‘One Great Night’ for the men, not so much for the World Series trophy
Iwas worried it would be a stiff event. Then someone knocked over the World Series trophy.
Halfway through dinner during “One Great Night in November,” the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s high-powered, men-only fundraiser, someone bumped into the table that held the 2017 Commissioner’s Trophy, which Astros owner Jim Crane had brought to the MFAH to give the evening a celebratory start.
The trophy was swiftly placed back onto the table, but it did not survive the fall unscathed. Suddenly, men in tuxes were giggling about how “we’ll just have to win another one” while a cohort of large men with earpieces assembled around the trophy like bodyguards.
But everyone could still see it: Some of the flags on the trophy were noticeably bent out of shape.
Soon, a turquoise bag was placed over the championship trophy, and it was taken away from the large gallery serving as the night’s ballroom, where hundreds of Houston’s richest and most powerful men continued with their conversations over Michael Stewart wine, Bucheron cheese,
venison with a pinot noir reduction and South Texas quail.
In a room full of major players — including Mayor Sylvester Turner, Crane, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, members of the Sarofim family, Richard Kinder and Jeffery Hildebrand — the damage inflicted on an item signaling the highest achievement for a Major League Baseball team wasn’t a scandal, but a mere footnote.
After dinner, one MFAH staff member told me that the Commissioner’s Trophy was already sent for restoration in the museum.
“There couldn’t be a better place to get a trophy fixed,” he said while we were smoking cigars in the designated tent outside the MFAH, where most of the crowd had graduated from the smoother, milder Davidoff Houston Exclusive to the bolder, darkertoned Davidoff Winston Churchill.
Between puffs of smoke, the staff member said that, despite the tremendous revenue and prestige of “One Great Night,” the event presented “logistical challenges” for the museum’s fundraising office, which consists mainly of women. Even if the director of development, say, wanted to monitor how well the curators were selling artwork that night, she would have to do it unseen, behind curtains or closed doors.
I admit I was at first skeptical, if not merely fascinated, by a highprofile event in 2017 in which no women are allowed. A men-only gala means no female businesspeople, media, curators, photographers, servers or vendors, and sends a curiously bald message about the city’s consolidation of power.
Since its inception three decades ago, the MFAH’s prestigious fundraiser has spawned counterprogramming in the form of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s “Another Great Night in November,” a women-only fundraiser that takes place on the same night.
But after two cigars, a 1942 scotch and a Hennessy V.S.O.P. cognac, I understood the simple appeal of this night: If you are the kind of man to purchase a $25,000 table with the intent of buying art that costs anywhere from a few grand to more than $100,000, then you have something in common with all the other men at the event.
Men toasted each other constantly, with one attendee saying, without irony: “To one great night, gentlemen!” A lawyer embarrassed his stoic consultant buddy by telling everyone, “This is the richest (expletive) I know.” Everyone laughed in response, even though we knew the lawyer was probably half-serious. The old boys club, it appears, is a very nice place for the old boys.
“It’s a safe space, you know?” one gentlemen told me, albeit jokingly.
And it’s also a key fundraiser for the MFAH, which raised about $580,000 Wednesday night through ticket and art sales. The attendees also voted for “Clytie,” a $250,000 sculpture of the Ovidian water nymph made by George Frederick Watts in 1868, to be acquired by the museum.
An event regular who’s a partner at a local law firm told me the gala once overflowed with tables before the oil downturn. But even if some of the businesses have become stingier about attending this “Great Night,” it has lost none of its appeal, he said, with the guest list remaining one of the most impressive of the year.
Still, seven years ago, he said, his friends started a tradition of bringing their own wine for the event. That tradition is partly why he’s returned to the event since. I asked him why he’d BYOW to a place that already served high-end reds and whites.
“We have the real stuff,” he said, emphasizing that the wine his group brings must be rated 95 or higher by Robert Parker.
“Here, try some,” he said. I did, and then nodded in agreement, telling him genuinely I had never tasted a wine that was so gentle yet full of character.
I excused myself from the cigar tent at about 10:40 p.m. to move back inside for a sip of water. The choice was between Fiji and Evian. “It’s room temperature. Is that OK?” the server asked me. I said yes, then walked outside to fetch my used 2010 Honda Accord from valet.