In 1948, Vogue published its 658-page Book of Etiquette, compiled by editor Millicent Fenwick, featuring how-tos, dos and don’ts, and the proper politesse for a remarkably varied set of scenarios. But as Fenwick writes in the introduction: “Etiquette is based on tradition, and yet it can change.” Some 75 years later, Oh, Behave! is a new monthly Vogue column in which experts sound off on today’s ever-evolving social etiquette.
Sun’s out, school’s out—’tis the season of the summer house! Those lucky enough to have the extra room might be welcoming guests for weekend stays by the beach, while the even luckier are the recipients of such invitations. But assuming either role—of the inviter or the invited—with grace isn’t so straightforward. There are many opinions on what it means to be the ideal host and houseguest, and here to weigh in on the matter are two individuals with strong feelings on both.
In this edition of Oh, Behave! we have Fran Lebowitz, who spoke to Vogue about the very same issue back in 1991. It turns out, the author and sought-after orator remains unchanged in her beliefs on what makes for a great host. Joining her is much-celebrated hostess Lauren Santo Domingo, who, in addition to being the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Moda Operandi and artistic director of Tiffany Home, is a domestic doyenne. Their thoughts on the art of hosting and being a house guest are below.
On Being a House Guest
How do you decide which invitations to accept?
Lebowitz: Well, it has to, of course, be a place better than my apartment. Because otherwise, why am I getting in the car?
Santo Domingo: I have to say, I hate to be a house guest. I absolutely hate it. Unless there is not a single hotel within a 45-minute drive, I am not staying at someone's house. There is absolutely nothing that could compel me, whether it's an air mattress on the floor or the five-star beach house of a hedge-fund mom—unless it is someone that I know so well that I know their family and the way they live.
How do you do the recon to find out how someone lives?
Lebowitz: Truthfully, I don't stay with people I don't know very well. I just don't.
How often are you someone’s houseguest?
Lebowitz: I have a lot of friends with houses. In fact, I would say most of my friends have houses. This is something I never had myself. I never bought a house. I never have regretted it. I used to go to East Hampton, and I used to go to Nantucket or the Vineyard, but I haven't done this in several years.
Should you bring a hostess gift? If so, what’s your go-to?
Lebowitz: The gift of gab. But if there are children in the house, I bring them candy. I don't know if it exists anymore, but it's called Hubba Bubba gum by the yard. I used to bring this to children. They never forget it. There are people in their 40s now who remember I brought this. And this is why there are at least two or three generations of people now in their 20s and 30s who still love me. Even though their parents don't, not really.
Santo Domingo: I am not a hostess gift person. I rarely give nor expect one. It’s sometimes nice to receive, but I get embarrassed by overly generous displays of affection or gratitude. I've had people give me Loro Piana blankets, and I get very uncomfortable. I also just find a whole display of gift opening uncomfortable—do I open it in front of you? Do I wait to read the note? Do I read the note aloud? Do I hug you? Do I kiss you? Do I send a thank-you note?
Should you help your hostess with cleaning? Strip the sheets off the bed?
Lebowitz: Well, it depends. People who have a lot of help in the house: No, I don't do that. Someone recently told me they were shocked that someone did that in their house. It's better to find out how the household is run.
Santo Domingo: If there are 15 people there to do the laundry where you are staying, maybe not. But if it's the couple hosting you who will be picking up, making your bed, and cleaning the bathtub when you're gone, then absolutely. You help, you pitch in; you take care of yourself. My mother always said: “You should leave a room looking better than when you arrived.”
Do you have to make nice with children who are at the house? Or can you ignore them?
Lebowitz: I like children. I know this is shocking to people, but I really like children. And I like all my friend's children. In fact, there are many of my friend's children I prefer to my friends.
Santo Domingo: I think it's important that children know how to say hello and greet their guests. It's nice to have your children be a part of having guests, but some people like kids, some people don't. I think the hosts can figure out pretty quickly which one it is.
What is your house-guest philosophy?
Santo Domingo: It takes a long time to learn how to be a good house guest. Once you have been treated badly as a guest, you know how to be a good hostess. Like everything in life, you only get to a place of being comfortable after a little bit of discomfort.
Should you provide your host with your exact arrival and departure times?
Lebowitz: I never thought about it. I mean, you're usually invited for some specific period of time.
What would you consider a house guest faux pas?
Santo Domingo: I can't even think of a house guest faux pas. In multiple cultures, the highest thing you can be is a guest in someone's house. So I subscribe to that; when someone is in your house, they are a member of your family, and you treat them like a member of your family and you want them to feel as safe and comfortable as possible.
What would you consider a hostess faux-pas?
Santo Domingo: Unless your home is being run like an Aman, it's your house, it’s your family house, it’s your private domain. And I think when you welcome people into your house, you need to be so respectful of everyone's privacy. Gossiping or talking about your house guests, whether while they're under your house or even once they leave, is, to me, just the height of bad manners and a sign of a very bad upbringing.
On House Rules
Should a hostess communicate any house rules? If so, how?
Lebowitz: They should tell you, like, “Fran, we'd like you to come for the weekend, but you can't smoke in the house.”
Santo Domingo: I don't have any house rules, but I am sure the Southampton super-host mom has a laminated card next to the bed with the Wi-Fi password, the house rules, and the phone numbers of their 35-person staff with their star signs. I don't believe we have any house rules that I can think of. Should I have house rules? What did Fran say about house rules?
Do you think that people can ask guests to remove their shoes when they get somewhere?
Lebowitz: They could ask them to, but truthfully, it's ridiculous. Plus, at the beach, very often, there's sand on the floor. It doesn't matter how clean the house is, or what the sand is there—it just migrates like COVID.
Santo Domingo: I am not afraid of any subject at all, except this one scares me. I said something in New York magazine once, and it got very heated. I've said a lot more controversial things before in my life and I’ve never had the amount of pushback as I had on the shoe situation, so I'm very cautious. But I allow people to wear shoes.
If you’re a couple, can you be intimate with your partner during your stay?
Santo Domingo: Absolutely! But I assume that most people are checking how far they are from their hosts and making very judicious judgments about the thickness of walls and the creakiness of the mattress. As a hostess, I never open any door that is closed.
Do you have to wake up early to have breakfast together?
Lebowitz: No.
Santo Domingo: You can absolutely sleep in as a houseguest—and at my house, absolutely. At other houses, they're probably doing sunrise reiki yoga or Tracy Anderson on the beach at 6:00 a.m.—some people have full days before our house even has breakfast. I think by the time you're my age, you find your people. Our guests and I are likely to be having a much later dinner than we are an early breakfast.
As a house guest, can you walk around in your pajamas?
Lebowitz: I'm in a robe. I'm not a pajama-wearer. If I know someone that well—that I will stay at their house—yes, I will wear my robe outside my room. If I don't know them that well, I wouldn't stay at their house.
Santo Domingo: Hopefully, your host for the weekend will tell you what the flow and what the run-of-show is and give you those cues. If you had a guest show up to breakfast in their pajamas while everybody was dressed, the next morning I would show up in a robe, too. It's really about making your guests feel comfortable. It's also fun to have breakfast in your pajamas with your friends. It's not something that you get to do otherwise, you know?
Can you smoke at someone's house that you're staying at?
Lebowitz: Yes, if I was staying there. In other words, if there are houses where you can't smoke, I wouldn't go.
Santo Domingo: I allow people to smoke in the house. When I’m entertaining, if that's what someone wants to do, then I'm inclined to let them.
Can you get very drunk? Should you abstain from drinking?
Santo Domingo: I am usually inviting people specifically for that reason! And if you do get too drunk, it should be a secret kept with us.
Do you have to stay up late with your party, or can you go to bed whenever you want?
Lebowitz: Well, I mean, I haven't slept since I was born, but I don't make other people stay up with me.
If you are staying at a house with staff, should you leave a tip?
Santo Domingo: What I have figured out, and I'm pretty confident that I've got it down pat, is if it is an American family, you absolutely do not tip. If there is a single European in the house or a South American, then you absolutely tip.
Can you change the air conditioning/the climate at someone's house? Or do you think that's out of bounds?
Lebowitz: I mean, if it's in your room, you can. You can't really say to people, you know, “Your house is uncomfortable.” If I knew someone didn't have AC in the house, I wouldn't go.
It used to be, for instance, in Eastern Long Island, people didn't just have air conditioning because it was really cool, but it's not now. Now you're in need of air conditioning everywhere. I know it's bad for the environment, but it's good for Fran. I love air conditioning. It's my favorite invention.
On Food
How do you handle dietary restrictions of your guests? Are you asking for them or are you expecting just to be told?
Santo Domingo: I think there's a difference between a food aversion and a food allergy. If one travels with an EpiPen, that’s a food allergy. If there's an allergy, I hope someone would tell me so that I don't kill them. I feel like I know my friends who that are vegetarian, who eat kosher. And if we're not close enough that I know, then maybe you shouldn't tell me unless it’s fatal.
What should you do if your host isn’t feeding you enough?
Santo Domingo: Having grown up in New England, where there is no food anywhere, I usually know in advance the houses where I'm not going to be fed much, so I travel with snacks. I have one house that I actually bring protein shakes to and I put them in the little fridge in the guest room.
On Being a Hostess
What is your hostessing philosophy?
Santo Domingo: I suppose my behavior as a hostess is informed by the first 40 years of my life when I was always a house guest. How I was taught to be a house guest is now how I behave as a hostess. I was taught never to make a fuss about what I can and cannot eat, how I like things, or how things should be done. My training as a good house guest has made me possibly a bad hostess. So maybe I need the next 40 years to become a better host.
What's the best hostess gift you've ever received?
Santo Domingo: Someone once brought me a game of Rummikub, which was really fun; she taught the entire house how to play. I have other friends who will arrive with a case of rosé that they'll drink themselves the entire weekend; my husband and I aren't really wine people. I think the best gift is to bring whatever you need to make your stay more comfortable.
Should you make a full itinerary to entertain your guests during their stay?
Lebowitz: It depends, it really depends. When I used to go to Long Island a lot in the summer, I stayed at a few people's houses. I knew the way that they ran those houses. You know, sometimes you knew they would always have you go to lunch. You had to get there at lunch.
Santo Domingo: I have very strong opinions about this. I have some friends who have their days scheduled from morning to night—I've even heard of some people who slip packets under their guests’ doors in the morning with all the activities. Oh, you know: “Iván Pol is in the guest house to do facials. And in the afternoon, Maria Sharapova will be there to hit tennis balls with you. Then, we have an impromptu TED talk with Bill Gates and Ryan Gosling after lunch.” But that's not happening at my house. I'll give you the WiFi password if you're near me, but other than that, you're coming into our family home. We're a normal family, and we'll be doing normal family activities.
I would say the only thing that I would do is, if it's someone coming from out of town, I would try to show them a little bit of the local culture—plan one or two things like a dinner or drinks with either people in town that they would know, or new people that I think they would like.
Should you give your guests any toiletries? A welcome gift?
Santo Domingo: I once stayed at one of those aforementioned houses with the packets and was basically presented with a CVS—or a Space NK, I should say. I felt a little bit pressured to up my game a bit, but I found that no one uses those things. I suppose my house guests are too polite to partake in any of these brand-new creams in boxes. So I have just a wicker basket box in the closet that has all the basics you could possibly need—especially something you may be embarrassed to have to ask for yourself.
Can you make plans that don't involve your house guest?
Santo Domingo: I love having house guests, because I am then able to get out of plans that I don't want to go to. Most of my friends in Southampton would think that I have house guests every single night of summer because when I'm invited to anything, I say, “I'm sorry, I can't join you. We have house guests.”
How long is too long of a stay for your house guests?
Lebowitz: Is the fish proverb true? A fish and visitor stink after three days? Three days is usually long enough. It could be a little longer. It depends. It depends on how much I'm enjoying myself and how much they are enjoying me. And I know they’re enjoying me because they invite me again.
Santo Domingo: I think it depends on how big of a footprint you leave. The bigger the footprint, the shorter the stay.
How do you handle guests who ask to bring their pets?
Santo Domingo: If the alternative is to put the dog with a dog-sitter for the weekend, I couldn’t live with myself. I would much rather have it in the house. I always say yes, but if someone is consistently bringing terrible plus-ones or terrible pets, they’re cut off.
Can you ask your guests for help around the house?
Santo Domingo: When I'm in my house and someone offers to help, I will say no. Everyone should be able to enjoy themselves and not have to scrub dishes at the end of a meal. But if someone gets up to help me, I will say “Blow out the candles” or “Can you bring in the dessert plates before the ants arrive?” I will be very specific with what I need help with.
