Todd Eberle\'d5s Birthday Bash With the Basses: Serena Caters While Anne Yaks With Artists

The New York Observer, October 9th, 2007

On Thursday, Oct. 4, celebrity shutterbug Todd Eberle hosted a birthday party for himself at the new apartment he and his partner, creative director Richard Pandiscio, recently bought in the new 40 Mercer building designed by Jean Nouvel.

Although invitations had been issued but two days before, the spacious two-bedroom domicile contained an impressive crowd.

“Rich said to me on Monday, ‘What do you want to do for your birthday?’” said Mr. Eberle, a photographer at large at Vanity Fair magazine. “I’m like, ‘I never like my birthday, I don’t like to do anything for my birthday.’ But then he says, ‘Well, you’re 44,’ and I was like, ‘Wait, I’m 44 and just moved into the 40 Mercer. Let’s throw a party!’ So I called [caterer] Serena Bass that night and I was like, ‘Can you possibly put this together in three days?’ And she did!”

Power publicist Nadine Johnson was splayed across Mssrs. Eberle and Pandiscio’s queen-size bed (“the key to our longevity,” Mr. Pandiscio remarked), chatting with a couple of friends. She had brought the birthday boy a cupcake in the shape of a puppy’s face and four bottles of Dom Perignon. Nearby socialite Anne Bass, ex-wife of billionaire Sid Bass, and her longtime artist boyfriend, Julian Lethbridge, were talking quietly. Mr. Eberle and fellow Libra Vincent Fremont, chairman of the Warhol Foundation, were discussing the nuances of their astrological sign by the door leading into the living room, where guests were enjoying cocktails from a large, fully staffed bar as they passed around hotelier Andre Balazs’ pet Chihuahuas Jacques and Gilles. In an adjacent room, It artists Dan Colen and Nate Lowman told of their new studio in Tribeca.

“It’s a mind fuck,” Mr. Eberle said, assessing the scene. “It’s a total mind fuck. It’s a mind fuck to think that I live here, it’s a mind fuck to think that I know all these people, it’s a mind fuck how lucky I am.”

Originally from Cleveland, he has lived here since September 1980. “It’s the kind of party I moved to New York hoping to get invited to,” he said.

“It’s so chic you don’t even notice everyone is here,” said the artist Eneas Copalbo, “but there is this retard who keeps putting his drink on top of a Donald Judd sculpture.”

“I think we all have realized the poodle is shedding,” said the artist Sean Mellyn, who is preparing for a show in Chelsea later this month. He was referring to the enormous rug everyone was standing on, which depicted a white poodle. It was indeed shedding.

“I’m very pleased that Todd is now designing carpets,” Mr. Balazs said. “I think this is a progression forward for him.” On his way out he stopped to examine a sperm-shaped chandelier dripping down from the ceiling. “Where did you get that?”

Mr. Eberle said it had cost only $145.

“Well, it looks like shit,” said Mr. Balazs, with a gentle smile.