The Guggenheim International Gala Monday night raised an impressive $2.4 million. Its greatest success, however, was creating a night to remember, leaving all to wonder how they’ll top it next year.

It started with a walk up the candlelit steps of the Seagram building. The Mies van der Rohe lobby, where people retrieved their table assignments, needed no embellishment, nor did the Four Seasons’s pool room, where the art for the live auction was on display.

The cast of characters included Mortimer Zuckerman, Calvin Klein, Richard Meier, Leonard Boxer, Julian Schnabel, Robert Rauschenberg, Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, and Paula Zahn, in a not-made-for-television getup (leather gown, frizzy hair-do).

Washington lobbyist Tony Podesta, chairman of the Guggenheim’s photography committee, was on the lookout for the artist Nikki Lee. Last spring, he arranged for her to shoot scenes for a film on the roof of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

Chuck Close, wheeling around a giant plant, nabbed a caviar-laden blini and told the story of how his friend Richard Serra’s art melted under Frank Lloyd Wright’s sun-filled atrium.

“I helped Richard install his lead pieces,” Mr. Close said. It was 1969 and Mr. Serra was preparing for his first show at the museum. “Over the weekend, the air conditioner was off, and it got hot, and the pieces just fell.”

The Guggenheim’s climate control extends around the globe today, to Berlin, Bilbao, Venice, and Las Vegas. In New York, Wright’s iconic building is getting a facelift and a major retrospective of Richard Prince is planned.

Back in the pool room, Cyro Baptista and his band of bare-chested drummers banged and whistled a rendition of the dinner bell. The crowd eventually took the hint, settling down on white velvet cushions in the dinner tent.

Jennifer Stockman, who wore a Lyn Devon velvet bodice and Marc Jacobs skirt, was the force behind the gala. She picked David Monn to design it and marshaled the troops to buy those $50,000 tables.

To kick things off, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Thomas Krens, acknowledged the board’s chairman, William Mack, and its president, Ms. Stockman for taking the board to a new place. “It’s the strongest it has ever been. It’s truly a New York board,” Mr. Krens said.

Mr. Mack is a real estate investor whose firm, Apollo Real Estate Advisors, co-developed the Time Warner Center. Ms. Stockman is the national co-chairwoman of the Republican Majority for Choice.

Just as at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim now has a diverse group of business leaders that has eclipsed the family members, though not entirely. The great granddaughter of Solomon Guggenheim, Wendy McNeil, said her 26-year stint on the board was pure nepotism.

“I’m not an art historian. I am simply here to encourage the legacy of the family,” Ms. McNeil, of Princeton, N.J., said. “I think my great-grandfather would be very impressed to see that his whole concept is an incredible worldwide reality.”

One little-known faction in the enterprise is the Guggenheim Motorcycle Club, of which Lauren Hutton is first vice president. The club, which rides next in Baja California, counts Dennis Hopper, Jeremy Irons, and Laurence Fishburne as members. On Monday, Ms. Hutton looked like anything but a biker, in a red YSL blouse and skirt with ruffles, when she introduced the auctioneer Simon de Pury.

Mr. de Pury, his voice raspy from working overtime during the auction weeks, coaxed and coddled bidders with humor and affection. He knew most of them by name. His method worked, bringing in $1,060,000 through the sales of the work by Messrs, Rauschenberg, Prince, Serra, Edward Ruscha, Matthew Barney, and others.

Some of Mr. de Pury’s comments: “Mary Boone, you didn’t just come for dinner, you must bid” … “Tony Shafrazi, you didn’t donate a work, so you better bid” … “Mr. and Mrs. Stockman, bidding between a husband and a wife, that is very healthy.”

With the auction concluded, Mr. Baptista returned for another performance, followed by a disc jockey spinning disco hits. And on this night, people stayed and danced.

The star of the evening was the new Guggenheim director, Lisa Dennison, an intense and friendly woman who has spent almost her entire curatorial career at the museum.

In a beautiful black Donna Karan gown decorated with whimsical velvet pompons, and her hair perfectly set, she glowed, with a little help from art adviser Kim Heirston, who slicked Ms. Dennison’s lips with Nars lip gloss right before dinner.

“I started as a summer intern 35 years ago,” Ms. Dennison said. “It’s been a long run. This job is the fulfillment of a lifetime dream.”

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Art dealer Amalia Dayan, along with the whole art set, has been out almost every night recently. Friday was the Dia gala. The next day her gallery opened a show of shadow sculptures by the London couple Tim Noble and Sue Webster, which drew Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour, Randy Slifka, and Jeff Koons. Sunday she was at the Israel Museum’s 40th anniversary gala, and Monday, at the Guggenheim.

“It’s work,” she said at the Israel Museum gala. “Tonight, I’m here because of my friendship with Sandy,” referring to Sandy Heller, the chairman of the museum’s junior committee.

Mr. Heller has strong feelings about the museum, which his parents also supported.

“It’s one of the most important institutions in that part of the world. It’s a destination for children. It changes lives,” Mr. Heller said.

The most emotional moments of the event came during a screening of footage from the opening of the museum in 1965, showing Leah and Yitzhak Rabin as well as Ms. Dayan’s grandfather, Moshe Dayan.

The collections of the museum include a 16th-century synagogue built in Cochin, India; Nicolas Poussin’s painting, “The Destruction and Sack of the Temple of Jerusalem”; a James Turrell installation, and an art garden by Isamu Noguchi.

“The museum’s holdings are works of beauty and sanctity,” the museum’s director, James Snyder, said.

The American Friends of the Israel Museum has a powerful base of patrons, thanks to the leadership of Judy Steinhardt, a past president who is now co-chairwoman of the group; Ronnie Heyman, the current president, and Stephen Lash, the incoming president.

Event chairmen Linda and Samuel Lindebaum, Linda and Harry Macklowe, and Susan and Morris Mark also pitched in to help the museum raise $2.5 million.

The warm crowd assembled at Cirpriani 42nd Street included Andrea and Charles Bronfman, Milly and Arne Glimcher, and William and Julie Macklowe, who showed off photographs of their new puppy bulldog Lulu.

Raymond Learsy and Melva Bucksbaum told me about their fabulous meal with Evelyn and Leonard Lauder Saturday night at Katz’s Deli.

“We went late. They ordered everything,” Ms. Bucksbaum said. Her favorite? “The pastrami.”

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New York’s public radio station, WNYC, raised $850,000 at its gala Monday night. That’s in part due to the energy and diligence of WNYC’s chairwoman, Nikki Tanner.

“When I moved back to New York, Nikki came over and preset my radio to WNYC,” the event’s chairwoman, Joanne Matthews, said.

As befits the rich programming powerhouse, the entertainment was superb. Jonathan Schwartz hosted performances by the cast of “The Light in the Piazza.”

agordon@nysun.com

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