20 Jul Muskoka dock party attracts the A-listers

A rose is a rose is a rose — but is it a yurt?

It depended, alas, on who you asked, at one of the most buzziest parties in Muskoka this summer, held this past Saturday.

Certainly, it was the only party of any consequence that’s managed to get George Pimentel — the numero uno party photographer in Canada — to come, not only to take photos of the passing tableau, but also to take portrait-type shots in what looked to be a fancy tent in the woods, accessorized with Canadiana artifacts as styled by Manny Neubacher and Anya Shor of Neubacher Shor Contemporary art gallery.

“I think a real yurt is more structural,” Joan Kelley Walker, one of the breath-catching survivors of The Real Housewives of Toronto, philosophized to me. This, while preparing to be shot by Pimentel, and not long after which — in a meta-move worthy of Warhol — we caught her snapping a selfie of herself whilst the snapper was snapping her.

Walker and I mused if the edifice was actually more of a teepee.

Whatever one deigned to call it, it was the place to be, here on the cusp of Lake Rosseau. At one point, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary — having aborted his dream to lord over our House of Commons — made do with the teepee of glory, gamely stopping to take pics against it with his wife, Linda.