Michael Gross's Blog

Back in 2016, smoke and water damage from a fire at the legendry coop, 740 Park Aveue, drove many of its residents out of their homes for a time. Among them were Wall Street’s Thomas Strauss, formerly with Salomon Brothers, and his wife Bonnie, a textiles heiress. The charming Strausses must have hired ServPro to ensure the habitability of their five-bed, seven-bath, 7,348 square foot duplex, because they remained for nine more years while smoked-out neighbors like Julia Koch (who saved valuable paintings by hauling them out in a Hefty bag) fled. But now, their apartment, put on the market in February for $28,000,000 is available on markdown for a mere $24,000,000. Not quite a fire sale, but not a bad price for one of Manhattan’s premier buildings.

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My latest Carnet de Voyage post for Palmer is a guide to fine dining in and around Arcachon, a magical resort on a lagoon on France’s Atlantic coast. Huitres, aka oysters, are one specialty, and the best views (like that photographed, from the brasserie at La C(o)orniche), include an extraordinary natural landmark, the Banc d’Arguin.

The post Huitres à la Banc appeared first on Michael.

The latest Carnet de Voyage on Palmer considers ambitious new developments in the Exumas and Puerto Rico and whether they compare to the efforts of Laurence and David Rockefeller to put the Caribbean on the luxury travel map in the 1960s.

The post Are These the New Rockefellers? appeared first on Michael.

Thirty-six years before this week’s New York Magazine put the beleaguered, divided Kennedy family on its latest cover, this cover story, “Favored Son,” detailed John F. Kennedy Jr.’s adult arrival on the New York scene–and was the first detailed look at his emergence. As CNN rakes the ashes of his life, his star-crossed marriage and his tragic death, it’s a fond look back at a moment when the young man who wanted tobe “just John” inspired as much hope as his hunkiness did lust in the hearts of the city.

The post When Being a Kennedy Wasn’t Weird appeared first on Michael.

Here’s my latest Carnet de Voyage post for Palmer–and a new idea for where to go in August.

The post Chile con Milky appeared first on Michael.

I don’t know or really care who introduced the couple currently occupying the White House, but back in 2016, I wrote several stories for The Daily Beast about Donald Trump‘s pathetic mid-life model-f***g in the 1990s–and in the nine years since, no one has ever challenged a word of them. You’ll have to visit the Beast to read them in their entirety, but here’s an excerpt from one of them, titled Inside Donald Trump’s One-Stop Parties: Attendees Recall Cocaine and Very Young Models

The President of the United States was once ‘just another rich guy buying a date farm, perhaps for his friends, perhaps for himself. This wasn’t pejorative, just how things were. (Leonardo DiCaprio, at the height of his “Pussy Posse” fame, thanked Trump for offering “one-stop date-shopping,”‘) I wrote, quoting eyewitnesses who ‘put Donald Trump in the room with cocaine, very young women and underage girls, and rich, old men there to—pardon my language, but if the Times can say pussy on its front page, I can say this—fuck them. I’m sorry, Ivanka, I really am, because your mother raised you well and I can’t blame you for supporting your father (even if he did give— when you were 15 and signed on as a model yourself with Elite, the hard-partying high-end agency founded by notorious teen-fucker John Casablancas) but here’s the sad truth: Your dad’s not a dog. He’s a pig….

‘Trump would take over “suites on the corners” of his hotel with views of Central Park and Grand Army Plaza, not to mention lots to look at inside, and wow his guests. The attraction for the men “was young girls assuming they’d get somewhere” by joining the party, [a fashion photographer who attended them] says, “Of course, it never happens.” Young models were attracted to the fêtes with a simple, time-tested pitch. “You’ll meet rich guys who will help you,” says the photographer. “It was networking, but on a weird, bizarre scale.”

‘The girls were as young as 15, he says, and “over their heads, they had no idea, and they ended up in situations. There were always dramas because the men threw money and drugs at them to keep them enticed. It’s based on power and dominating girls who can’t push back and can be discarded. There’s always someone to pick them back up. Nobody wants to call home and say ‘Help me.’” Trump would “go from room to room,” said the photographer, who added that “I was there to party myself. It was guys with younger girls, sex, a lot of sex, a lot of cocaine, top-shelf liquor” but no smoking. Trump didn’t approve of cigarettes.”

‘Girls? “Well. Of course,” [male model and party organizer Tony] Lucchesi says. “But I never knew him as one of those guys buying apartments for girls from Estonia.” (Though he did marry a model from Slovenia.)

‘But did he have sex with his female party guests? “So, he’s a man with a woman,” Lucchesi says vaguely. How old were they? “A lot of girls, 14, look 24. That’s as juicy as I can get. I never asked how old they were; I just partook. I did partake in activities that would be controversial, too.”

The post Melanie, Models, the Orange Stain and Pedos appeared first on Michael.

The Hitchcock estate in Millbrook, New York, has come on the market and its colorful history–psychedelic, legal, and plutocratic–is the subject of my latest Carnet de Voyage dispatch in Palmer.

The post Asking $65 Million in Millbrook appeared first on Michael.

My latest Carnet de Voyage covering two weeks in Tuscany and Ravenna is now online. The photo is of sunset behind Pitigliano, seen from the restaurant Il Grottino

The post Beat the Heat in Torrid Tuscany appeared first on Michael.

The latest edition of Carnet de Voyage on Palmer’s web site is my personal Hot List of favorite places to go in summer to meet and beat the heat. Terme di Saturnia is pictured.

The post Hot, Hot, Hot List appeared first on Michael.

Carnet de Voyage had a ticket to ride to Rome and rested its head at Bulgari Roma for my latest post at Palmer Magazine’s web site. That’s Veruschka in 1967 on the via Condotti, part of the hotel decor. Wait until you read about its breakfast menus!

The post When in Rome…eat Arabian appeared first on Michael.