Sam Havadtoy
fatt...@yahoo.com
If anyone is interested in Sam Havadtoy, there is an article by William
Hamilton in the New York Times, February 23, 2006.
UsurperTom
> If anyone is interested in Sam Havadtoy, there is an article by William Hamilton in the New York Times, February 23, 2006.
Yeah. It's in the Home & Garden section.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/garden/23sbox.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Amid the Mostly Modern, a Few 'Black Age' Finds
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON
Published: February 23, 2006
ON Falk Miksa Utca, a street of galleries, antiques stores and auction
houses in Budapest, where Sam Havadtoy shops regularly, the furniture
and decorative arts for sale include a preponderance of modern
material, in the styles of Arts and Crafts, Vienna Secession, Art Deco
and Bauhaus (both authentic and inspired by). Prices for restored,
refinished pieces, especially turn-of-the-century bentwood furniture
like Thonet, or generic chrome-and-glass modernism, will appear
inexpensive in light of New York prices. What the selection lacks,
because of World War II and Communism, is midcentury modern and the
1960's and 70's, when Hungary was closed to the West and domestic
production was largely devoted to cheap goods.
"It was kind of a black age," said Zeljko Kvarda, who owns Studio Agram
(www.studioagram.com) at Falk Miksa Utca 10. "But the Hungarian design
is interesting to see now for the fact that Hungary was closed." In
addition to early modernist stock, Studio Agram has started to find and
sell rare examples of design from the "black age." An aluminum and
leather 1960's armchair, probably produced under the patronage of a
powerful Communist Party member, Mr. Kvarda said, was $8,345.
Other stops on Mr. Havadtoy's rounds include Pinter Antik
(pinterantik.hu), at Falk Miksa Utca 10, and Decker Antique
(deckerantique.hu), at Balassy Balint Utca 21-23. Mr. Havadtoy buys
much of his antique lace for his paintings at Anna Antikvitas, at Falk
Miksa 18-20, which also sells table and bed linens and other vintage
fabrics.
fatt...@yahoo.com
referencing in the Times. The Times article is much longer and includes
a short biography and his rise to wealth and fame. In the Times
article Sam states unequivocably that he and Yoko were never married.
The article indicates he is very wealthy and successful.
I wonder how and why he is getting so much attention after all these
years.
UsurperTom
> The Times article is much longer and includes a short biography and his rise to wealth and fame.
I found it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/garden/23sam.html
YOU could say furniture was responsible for much of what has happened
in life to Sam Havadtoy.
In 1978 Mr. Havadtoy, then 24, was working at the Stuart Greet gallery,
an antiques shop and interior design business in New York (Mr. Greet
was his personal partner as well as his employer), when John Lennon and
Yoko Ono admired a pair of Italian Egyptian revival chairs in the
window, walked in, and bought them. Mr. Havadtoy subsequently designed
several homes for them, including apartments in the Dakota and two
country houses.
When Lennon was shot and killed in 1980, Mr. Havadtoy became Ms. Ono's
closest companion, beginning a widely reported but little known
relationship that lasted 20 years, six years longer than her marriage
to Lennon. Described in news accounts as her boyfriend, companion,
spokesman, partner, manager, assistant, business administrator and
secret husband, Mr. Havadtoy, after separating from Ms. Ono in 2000, is
now easier to describe, if still complex.
Living in Budapest, in an apartment that looks out over the Danube
River to the royal castle of Buda, Mr. Havadtoy, 52, is an artist
making a serious start on his career. He said he let five years pass,
in order to be out of Ms. Ono's shadow. Mr. Havadtoy, who was born in
London and raised in Hungary, has owned the apartment since 1995.
Reconstructed from two units after being divided in the 1960's, its
value would likely be $1 million, he said. Mr. Havadtoy also owns a
house and studio in Szentendre, a small town on the river 25 minutes
away, and an apartment in London.
"It was some combination of all the roles described, I guess," he said,
sitting in his living room, improbably large for post-Communist
Budapest, of his relationship with Ms. Ono. "Except I was never her
husband. We never got married."
Mr. Havadtoy said they had an oral agreement not to talk about the
relationship, including the possibility that their separation involved
a financial settlement that Mr. Havadtoy now enjoys. "We just agreed
that we will respect each other's privacy, and I think that's more than
fair," Mr. Havadtoy said, curling up, as though defensively, on a
contemporary Italian sofa with a bamboo-print fabric. Hung above it was
a suite of Ms. Ono's pen and ink drawings. The apartment is filled with
her art, as well as works by Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and others whom
Mr. Havadtoy knew in his heyday in New York.
As a designer and friend, he decorated the room Haring decided he
wanted to die in, in imitation of the Ritz in Paris, Haring's favorite
hotel. Mr. Havadtoy also worked for Saul Steinberg and Laura Steinberg,
Mr. Steinberg's second wife, in the former Rockefeller apartment at 740
Park Avenue. He decorated homes for Jann and Jane Wenner, then for Mr.
Wenner and Matt Nye, Mr. Havadtoy said. He also did work for Anne Cox
Chambers, the media heiress, including the embassy in Brussels when she
was the ambassador to Belgium; for the royal family of Morocco; and for
Janis Ian, the singer.
Of Mr. Havadtoy and Ms. Ono, Warhol told his diary in 1984, "I can't
figure out if it's her boyfriend or what." By 1985 Warhol noted, "He's
Hungarian, it turns out," adding, "He doesn't let Yoko push him
around." He concluded: "I guess he just takes care of Yoko. But that's
hard."
Back in Budapest, Mr. Havadtoy began collecting work by Hungarians,
including art, photography and design, which is not as far-fetched as
it might sound. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Andre Kertesz and Marcel Breuer
were Hungarian-born, and Mr. Havadtoy owns pieces by them, as well as
by lesser knowns like Lajos Kozma, an architect and furniture designer.
"They're world famous in Hungary," he said of discoveries like Kozma.
"They're revered, and very important for Hungary."
At the apartment, in a building that stands between the former
Communist Party headquarters, a 1960's cement block, and the House of
Parliament, a turn-of-the-century mock-Gothic complex, Mr. Havadtoy
described his own style of design as eclectic, explaining that it was a
word he hated. Budapest, created in 1873 with the union of two towns,
Buda and Pest, could be the capital of eclecticism - a goulash, as
Hungarians are quick to characterize many things.
"A dirty version of Vienna, with a touch of Paris," Mr. Havadtoy said.
"Pure Hungarian." He recalled showing the city to David Bowie when Mr.
Bowie visited in the 1980's.
"It's all fake," Mr. Havadtoy recalled Mr. Bowie saying. "He hated it."
There is also evidence of a strong modernist tradition, which produced
Hungarian stars like Moholy-Nagy and Breuer. A street of 22 modern
houses, Napraforgo Utca (Sunflower Street), designed in 1925 by Farkas
Molnar, a graduate of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, has recently
attracted tenants dedicated to preserving the utopian neighborhood. And
on Falk Miksa Utca, a street of antique shops, galleries and auction
houses near Mr. Havadtoy's apartment, modernist designs have a high
profile.
On a tour of his house in Szentendre, which he designed with the help
of Andras Bordas, an architect, Mr. Havadtoy said of his inspiration
for the neatly ordered, functional spaces, "Bauhaus, Bauhaus, Bauhaus."
The inscription that welcomes visitors at the front door, "Minden
Megoldas Erdekel," translates roughly as "Let's Make a Deal," he said.
His mother, a nephew and a niece have houses that are a quick walk
away.
Mr. Havadtoy's life could be seen as a series of interesting
transactions. Born in London to a Hungarian watchmaker and his wife,
the family moved to Budapest when Mr. Havadtoy, the youngest of three
sons, was 4. When their parents divorced in 1958, their father put the
brothers in an orphanage, where they lived for two years while their
mother contested their custody. Reunited with her, the sons lived in a
basement room, sleeping on two doors pushed together, until they were
given a state-owned apartment in the 1960's.
Mr. Havadtoy never reconciled with his father. Because he held a
British passport, though it was not recognized in Communist Hungary,
Mr. Havadtoy said that as a teenager he dreamed of eventually leaving.
After graduating from high school, where he learned the trade of
waiting tables, he established himself as a money changer, buying
currency from tourists he waited on in the restaurant where he worked
and selling it to a gypsy whose wife got Mr. Havadtoy a visa for a
vacation in Bulgaria. On the way, he stopped in Yugoslavia, where his
British passport was recognized, fled to Italy and traveled to London,
where, after 10 months as the butler to a French general who was in
England developing the Concorde supersonic jet, he met Mr. Greet, an
English-born antiques dealer living in New York. Mr. Greet offered him
a ticket and a job.
"Of course I said yes," Mr. Havadtoy recalled. "One has to be a quick
study in this life to succeed." He was 18. Six years later he was
decorating homes for John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
"I guess they considered me a little bit exotic, too," he said. "The
Hungarian refugee. I don't know. I pinch myself even today."
Now, Mr. Havadtoy concentrates on his art. He saw Ms. Ono at Jann
Wenner's 60th birthday party at Le Bernardin last month in New York.
They acknowledged each other, though they did not speak, he said. Mr.
Havadtoy is preparing for an exhibition in Milan and another at the
Open Society Archives, part of the Soros Foundations Network, in its
new headquarters in Budapest.
Mr. Havadtoy's newest paintings are executed in old lace, which he
applies onto canvases on which he has written stories about his life,
painting over the lace to prevent the stories from being read. A critic
might view this as the artist committing them to memory, or the artist
committing them to the grave. One series is called "Love Is Hell."
Another is titled "Another Life Another Lie - Another Lie Another
Life."
Mr. Havadtoy, who gave up his United States permanent residency permit,
or green card, last year, as a gesture of his intention to stay in
Hungary, and who also stopped signing his e-mail messages "saminexile,"
said that he misses New York when he is in Budapest, and vice versa.
He compared expatriatism to bisexuality.
"You're never happy in either relationship," he said. "You miss the
other half."
Asked if he felt hurt by his separation from Ms. Ono, or if he
regretted not being in contact with her, after 20 years of an
extraordinary kind of life, he said no.
Mr. Havadtoy, who called himself "a little kid who came from nothing,"
recalled being 10, sharing a room with his family, when one day his
mother borrowed a crib.
"I was the youngest, so I got to sleep in this little crib," he said.
It was the first time he had ever had a bed of his own. But he was too
big for it, and his legs stuck through the bars, making it impossible
to rest. The comfort never outweighed the confinement.
"You have to be careful what you wish for," said Mr. Havadtoy, for whom
much has come true.
F Parella
UsurperTom wrote:
> he met Mr. Greet, an
> English-born antiques dealer living in New York. Mr. Greet offered him
> a ticket and a job.
In exchange for what, I wonder.
> "Of course I said yes," Mr. Havadtoy recalled. "One has to be a quick
> study in this life to succeed."
"Quick study" or gigolo?
Thanks for the article.
fatt...@yahoo.com
It is interesting that Sam is about 20 years younger than Yoko. A
pretty unusual combo.
I'm trying to "imagine" them lined up in bed. . . . . . .hmmmm
UsurperTom
> I'm trying to "imagine" them lined up in bed. . . . . . .hmmmm
February 23, 2006
Budapest Real Estate Secrets from Yoko Ono's Former Rent-Boy
Our daddy always told us that it's as easy to fall in love with a rich
girl as a poor girl. While that may not be true, there are certainly
benefits to shacking up with a rich girl, at least if you do it for
long enough. In their latest creepily uncritical story about Hungary,
the New York Times is reporting today (link should be registration-free
for a week) that former Yoko Ono boytoy Sam Havadtoy has returned to
Budapest as a permanent
resident, splitting his time between an apartment near Parliament and a
house in Szentendre (above) that together are swanky enough to merit
the first Times's first "Design Dispatch" from Hungary, and to make us
wonder why we didn't more faithfully follow our father's advice.
While the piece goes pretty light on Havadtoy, who somehow managed to
keep a
low profile despite being at Ono's side longer than the late John
Lennon, it does contain this delicious barb:
Mr. Havadtoy said [he and Ono] had an oral agreement not to talk about
the relationship, including the possibility that their separation
involved a financial settlement that Mr. Havadtoy now enjoys. "We just
agreed that we will respect each other's privacy, and I think that's
more than fair," Mr. Havadtoy said, curling up, as though defensively,
on a contemporary Italian sofa with a bamboo-print fabric.
The poor dear - forced to curl up defensively on his Italian sofa with
a bamboo-print fabric!
More intriguingly - at least for local real estate buffs - the story
quotes Havadtoy as saying that his Budapest flat, which looks to be on
Balassi Bálint utca a block or two from Jászai Mari tér, is worth $1
million. This means that the flat is either really, really big, or that
panoramas in Pest cost more than we previously thought. Either way,
daddy's advice is starting to sound better all the time.
F Parella
Maybe, but they definitely were not married! Sam is emphatic on that
point.
> It is interesting that Sam is about 20 years younger than Yoko. A
> pretty unusual combo.
> I'm trying to "imagine" them lined up in bed. . . . . . .hmmmm
Everything that comes out about this guy raises more questions than it
answers.
Chuck
Chuck
Runnnerr
Ohhhhh.... Ick!!!! Gross!!!!!
fatt...@yahoo.com
Where was that printed and who wrote it?
fatt...@yahoo.com
another. John had stated in his 1980 Playboy interview that Yoko views
men as servants although with different degrees of intimacy. Sad,
isn't it, that he should say this just a few months before he died.
The whole relationship between Sam and Yoko seems strange. . . .I mean,
for 20 years Yoko promoted John and the JohnandYoko myth while Sam was
in the background, presumably sharing her bed, John's wealth and
personal belongings, John's son, etc. Can anyone here imagine Paul
McCartney spending years talking on and on about Linda with Heather
hiding in the background?
This is especially ironic because when John was alive, Yoko was very
possessive of him. She isolated him from his past and wanted to make
sure she was attached to him almost like a Siamese twin when it came to
interviews, photographs, albums, etc. For same "strange" reason, even
though she and Sam were lovers, Yoko didn't treat Sam the same way . .
. . i.e. make sure that Sam was constantly glued to her at every photo
op.
Does anyone else here see the hypocricy?
There seems to be something very phoney going on.
F Parella
Sam Havadtoy, unlike John Lennon, was not independently wealthy and
famous. So maybe that's why Yoko didn't have a need to be publicly
associated with him. She did everything she could to keep the
relationship with Havadtoy private. But even Sam had to come out once
in a while. Like when his ex boyfriends said he had gotten married in
Hungary.
Something curious about Sam is how he was constantly giving money to
young men. If he was so in love with Yoko what were the young men
about? Why was he giving them so much money? Whose money was it?
fatt...@yahoo.com
"Something curious about Sam is how he was constantly gving money to
young men. If he was so in love with Yoko what were the young men
about?"
Please elaborate. I know he was gay before he got involved with Yoko.
What do you mean that Sam was giving money to young men?
uly...@mscomm.com
suddenly become straight even if Yoko wants people to believe this
about Sam.
fatt...@yahoo.com
Perhaps you are correct, but how do you know Sam is gay and not bi?
If he is not bi, how did he end up with Yoko then? Are you saying he
is truly gay, and just "did" her for the money?
donz5
>Does anyone else here see the hypocricy?
Now that you've asked: What I see is a prurient obsession in the
private lives of semi-public people. Will your understanding of the
world alter much if you've determined whether Sam is straight or bi or
gay? Or how he and Yoko spent their time together?
F Parella
Fattuchus, that Playboy article about all the hardships Yoko and Sam
supposedly faced after Lennon's death says that Havadtoy gave five
thousand dollars in cash to a "shabbily dressed" man named Willie
Williams. It says that Yoko and Sam gave $65,000 to "assorted partners
and accomplices." It also says that a former roommate of Havadtoy's
named Luciano Sparacino demanded money from Havadtoy. But the article
doesn't explain why Sparacino felt entitled to this money.
UsurperTom
> It also says that a former roommate of Havadtoy's named Luciano Sparacino demanded money from Havadtoy. But the article doesn't explain why Sparacino felt entitled to this money.
Sparacino was Havadtoy's lover. Sparacino, who told Albert Goldman
that Sam married Yoko in Hungary in June 1981, later died of AIDS.
fatt...@yahoo.com
Will YOUR understanding of the world alter if you read or respond
to almost anything posted her at rmb?
fatt...@yahoo.com
wouldn't surprise me if Yoko and Sam have an arrangement where Yoko
pays or paid him and therefore Sam keeps quiet. Luciano may have also
been bitter that Sam left him for Yoko.
Luciano, for example, did issue a statement to the press that Yoko had
confided in him that she was tired of John, and once Double Fantasy was
over, she had planned to divorce him.
donz5
"Read or respond to almost anything posted here"? Check the threads.
I've been relatively quiet in here for weeks, save one thread that was
tagged OT.
Let's remind ourselves, fattuc.... you _solicited_ a response in this
thread. Accept it or not, but let's not get all defensive.
Why someone's sexual preferences -- someone you've never met and likely
never will -- matters to you (and others) seems an odd obsession.
fatt...@yahoo.com
asked me (I assume sarcastically) if my understanding of the world
would change if I learned about someone's sex habits. The answer is
obviously "no." But then again, I doubt that my understanding of the
world or anyone else's will change merely by reading or participating
in anything at rmb.
Havadtoy's past link with Lennon and the Yoke is an interesting subject
to many people, not just me, as evidenced by the NY Times article and
by the posts here.
donz5
> I'm was just responding to your (usual) criticism of me, Donz.
Where did I criticize you? You offered a response, and it was taken.
> You
> asked me (I assume sarcastically) if my understanding of the world
> would change if I learned about someone's sex habits. The answer is
> obviously "no." But then again, I doubt that my understanding of the
> world or anyone else's will change merely by reading or participating
> in anything at rmb.
>
> Havadtoy's past link with Lennon and the Yoke is an interesting subject
> to many people, not just me, as evidenced by the NY Times article and
> by the posts here.
No doubt, but it's undeniable that the subject has veered away from his
present whereabouts to the Great Mystery as to his sexual preferences
and the prurient gossip that followed.
But, hey, if this is what consumes you (and others), who am I to
dictate otherwise?
F Parella
A badly programmed computer.
fatt...@yahoo.com
Perhaps I have misinterpreted your words or intentions, but I believe
that you often address me in a sarcastic and/or holier than thou tone.
roman
Which Playboy article outlines those "hardships" and the money paid
out? Which year/month did this interview appear?
Very interesting discussion.
Yes I believe too that Havadtoy was basically gay but willing to be
Yoko's rentboy for the right price especially if his lover was dying of
AIDS and needed special medical treatment that Yoko would be paying
for. That would also explain why Yoko has been so supportive of gays
and aligns herself with AIDS non-profits.
It is said that Havadtoy also was Yoko's drug supplier and got her all
the coke and heroin she wanted/needed with his international
connections.
roman b
thanks very much
fatt...@yahoo.com
I wasn't referring to a Playboy article. We are discussing an
article in the New York Times which appeared about one week ago.
Usurper Tom quotes it at length above.
F Parella
roman wrote:
> Dear F Parella/Fattuchs,
>
> Which Playboy article outlines those "hardships" and the money paid
> out? Which year/month did this interview appear?
>
> Very interesting discussion.
Roman,
The article I mentioned is "The Betrayal of John Lennon," from the
March 1984 issue of Playboy. It's by David and Victoria Sheff and is
one of the strangest things I've ever read. I would guess that Yoko's
spokesman Elliot Mintz is the source for much of it, and that his
conspiracy theory mindset ran amok. The references to Havadtoy raise
more questions than they answer IMO.
Your conclusions about Havadtoy seem right to me.
FP