For a Christmas Eve dinner at Weatherpebble, the carriage house on Weatherstone, her Connecticut estate, Roehm created a red-on-red theme with a large bouquet of ilex berries, red candles, red glass and tableware, red napkins and a damask tablecloth.


Carolyne Roehm.


Finding a tree tall enough for the 24-foot ceilings of Roehm's Aspen home is always a challenge. Throughout the years, she has collected an array of multicolored decorations for her tree.

“Anything – and everything – is an inspiration for throwing a party,” declares style setter Carolyne Roehm.

There doesn't even have to be an occasion to entertain, but when there is one, well, that's all the more reason to celebrate, Roehm says in her book, A Passion for Parties (Broadway Books, $50). And the holidays are the perfect time to play the perfect hostess, something she does effortlessly – with pizzazz and panache.

“The thing I find exciting is the creative part,” says Roehm, a former fashion designer who is known for her informal parties with a formal flair. “In my heart of hearts, I love to do the party, to see that the candles are lit, that the room is scented, that the food is on the table. And frankly, after all that is done, I would just as soon go up to my room and eat a baked potato by myself.”

Roehm, a willowy brunette, starts the holiday season at Weatherstone, her Connecticut estate, where she traditionally welcomes autumn with square dancing and hunt balls for which the women don gowns and the men get decked out in classic hunting pinks. “My favorites are weekend parties, where the guests always are doing something like trail riding,” she says, adding that it's not unusual for her to host 35 or more parties every year. “It's something different from the endless array of dinner parties in New York City. It's much more relaxed in the country, where I have my eight dogs running around and everyone basks in the cozy glow of the fireplace.”

She loves to mix things up by planning back-to-back weekend events and adding guests. “This makes it more stimulating,” she says.

The trick to the perfect party, she says, is getting everyone – and that includes the host and hostess – involved. “I often choose things to do that I know most of the people have never done before, so that everyone starts at the same level. For instance, if I hold a dance, it's likely to be something exotic like the tango, and I'll have dancers there to break down inhibitions. I once held a square dance, and Henry Kissinger was there, and Blaine Trump urged him to do it, and he did and he loved it. It made him go out of himself.”

The biggest event on Roehm's social calendar is Christmas, and her parties are as heartwarming as a bowl of wassail and as memorable as an old-fashioned sleigh ride on a breathy winter's night. “For me as an artist, every party is a palette, a canvas to be painted and a chance to connect with people,” she says. “I've had ice-skating afternoons, small formal dinners and big casual buffets, black-tie dances, small musical evenings, ladies' lunches, cookie-decorating parties and caroling parties.”
These are all simple pleasures indeed, but Roehm infuses each with her own magic touch to create events that are remembered for a lifetime. For one of her cookie-decorating parties, for instance, she invited friends and their young children to do the baking, then treated everyone to a holiday lunch, where dessert, was, of course, the red, green and white cutout cookies that they all had so much fun making.
And there was the Christmas she spent in Aspen to celebrate the completion of her house, which is perched on the Roaring Fork River, decorating with evergreens and pinecones so her home blended with the great outdoors. She toasted that Christmas Eve with a bottle of Château Beychevelle and served seafood bisque, Cornish game hens, a timbale of broccoli, wild-mushroom risotto cake, an endive and Stilton cheese salad and, for dessert, poached pears wrapped in pastry.


For an elegant New Year's Eve dinner, Roehm created a table setting that takes its cues from a wintry landscape. She placed snow-flecked branches in a white bowl atop a snow-dusted linen tablecloth, using all-white china, crystal and 18th-century silver to complement the simple, elegant tableau.

Regardless of the venue, the party's over as soon as Christmas Day dawns, and that's exactly how Roehm likes it: This is her tranquil time, the time for her to enjoy her own company.

It was the soft, clear white of winter that inspired one of Roehm's recent New Year's Eve parties. “I wanted everything to glisten like snow,” she says.

So she set the table with a snow-dusted linen cloth, all-white china, crystal and 18th-century silver. A centerpiece, faux-snow-covered branches set in a bowl and surrounded by tapers, became the party's pièce de résistance. As a favor, each guest received a favorite CD in an envelope tied with a silver ribbon. And when the clock struck 12, the crystal glasses, filled with champagne, were raised high to bring in the New Year with style and aplomb.

The most successful parties, Roehm says, have themes. These may be as simple as a color scheme – one of her reddest Connecticut Christmases was inspired by damask shawls she found in India. Or they might be as elaborate as a period-style stage set – one of her Halloween parties included a recreation of Miss Haversham's decaying bridal feast from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. And all else – the decor, the menu, the activities – spring from that one element.

If all of this comes easily to Roehm, it is because she grew up in an entertaining family. “My maternal grandmother was always entertaining and cooking and decorating,” she says. “So it always seemed normal to me. I was always the social secretary in the sorority, the person people gravitated to to make the event and plan the party. I love everything that has to do with entertaining and the home.”
Perhaps the most essential quality of being a great hostess is knowing how to be a good guest. “I have enjoyed some – but not all – of my parties,” Roehm says. “When I was younger, I was such a perfectionist that I forgot to have fun.”

Regardless of which holidays you celebrate or how you celebrate them, Roehm, the ever-present hostess, sends her best wishes for a good time, whether you're her guest or someone else's. “The most important thing is to have fun,” she says. “And to share the experience with the people – your family and friends – who make you feel happiest.”


Roehm relaxes at a cocktail party for members of the Millbrook Hunt Ball committee at Weatherstone.

Nancy A. Ruhling, a freelance writer based in New York City, writes frequently about interior design, art and antiques.