Roaring Twenties

While the Mercers have long nurtured conservative political causes, Rebekah Mercer’s influence exploded this year when she helped install her family’s two top political advisers, Bannon and Conway, atop the campaign and directed more than $3 million of her father’s money into pro-Trump advertising. She’s now a member of the transition team’s executive committee. Through a spokesman, the Mercers declined to comment.

Guests are discouraged from discussing the parties with the media, and vendors who spend months preparing for them are required to sign nondisclosure agreements. But people who have attended in the past, most of whom who spoke on condition of anonymity, describe them as no-expense-spared spectacles.

One year the theme was the Roaring Twenties, complete with period cars and Tommy guns. Another year was cowboys and Indians. Todd Ricketts, the Chicago Cubs co-owner and scion of another powerful family of conservative donors, was a memorable Lone Ranger, and his wife a female Tonto. Ricketts, whose family spent at least $1 million backing Trump, was nominated this week to be deputy Commerce secretary. The Ricketts declined to comment.

Cowboy Chaps

The Mercers, ardent opponents of gun control who put a pistol range in their basement, supply replica guns at the events, courtesy of a firearms company in which the family has an investment. In past years, poker games have also been featured; another Robert Mercer daughter is a professional-level player.

The parties “are entertaining, and much of conservative America converges on them,” said George Gilder, the conservative techno-futurist and gold-standard advocate, who wore a cowboy hat and chaps in 2014.

Last year’s theme was the end of World War II. A tank guarded the gates of the Mercer compound. Inside their library, the Mercers installed a selection of museum relics: a chunk of the USS Arizona recovered from the bottom of Pearl Harbor; a Medal of Honor awarded to a Marine who stormed machine-gun nests; a wedding gown made of parachute silk. Andrews Sisters impersonators in red gowns performed “In the Mood” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

Robert Mercer appeared as General Douglas MacArthur, according to one attendee. Guests thought Rebekah Mercer, a redhead, looked like Rita Hayworth. Bannon was a bombardier from the Army Air Force unit featured in the 1949 movie “Twelve O’Clock High.” And Cruz, the Mercers’ original choice in the Republican presidential primary, showed up as Winston Churchill.

The Mercers later soured on Cruz after he refused to endorse Trump at the Republican National Convention. A spokesman for the senator didn’t respond to an inquiry about whether he was invited this time.