‘M’ is for money in exclusive club

Not everyone is trimming expenses during the recession.

Millionaires, for instance.

On Saturday night, a rich person's club called M had a champagne-flute soirée in a $25 million, 16,000-square-foot penthouse atop One Queensridge Place (across from the Suncoast), with a Rolls-Royce and Spyker C8 Spyders standing still in the parking lot.

Members of M considered bidding in a silent auction for products placed prominently in the penthouse, such as, oh, Marc Chagall's "Le Couple Blue" (as it was described in a release); starting bid: $1.375 million.

Guests feasted on finger foods just like you serve at home: banana crème pie, filet mignon and poached pear with Gorgonzola cheese and candied walnuts.

What is this M club? Roughly 600 Americans -- about 70 percent are men, including some film stars but largely financiers who cashed in with hedge fund and tech money -- spend $1,500 to $5,500 a month in dues. They get invites to parties like this one. And they can pay for "experiences."

One M member is paying $15,000 to be flown to Europe, where the M club will re-create, on a small scale but with Mini Coopers and all that, the movie "The Italian Job," starring him.

As my fiancee put it, M is kind of like a Make-A-Wish Foundation for rich people who aren't dying. Or, think of it as a concierge service for clients around the world.

"Anything you could dream up, they can make happen for you," Valerie Vega, one of Saturday's hosts, told me.

But isn't there a recession on?

"Everyone is a little more cautious," said David Dobkin, M president and managing partner. "But the human need to connect is strong."

An artist with paintings for auction, Josee Nadeau, said people still buy pricey art suited to personal tastes, but also for tax deductions and investments.

"People who still have money still want to spend it," Nadeau said.

To give you an idea of the status of this party, Nadeau told me about the time, two years before George Harrison died in 2001, when he sang improvisation-style to her for four hours at a party in the home of Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté.

"I remember walking him (Harrison) to his car and taking (his face) in my hands, and said, 'Go in peace,' " Nadeau told me, standing in a luxurious ruffle dress made by designer Marie Saint Pierre.

Down the hall, Las Vegas dentist and new M member Johnathan R. White, 29, had just proposed to his girlfriend of three months, Paula Cordeiro, a 24-year-old aesthetician and niece of a developer of One Queensridge Place. But White was unsure of M's purpose.

"I don't even know what it is -- like, a 24-hour, anywhere-in-the-world-type group?" White said.

Right. But isn't there a recession on?

"If you get money, you spend it," he said.

Perhaps. But White wasn't bidding seriously on party products.

"There's an auction item (starting at) $1.35 million. I bid $88, but I retracted to make it $82, because I have to pay the valet," he joked.

TOP MODEL DITCHED ILL BOYFRIEND

CariDee English, 2006 winner of "America's Next Top Model," vogued on a carpet en route to entering Rok Vegas at New York-New York on Friday and told me her best Vegas memory. After winning "Top Model," she came here with a boyfriend for New Year's Eve.

But he broke a tooth chewing gum -- chewing gum! (the same thing happened to me in 1996) -- and he ended up getting an expensive emergency root canal, which she paid for, on New Year's Eve.

Did she stay with him for the late dentistry?

"Oh hell no! I went on and left his ass," English said. "I said, 'Call me when you're done.' "

DITCHED 'BACHELORETTE' NEEDS A HUG

Also at that red carpet, DeAnna Pappas, winner of this year's "The Bachelorette," showed up with two sisters and girlfriends to party in the wake of her breakup with snowboarder Jesse Csincsak. I tried to cheer her up, but she wasn't having it.

"It's a change being a single girl. It's not a good moment -- a breakup," she said.

RANDOM OBSERVATION

While I was clubbing at various locales this weekend, I witnessed a guy and a woman making very, very obvious "coke nose" motions with their fingers and noses after exiting restrooms. Listen, if you're doing coke in a recession, you're a junkie. Get help.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 or delfman@reviewjournal.com. Post comments on the blog at reviewjournal.com/elfman.