Ivana Trump missed out on being wooed by the cream of the British aristocracy after avoiding payments on a redecoration of the Plaza Hotel carried out by a titled Brit.
Sir Humphry Wakefield, who is an expert on antiques and architecture whose company specializes in the perfect reproduction of important furniture, has revealed that he declined to pass-on letters inquiring about Ivana from the UK’s great-and-the-good after she dazzled them with a trip to Claridge’s Hotel in London during the late 1980s.
Ivana – who died last week aged 73 – annoyed Sir Humphry after commissioning him to furnish the top 12 suites at New York’s famed Plaza Hotel while she and ex-husband Donald Trump owned it.
Each was named after a famous British stately home, including Chatsworth and Wilton, with Ivana asking Sir Humphry to fill each suite with replica furniture from its namesake.
But Ivana had to be publicly shamed into paying $20,000 of Humphry’s fee. And although the pair made-up during a subsequent publicity jaunt to London, Humphry took revenge by failing to set the socialite up with some very wealthy new suitors.
Sir Humphry Wakefield (pictured) was commissioned by Ivana to build furniture in the late-1980s for the Plaza Hotel. At a dinner party in London, to celebrate the collaboration, many Lords reportedly gave Wakefield invitations to give to Ivana, inviting her to see the homes her suites were being modeled off of
While married to Donald at the time, the pair’s marriage crumbled in the early 1990s after his affair with Marla Maples was revealed.
That means Ivana’s failure to pay up cost her the chance of a romance with a man even more well-connected than Donald.
Sir Humphry Wakefield received various invitations to pass on to Ivana Trump as she ‘danced from lord to lord’ at a dinner party in Claridge’s Hotel in London to celebrate Wakefield’s renovation of the top 12 suites in the Plaza Hotel in the late-1980s.
Former President Donald Trump, and then-husband to Ivana, owned the hotel at the time and Ivana had commissioned Wakefield to reproduce furniture from Britain Lord’s country houses in the top suites inside the hotel, according to The Spectator.
However, Ivana (pictured in 2016) never received the invitations. After the party, he said he put the invitations in a box and forgot to tell her about it
Wakefield, now 86, remembered Donald as often being pulled away to take phone calls from angry men in Atlantic City and at times, Ivana would undress in front of him to try on couture while discussing the renovation.
The pair agreed on giving Wakefield five weeks to transport the custom furniture overseas and install them in the Plaza. However, when he arrived, he was told all the suites were taken and he was denied access.
He reached out to his friend and New York socialite Brooke Astor – who passed in 2007 – to help him out. The nearly 90-year-old told Wakefield she’d take up her ‘invitation to admire the suites for the benefit of the press.’
The move reportedly forced Ivana to open the Plaza’s grand doors to Wakefield and his furniture.
Ivana outside the Plaza Hotel in 1988. She had commissioned Wakefield to build custom furniture for the top 12 suites in the hotel and the furniture would model British country home
Wakefield also remembered that Donald (pictured together in 1988) would often be pulled away to talk to angry men from Atlantic City and that Ivana would undress in front of him and try on couture while discussing the renovations
Another part of the deal was for Ivana to join Wakefield in London’s Claridge’s Hotel to meet all the lords whose homes the suites were based off. Wakefield had assembled the guest list and was preparing for her to join them, but Ivana had yet to pay him $20,000 for the furniture.
His earlier requests for the money was allegedly met with silence, according to the Spectator.
As the dinner date neared, he sent Ivana a letter, threatening to cancel the elaborate dinner if she did not fork over his money.
The letter reportedly end up finding its way into the glossy pages of Women’s Wear Daily and infuriating Ivana, who later paid the Lord in full and arrived to the dinner party.
The pair met upstairs before the party, where she kissed Wakefield, before reportedly telling him: ‘We have our problems, Sir Wakefield, but tonight we are great friends.’
As they enjoyed the party, Ivana would dance with the Dukes of Marlborough, Roxburgh and Northumberland, the Earls of Pembroke and Haddington, and more and garnered many men’s attention.
Despite Vanity Fair’s 1990 report that guests were ‘displeased’ with Ivana’s attendance at the event and one guest reportedly saying: ‘Humphry will pay for this,’ many other seemed to be entranced by her.
Wakefield threatened to cancel the dinner party at London’s Claridge’s in a letter – which would end up in Women’s Wear Daily – after she had failed to pay me $20,000 for the furniture
After the party, Wakefield received many invitations to pass on to Ivana, inviting her to come and see the homes her Plaza suites were based off of.
However, the Lord told the Spectator he put the invitations in a box and never told her about them due to their feud over the payment.
Not long after the party, Ivana would part ways with Donald, as he went on to marry his second wife Marla Maples.
Although it doesn’t seem Ivana would have been too worried about it, as she went on to marry three more times and spent much of her later life with Rossano Rubicondi, whom she had an on-and-off relationship with until he died of cancer in 2021.
Ivana was laid to rest in Manhattan on Wednesday, after it was revealed she’d died by falling down the stairs at her Upper East Side home.
Ivana’s children and grandchildren standing outside St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Manhattan during her funeral
Ivana’s casket was seen being carried out of the church by pallbearers
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