On a night when may opted to stay home, these intrepid partyers rang in 2000 across the Southland

It’s hard to imagine a more stellar cast than the one celebrating the Huntington Library’s new Boone gallery on New Year’s Eve.

That’s because Millennium Ball chairwoman Judith Farrar had decreed that each of the 100 guests (at $2,500 each) should come as a character related to the Huntington or its collections.

“I’ve had two lifelong desires,” she said, “to dance with Fred Astaire and to be painted by John Singer Sargent.” She came pretty close: In shimmering white satin, she could have stepped out of Sargent’s portrait “The Duchess of Portland.”

I danced with a guy who danced with a girl who danced with a Prince of Wales--not to mention Abe Lincoln, Henry Huntington, Marc Antony, an assortment of Chinese pooh-bahs and a walking cactus.

“This one’s over-the-top,” said Disney exec Tom Schumacher from beneath his horse head, as he and Matthew White, in fox-hunting pink, schmoozed with the likes of Scarlett O’Hara and Sarah Siddons.

Honorees at the elegant masquerade soiree were Louis XV and his mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, a.k.a. Marylou and George Boone, whose $3.6 million donation funded the restoration of Henry Huntington’s carriage house, the 1911 building designed by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey. When it opens next spring, it will be a 4,000-square-foot venue for changing exhibitions. Its first show, “The Art of Bloomsbury” from London’s Tate Gallery, is slated to open March 4.

Among the showstoppers were Marge and Sherman Telleen dressed as cactuses. The prickly pair are lead donors in the Huntington’s garden initiative.

Matthew White designed the party in a palette of black, white and silver. The fresh white gallery walls were hung with oversized caricatures of famous Huntington works created by noted Disney artist Eric Goldberg. The bill o’ fare included crab Napolean, grilled rack of lamb, flaming baked Alaska and wines provided by Trader Joe Coulombe (Don Benito Wilson,) and his wife Alice (Mozart’s “Queen of the Night”).

The scene-stealer at this fabulous evening wasn’t even at the party. Shortly after midnight, it was announced that Sue and Dr. Jim Femino’s grandson, Matthew James Queen, had been born at Huntington Hospital, 15 seconds past midnight. Sue (Helen of Troy) and Jim (in full Trojan armor) charged out the door to greet the next generation of ardent USC fans.