped and at the taxi stand we spotted an editor from Interview magazine in red, bulb-shaped Read More
“Did you know there’s a guy named Nacho here?” Kathy Griffin asked The Observer.
We were on Governors Island for the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic, the fourth annual polo match that takes place in New York City. The crowd, a smattering of socialites (Lauren Santo Domingo in white, tiny once again three months after giving Read More
Wednesday, June 1
Lincoln Debates
Not all is well at Lincoln Center–the City Opera finally bolted for greener (hopefully more acoustically sound) pastures, and the City Ballet’s season was described by our venerable dance critic as “schizophrenic.” Plus, they have a theater named after a tea-partying Koch brother! But the site’s ongoing redevelopment continues apace, Read More
Are you aware of a certain Peter Brant II? Ah, you’re not? Here’s the “about” section of his Facebook fan page, it’s a perfectly good primer:
Peter Brant II is a Designer, Art Collector, Socialite, and Model, and the eldest son of Supermodel Stephanie Seymour and Newsprint Billionare [sic] Peter Brant I
Well Read More
Interview magazine publisher — and Polo enthusiast — Peter Brant and former supermodel Stephanie Seymour reunited yesterday after a year and a half of vicious divorce proceedings. Now they’re making the recommitment even more official. The New York Post reports that the couple is shopping around for townhouses on both sides of Central Park. It seems there Read More
If spit, flung along with a good dose of Champagne by Prince Harry of Windsor into the face of his opponent Nacho Figueras, defined last year’s Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic on Governors Island, Sunday afternoon’s event will be remembered for another bodily fluid.
“I’m sweating like a hog like everyone else here,” said Read More
