Hampton Style - August 31, 2007

I loved this summer. It felt shorter, due to my kids' camps and travels, and maybe that explains the love. Three-month summers used to make me homicidal, but I'm feeling very chill and supremely wistful about going back to wearing shoes, to school, to New York. Fall is actually the most wonderful season in the Hamptons, and though you will continue to hear from me throughout, alas, it will only be weekend dispatches. Here is my humble assessment of the best days of summer:

Best cocktail party: Pandy Biddle Hentic and Yves Hentic's annual Memorial Day soiree. A 20-plus-year tradition, they hold it early, when we are all genuinely happy to see each other. And you've got to love hosts whose first piece of furniture was a professional 20-foot bar they bought on Ebay.

Best kids party: Jonathan and Nicky Otto-Bernstein's joint birthday. This year was a superhero theme. On hand were assorted kids, and (I hope) very well-paid adults in tights and capes, a blow-up Easter Island rock climber, and many slippery, slidy opportunities. Jonathan and Nicky's mother, Katharina, promised that she'd keep the equipment for an adult incarnation in the evening next year.

Best clambake: Linda Wells and Charlie Thompson's low-lit, low-key beach party featured steel drums, lobsters, the best mix of people, and the roaring ocean. (Isn't that why we're here?)

Best screening: First Look Studios' King of California starring Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood. It's a witty and charming film that we were truly happy to toast at Woody Johnson and Suzanne Ircha's dinner afterwards, under a sparkling tent, with the most glam visitors of the summer, Mr. Douglas and his irritatingly perfect, but too-nice-to-hate wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Best girls' night: Alexia Hamm Ryan hosted 40 yummy mummies, including a Locust Valley posse, at her annual early-summer dinner. The women, clad in their Tory/Calypso/Feith finery, belied the idea that they only dress for men. They feasted on chef Anna Maria's delectable fare, and admired the prettiest girls in the room, who happened to be Alexia's twins, Theodora and Alexandra.

Best art event: Robert Wilson's Watermill Benefit was unbeaten for inventive, eclectic fun. The Parrish Art Museum's Midsummer Party this year was a grand tribute to Trudy C. Kramer, the Museum's beloved, departing director. And third, the opening of the Eric Fischl and Merrill Falkenberg curated show All the More Real: Portrayals of Intimacy and Empathy, along with the private dinner Eric and April Gornik hosted for the participating artists. Which studio shall we sup in? April or Eric's? A delicious dilemma.

Best musical evening: Jazz at Lincoln Center's dinner, at Jay and Victoria Furman's, featured a performance by the extraordinary Wynton Marsalis. I can't imagine making my debut with Wynton, but that's exactly what the polo player Nacho Figueras's sax-playing sister Mercedes did.

Best noble shopping opportunity: Half the homes in Southampton have pieces from the Fresh Air Home's DDD (Decorators-Designers-Dealers) sale. I happily cop to it. Remember Planned Parenthood's Cocktail/Vintage auction curated by Lisa Perry? Need I say more? And, of course, who could forget the Ovarian Cancer Foundation's Super Saturday 10, where even darling Kelly Ripa's elbows were sharpened? She was heard declaring "I'm goin' in," as she fought her way through throngs for bargain-basement-priced Marc Jacobs.

Best birthday party: Victoria Amory's dinner for her husband, Minot. Victoria exercised her entertaining prowess-she wrote the cookbook Delicious, and will be hosting a PBS entertaining show this fall. She wowed with centerpieces of limes, lemons, persimmons, and other garden glories, and a menu of her own recipes based on local organic food. Minot was toasted by family and friends who'd traveled the globe for him. His friendships cumulatively totaled almost 3,000 years.

Best over-the-top lunch: Somers and Jonathan Farkas' Hampton Classic Lunch; this year designed by Barclay Butera, who created a Lobb riding boot centerpiece and horse-print tablecloths and napkins just for the day

Best dance party: A bit premature to call, especially with the Dean and Ogunlesi bashes happening this weekend, but I've got to give an early lead to Ophelia and Billy Rudin and the Papachristidis's dinner dance, in an Alex Papachristidis-designed tent filled with blue-and-white-batik lanterns, a white patent dance floor, and white banquettes, with Tom Finn masterfully sending us into a disco frenzy. Ophelia and I discovered we share a favorite dance song: "It's Raining Men." In my case, it's a sure-fire way to mortify anyone unlucky enough to be dancing with me. Not that I need anyone to dance with me.

Best salon: Well, the only salons, but even if Gertrude Stein was still cooking, Anne Hearst McInerney and Jay McInerney would still win for their cozy, smart, eclectic Tuesday evenings at their emu-surrounded, Robert Couturier-designed manse.