In early May, fashion and art types from all over prepared to descend on New York. First, there was the Met Gala, then the opening of Frieze New York and the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), plus a handful of smaller satellite fairs like the one put on by the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA). Figuring that many of her friends would be in town at once, Lily Atherton Hanbury, 45, who splits her time between London and Oxfordshire, England, and is the creative director and a co-founder of Le Monde Béryl — a shoe brand known for its elegant velvet slippers and Mary Janes — decided she’d come too, and that she’d throw a party. The order of events would be drinks, then dinner, then dancing, and the venue would be the Harlem home of her sister, the artist Hope Atherton, 50, and brother-in-law, the art dealer and gallerist Gavin Brown, 60. Together with their 11-year-old daughter, Feroline, the couple live in a 19th-century brick townhouse that, with its open kitchen-and-dining area, verdant balcony and appealing array of art and design pieces, calls out for a crowd.
“We’ve got the system down,” said Brown, sitting on a bulbous C-shaped foam and suede couch he purchased at an auction of items from the estate of the R&B singer Luther Vandross. Indeed, Brown and Atherton have had plenty of practice, what with the countless parties for artists they’ve hosted there, including a teeming celebration for Joan Jonas following her opening at MoMA last March. Atherton Hanbury was expecting a similarly large crowd of over 100 guests, so out came the extra glassware, silverware and serving platters once again. “I’ve been really surprised by how calm they are, having so many people invade their house,” said Atherton Hanbury. “It gets packed, but it’s still fun,” Brown said with a shrug. Feroline didn’t mind, either, and was excited for an occasion to wear her “vintage” Le Monde Béryl lace-up block heels, a style dating from soon after the label’s 2016 launch and a cherished gift from her aunt.
The attendees: The guests, said Atherton Hanbury, consisted of “a community of old friends and new friends — people traveling from faraway places, but also local New Yorkers.” The stylist Kate Young arrived first, in black mesh Le Monde Béryl heeled mules. She hadn’t dressed any clients for the Met Gala this year and had spent the first Monday in May happily relaxing at her house upstate. The stylist and creative consultant Becky Akinyode, however, was impressively still out and about after attending four different Met Gala after-parties. Also in attendance were the designer and producer Alexandre de Betak, the photographer and filmmaker Joshua Woods and the artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones. They compared schedules with art world figures, including the Frieze London director Eva Langret, the art adviser Sarah Levine and curators, directors and gallerists like Alexandra Cunningham-Cameron (Cooper Hewitt), Legacy Russell (the Kitchen), Gladys and Ollivier Chenel (Galerie Chenel), Monica Fernandez-Taranco (Modern Art), Sarah Rustin (Thaddaeus Ropac) and Emma Scully (Emma Scully Gallery).
The décor: Although the kitchen-dining room is filled with precious works by artists including Alex Katz and Elizabeth Peyton, it’s also warm and inviting: A long wood table stands on well-worn orange, black and white linoleum floor tiles that channel the traditional ceramic floors found in Rome. Atherton Hanbury skipped a tablecloth and dressed the bare surface with nearly as many vintage candlesticks as there were chairs, as well as vases filled with fresh flowers — green hydrangeas, Queen Anne’s lace and white and purple anemones — that she and Grace Kildare, the head of communications at Le Monde Béryl, had bought the day before at Adore, a floral studio on Bond Street, and arranged themselves. “We wanted everything to feel honest and homemade and not overly fussy,” Atherton Hanbury said.
The food: The chef Mina Stone cooked for Brown for most of her twenties, serving family-style dinners at his many gallery openings. She’s also the author of the 2015 cookbook “Cooking for Artists,” which she wrote after spending five years making lunches at Urs Fischer’s Brooklyn studio. “When I’m cooking for this big of a group, I want it to be delicious but also practical,” she said. Influenced by her Greek roots, she offered up a Mediterranean buffet, starting with sourdough bread from Welcome Home Bakery in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, as well as cheeses, seasonal vegetables sprinkled with lemon and salt, and grapes. As for the mains, “I always like to make a shaved cabbage salad [with Parmesan, apples, mint, and toasted almonds] because it gets better as it sits around, instead of wilting into nothing,” Stone said. She also served tangy salmon, crispy potatoes and a black lentil salad with feta, golden raisins and toasted sesame seeds. For dessert, there was a hibiscus pavlova with whipped cream and seasonal fruit, along with pistachio baklava, hazelnut chocolate bark and more fruit.
The drinks: Atherton Hanbury sourced bottles of organic red, white and rosé wines from her friend Marianne Fabre-Lanvin, a co-founder of Souleil, a purveyor based in Paris. She also asked her friend the writer Tarajia Morrell to help make cocktails, specifically tequila palomas, because they’re “easy and refreshing,” she said.
The music: “They always have the best music,” Atherton Hanbury says of the Mason’s Arms, her favorite pub in Oxfordshire. “So I asked, ‘Who does the playlist?’” The answer was Danny Augustine, the pub’s general manager. At Atherton Hanbury’s request, he “very sweetly” made her two custom playlists for her event — one for the drinks and dinner portion, which included songs by the Velvet Underground and Neil Young, and another for dancing that was more upbeat, featuring Grace Jones, Odyssey and the Clash.
The conversation: The week’s events provided much fodder, even if, having worked a busy Frieze booth all day, one gallerist claimed she was struggling to put together sentences. “It’s just word salad,” she said. Young talked about her day of people-watching at TFAF (“The looks!” she said). Emilie Rose Hawtin of Clementina, a clothing brand that specializes in women’s suiting, praised what she’d seen at the Costume Institute’s new tailoring exhibit. Akinyode was still recovering from her late night at the start of the week (WSA’s Met Gala after-party was the best, she said). Still, the chance to peek inside what she called a “legendary” townhouse had given her a second wind.
An entertaining tip: “If you’re hosting often, buy all the rentals,” said Brown. “We’ve got 150 plates and glasses, 150 forks, serving platters …” Atherton Hanbury, who describes herself as “more minimal” when it comes to this sort of décor, was grateful for her “extremely organized” sister and brother-in-law and emphasized how their preparedness made the party feel more “genuine” and “low-key,” like a larger-scale version of the dinner parties her and Atherton’s parents used to host at their home in Virginia. “I just couldn’t believe they had enough plates,” she said.
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