82 Minutes With Sally Quinn

Plotting a Trump dinner party with Washington’s most famous hostess.

- Benjamin Wallace

Every time a new administration sweeps into Washington, Sally Quinn writes an open letter to the incoming regime, offering tips on making nice with the locals. This January will be no exception, though Quinn says it will require more adaptation than usual, given that only 4 percent of D.C. voters pulled the lever for the president-elect. Things could easily get—high pitched voice—awkward. ¶ Quinn is the tart former Washington Post “Styles” writer, third wife of Ben Bradlee, co-founder of the religion website On Faith, last of the great Washington hostesses, model for the Sally of When Harry Met, and cameo-maker in numerous D.C.-folklore morsels (it was in her kitchen that Nora Ephron dumped a bottle of wine over the head of her philandering then-husband Carl Bernstein). She is Washington, or Old Washington anyway. Her redbrick house, 18 rooms that once belonged to Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert, is the archetypal Georgetown salon. The intimate dining room, with hand-painted chinoiserie wallpaper, overlooks N Street. A powder room off the library contains a framed copy of H. R. Haldeman’s handwritten notes, dictated by Richard Nixon, including the injunction “Never invite Sally Quinn.” “I had it framed like you’d frame the Constitution,” Quinn said.