A crowd of 900 turned out for Thursday's annual Bailey House auction and party at Roseland Ballroom to raise money for the charity devoted to housing and empowering New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. This year, the event filled its latest venue choice with a mock-up of a model home in which all of the furnishings were up for auction.
For more than two decades, the auction has moved among venues throughout the city, but with its most recent home, the Puck Building, undergoing renovations, the party had to make an unexpected move for 2009. "We had our committee scout around the city to find something that fit our needs and felt right," said Bailey House board of directors president and auction co-chair Jeffrey Schneider, who planned the event with his partner Jeffery Povero, a committee of over 20 people, and Bailey House president Gina Quattrochi. "We just sort of fell in love with Roseland."
Roseland afforded a bit more room for Bailey House's expansive silent-auction setup, so producers once again turned to set designer Stefan Beckman to think of a dynamic way to move guests through all of the donated items. He settled on creating the interior of a house, with different vignettes for each room of the home. Items up for bid were placed according to what room of the house they might end up in, with children's toys and furniture in a small bedroom and a West Elm tableau in the dining room. Hundreds of artworks hung from the walls of every space.
Early estimates placed Bailey House's haul between $700,000 and $750,000, down a little from last year's total of $800,000—but not as the team behind the event sees it. "We had a sponsor who gave us $200,000 last year," said Schneider, "but this year that same sponsor was only able to give $100,000, so the auction itself ended up raising even more money."
Whether it’s the guests’ generosity or financial situation that remains unmarred by the current economy remains to be seen, but the fact that Bailey House continuously brings in an enviable stable of items for auction can’t hurt. Original works by William Wegman and Ryan McGinley—not to mention the perennial favorite, lunch with Anderson Cooper—all drew lots of bids.
