Alec Baldwin, Dan Ackroyd, Ben Bradlee: Gray Gardens Fete

Walk through a trellis and you’re at the cottage where Big Edie had her portrait taken, where Ben Bradlee wrote his memoirs. The mystique of Grey Gardens has remained in all its incarnations: an oasis for the lady who planted its gardens and named it for the misty ocean sky, the self created prison of two members of social aristocracy gone askew, and the trophy beach house for a Washington power couple. One month a year famed politicos Sally Quinn and Ben Bradley return to the home they restored from desuetude. With son Quinn Bradlee and Pari Bradlee, they hosted a cocktail party for the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery’s “Some Enchanted Evening” Gala (October 17, 2013) Chairs Dame Jillian Sackler, DBE and expectant parents Hilaria Baldwin and Alec Baldwin, to benefit the Sackler exhibition, “Yoga the Art of Transformation” (running October 19 to January 26).

Host Ben Bradlee with Ann Nitze and Dame Jillian Sackler. (Photo: Gregory Partanio/ManhattanSociety.com)

The Baldwins looked relaxed and happy. She said she was a dancer who found yoga looking “for something completely different and much healthier for my body.” Then she specialized in South Asian art at NYU, where it all came together for her. Weeks before giving birth, Hilaria was a testament to the practice. “Maybe you’ll start doing even more yoga honey,” she cooed to Baldwin as she handed him the mic.

Hostess with the mostess Sally Quinn (center) with guests Jeannie Lars and Dame Jillian Sackler. (Photo: Gregory Partanio/ManhattanSociety.com)

“I wish I had more time to do yoga,” he told the prestigious group. “When I’ve done it fitfully and in periods of my life, I’ve benefited from that…When I was a kid fitness was sports: baseball, basketball, football…They wanted guys to get strong and big and thick and muscular and so forth. Yoga was not on that menu. I’m hoping…yoga becomes among other things more in the fore of our society. This is something we can introduce to kids in schools.”

Navroop Mitter, Yaz Hernandez, Dan Akroyd, Perry Bradlee, David Brown, and Carly Pippin. (Photo: Gregory Partanio/ManhattanSociety.com)

“And I also want to say that Ben and I are proof that the only other thing you can do besides yoga, is marry a woman much younger than you. That’s the other physical regimen I can encourage: yoga and that!”

John Eastman, Perry Bradlee, Quinn Bradlee, and Alec Baldwin. (Photo: Gregory Partanio/ManhattanSociety.com)

Guests who attended included: Dan Ackroyd, John Alexander and Fiona Waterstreet, Ruth Appelhoff of Guild Hall of East Hampton, Jenny Conant, Yaz Hernandez and Valentine Hernandez, Michael Kennedy and Eleanora Kennedy, Anna Kennedy Safir, Marci Klein and Andrew Reyniak, Elizabeth Kircik, Alexandra Loeb, Anne Van Rensselaer and Grace Johnson, Dame Jillian Sackler DBE, John Seelye, Lynn Sherr, Joan Tobin, Amei Wallach and Bill Edwards, and Sir Ivan Wilzig.