D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A A Year of Celebrations. Many in the crowd from the worlds of fashion, food, design, and media, including Clive Davis, Sirio Maccioni and his wife Egidiana, Alex von Bidder, Nichie Notar, Todd Eberle, Johnny Pigozzi, John Derian, Jeffrey Bilhuber, Cornelia Guest, Charlotte Beers, plus Bergdorf’s Linda Fargo. Pierre Schaedelin made a great selection of hors d’ouevres inspired from the book. I’m not a Martha Stewart customer, but I am a fan. I don’t watch her shows, buy her magazines, or read her books, but I’ve seen her hundreds of times over the years at gatherings here in New York and in the
Hamptons. I followed the terrible case against her in which she actually ended up going to jail and appeared to turn into a pariah (if the media had had its way, but only for a nanosecond). Although I’ve had conversations with her, I know her mainly from observation. Her accomplishments are awesome, as well as inspiring. She’s a pro on camera. The diversity of her enterprise, within the realm of her focus, is incredible, and now having hit the ripe young age of 70, she continues to do it as well and as thoroughly—even more so—than she did 30 years ago when she was first getting started. Certainty of
purpose, as Werner Ehrhard once muttered. The new book of hers is beautiful. Big, gorgeously published, and thick with dazzling photographs— especially the photographs of what she’s serving up. It’s typical Martha: the best, the most beautiful. You want everything in the picture. You want to make it. And then eat it. This book is about Martha’s life. It covers her house parties in Bedford, East Hampton, Maine—all fabulous old houses site-specific to their locations. She lives better than any rich person I know. She is obviously rich herself, but it’s what she does with it.
The estate in Seal Harbor was built by Edsel Ford for family summers. One night at a dinner I was seated next to her and brought up the house in Maine. I knew it was big, and a long ride from New York (and she has a house in East Hampton), so I asked if she used it much and if she ever had guests, because it’s a 10-hour drive from New York and not an especially convenient journey even by plane (unless you fly private, which presumably Martha herself does). Yes, she told me, she loved the house and used it often and had lots of guests. Just like in her book. Having been a houseguest many times up in
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