Venusberg Awaits

I am allowing only one photo of the wardrobe about to accompany me to Newport, R.I., the "Venusberg" of the great Edith Wharton's novels. This I do only to set The Countess on her toes; my look will be simple, alluding-yet-distant, and Worth. Not one to flaunt, I think a simple black, velvet choker with an emerald the size of Nantucket will carry the night of duBarry's great ball.

The Countess is a dear friend and was gracious enough to travel down to South Beach for my wedding in a private train car of outfits, goodwill, and young boys to serve her. She left with boundless thanks, more goodwill, and not a few of my boys.

Venusberg was, is, and probably always be the real Fantasy Island. It was America's first "resort", quite truthfully invented by Caroline Astor's court jester, Ward Mcallister; Wharton always thought it a magical but purposeless playground. I doubt it is any less magical than the days when, just a young girl in a hoop skirt, I used to marvel at the one home on Bellvue Avenue with barbed wire on its walls. It was the home of Doris Duke, she still lived there, and had bought up most of the dilapidated, colonial homes on the waterfront for next to nothing. For all the stories of a rich girl gone wild, Ms. Duke saved Newport. She sold those very homes for next to nothing to people who contracted to renovate them and preserve their colonial heritage. Sometimes your life can be a mess and, yet, you know the right thing to do. I was hoisted on my (or some) daddy's shoulder once to see Queen Elizabeth II emerging from one of those saved relics. Ms. Duke was probably the last, true member of a world named Venusberg, but she saved it for the rest of us.