Vicky Ward - The Liar’s Ball: Scandals, Secrets, and Successes of the Real Estate Titans

Cover image: Mask iStock.com/DNY59; GM Building PSL Images/Alamy
Cover design: C. Wallace

Copyright 2014 by Vicky Ward. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 978-1-118-29531-1 (Cloth)
ISBN 978-1-118-41987-8 (ebk)
ISBN 978-1-118-42151-2 (ebk)

For Richard

Every year, toward the end of January, around 2,000 members of the New York real estate industry gather in the Hilton Hotel to celebrate the Real Estate Board of New York's annual gala: an event affectionately known by its attendees as the Liar's Ball.

The dress code is black tie, but that's the only nod to decorum.

The senior U.S. senator for New York, Charles Schumer, is a regular, as are the presiding mayor and New York's archbishop, John Cardinal O'Connor. The dignitaries sit on the dais and, during dinner, one by one, they rise to make speeches, but they don't expect to be heard by an openly disdainful audience that is busily clinking glasses and shouting over and at each other, boasting about last year's profits and deals.

The public figures are glad, for once, that there are no national TV crews on hand to record this ritualistic humiliation. Senator Schumer grins while he talks, trying to appear as if he is in on the joke. But there is no joke. The diners talk over him and the rest simply because they've got other priorities.

Every year, for just one night, these wheelers-and-dealers come to make nice with competitors they cheerfully deride the rest of the year. They come to pick up a deal or maybe five. And although they often wish they could exist without their peerstheir fellow piratesthis is an incestuous club, where connections to the right partners, lawyers, bankers, and brokers are key for deal flow.

So they come to the Hilton to schmooze, to pretend, to shout. It almost doesn't matter who the speakers are, because I've never seenas much as I love my colleaguesa ruder group of people than at this banquet, Peter Hauspurg, the chairman and CEO of Eastern Consolidated, told the New York Observer in 2012.

To an outsider, the behavior seems bizarre. To witness a mob in tuxedos and tulle yelling over a U.S. senator? To hear someone whisper, I can't stand this guy; I fired him a year ago, before turning to monopolize his prey with a serpentine charm? To the cognoscenti at the Liar's Ball, dissembling is as natural and necessary as breathing.

This party celebrates characteristics most of us condemn: brashness, mendacity, greed.... On this one night the industry revels in who and what it really is and it does not care who sees.

Welcome to the Liar's Ball. It's rough, it's vulgar, and it's a riveting show.

The Early Years

Principal: William Magear Boss Tweed

Principal: Judge P. Henry Dugro

Principal: Harry S. Black

Principal: Conrad Hilton

Principal: William Zeckendorf

The Rayne/Benattar Years

Principal: Max Rayne

Principal: Cecilia Benattar

Principals' lawyers: Jesse Wolff, Martin Ginsberg

Principals' spouses: Jack Benattar, Michael Schwartz (Benattar), Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart (Rayne)

Principals' children: The Honorable Robert Robbie Rayne; Naomi, Simon, Jessica, and Judith Benattar

Principals' tenants: Mary Wells Lawrence, Este and Leonard Lauder, Ira Millstein, Harvey Miller, General Motors

Principals' broker: Harry Macklowe

Principals' architect: Edward Durrell Stone

Principals' supporting cast: James Nagy, Geoffrey Wharton

The Disque Deane Years

Principal: Disque Deane

Principal's wives: Anne Delafield, Marjorie Schlesinger, Carol Gram

Principal's acknowledged children: Marjorie Deane, Kathryn Deane, Disque Deane Jr., Walter Deane, Anne Deane, and Carl Deane

Principal's unacknowledged child: Hare Deane

Principal's mentor: Andr Meyer

Principal's senior executives: Hans Mautner, Jerry O'Connor, G. Martin Fell, Warren Hamer, Thomas Zacharias

Principal's mistress; Barbara Koz

Seller to Principal: Harry Macklowe

Principal's supporting cast: Roderick Johnson

Principal's business partners: Fred and Donald J. Trump

The Simon/Trump/Hilbert Years

Principal: Donald J. Trump

Principal: Stephen Hilbert

Principal: David Simon

Principals' leading ladies: Melania Trump, Tomisue Hilbert, Louann Hilbert

Principal's supporting cast: Rhona Graff (Trump)

Principals' senior executives: Abraham Wallach (Trump), George Ross (Trump), Ngaire Cuneo (Hilbert), Rollin Dick (Hilbert), James Adams (Hilbert)

Principal's advisor: Robert B. Horowitz (Trump)

Principal's would-be broker: Rita Jenrette

Principal's lenders: Lehman Brothers (Mark Walsh, Charles Schoenherr)

Principals' opponents: Charles Cremens, Reed Oslan, JB Carlson (Hilbert), John Menard (Hilbert)

Principals' competitors: Michael Fascitelli, Steven Roth, Samuel Zell (Trump)

Principal's friend-turned-nemesis: Benjamin V. Lambert (Trump)

The Macklowe Years

Principal: Harry B. Macklowe

Principal's leading lady: Linda Macklowe

Principal's family members: William S. Macklowe (spouse Julie), Elizabeth Macklowe (Kent Swig)