Interview: Chelsea Clinton endorses her Mom and women as leaders…

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS from the Clinton White House… 1994

Official 1994 William Clinton White House Christmas Card. Painting of White House Red Room by Thomas McKnight. Produced for the White House by American Greetings co.

 

 

 

Clinton/ Mezvinsky Rehearsal Dinner To Be Held At Grasmere

The Hudson Valley News has confirmed the rehearsal dinner for the marriage of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky will take place at Grasmere, a magnificent 500-acre estate that traces it’s roots to the 19th century in Rhinebeck, New York.

The dinner will take place in the spectacularly refurbished barn on the property with a breathtaking view of hayfields and a Hudson Valley sunset.

The barn itself has a completely open southern exposure. Grasmere is owned by architect and philanthropist Steve Mensch and his wife. It has been the site of numerous charity benefits and is located on at the end of a secluded dirt road.

Our reporter visited the location and was told any further information would have to come from the Secret Service.

More information on the venue for the rehearsal dinner,  see link below:

http://www.grasmerefarm.com

Wedding presents rolling in for Chelsea from ALL over the World!

Hillary Clinton given wedding presents for Chelsea

The wedding presents are rolling in from around the world.
Today, while in Hanoi for diplomatic meetings a little over a week before the July 31 wedding of Chelsea Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State and mother-of-the-bride Hillary Clinton was given a wedding present — a white tablecloth — for her daughter by the Vietnamese government. She was also given a gemstone mosaic portrait of her with Chelsea during their 2000 visit to the country.

“Very nice,” Clinton said when Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem presented her with the gifts, reports AP. Clinton is on the last leg of a four-nation tour that also took her to Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Korea — all while helping to plan the wedding. Clinton said that traveling while “trying to help organize my daughter’s wedding is proof … that I may be lacking in common sense.”

Daily Juice: Another day closer to Chelsea’s BIG Day!

NEW YORK – If Chelsea Clinton gets a migraine during the final fitting for her custom Oscar de la Renta wedding gown, she’ll have a stylish new place to rest her cerebral head.

Clinton recently bought two cream, lavender, and taupe sofa pillows at Hammertown, a tony home-furnishings store in Rhinebeck, New York, the quaint village on the Hudson River where she is marrying private-banker boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky this month.

Rhonda Cayea, manager of Hammertown, described the $178 pillows as “understated”—an adjective that doesn’t apply to much in Rhinebeck.

[In Photos: Chelsea Clinton Through the Years]

Take Astor Courts, where Clinton and Mezvinsky will tie the knot July 31. The turn-of-the-century 26,000-square-foot mansion, built to resemble the Grand Trianon at Versailles, has five bedrooms, seven fireplaces, indoor clay tennis courts, and an indoor Mediterranean-style pool. A few months ago, the photographer Annie Leibovitz, who lives in the grand dairy barn on the estate, gave David Bowie and his wife Iman a tour of her multimillion-dollar digs as they were house-hunting. The $12 million mansion has since been taken temporarily off the market—until the wedding drama is over.

The Beaux Arts mansion, built by Gilded Age tycoon John Jacob Astor IV, sits high on a bluff, surrounded by 3,500 bucolic acres and dense forest that, these days, are crawling with Secret Service agents—all in Defcon 1-style security mode for the closest thing America gets to a royal wedding.

“Get out of here,” a tall, blond, and very fit Secret Service agent wearing shorts and an azure “Cape Cod” T-shirt laughingly told an intruder, who had taken the half-mile walk up the gravel toward Astor Court’s iron gate. “I have nothing to tell you,” the agent added.

To the intruder on the gravel path, the scene in the forest evoked Errol Flynn in tights as Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men hiding among the maples and oaks. Along the borders of the estate, workmen were busy repairing crumbling stone walls.

The locals call it “The Wedding of the Century.” But it’s so private, so shrouded in secrecy, neither the local sheriff’s office nor the town police have been given any details about how to deploy, said Tom Traudt, the Rhinebeck town supervisor. “I expect we’ll get a head’s up 10 days or two weeks before the event,” he told The Daily Beast.

Secret Service agents aren’t the only ones in lockdown.

Josh Kroner, the affable owner and chef of Terrapin Restaurant, an upscale eatery in town that’s catering the rehearsal dinner, is spending the entire week out of his kitchen to deal with security, White House staffers, local farm suppliers, and the event’s quasi-celebrity planner, Bryan Rafanelli, in Boston. On his plate: how to make the dinner at Grasmere, a Revolutionary War-era private estate with a Georgian brick manor and Edwardian stone barns, all spread out over 525 acres of farmland, hayfields, and forest, feel cozy and intimate.

This week, Kroner’s longtime catering director, Hugh Piney, a chatty Brit, is busy fielding phone calls from reporters and making sure there’s enough horseradish-encrusted Ahi tuna with miso aioli—Terrapin’s signature dish—to feed Chelsea’s nearest and dearest. “We use all the local farmers,” Piney said. “We can get everything here—except fish.”

With 8,300 residents, Rhinebeck is sometimes dubbed “the Hamptons of the North.” The entire town, which grew rich—and Democratic—amid the influx of wealthy Manhattanites over the past 15 years, is straight out of The Great Gatsby—with a heavy dose of liberal consciousness thrown in. (Think Pilates, organic food, and a surprising number of Tibetans.) The nearby Rhinecliff Inn serves the “Millionaire Mojito,” and Uma Thurman, Drew Barrymore, and Sarah Jessica Parker have all been spotted in town. But don’t expect locals to snap their pictures. “One thing about this town, we like to respect people’s privacy,” says Cayea.

How do you pull off sneaking hundreds of A-listers into this sleepy hamlet on the Hudson?

Still, a little digging reveals that some guests have been booked at the Beekman Arms, a favorite dining establishment of Bill and Hillary, who live in Chappaqua, which is a 90-minute drive south. Larry Cihanek, the inn’s host and a former advertising executive, once seated the two Clintons at a table near the bathroom, while five Secret Service agents covered the kitchen and lurked outside under the eaves. “I usually put children next to the bathroom because they like to play around,” Cihanek said. He paused, with a twinkle in his eye, and added, “So does Bill.”

According to The Hudson Valley News, guests invited to the wedding include President Obama (though he’s not attending), Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, Clinton confidant Terry McAuliffe, and media mogul Ted Turner.

But how do you pull off sneaking hundreds of A-listers into this sleepy hamlet on the Hudson?

Patricia Garofal, a neighbor and friend of Kathy Hammer and Alfred Seelbinder, the wealthy Democrats who own and live at Astor Courts, has been eyeing the helicopters flying over River Road—the entrance to the estate—for weeks. And according to a resident insider, Countess Iliana Kerckerinck van Meeteren, who lives in a nearby estate overlooking the Hudson River, has been tapped to provide use of her private helipad to certain guests.

“The security’s going to have to be intense because of the number of ways you can access the property,” said Garofal, who signed a confidentiality agreement with Hammer, a former executive at Oxygen Media, and Hammer’s property-developer husband, Seelbinder.

Given that Amtrak runs through the Hudson River side of Astor Courts, Garofal said it was likely the wedding party would rent out entire train cars to ferry guests to and from Manhattan, two hours south of Rhinebeck.

Apparently, those who make the trek will receive—spoiler alert!—gift bags that include Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market paper calendars and orange tote bags with woodcut honeybee prints. According to a resident insider, the co-owner of The Paper Trail, a chic local emporium of paper goods, jewelry and gifts, is assembling 310 gift bags.

At $2 a piece, those totes are in fact “understated.”

Chelsea Clinton’s July 31 Wedding at Opulent Astor Courts-

Astor Courts selected for it's beauty and simplicity.

The closely held details of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding have begun to leak out, and the first major morsel may well be the venue.

The Bride and Groom

She will marry investment banker Marc Mezvinksy, 31, at Astor Courts, a Beaux-Arts masterpiece overlooking the Hudson River designed in 1902 by famed architect Stanford White for American oligarch John Jacob Astor IV. From the outside, it evokes Louis XIV’s Grand Trianon at Versailles. And inside? It’s straight out of an Edith Wharton novel.

Astor Courts, overlooking a spectacular view of the Hudson River

Speculation about everything from Chelsea’s wedding gown (Vera Wang? Oscar de la Renta?) to the officiant (a Protestant minister? A rabbi? Both? Neither? ) to the honeymoon destination (still a secret) have been swirling around the publicity-shy only child of former president Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for months.

Trois Clintons-Un Bush

Never mind that the bride’s publicist, members of her mother’s inner circle, the Boston wedding planner and the owners of the 50-acre estate on the outskirts of Rhinebeck, N.Y., have zipped their lips about all aspects of the celebration. The venue story first broke in the Hudson Valley News on Thursday, based on a unauthorized tip from a local resident. The July 31 guest list is said to be a nice, round 400, with each invitee personally known to the bride, reports New York magazine.

Now 30 and a Columbia University graduate student in public health, Chelsea will marry a man she’s known since she was a teenager living in the White House and attending Washington’s swank, private Sidwell Friends School. Both were at Stanford University, but the romance did not escalate until the past few years. He is the son of two former Democratic members of Congress: Marjorie Margolies of Pennsylvania, defeated after a single term in 1994 for backing President Clinton’s budget, and her ex-husband, Edward Mezvinsky of Iowa, who served two terms in the House in the 1970s, and was later sentenced to seven years in prison for masterminding $10 million in fraud schemes; he was freed in 2008 and remains on parole.

The nuptial couple announced their engagement just after Thanksgiving via e-mail, following numerous false reports they would marry last summer on Martha’s Vineyard.

Astor Courts, two hours north of New York City, is easy to reach by train or car, and elegant enough to provide a picture-perfect wedding backdrop while sufficiently secluded to offer security and privacy for the high-level guests, said to include foreign dignitaries, top U.S. officials and boldface names from the social, financial, entertainment and political worlds.

Built as a sporting pavilion at the turn of the last century, this onetime playground for American aristocrats — think indoor clay tennis court and Moorish-style enclosed swimming pool — is now home to Hillary Clinton supporters Kathleen Hammer, a former Oxygen Media producer, and developer-businessman Arthur Seelbinder. The couple spent three years restoring the decrepit wreck, guided by architect Samuel White, a great-grandson of Stanford White. Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz lives down the road.

Although there has been speculation that the festivities will take place under a tent for added privacy — who wants paparazzi shooting pictures from the other shore? — the building’s ornate 2,100-square-foot main hall, which looks like a Gilded Age ballroom, might work nicely for the ceremony.

What more could a 21st-century bride want?

If you have an interest in learning more about the journey of Kathleen Hammer and husband, Arthur Seelbinder’s restoration project… Astor Courts… click on the link-

TA-Daaa! New Details about Chelsea’s wedding!

Chelsea is positively radiant. Her happiness lights up the room!

Chelsea Clinton Wedding Dress Is Vera Wang!

Chelsea Clinton’s top-secret July 31 wedding is being planned by Massachusetts events organizer Bryan Rafanelli and will be held at a venue “within a three-hour drive of New York City,” according to details released today by New York magazine.

Even invited guests will only find out the exact location a week before the ceremony.

One pal of the bride tells StyeList: “Chelsea is just the most down-to-earth person in real life. She works, she’s crazy about Marc [Mezvinsky, her investment-banker fiancé]. But it’s going to be hard for her to plan this wedding and keep it intimate because things tend to get big when her parents are involved. Her mom and dad know a lot of people.”

The guest list is already a cause of fierce speculation. “It’s not a celebrity-driven wedding,” an insider tells New York magazine. “You really see who their closest friends are in this list.”

Invitations are said to be limited to 400 people and the bride has “instituted a strict no-strangers policy: She must personally know every invitee.”

(Fans of old-school New York society might remember that 400 was also the number of names on Mrs. Caroline Astor’s famous list of approved socialites — 400 being the number of people who could fit into her ballroom.)

Terry McAuliffe, the former DNC chairman and longtime Clinton consigliere, is said to be charged with finding a venue, which will probably be the home of a wealthy Clinton donor.

The Hamptons are reportedly out because of weekend congestion on the roads of New York’s luxury playground, meaning the likely location will be the moneyed but more bucolic Dutchess or Westchester counties (where Bill and Hilary Clinton have a base in the hamlet of Chappaqua).

New York magazine writes that guests will include “Clinton’s special assistant Doug Band, former White House social secretary Capricia Marshall, and top Hillary Clinton aide and former traveling chief of staff Huma Abedin.” (Planner Rafanelli is also doing Abedin’s upcoming wedding to New York City congressman Rep. Anthony Weiner.)

Off the list is said to be California supermarket billionaire and major Clinton-donor Ron Burkle. The former President’s wingman, who had a fondness for the ladies — and a private jet with an unrepeatable nickname that indicates it was where he liked to seal the deal — is said to have made Hillary and Chelsea nervous about his friendship with Bill.

Also unknown is the designer of Chelsea’s wedding dress. The pal tells StyleList: “I think the smart money is on a New York designer like Oscar de la Renta or Vera Wang. Chelsea is quite traditional when it comes to fashion.”

*UPDATE #1 : Sources tell StyleList exclusively that Chelsea Clinton’s wedding dress is indeed being made by Vera Wang, the go-to gown-maker for many celebrities and socialites on their big day.

“They’re putting the dress together right now, and it’s taking some time,” says an insider. A rep for Vera Wang did not immediately return a phone call requesting comment.

Wedding plans for Chelsea Clinton shape up…Quickie post!

Clintonistas are quietly being told to save the date. Chelsea Clinton’s Martha’s Vineyard wedding to Goldman Sachs banker Marc Mezvinsky at Vernon Jordan’s estate will take place the last week of August, we hear…

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