paved paradise; A big-city backyard becomes an oasis for a breezy midsummer meal.

Byline: William Norwich

Mess up the glasses, please," instructed Antony Todd.

It was just a matter of minutes before party time, a late lunch in his Greenwich Village garden, invoked in a very impromptu style: a beautiful day with an easy breeze and, with luck, an hour or two to steal from work, so why not pretend that city life, despite the dog days of summer, all teeth and bitter drool, was just like life on the Riviera?

Before the doorbell rang, Todd, the noted event designer and interior decorator, an Australian native who arrived in New York about a decade ago, was surveying his canvas, looking for the final, finessing brush stroke.

The flower power had brought from indoors a great, old sofa-do try this at home in the warmer months-and set his table with decorative coral pieces he sells from a retail space he shares in Southampton with Nina Griscom. On the buffet table, there were burgundy tree peonies in simple vases; in the garden, boxwoods in black containers.

"I also love white trumpet lilies," he said. "They remind me of my godmother in summer. You walked into her apartment, which wasn't very big, and you could always smell the linen sheets that had been hand-starched, the lilies, and a little bit of 4711, the old-fashioned German cologne that she burned in a bowl after her guests left."

Grace Jones, always sexy as sin, played not too loud, never too loud, from inside the duplex apartment. Loud music is for amateurs. Or as Todd's friend Amy Sacco, the New York nightlife arbiter, says, "Think of music as a great shawl on a chilly night. Conversation is your priority. If you need to turn up the music, it means you've invited the wrong people."