On a crisp autumn evening in East Hampton, the most valuable currency in the room was not money. It was access – to a celebrated film festival, to a director’s private wine estate in the south of France, and to a Palm Beach luncheon circuit that has quietly moved serious charitable dollars for decades. Antonella Bertello, owner of The Baker House 1650, and philanthropist Jean Shafiroff hosted a reception celebrating the 34th Hamptons International Film Festival, which ran October 2-12, 2026, and the gathering read like a small master class in how luxury hospitality, collectible wine and well-run philanthropy reinforce one another.
A Boutique Inn as a Private Salon
The Baker House 1650 is an award-winning boutique inn, and Bertello runs it the way experienced hosts run a good salon. Rooms are scarce, the setting is intimate, and every guest feels personally received. That scarcity is the point. In high-end hospitality, value rarely comes from scale. It comes from curation, from knowing which filmmaker, collector or benefactor should meet which other guest over a first glass.
Bertello brings a second lens to that work. She is a Corcoran Group agent in the Multi-Million Dollar Club and a member of the President’s Council, credentials built on Hamptons real estate at the top of the market. She understands, in practical terms, what a property is worth and what an experience in that property can create. Her family project, Marina Coast Peru, extends the same thinking to a much larger canvas – a superyacht marina development planned to open in the first quarter of 2027. A marina, like an inn, sells far more than a berth or a bedroom. It sells arrival, service and a ready-made social world.
Readers who follow this intersection of place and giving will recognize the pattern in our recent coverage of Palm Beach society gathering in New York, where long-standing charitable networks travel easily between cities and seasons.
The Wine: An Estate Bought in 1992, Poured in 2026
Guests tasted wines from Mas des Infermieres, the estate in the Luberon that Sir Ridley Scott and his family bought in 1992. The property covers about 30 hectares of vines, a working vineyard rather than a trophy label bought for a logo. Its wines carry HVE and Bee Friendly certification, two marks that matter more each year to buyers who collect and pour with an eye on how land is farmed.
That detail gives the pour a different weight. A famous director’s name opens the conversation, but certification and three decades of ownership keep it going. The Scotts have held the estate since 1992, long enough for the vines, the team and the style of the wines to settle into something consistent. For guests who think about wine as an asset – something to cellar, to share and to return to – that continuity is the luxury. Anyone can buy a fashionable bottle for one evening. Holding and improving an estate for more than thirty years is a longer, quieter form of wealth.
The reception made that point without a lecture. Glasses were poured, the vineyard was named, and the work behind it was left to speak in the taste.
Art on the Walls, Purpose in the Room
Artwork by Ashley Medici was showcased during the evening, adding a visual layer that fit the festival moment. Film people notice images. Collectors notice placement. Showing art inside a hospitality setting, rather than a stark gallery, lets guests live with a piece for an hour, see it in warm light and imagine it at home. It is a soft way to sell, and often the most effective one.
The same soft power runs through the philanthropy reporting in our profile of Gloria T. Cressler and New York’s philanthropy network, where introductions made in a drawing room can become support for a cause months later.
The Palm Beach Economics Behind the Old Bags Luncheon
The evening also highlighted the Old Bags Luncheon for the Center for Family Services of Palm Beach County, set for Wednesday, February 17, 2027, and co-chaired by Jean Shafiroff, Lora Drasner and Marzia Precoda. The name is playful. The numbers behind the beneficiary are not.
The Center was founded in 1961. It runs 8 core programs and has served more than 1 million clients. Put plainly, that is more than six decades of steady service in one county, delivered through a structure built to last rather than a single campaign built to trend. For donors weighing where a luncheon ticket, a table or a sponsorship actually goes, that record is the due diligence. Longevity, program breadth and a seven-figure count of people served tell a benefactor the institution can absorb support and turn it into work.
Shafiroff’s role as co-chair matters here too. Experienced chairs bring their own address books, their own credibility and their own habit of following through after the photographs. When she lends her name to a Palm Beach luncheon from a podium in East Hampton in October, she is connecting two wealthy social calendars – the Hamptons in autumn and Palm Beach in winter – and giving guests months to plan, commit and invite friends. That timing is good fundraising and good social economics.
It echoes the logic in recent philanthropy placing large, focused bets on results that can be delivered: donors respond when a cause shows its track record clearly and asks at the right moment.
Who Was There
Guests included Maria van Vlodrop, James McCartney, Meghan McCartney, Frederico Azevedo, Sarah Kautz, Caroline Rhoad, David McMaster, Donna Rubin, Joni Fischer, Christopher Fischer, Frank Cilione and Katrina Peebles. It was a mix that suited the evening – film festival energy, Hamptons neighbors, Palm Beach regulars and guests who move comfortably among all three.
That mix is worth noting for what it creates later. A marina developer hears how festival guests use East Hampton in October. A co-chair hears who hopes to be in Palm Beach in February. A wine lover leaves with a Luberon estate to look for at home. None of that requires a hard pitch. The room itself does the work, which is why hosts like Bertello and Shafiroff guard the guest list so carefully.
Our earlier look at Palm Beach evenings linking art, sport and society across cities traced the same circuit from a different angle, and the Hamptons reception fits it neatly – one season handing its relationships to the next.
A Season That Keeps Working
The 34th Hamptons International Film Festival has now wrapped its October 2-12 run, but the reception’s threads run forward. Marina Coast Peru moves toward its planned first-quarter 2027 opening. The Old Bags Luncheon arrives on February 17, 2027, with its co-chairs, its beneficiary’s long record and a guest list already warming up months in advance. Mas des Infermieres, held since 1992 and farmed under recognised certifications, keeps building value the slow way, vintage by vintage.
That is the real story for readers of this page. Wealth at its most durable rarely shouts. It restores an inn and fills it with the right people. It holds a vineyard for thirty years. It supports a family-services center founded in 1961 and lets more than a million clients served make the case. On one autumn night in East Hampton, all three forms sat in the same room, and each made the others look stronger.
Photo credit: BFA / Skylar Searing.
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