SOUTHAMPTON— On Saturday the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton held its annual midsummer gala, which serves as a focal point for Hamptons society. There was dinner, dancing, a wide variety of elaborate desserts arrayed on circular tables. There was drinking — lots of that — and plenty of opportunities (though not everyone took them, preferring to hightail it to the cocktails tent) for viewing Rackstraw Downes’ magisterial paintings exhibition currently on view at the museum.

Currently on view, that is, at the museum’s current location, which won’t be its location for long. Printed on the backs of the menus for the evening was, in case you forgot the point of this whole thing, an image of the snazzy new Herzog & de Meuron building the Parrish will begin construction on in a few weeks. “You’ll see bulldozers and workers here,” director Terrie Sultan promised a roomful of supporters. “It’s the first museum to be built on the East End of Long Island in 100 years!” (That sounds impressive, and it genuinely is, but one has to remember a couple of things to put it in perspective: the East End of Long Island is, well, not really that big, and it’s mostly taken up by beaches and palatial spreads.)

Altogether, the swells that Sultan addressed raised a whopping $700,000 for the museum that night. It’s an eye-catching number, and it goes some way towards making the museum’s goal. Douglas Polley, co-chair of the Parrish board, told this reporter at the event that $7 million of the $25 million needed for the building has yet to be raised. “It hasn’t been a slam dunk,” Polley said. “Especially with the tough times.” Completion is scheduled for 2012. Looking around at everyone hobnobbing, Polley remarked, “I think the town of Southampton is sad we’re leaving.” Is that sort of like LeBron with Cleveland? I asked him, digging for scandal. “Not at all,” he said. “We’re just moving to between Watermill and Southampton.” Oh well.

But back to the party. The highlights of such events usually have a lot to the oohs and ahh factor of the guest list. So here you go, list readers, some of the many bold-faced names on hand: artists April Gornik, Keith Sonnier, and Chuck Close; society types like Arden Wohl; writer types like Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel; philanthropists like Christophe de Menil; and fashion designers (Isaac Mizrahi), musicians (Rufus Wainwright), auction house folks (Lisa Dennison), the event’s redoubtable co-chairs Debbie Bancroft and Dorothy Lichtenstein, and even a former Warhol factory girl (Jane Holzer). Whew! Now on to the fun stuff. Let it be said that no one does a better job introducing an honoree than Creative Time director Anne Pasternak, who was last seen sashaying around her own spring benefit in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Manhattan, offering tables of philanthropists shots from a bottle of Patron. Or maybe it’s that the person being honored at the Parrish, spunky collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, just inspires zany introductions. In any event, Pasternak presented a series of trick multiple choice questions, that included comparisons of Rudin DeWoody to Barbara Streisand and Auntie Mame, and that culminated in calling her “the best friend a girl or a gay guy have ever heard of.”

It wasn’t all silliness, of course. Pasternak also called attention to Rudin DeWoody’s recent curatorial efforts, which include the sprawling “Think Pink” show at Sarah Gavlak’s Palm Beach gallery earlier this year — part of the proceeds went to a breast cancer charity. In fact, the day after the Parrish gala, Rudin DeWoody would be on hand at nearby Easthampton gallery Salomon Contemporary to open “Hunt & Chase,” a group show she co-organized. (To bring things full-circle, Parrish-ly speaking, gallery proprietor James Salomon, an energetic former director at Mary Boone gallery who recently opened an additional space in Chelsea, was on hand for the gala revelry, chatting with Hamptons-based artist Alice Aycock, whose work he has been a big supporter of in the past few years, and who, Sultan promised the crowd, would soon be doing a project at the Parrish. It’s all one big happy family out there on the East End!)