Stunning Garden Parties Bring in $1 Million Against Backdrop of a Famed Houston Mansion
Few Events Can Match the Loveliness of These Bayou Bend Affairs
BY Shelby Hodge // 04.13.19Guests help raise $1 million for Bayou Bend coffers at the Bayou Bend Garden Party. (Photo by Wilson Parish)
What a week it has been, starting on Sunday with the Bayou Bend Garden Party, continuing Wednesday and Thursday with the Clay Court Championship luncheons at River Oaks Country Club and all manner of other luncheon and evening fundraisers in between. Few, if any, among them could compete with the always lovely Garden Party.
With the grounds of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s house museum blossoming in varying shades of spring green, the stage was set for yet another elegant al fresco evening. And speaking of green, the night of dinner and dancing brought in a handsome $665,000. When combined with the $307,000 in proceeds from the Bayou Bend Fashion Show and Luncheon, held two days earlier in the same garden tent, plus the Children’s Party with a total of $67,200, the annual weekend of garden parties produced a sweet $1,040,650 for the former home and bountiful gardens of Miss Ima Hogg.
Applause, applause for Garden Party chairs Terry and Tommy Smith, who helmed the evening for which City Kitchen delivered a sumptuous dinner and David Caceres provided the dance tunes. This is traditionally one night in which few leave before the music ends as this primarily old guard crowd enjoys a spin around the dance floor.
As is tradition, the party played out against the backdrop of the John Staub mansion and beneath a bower of chandeliers draped in greenery and florals, the decor the handy work of Johnny Steele and of The Events Company.
PC Seen: MFAH director Gary Tinterow, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens director Bonnie Campbell, Bobbie Nau, Lynne and Joe Hudson, Nancy and Rich Kinder, Polly and Murray Bowden, Nancy and Butch Abendshein, Jenny Elkins, Eliza and Stuart Steadman, Laura and Bill Wheless, Diane Lokey Farb, Whitney and Jim Crane, Anne and Charles Duncan, Rose Cullen, Aliyya and Herman Stude and Courtney and Bass Solleveld.
Elizabeth Anthony
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