Houston’s Green Museum Turns Park Partying Into an Official Thing — The Menil Embraces Its Surroundings

Gently spread across 30 oak-shrouded acres, The Menil Collection recently celebrated its verdant landscape for the first time with “Party in the Park,” a new fall fundraiser that took advantage of a glorious autumn evening. Food, frolic and music punctuated the night that raised $285,000 for museum operations, which include the parks and green spaces.

Bergner & Johnson joined Mother Nature in setting the stage for the inaugural event with the addition of tabletop centerpieces featuring delicate maiden hair fern which was laced with fall flowers from local and regional gardens. Supplementing moonlight and starlight, the garden was illuminated by strings of party lights and dazzling chandeliers.

Strolling the grassy landscape among the throng of 300 partygoers were chairs Libba and Geer Blalock, Liz and George DeMontrond, Capera and Igor Norinsky, and Kelley and Jeff Scofield. They rollicked to the jazz band beats of Django Foxtrot, courtesy of Dart Collective, and the spins of DJ Cory. Those feeling music in their toes took a few spins across the outdoor dance floor.

What’s a good party without good food? No worries there, as Jackson & Company delivered with food stations featuring a menu that included shrimp and grits martinis, coconut crusted chicken croquette, 40-day aged beef tenderloin tagliata, a bruschetta station, and a host of sweets including  s’mores verrine, lemon verrine, coconut macarons, miniature apple rose tartlets, short bread cookies, orange poppyseed cookies and bittersweet chocolate wafers.

PC Seen: The Menil Collection director Rebecca Rabinow, Allison Baumann, Nancy Littlejohn, Raquel and Andrew Segal, Kelly and Nick Silvers, Allison and Cullen Powell, India Lovejoy and Rick Lowe, Kelly Barnhart, Beth Robertson, Doug Lawing, Illa and Will Gaunt, Janet Hobby, Jane and Daniel Zilkha, Cali and Peter Pettigrew, Libby Masterson, Lyndsey Zorich, and Judy and Scott Nyquist.