MEET THE HUGH HEFNER OF THE HAMPTONS
When it comes to throwing ragers rollicking with scantily clad women, nobody beats party-boy investor Marc Leder
IT was just a typical Marc Leder party: a 290-foot chartered cruise ship, 100 of his closest friends — including no fewer than three Real Housewives — and enough rosé to fill the ocean, thanks to shipments flown in from Ecuador.
Most people treat their pals to dinner or coffee when they’re feeling generous. Leder, a 53-year-old private-equity titan, treats them to an all-expensespaid, seven-day cruise to the Galápagos Islands, complete with snorkeling, a massage room and, of course, its own hashtag, #SSLeder.
Now the middle-aged playboy, worth a reported $400 million (though sources say that number has likely doubled), is bringing the party back to the Hamptons after a break last season following some bad press over his wild beachside antics.
After years of renting properties in various East End towns, Leder plunked down $20 million in November for an 8,000-square-foot, eightbedroom Sagaponack abode.
And the Sun Capital Partners honcho is breaking it in with a blowout Fourth of July bash expected to draw 600 guests, including Real Housewives Bethenny Frankel and Jill Zarin.
The invite calls for cocktails at 7 p.m. and dinner at 8:30 p.m. There will be a performance by local party-band Booga Sugar and “a lot of surprises,” according to Unik Ernest, an event producer who met Leder two years ago in the Hamptons. Among the evening’s highlights will be a massive tent, complete with a laser-light show.
“He told me it’s going to be very special,” adds Ernest.
One would expect no less from a man dubbed “the Hugh Hefner of the Hamptons.”
“He’s almost like a species that’s in extinction,” raves Leder friend Omar Hernandez, owner of the eponymous West Village clubhouse/restaurant. “He rages
into the night,” Hernandez adds. “He will not go gentle into the good night. He likes to have a great time.”
But a great time for Leder, who declined to be interviewed for this article, isn’t always so great for his neighbors.
In 2011, Page Six reported that Leder’s Bridgehampton party guests “cavorted nude in the pool” while scantily clad Russians danced on platforms. (People went for a late-night swim, “but there was no sex,” insists Marc Bell, Leder’s good pal and the former owner of Penthouse magazine.)
Two years later, The Post reported that Leder’s Water Mill neighbors went ballistic over the megamillionaire’s ragers, which included unsightly portable toilets, an endless stream of Escalades speeding through the street, and dozens of mattresses packed into the estate’s theater for Leder’s gaggle of bosomy house guests, who proudly call themselves “Leder’s Angels.”
Things got so out of control that at one event, it was alleged that Mario Singer, husband of “Real Housewives of New York” star Ramona Singer, publicly committed adultery with a 20-something (the Singers are currently divorcing). Leder received so many complaints and noise violations in 2013, he was only allowed to proceed with his Independence Day party after he made a $10,000 donation to the town, posted a $50,000 bond toward potential party fines, and vowed to stop having parties that year.
Needless to say, Leder’s reputation precedes him — especially on the East End, where old money rules.
“He’s showy and he likes to flaunt,” says one longtime Hamptons-goer who’s attended a Leder party and works in entertainment (she asked not to be named for professional reasons).
Another associate of Leder’s, who asked to remain anonymous, says his $900,000 2013 summer rental basically served as a hotel for the bevy of beauties in his rotation.
“He sent out an e-mail to 100 people and literally just had everyone pick dates,” the associate explains. “He had 20 people there a weekend. There was a schedule: 10 o’clock yoga, tennis lessons, private chef, dinner parties . . . he basically buys his friends.”
And while you can always expect “the best of the best” at the financier’s fêtes, which are more or less “high-end weddings,” according to the associate, some of the guests tend to be, well, a little less high-end.
“It’s low-denomination people,” she says.
“It’s a wannabe party,” adds the Hamptons-goer. “His people want to be seen. They’re trying to get there, but they’re not even there yet. They’re a level below Real Housewives.”
Friends promise that the divorced Leder is more than just a money-tossing philanderer on the hunt for new arm candy (“Some of those women you might see him with are friends of his daughters,” Ernest clarifies).
He’s a philanthropic force who loves connecting people, says Dr. Leonard Hochstein, a plastic surgeon in Miami, where Leder also owns a $15 million penthouse.
“In the middle of the dinner party, with 25 people, he has everybody change seats to make sure everybody has a chance to talk to somebody other than someone in their comfort zone,” says Hochstein, who attended the Galápagos trip with his wife, Lisa, a “Real Housewives of Miami” star.
“He makes everyone feel special. He’s charming,” agrees the anonymous Leder associate. “Every girl thinks she’s ‘the one,’ ” she adds.
Bell experienced Leder’s thoughtfulness firsthand after he drove 20 minutes to Friendly’s (which is owned by Leder’s company), only to discover that the shop’s Fribble machine was broken.
“I wrote Marc an e-mail complaining,” says Bell, a self-professed Fribble fanatic. “And he went ahead and hand-delivered me a Fribble the next day. He could have had his assistant do it . . . It just goes to show what type
he rages into the night. he will not go gentle into the good night.” — RESTAURATEUR OMAR HERNANDEZ, ON HIS PAL MARC LEDER
of person he is.”
Who he is today is quite different from the publicityshy man of yesteryear, sources say.
Raised in Great Neck, LI, he graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 with a major in economics, working his way up from an analyst to a senior vice president at Lehman Brothers before co-founding Sun Capital Partners, Inc. in 1995.
Leder married Lisa Weisbein in 1987. The couple divorced 22 years later amid allegations that the then 46-year-old Weisbein was having an affair with her 23-year-old tennis pro. Weisbein and Leder are now “best friends,” says a source. Weisbein even hopped aboard the Galápagos cruise with her new fiancé, a life-insurance salesman based in Florida (Leder brought a date of his own).
But sources say Leder — a father of three girls and one boy ranging in age from 3 to 23 — isn’t planning to settle down again anytime soon.
“He started earning more money and started being able to do more things,” Bell says of Leder’s newfound appreciation for fast living.
In 2011, he hosted a New Year’s Eve bash in St. Barts for 150 friends, complete with neck massages, manicures and pedicures. He purchased two sports teams — the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils — in 2011 and 2013, respectively, and counts Sofía Vergara’s ex Nick Loeb and Russell Simmons among his friends.
Andrea Correale from Elegant Affairs, a premier event planner based in NYC, says Leder fits right in with the excess-is-back Hamptons.
“It was almost in bad taste to show [your wealth] for a very long time,” says Correale. “People are starting to loosen up a little bit.”
And, to the delight of Hamptons scenesters, nobody is looser than Leder.
“All the big socialites, they entertain privately . . . but for the jet-setter, this is the party right now,” says Norah Lawlor, founder of Lawlor Media Group, who scored a coveted invite to the July Fourth fiesta and says she’s had countless “calls asking if I know him or can get them in.
“He’s really the only game in town.”