Every Wednesday for 20 years, captains of industry, literary stars and former prime ministers have gathered for drinks in a Montreal mansion. It's an evening of witty banter and raucous debate - and nobody gives a hoot about political correctness
On any given Wednesday, when the City of Westmount is shutting down, when the night lights of the town's Gothic City Hall are turned on and the Mayor has left, when the elders from the lawn bowling club and the children from Westmount Park have long since gone home to dinner, a red bulb will be turned on outside an Edwardian mansion on stately Rosemount Avenue, and the door will be left open a crack. The house -- situated in what the planners of the 19th century referred to as "the cradle of Westmount," the crib of Montreal's Protestant elite.
Everywhere there are heirlooms from a rich past. The bar, stocked with hundreds of bottles, sits in front of the dining room -- all heavy, dark wood and carved brass sconces. It is the heart of the house, David and Diana Nicholson's cradle of conversation in the cradle of Westmount, the site of their Wednesday Night Salon.
The Nicholsons' weekly soiree, referred to simply as "Wednesday Night" by the couple and their guests, is the longest-running private salon in the history of Canadian conversation: in 19 years, never a single Wednesday missed, not for birthdays, family responsibilities, work or Christmas. The red & green [port & Starbord]lights go on over their front porch, the dozens of candles are lit, and the sound of collective guffawing fills the ground floor. On any given night, their table will host academic, political and business camps with a smattering of media types, plus the odd student or witty flâneur the Nicholsons may have picked up for good measure.
Over the years, guests of the most distinguished sort -- Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Charest, former chairman of Bombardier Capital Yvan Allaire, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund Jacques de Larosière of France -- have visited the candle-lit hive. A few, like the engineer and Order of Canada recipient Dr. John Jonas, or former Minister of Indian Affairs John Ciaccia, attend almost every week.
"You come to try out new ideas, to see if they have wings," says Ciaccia. "Some patently come to network or canvass. Some come to get away from their daily thinking, to get the opportunity to talk to different people about different things."
Taking time out of a work week ruled by cellphones and e-mail for a candle-lit discussion salon is not a common thing to do nowadays. A think-tank, where an important report is produced, perhaps. A conference, where colleagues with a mission gather under a banner -- sure. But tell someone you are going to a salon and their reaction will likely be a joke about smoking jackets and cravats. The very idea seems quaint.
Montreal lawyer Julius Grey has been a Wednesday Nighter since 1993. "There is a somewhat antiquarian element to it," he says. "Something almost throwback-ish." Nobody at the Wednesday Night knows who Eminem or The Rock is. Television is talked about as an intellectual scourge. Tweedy European accents that come from places occasionally referred to at the salon as "the motherland" still score big points.
"But even with all of its eccentricities," continues Grey, "I still feel something like the Nicholsons' night is more necessary than ever. It promotes a type of debate which is otherwise increasingly absent in our society. At the salon, every so often, I am on the liberal or left side of the debate, but I have found myself in agreement, occasionally, with all sorts of people I never thought I would be in agreement with ever. You can say things without fearing the consequences there."
The oldest rule on Wednesdays is that everything is strictly off the record. "So you go," says Grey, "and, usually, you are happy you did, even if some of the nights can be -- and I think everyone who has been might agree with this -- a little surreal."
I attended my first Wednesday Night last winter. I had heard about the salon before -- how, on some nights, men and women worth tens of billions of dollars sat at the table; how, on others, mortal political enemies clinked glasses. My in was a friend, who brought me as a guest. I was told to bring one bottle of wine -- "Supermarket wine will do, nobody notices" -- and to arrive at 8:30 p.m. so as not to miss the pre-discussion "flirting" sessions that warm things up before everyone is seated.
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Diana Nicholson is welcoming guests. Her blond hair has the most magnificent flip to it, the kind one rarely sees nowadays outside of Nantucket racquet clubs. In one hand she holds a highball of Scotch, in the other, a Matinée Extra Light.
"Hello, dear ... You are ...?" she inquires in a gravelly, lilting voice. I tell her. "Ah, yes." She scans the room. "Daay-vid!" This is the one word that is not lilting; rather it is bellowed in a way that makes the smoke push out of her refined mouth in a cloud-like puff.
The Nicholsons' exchanges are legendary at the salon. "Watching David and Diana," says businessman and political author Reed Scowen, a Wednesday Nighter since the mid-1990s, "it's like a spectator sport. David is the reactionary, sexist, conservative -- an old fogey -- and he does all these things to irritate everyone. And Diana is the perfect foil to all that. She puts everything back into perspective. She reels him in."
Ten minutes later, and the guests -- John Ciaccia (known on Wednesdays as "Mr. Minister"), Westmount Mayor Peter Trent ("Mr. Mayor"), Jonas ("Mr. Order of Canada"), founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law Dr. Margaret Somerville ("Madame Genius"), Architect Harry Mayerovitch ("Uncle Harry"), economist Guy Stanley, and about 15 others -- are seated. David sits at the centre chair in his seat of power.
Norbert Gilmore, Marie Cormier, Kimon Valaskakis, Mark Roper, John Jonas, Harry Mayerovitch
The first capital-S salons were born in France in the 17th century. It was then that the traditional French class structure was split apart by the new bourgeoisie -- "the leisured class" -- who had both the money and the time to sit around, being witty and feeling exclusive, in the gilded hôtels of grandiose madames. The notion of the salon soon spread throughout Europe, and then to America. And even if, in the centuries since, the salon has been appropriated by various opium-eaters, maligned artists, counterculturalists and pinko lefties, it has never really managed to shake its class-conscious roots.
The most famous salons in history were created by people -- mainly women -- not ensconced in high society, but rather, wishing to be accepted into it: Parisian divorcees in the 1700s, rich Viennese Jewesses in the 1800s, and London's newly wealthy, those who wished to rise above the "vulgarity" of their less-refined pasts in the Industrial Age. The most famous of these was the 300-pound Lady Jane Wilde. Known to her guests by her pen name "Speranza," and to lit buffs today as Oscar Wilde's unabashedly social-climbing mother, for more than 30 years she opened her drawing-room doors with legendary vigour -- even after her son's scandalous homosexuality landed him in prison in 1895.
Lumping the Nicholsons -- a strangely non-social couple on every weeknight but one -- in with the Lady Wildes of this world may be a stretch. "But we were always outsiders," says Diana, the daughter of a three-star U.S. Navy admiral whose ancestors came to America on the Mayflower. "Even if on paper it doesn't seem like it."
When a young Diana first arrived in Montreal from Washington, it was in a silver-grey Alfa Romeo. She was to work at Expo '67. "I had my own ideas about the ways of the world," she says. "They didn't fit into the potted provincialism I soon encountered among those prim Ladies Who Lunch."
On her first date with David, they went for drinks at Montreal's Ritz hotel. They knew immediately they were a good fit. "David's family is old, old Westmount. But he had a hard time in the stuffy, WASPy society in which he grew up. He was always very eccentric -- a mathematical genius who brought his dog with him to dine at Le Paris. He was a stockbroker, but also a bon vivant, a strange egg. I liked that."
They were a notorious couple from the start. "Today's salon is really no indication of what their earlier parties -- these most unbelievable bashes thrown in the basement in the 1970s -- were like," says Marc Nicholson, David and Diana's son, who's 32 and a business consultant in London. Marc's older sister, Fiona, lives in Regina. "Looking at those old people drinking wine in the house today -- it's really quite hard for me to adequately describe how nuts the scene was back when I was four, being kept up all night by the noise."
The Nicholsons' decadently outfitted basement in its heyday served as Westmount's most productive rumour mill. David had decided to retire young [mith he will never retire]. A multi-media buff, he spent his days turning the bottom floor of his home into the multi-levelled rec room. Orange sofas hugged the walls, big foam pillows were strewn about, and there were swings that descended from the ceiling at the push of a button.
After an architect friend discovered a water source beneath the house, David decided to dig a long channel along the basement's perimeter and have a river run through it. From a Wizard of Oz-like console in the middle of the room, he could flick a switch that piped the water up, creating an indoor waterfall that rained back into the river.
He set speakers in the ceilings so that sound effects could be amplified in multi-stereo throughout the basement. The sounds complemented images projected on mural-sized screens that covered the walls.
"Oh, we would show psychedelic visuals, or scenes from our country house in Murray Bay, [Que.], birds flying around, that sort of thing," says David.
Only one of the dozens of people interviewed for this piece -- a professor who says he remembers a night when people were "boinking on the swings" -- actually recalls anything quite so risqué. "In a way, the parties were like art, like what, at the time, were called happenings," says Brian Morel, director of communications in the English department at McGill, and one of the few Wednesday Nighters who was around in that era. "But it was WASP versions of happenings. There was a cap on how far things could go. So there were no naked, body-painted women running around on drugs. Though I do recall a couple of stripteases."
It was only a matter of time before the most lurid rumours were circulating. Some said David put miniature cameras in the toilets of 33 Rosemount. ("He never did that, but I think he did once put microphones in flower pots," says Marc Nicholson.) Others said Diana had posed nude in Playboy, or that she was a CIA agent. Some mothers refused to let their children ever go near that house.
But then the 1980s rolled in. The basement's orange couches were fraying. The old money may have been dwindling a little. Diana went back to university. David started working on a computer program that could predict the stock market -- an idea that actually preceded the technology that could enable it. A visiting professor at McGill, the renowned economist Carl Beigie, had been invited by the Nicholsons to come live in one of their many bedrooms. The couple were smitten with his intellectual prowess.
David Nicholson smooths down his hair. As is customary, he has seated the youngest, prettiest woman, this time a voluptuous Romanian filmmaker with serious décolleté, by his side. "Quiet Everyone, please!"
It is a warm day, but still the candles are lit, the windows shuttered, and the dining room manages to feel Christmas-y. Ciaccia and Dr. Jonas are in the house, as is the head of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Warren Allmand, Montreal mayoral candidate Michel Prescott, lawyer Marie Cormier, and Jacques Clément, former Quebec vice-president of the Bank of Canada. "Bimbo!" roars Nicholson. "hold it!"
"Bimbo" is Roslyn Takeishi, in a corner of the room, dressed down in jeans and loafers. An accomplished businesswoman, she long ago accepted David's nickname, although her moniker has upset the odd newbie at the Nicholsons'. "I have big hair, so 'Bimbo' it is," she tells me later. "In David's own mind, he is a six-foot-three Adonis with broad shoulders and women falling all over him, so you allow for his warped commentaries. We don't give a hoot about political correctness here at the Wednesday."
Nicholson waves his hand . "Ahem! The municipal mergers are threatening to kill everything that is good about Montreal! Our blessed Mayor Bourque wants to eat up our beloved city of Westmount. We say 'Hands Off Our City!' "
For the past year, this is the slogan ("Ne touchez pas à ma ville!") that has been stuck on bumpers and windows, mainly in Westmount, Outremont, and other affluent cities within Greater Montreal; towns with the most to lose by Montreal's looming municipal mega-merger, set for Jan. 1, 2002. The topic has been a favourite at the salon. An endless array of mayors and city councillors have been through in past months. "We are very pleased to have with us again Mr. Peter Trent, our esteemed Mayor of Westmount, who will fill us in on what's happening at City Hall ..."
Trent begins speaking. "Peter!!" howls Nicholson. "You know the rules!"
The rules are nobody speaks unless their hand is raised and they are acknowledged by David Nicholson. There is not a head of industry, former prime minister or local celebrity who is exempt. David has, at one time or another, told all of the above to "pipe down" or "put a sock in it."
Trent rolls his eyes. "OK!" continues Nicholson. "If you will all look up to the television sets, please!"
It was about 10 years ago that David installed televisions, old things he fixed himself, in the four upper corners of the dining room. "This should set things up nicely!" He presses play on the wire-crazed console, a behemoth, by his side. A staticky recording of a speech given by Trent flashes onto the TVs and is suddenly spliced by a bit about panda bears rescued from a zoo, but with the sound of another merger-related newscast dubbed over it. Perhaps a technical error, perhaps a little of David's multi-media "art."
Video over, Nicholson points to Trent. "Now! Peter! Let's talk. What do you think about all this?" Trent refills his wineglass and takes a deep breath.
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David Nicholson spends every day of every week in his home preparing for Wednesday Night (and updating its new, labyrinthine Web site, wednesday-night.com). This is all done while his wife is at the office. (She is a communications consultant at International Air Transport Association.) By Monday, David is ready to send out a raft of fax and e-mail invitations, eloquent paragraphs written by Diana that tell about the week's topic.
"If you have been once, and you are liked, you will never be forgotten on that mailing list,"says John Ciaccia. These written invites are sometimes reinforced by personal calls: "David Nicholson here! We do hope you will join us tonight! Desmond Morton will be with us! A genius of the first calibre!"
Morton, the respected Canadian historian and occasional salon guest, probably is a genius. But then, upon entering the Wednesday Night hive, everyone is transformed into the most impressive company imaginable. A reporter morphs into a "Top Star Reporter." Sometimes even a master's degree can get you called "Doctor." The trick makes everyone feel like something of a star, not least Nicholson, the man who manages to amass such a formidable group in his dining room week after week.
"I think it has become my father's number one pleasure," says Marc Nicholson, "this idea that he is joining great minds for great conversation. He talks a lot about 'changing the world' now."
There was a time, Marc says, when his father believed he could make money from the salon, as a rainmaker. "That never panned out, although I am certain that the Wednesday is responsible for billions of dollars of deals made among its guests. To my knowledge, Dad's never gotten a cut."
Thirty-three Rosemount has been a strain on David and Diana in recent times. The third floor of the house, where the Nicholsons have been lodging foreign students, looks all but caved in -- one room has planks to walk on instead of floors. "A condo would be the sensible thing to do," says Diana, noting that her husband is well into his sixties. "But whenever we start thinking about where we might live, David's first thing is always 'Could we hold the Wednesday Night there?' There is the fear that our salon might stop. And at this point, it's not allowed to stop.
"It's taken on a life of its own," she says. "As dramatic as this may sound, I do think people are put on this planet with a purpose. Every one of us. And lately I've been thinking, 'Well, maybe this is ours.' If it's run for so, so long, then it must serve some greater good. I can't say what it is, but it is there."
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On May 2, 2001, Interinvest chairman Dr. Hans Black provided the cases of champagne. Roslyn Takeishi rounded up carloads of glasses, and a committee chaired by Peter Trent pitched in for everything from catering to musical entertainment. The Nicholsons' salon had reached its 1000th night.
Guests piled into 33 Rosemount, not to raise their hands and be pointed at by David, but to raise their cups. 150 people were there -- the ambassadors and the consuls-general, the judges and the professors, the mayors and the Top Star Whoevers, the freeloaders, the loaded, and the truly loaded. Friends flew in from Washington, and letters of congratulations arrived from South Africa, Vietnam, Britain, Bali and Sweden. David and Diana roared around, arm in arm, the whole night. Earlier that week, Diana had told me that she and her husband were the luckiest couple in the world. "In 20 years we have never run out of things to talk about." see also 1001th night. and story by Yves Boisvert
On Jan. 1, 2002, the age-old conventions of the City of Westmount -- the shiny burgundy fire trucks, the famed floral clock, the English signs -- will be abolished by Montreal's municipal mega-merger. However, there is one tradition it won't touch. At 1026 nights and counting, the Wednesday Night salon will have outlived the city itself. Even the Ladies Who Lunch might have a hard time saying a word against it now.
BBC
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