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Trade Secrets at 25
Carolyn Piccireli, left, and Richard Lambertson, co-chairs of Trade Secrets.
On May 17 and 18, the 25th anniversary of Trade Secrets will unfurl like a perennial in full bloom. Held at Lime Rock Park and at private gardens in the area, the beloved garden and antiques fundraiser is part curated spectacle, part country house weekend, and all entirely for a cause — it is the primary fundraiser for Project SAGE, the Lakeville-based nonprofit that supports survivors of domestic violence across Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.
“People may think they’re coming for the bunnies and birdbaths,” said Richard Lambertson, co-chair and board member. “But they’re really helping fund emergency shelter, legal advocacy, and education. We want that to be clearer this year.”
Lambertson, co-chief executive and creative director of Lambertson Truex, has held leadership roles at Gucci, Geoffrey Beene, and Bergdorf Goodman, earning CFDA and ACE design honors for his distinctive American accessories vision. He and his fellow co-chair Carolyn Piccirelli, founder of Honeychurch Home based in Lenox, Massachusetts, are also Trade Secrets vendors themselves, meaning they’re sourcing, curating, designing, placing tents, approving flower choices, measuring every inch of the site with what can only be described as couture-level precision.
“We vet every vendor. We place every sign. We want every detail to speak the same language — classical, elegant, creative, and exciting,” said Piccirelli.
The event began in 2001 as the brainchild of designer Bunny Williams, antiques dealer Naomi Blumenthal, and horticulturist Deborah Munson, as a garden-themed tag sale on Bunny’s own property. Today, the show has evolved into a fully trademarked brand of its own, still deeply imbued with its founders’ eye and purpose.
Lambertson and Piccirelli estimate that about a quarter of the current vendors have been part of the event for 20 years or more. Still, the co-chairs work to keep the aesthetic crisp and focused. “We don’t want it turning into just an antique show,” Lambertson said. “It has to be garden-forward.”
While Trade Secrets runs like a well-oiled estate garden, it’s entirely volunteer-driven with over 300 volunteers — from Hotchkiss and Indian Mountain students to entire families who’ve made it an annual tradition. Vendors often arrive from across the Northeast and are treated to a cozy Saturday night dinner, complete with Bunny’s personal welcome and a talk from Project SAGE that, Piccirelli said, “brings people to tears.”
Along with the garden tour and the rare plants and antique sale, there will also be book signings on Sunday at Lime Rock Park. Meet Martha Stewart, Bunny Williams, Frances Palmer, Mieke ten Have and Rosie Daykin from 9:30 a.m. on.
For this anniversary year, the co-chairs have also made a few upgrades including new, bigger tents. “It’s going to look really pretty,” Piccirelli and Lambertson agreed. There will be a refreshed entryway with a surprise design from Bunny herself, and deeper integration between the event and the nonprofit it supports.
“This is our 25th anniversary, so it’s a big deal and our underwriting is off the charts compared to last year,” said Lambertson. “I think the state of the world has made people more willing to support a cause they believe in, and this year, everyone on the Project SAGE staff is working the show, the entire board is volunteering, and we’re putting the ‘why’ behind the weekend front and center because it’s not just a flower and antique show, it’s about the real impact those donations make.”
Still, for all its purpose, Trade Secrets is also pure pleasure—a ritual of spring, a place where heirloom roses and antique statuary coexist with conversations over peonies and local cheese.
“My favorite part is just when it opens,” said Piccirelli. “You feel the excitement, people are so happy to be there. The energy is electric.”
And like a true garden, it’s that combination of roots and bloom, tradition and reinvention, that keeps Trade Secrets growing strong.
For more information and tickets, visit: www.tradesecretsct.com
At the Colonial Theatre in North Canaan, Peter Canellos, left, sat down to talk with Scott Bok, resident of Salisbury and author of “Surviving Wall Street: A Tale of Triumph, Tradgedy, and Timing,” about his career.
On May 10, the Colonial Theatre in North Canaan hosted Scott Bok, author of “Surviving Wall Street: A Tale of Triumph, Tragedy, and Timing.” Bok is a forty-year veteran of Wall Street. He has served on the boards of several nonprofits and is a resident of Salisbury.
Moderator of the event was Peter Canellos, senior editor of “Politico,” a former editor of the editorial page at the “Boston Globe,” and author of biographies of Ted Kennedy and Supreme Court Justice John Harlan.
When Bok started out, Mergers and Acquisitions was something you “didn’t hear about;” private equity and hedge funds did not exist. “Now,” he said, “Wall Street pervades American life.”
With his book, Bok wanted to “tell the history of modern Wall Street. “I aspired to write a fun adventure story.”
Bok survived five major crises, “hedge funds, dot coms, the pandemic, the Ukrainian War, and coming out of the pandemic.”
Canellos asked about Bok’s thoughts on tariffs. “Will they go away?” Bok said, “Hard to know. On the days when people think he’s (the president) going to back off, stocks go up. When they think he’s getting serious, stocks go down. If the tariffs stay, I probably stand with every economist I’ve read. It’s going to be very difficult.”
Canellos and Bok spoke extensively of the University of Pennsylvania’s crisis which began in September of 2023. At its heart was the issue of free speech. Bok said that in all his years on the board, there had never been any suggestion of antisemitism. He became chair of the board of trustees in 2021.
UPenn had always been lenient and tolerant of protests. Bok said only about “1% of the student population participated” in the protests.
The spark was a Palestinian writer’s festival. Some students wanted it to be moved off campus. On Oct. 7, the Hamasattacks on Isreal “turned up the heat,” said Bok or “things would probably have died down on their own.”
Bok relayed that some people on the board said “I am all for free speech” but then “hate speech cannot be allowed. How do you handle it?”
He said the board’s attitude was to “let it be, until the students crossed a line and then they had to act aggressively and did.”
Meanwhile, Liz Magill, president of UPenn, was called to a Congressional hearing, along with presidents of Harvard and MIT where she was questioned for hours.
Magill was asked “Does calling for genocide against Jews violate university code of ethics?” by Elise Stefanik of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
She answered, “It is a context dependent decision.”
Bok said that Magill was focused on what the Constitution says that speech alone is not punishable. As for call for the genocide of any people, she said, “It’s evil-plain and simple” and wouldnot be tolerated.
Bok said, “This was a viral ‘gotcha moment.’” In Bok’s opinion it was just what the committee was waiting for and had led Magill into. In her opening statement at the hearing Magill had already come out firmly against antisemitism and had said, “I have condemned antisemitism publicly, regularly, and in the strongest possible terms. And today, let me reiterate my and Penn’s unyielding commitment to combating it.”
Canellos commented, “President Trump was taking aim at elite institutions along the same lines as Elise Stefanik did in questioning Liz Magill.”
Both Magill and Bok ended up resigning their positions at UPenn. Bok said he felt it was “a battle for the soul of the university.” The schools were being attacked for what the administration considered being “too woke, too liberal.”
“Multi-million dollar levers are at play. International students who are a great part of the graduate programs, can’t get visas or don’t feel safe. Schools will lose students,” said Bok.
Tax-exempt status for schools is at risk. If they lose that, they will have to pay taxes on their property and land. There would be no tax deductions for donations to schools.
He said he is “rooting for Harvard and what it is doing.” Harvard “came out swinging” and is fighting back.
Canellos asked Bok, “How do you think this will end up?”
“It will be hard to roll back to where it was. Schools will be strapped for money.” He predicted there will be layoffs and schools will have to dip into their endowment funds. Bok said, “I worry that some people are waiting to downgrade colleges to trade schools. There will be no time for poetry.”
Canellos concluded by saying, “I admire your courage in taking on these difficult subjects.”
All of the profits from “Surviving Wall Street” go to City Harvest, New York City’s first and largest food rescue program.
Left-to-right, musicians Gail Ann Dorsey, Séamus Maynard and Natalia Zukerman in-the-round at Race Brook Lodge.
Singer-songwriters Natalia Zukerman, Gail Ann Dorsey, and Séamus Maynard conjured “the conversational nature of reality” at a free-flowing performance for the Race Brook Lodge’s Down County Social Club on the evening of Thursday, May 8. The trio traded tunes for about an hour and a half, allowing the music to develop in dialogue with each other, the audience, and even an exploding amplifier.
Alex Harvey, who curates the speakeasy-style shows of the DCSC, offered the above words while introducing the three musicians. The ethos of the DCSC is to “break down the barrier” between the artists and audience; to make it “hard to hold up a fourth wall even if they wanted to.”
A mid-show equipment meltdown ensured this, requiring the musicians to go unplugged for the remainder of the night. Amplified or acoustic, though, the artists needed no assistance in cultivating a deeply conversational atmosphere that complemented the warm, rustic interior of the Lodge’s Pine Grove Porch.
Harvey said he was thrilled when Zukerman pitched the idea. “The caliber Natalia was talking about is mind-blowing,” he said during his introduction.
Zukerman was joined by Dorsey, a world-renowned bassist who was a core member of David Bowie’s band from 1995-2004 and has recorded and toured with other giants such as Tears for Fears, Lenny Kravitz and the National, and Maynard, a singer and virtuosic guitarist who Zukerman said “blew [her] mind” after finding him through Craryville, New York community market and performance venue, Random Harvest.
Zukerman, who is also the cartoonist and Compass editor for this newspaper, a role she took after full-time touring for over 15 years, said in an interview a few days after the show that she loves the “in the round” style format that structured the performance. Each musician played a song, back to back to back, sometimes improvising accompaniment over each other’s music.
“I just think singer-songwriters lend themselves to that,” she said. “You get to really broaden beyond yourself.”
The chemistry between the three artists was palpable, though they had never shared a stage prior to Thursday evening. Early in the set, a theme of struggle and mental health developed, with Zukerman reminding the room that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Zukerman sang a song called Widow’s Walk about committing a friend to an mental healthcare center (“I’m just waiting for you on this widow’s walk,” went the refrain), which Maynard followed with a minor key, Bert Jansch-informed fingerpicked guitar pattern with a turbulent chorus (“Once more into the fray go I/ no flame of hell ever held a candle to the light”).
Dorsey answered with a “lullaby” to loved ones she had lost to suicide, with her clear, soaring voice carrying a spectral guitar melody, assuring them of “an army of compassion on your side.”
After the show went acoustic, the tone changed and collaboration ensued, at one point involving all three with Zukerman contributing wilting slide guitar accompaniment and Dorsey adding some rhythmic plucking over Maynard’s lively fingerpicking.
The remainder of the session was characterized by a dynamic cadence between Zukerman’s complex guitar and layered storytelling (often accentuated with a dry wit), Maynard’s explosive yet deeply controlled playing and dense songwriting, and Dorsey’s powerful voice and gentle folk melodies.
Zukerman said she’s hopeful that the format will become a series in the future, but may have to take the show elsewhere as the Race Brook Lodge will be closing at the end of the year. Owner Casey Rothstein-Fitzpatrick assured that the Lodge’s cultural programming will remain robust through November, but will wrap up after that.
And how does Zukerman manage to organize shows and play music while working as a full-time editor and creator at the Lakeville Journal (not to mention the many additional roles she holds in other cultural institutions)? It’s all about loving what you do, she said.
“At the end of the day, I spend my time playing music, writing, teaching, drawing, talking to brilliant people,” she said. “I feel incredibly privileged to get to do what I do.”
