Elsa Maxwell was the hostess with the mostest. Cole Porter said so in a song, and everyone who was anyone hummed that tune. “The best you can offer your guests is the unexpected,” was Ms. Maxwell’s motto. And that’s precisely what she did.

New York society ladies found themselves milking cows at a barnyard-themed hoedown at the Waldorf.

The Duke of Marlborough learned to his surprise that he was the one “whodunit” when a sophisticated soiree took a sharp turn into a murder mystery.

Salvador Dali sauntered into a Come As You Were party, phone to ear, face smeared with shaving cream, exactly as he was when his invite arrived.

A Maxwell scavenger hunt had moguls, movie stars and marquis scouring Paris for such swag as a music-hall dancer’s shoe, a black swan from the Bois de Boulogne and the red pompom on a French seaman’s hat. Legend has it that the night ended with a barefoot dancer, two revelers hospitalized courtesy an angry swan, and a British diplomat’s missus accused of theft by the French Navy.

Witty and imaginative, daring and delightful, sneaking a page or two from the Maxwell playbook, LexArts’ ARTY PARTIES are the must-do dos of the social season.

Dos that deliver serious good times and do serious good for the arts: to date, ARTY PARTIES have raised over a quarter of a million dollars to benefit local artists and arts organizations.

With starlight and spandex, ghosts and gameshows, ballet and bowling, magic, mid-century marvels and more on the menu, there’s sure to be an ARTY PARTY or two to float your party boat. Make your reservations right now, because some parties are sold out and others well on their way.