SUZY The place to be on Wednesday night was at New York's exquisite..

SUZY

The place to be on Wednesday night was at New York’s exquisite Frick Museum, once the palatial, art-filled, Fifth Avenue home of Henry Clay Frick, the steel and railroads tycoon, a collector of note, who left it to the public, the sweet thing, along with a splendid endowment to keep it in the same magnificent style the Fricks accustomed themselves to when Gracious Living meant “fit for a king.” The key words here are “palatial” and “fit for a king,” because it was at the palace-like Frick that His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales and future King of England, gave his little private dinner for 80 select guests, heavy on the rich, the famous and the terminally well-dressed.
Setting the tone — and doing it with a light touch and easy charm — was a relaxed and smiling Prince Charles (was it relief because that ghastly divorce is finally behind him?) who, in a perfectly tailored dinner jacket, looked fresh as paint after flying in from Brunei where he and the Sultan had a little get-together. I don’t think there was a person at the party the prince didn’t greet warmly and engage in pleasantries. We know he has been trained for this since birth, but what incredible focus. He brought along the retinue that accompanies him everywhere, but the couple guiding him through the reception in the spectacular Garden Court and into the dinner in the soaring Music Room (which Bill Tansey had filled with roses that might have come from an English garden) were Prince Charles’s close American friends, Jorie Butler Kent, shimmering in a white charmeuse column, and her husband, Geoffrey Kent, the prince’s polo-playing pal.
The Glorious Food menu, complete with the prince’s three-plumed crest, began with artichoke bottoms filled with caviar, quail eggs and mushrooms and ended with a melange of sorbet and fresh fruits. In between there was grilled salmon with tamarind sauce, said to be one of the prince’s favorites. We colonials do aim to please.
It could have been the lighting — perfect — but every woman there looked her best. There was Diane Sawyer, looking as beautiful as she ever has, in sexy red clinging chiffon by Valentino that showed off the translucent skin of her shoulders and belle poitrine. What light she’s been hiding under a bushel of pantsuits! There was Mercedes Bass, who defines all that is chic, in strapless black silk with a little white silk jacket slung over her shoulders. There were Nancy Brinker in black with diamond buttons, and Carroll Petrie in periwinkle blue chiffon and pearls (she and Anne Cox Chambers flanked the Prince of Wales at the table). There was Blaine Trump in a white Oscar de la Renta with a jacket sprigged with violets. There was Veronica Hearst in white chiffon and jeweled chokers (two). And everywhere you looked you saw Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece, whose delicious wife, the former Marie-Chantal Miller, is expecting their first child within the week; the British Ambassador Sir John Kerr and Lady Kerr; Sid Bass; Charles Ryskamp, the director of the Frick Collection, Mrs. Clay Frick in a strapless white lace top and a cocoa taffeta skirt; Prince Pierre d’Arenberg with Silvia de Castellane; Alexander Papamarkou; Lou and John Georges; Joan Wegner; Kimberly Rockefeller; Vada and Ted Stanley; Elizabeth and Adam Lindemann; Richard Jenrette; Georgette Mosbacher; Randolph Apperson Hearst; Astrid and Kip Forbes; Robert Higdon; Arianna and Michael Huffington; Robert Trump; Katherine and Billy Rayner; Pete Hathaway; the prince’s private secretary, Stephen Lamport, and others too prominent to mention. During dinner, Prince Charles made a little speech detailing how much his Foundation for Architecture means to him. Last night in Newport, he made another little speech detailing how much the British Mary Rose Trust, of which he is president, means to him. He is, after all, a working prince, and all play and no work does not get the job done.
At the New York Yacht Club in Newport yesterday, Charles also lectured on what is so dear to his heart, architectural preservation and restoration — and what better place than Newport, which works so diligently to preserve its beauty and Gilded Age history. It’s the height of the social season there, and the highlight of the height is Charles’s visit. But not to forget Maureen and John Donnell’s big 15th wedding anniversary ball on July 31 at Rosecliff and the Preservation Society’s big coaching weekend in August. This happens once every three years and half the population of the Brandywine Valley turns out for it. (As for the other half, well, you’ll have to get someone else to tell you about that.)
The Donnells’ festival is expected to be a three-day affair with Newporters Barton Gubelmann and Irene Aitken giving festive luncheons for all the out-of-town guests. The night before their Rosecliff gala, the Donnells are having a cocktail party at their house, Ker Arvor, and later a big lobster dinner at the Clambake Club. Among the 250 plus expected are Helen and John Winslow, Nancy and Peter McBean, Noreen and John Drexel, Eileen Slocum, Betty Blake, Evie Annenberg Hall, Sen. and Mrs. Claiborne Pell, Nicole and Derek Limbocher, Betty and Herbert Swope, Barton Gubelmann, Jim Mitchell, Kate and James Gubelmann, Eleanor and William Wood-Prince, Topsy Taylor McFadden, Ruth Buchanan, Jackie and Nicky Drexel, Gilbert Kahn, Julia and Charles Amory and many others too numerous to mention.
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So, it’s easy for all to see that Newport, one of the grandest of all resorts, is in full swing. Eileen Slocum, certainly one of the grandest of Newport’s grandes dames, gave a dinner for Steve Forbes at her Bellevue Avenue mansion. (Eileen will be going to the Republican Convention in San Diego as a Rhode Island delegate). Nancy and Alexander Cushing gave a buffet for 200 at the house, Sea Cove, on Prices Neck with Joey Bushkin on the piano and all that. And did you know that the dance at Bailey’s Beach, which officially opens the season, was in honor of Claiborne Pell, Rhode Island’s senior senator and the Democrat’s Democrat? As part of the celebration, there were bagpipes playing and a donkey to represent the Dems of course, except the donkey absolutely refused to enter the club. Which prompted Bailey’s Beach president, the erudite John Winslow, to say, “The donkey probably heard there were too many Republicans inside.” Don’t you love it?
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To end on a provocative note, the English tabloids — in fact tabloids everywhere — are expected to blare out the news that Princess Diana, 35, and Crown Prince Felipe of Spain, 28, had a recent rendezvous in Majorca. There is really nothing to read into their meeting — can you imagine the King and Queen of Spain going cuckoo over that one? — other than it was in a private house belonging to the Spanish royals and that there were candlelight dinners and days spent speedboating. Diana stayed at a nearby hotel — she’s a great one for preserving decorum, no? — but, oh my, what fun! And what does Diana think of Felipe? Only that he’s handsome, cute, charming, darling and that he makes her laugh. And this, dear readers, is right from the caballo’s mouth.

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