The Golden Age

(NEW YORK) Will we ever be allowed to forget that the tanking economy is de-chic-ifying our lives? Last night's screening of Brideshead Revisited, hosted by Andrew Saffir's Cinema Society & Victorinox, reminded the stylish that those glory days of cocktail-heavy afternoons spent on outrageous estates are effectively over. (Well...come fall, anyway.)

The film's spectacular setting was the superlative Yorkshire estate known as Castle Howard. Construction began in 1701 and wasn't completed for over 100 years--and no wonder. The Castle also provided the setting for the original Brideshead Revisited miniseries, which aired in 1981 and was based on the Evelyn Waugh novel of the same name. "The day that I got there, I realized, oh, this is how rich we are," said Hayley Atwell, who plays seductress Julia Flyte in the Julian Jarrold-directed film. "You inhabit the space a lot easier than if you were in the studio. You have a sense of entitelment, like it's the place you grew up in, which is very different from my own."

The delectable Matthew Goode, who stars as the proverbial outsider Charles Ryder, was similarly awestruck. "The estate does half of your job for you," he explained. "And the Howards are really very nice." What on earth could ever top it? "I think you'd have to go to Buckingham Palace," Goode deadpanned. "But I haven't been there yet!"

After the screening, the crew decamped to the Gramercy Park Hotel's notorious roofdeck. Muching on risotto, steak, and mini tiramisu: Mamie Gummer,  Linda Wells, Amy Sacco, Hamish Bowles, Nicole Miller, Keren Craig, Rufus Albemarle, Elizabeth Saltzman, Daniel Benedict, Yigal Azrouel, Byrdie Bell, Helen & Tim Schifter, and Jamee and Peter Gregory.

Julianne Nicholson, whose husband Jonathan Cake appears in the film, was duly wowed by the Castle, which she visited during filming. She reminisced about similarly awe-inspiring homes. "In 1990, I was at Liberace's apartment, which was amazing...and this is going to sound tacky, but I got married at Sting and Trudie's house in Italy, and that was one of the most amazing, beautiful, opulent places I've ever seen. But I don't want to drop names!"
ASHLEY BAKER