North Shore high rollers Charleston’ed their way to the Nassau County Museum of Art on Saturday for its annual Museum Ball, celebrating with flappers and old sports in the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel “The Great Gatsby,” which served as the party’s theme.
In previous years, the event took place at Huntington’s Oheka Castle, but museum officials said the ball’s move back to the museum this year, a Gold Coast mansion that once served as the Frick estate, helped set the mood for the exclusive party ripped right from the roaring ’20s and the pages of Fitzgerald’s works.
“Bringing the ball back to the museum for the Gatsby theme, it’s a great venue to have,” said Karl Willers, the museum’s director. “It was designed by Ogden Codman, one of the great architects of the 20th century, and this kind of setting is exactly the environment that Fitzgerald was writing about when he wrote “The Great Gatsby.””
The ball is held as one of the museum’s primary fundraising initiatives to benefit its education programs and various exhibits throughout the year, and Willers said the museum hoped to raise between $250,000-$300,000 through a series of silent auctions and ticket costs, which ranged between $350 at the junior level and $1,000 at the patron level.
“We’ve planned a great party tonight,” said Judie Chessin, a member of the ball committee that helped organize the event. “People were really excited about the Gatsby theme because the movie had just come out and it really got people talking. The theme usually comes from the art show, and we’ve always had the ball under tents and people really liked that. There’s something very special about being under that tent.”
The ball kicked off with a cocktail hour and silent auction in the museum’s lobby and patio area before moving on to dinner and dancing to music provided by the Alex Donner Orchestra under a massive tent set up on the museum’s lawn, culminating with the results of the auction and raffle.
Auction items included artwork, jewelry, wine, sports packages and travel experiences, with bids starting ranging from $75-$750, but among the most coveted items of the evening was a two-year lease on a 2013 Jaguar XF-AWD, raffled off courtesy of Great Neck Jaguar, for which only 300 tickets were sold at $100 apiece or for packages of three for $250 or seven for $500.
The event was chaired by museum board member Angela Susan Anton, owner of Anton Community Publications, and the ball’s dinner was sponsored by the Americana Manhasset shopping center.
“We wouldn’t be coming back if we didn’t really enjoy doing it and help the museum do what it wants to do in educating the people,” Chessin said. “That’s the most important thing a museum can do.”
