Christie’s To Auction Buckley Belongings

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The New York Sun

America’s conservatives, take note: Christie’s plans to hold an auction of select contents of both the Park Avenue maisonette and the Stamford, Conn., country house of the late William F. Buckley Jr.

Christie’s is working with the estate of the National Review founder, who died earlier this year at 82. His wife, the socialite Patricia Buckley, died last year. “We are honored to be offering this property for sale,” a spokesman at Christie’s Rockefeller Center offices, Rik Pike, said.

In what could be a preview of some of the lots, guests of the National Review and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital gathered at the maisonette Wednesday evening for a “Memories of Evenings with the Buckleys” party.

The event was a chance for plugged-in New Yorkers to see the house, currently listed on the market at $24.5 million, with its Buckley furnishings and artwork largely intact.

The living room’s Bosendorfer piano, brought by Mrs. Buckley from her childhood home in Canada, had recently been tuned. On display in the library were various porcelain statuettes of her beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

On display in Buckley’s second-floor study is his Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. Framed photographs include the Buckleys with George and Barbara Bush, as well as one of Buckley chatting with the economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

Buckley’s favorite harpsichord is in the marble vestibule, which opens directly onto East 73rd Street. The house was built in the mid-1930s as a special ground-floor dwelling attached to the apartment building at 778 Park Ave.; the Buckleys moved into the maisonette in 1966. The largest apartment in the adjacent Park Avenue building belonged to Brooke Astor.

Friends of the Buckleys such as the author Tom Wolfe reminisced about the grand dinner parties for which Patricia Buckley was renowned. The National Review’s Rich Lowry and Richard Brookhiser feasted on hors d’oeuvres that included peanut butter and bacon bits on crackers, Buckley’s favorite treat.

Also attending the party was the rector of Park Avenue’s Church of Our Savior, the Reverend George Rutler, a longtime friend of the Buckleys.


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