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Chez le Baron et la Baronne de Rothschild

Real Estate

Home Sweet Home

Dixit et Fecit:

"The most astounding result of my friendship with Marie-Hélène was the idea that the Rothschilds might buy the Hôtel Lambert.

In 1975 Marie-Hélène lunched with me and I told her that the Czartoryskis were attempting to evict me from my rooms. "I don't know why we don't buy it", she said as we reached the cheese.

Hardly had she had the idea and then she telephoned Guy at the bank:




"Do you feel young enough and romantic enough to change the course of your life in the space of two hours?" - she asked him.

"Why not?" - answered Guy a little nervously.

So they bought the Lambert..."

Alexis, Baron de Redé

Chez Alexis

Home Sweet Home

2, Rue St.Lambert-en-l'Ile, Paris...

Chez Alexis

Comme Il Faut!

"I picked up Princess Ghislaine de Polignac, who had arranged for me to lunch with the Baron de Redé, a famous French society figure I had read about in Aileen Mehle’s “Suzy” columns for years. His apartment is in the Hôtel Lambert, which is owned by Baron Guy de Rothschild, whose late wife, Marie-Hélène, was Alexis de Redé’s greatest friend. “I used to live right up in that apartment there,” said Ghislaine de Polignac, pointing, as we walked across the cobblestone courtyard to the entrance.
It was like stepping into a chapter in Proust. The butler opened the door. The dog yapped. The baron kissed the princess. The princess kissed the baron. They spoke in French, then switched to English. It occurred to me that all the people I had been meeting with had known one another for 40 years or more. I told our host that Princess d’Arenberg had sent her best. He smiled. The baron, who was himself a giver of balls—“I had stairs built from those French doors down to the garden for les entrées,” he said—was charming and easy as he walked through salons, pointing toward the chairs where we would sit. I sat in a chair that I swear to God was silver. Not silver paint—silver silver, with red brocade upholstery. Everything was beautiful, wherever you looked. The lunch was superb, served by the butler in white gloves. My companions waved away seconds without even looking.
By now I realized that everyone remembered Beistegui the same way. He was a great decorator, but he wasn’t nice. He had many mistresses, and he wasn’t very kind to them. But the ball in Venice was brilliant. The Baron de Redé had been part of the Chinese suite of Arturo and Patricia Lopez-Willshaw.
“Would you like to see some photographs?” asked the baron. We went up a stairway to a long corridor with hundreds of red-framed photographs on each wall, depicting a way of life of utter splendor: beautiful people on yachts, at the races, dancing, wearing masks, going to balls, laughing. Walking ahead of me, he would point to a photograph of people on a yacht and say, “Ari and Maria,” assuming I knew he meant Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas. Or “Wallis,” or “Winston,” meaning the Duchess of Windsor and Winston Churchill.
“This is a very famous photograph—André Ostier took it,” said the baron, stopping in front of a picture of Jacqueline de Ribes standing between Carlos de Beistegui and Raymundo de Larrain. “Charlie hated Raymundo. Look at the look on his face. Have you talked to Jacqueline?”

“She’s in Ibiza...”"

by Christopher Simon Sykes

Game Over

The Oriental Ball

"The Oriental Ball in 1969 has been described as one of the most fantastic parties of the twentieth century, and as a high point in my life. I am frequently asked what the reason was for giving it, and I have to say there was no special reason. I just decided to give a ball.
The Oriental Ball made me well known in Paris - that and my occasional racing successes. it attracted a huge amount of publicity. I began to plan it in March 1969, sent out the invitations in May and the ball itself took place on 5 December.

There were about 400 guests at the ball. Nobody dined beforehand. The ball started at 10 o'clock and went on until about 5 in the morning.

Valerian Styx-Rybar and Jean-François Daigre

Jean-François Daigre, a discovery of Marie-Hélène's, designed the evening. He had worked for Jacques Dupont. He had vivid imagination, but a terrible temper, and there were dreadful rows between him and Marie-Hélène. He would suddenly lose is head and shout. 'Do it yourself,' and then storm off. There were so many flare-ups that it became nerve-wracking but as ever, it was all right on the night. I did not have those problems working with him. Daigre transformed the Lambert into a Eastern fantasy.

There were two huge white life-sized elephants made of papier maché in the courtyard. These were ornately dressed and a rider sat on top, under a golden canopy. At the bottom of the stairs, there were two Hindu musicians, a zither player in red and gold and a beauty in a turquoise sari, clinking cymbals. All the way up the staircase to the apartment, at suitable intervals, stood sixteen half-naked men, hired from Paris gymnasiums, dressed as Nubian slaves, holding torches to guide the guests.

At the top a figure in black tunic and long black turban announced the guests in a reverberanting voice. I greeted them as a Mogul prince, my costume designed by Pierre Cardin.

Alexis de Redé

The Lambert itself was a fantasy reminiscent of the Thousand and One Nights. All about was the scent of jasmine and myrrh. The Hercules Gallery was filled with Turks, Russians, Chinese and Japanese. Turbans and false beards abounded.Estée Lauder's husband complained that his Fu Manchu moustache itched all evening.

Baroness Marie-Hélène and Baron Guy de Rothschild

Marie-Hélène came as a Siamese dancer, Johannes von Thurn and Taxis as a Hussar, and my favourite guest was the Vicomtesse de Bonchamps, an American living in the Avenue Foch, who was born as Dale King.

Viscountess of Bonchamps and Countess of Ribes

She came as a pagoda. She Had to be brought to the ball in the back of a truck, as her costume was made out of metal. She could not sit down in the truck and she could not sit down at all until she took it off. You have to make a balance between enjoying the evening, or the impression you want to make, I am not sure she got it right.

Serge Lifar and Patricia Lopez-Willshaw

Kenneth J. Lane, the jeweller, wore a turban of Russian sable skins, with wolf tails hanging from it and a huge cape made of Zorino skunk, trimmed with wolf. It was a warm night, so he may have suffered a bit.

Prince Rupert zu Lowenstein and Madame Graham Mattison

Other guests included the Aga Khan, his wife and the Begum, Princess Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark, Valerian Styx-Rybar, Jimmy Douglas, the Lowensteins, and Bettina. One guest brought a baby panther in his arms.

Madame Vincente-Minnelli and Madame Jean-Claude Abreu

Brigitte Bardot was almost naked but for strings of coins and a little black chiffon, as was the recently widowed Odile Rubirosa, of whom the press wrote, she arrived 'all but nude, her bare bottom covered by a bit of silver chain mail (with great chinks in it) trough which Odile's charms shone through. 'Her costume was predictably audacious.

Salvador Dalí

The ball was hardly over before Nancy Mitford, who had been something of a scourge to me in the fifties, was amusing herself by giving her friends her version of events. I hasten to say that she was not there. This description comes from Charlotte Mosley's edition of Nancy's letters:

"If Redé lived in England he would be in prison for race relations. The open courtyard was lined with naked niggers, bearing torches, who had to remain there all night. (One was seen putting on a cardigan but the slave driver had that off him in a jiffy!) Also there were naked black children on elephants, The slaves had their telephone numbers in luminous paints on the soles of their feet. It all sounds very old world - estimated cost, £30,000. Well worth in no doubt."

Clé-Clé de Maillé came to this ball. It was her last appearance in public. The next day she went to the clinic, where she died two weeks later. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but did not want to have the breast removed sonce her greatest joy in life was to sunbathe naked. So instead she took chemotherapy with distressing results.

I have a wonderful memory of the evening nonetheless, and its full splendour is recorded in a vast album, bound in leather and encrusted with semi-precious stones. with watercolour images of the décor and guests by Serebriakoff."

by Alexis de Redé in ALEXIS, the Memoirs of the Baron de Redé