Around the dining room table in Ms. Weymouth’s airy Craftsman home sat a collection of Kay Graham’s intimates and descendants: Vernon Jordan, the Clinton consigliere; C. Boyden Gray, counsel to the first President Bush; her oldest son Donald, now chief executive of the company that owns The Post; and Lally Weymouth, Mrs. Graham’s daughter and Ms. Weymouth’s mother, a globe-trotting journalist and Manhattan socialite known for both her interviews with Middle East dictators and glitzy Fourth of July Hamptons parties.

At the head of the table sat Ms. Weymouth, a Harvard- and Stanford-educated lawyer, single mother of three and, at 47, a fourth-generation publisher of The Post. As her guests chatted, she gently intervened, steering the conversation, salon-style, toward the economy and presidential politics. When it was over, Mrs. Weymouth, not an easy one to please, showered her daughter with praise.

“It was a big moment,” said Molly Elkin, Ms. Weymouth’s best friend and one of the dinner party guests. “It was sort of like: ‘I’ve passed the baton, kid. You’ve learned well, you did a good job.’ ”

It was the kind of scene, rife with unspoken family drama, that captivates longtime Washingtonians, who have scrutinized and mythologized the Grahams for decades, much as the British do their royalty. Now, in an exceedingly difficult climate for newspapers, Ms. Weymouth is charged with saving the crown jewels. In a city and a clan filled with expectations for her, that is no easy task.

She is carving her path in a capital, and an industry, vastly changed from the one her grandmother inhabited when big-city newspapers were flush with advertising; The Post helped bring down a president; and for nearly four decades, Mrs. Graham ruled social Washington, feting presidents and prime ministers in her elegant Georgetown manse, dining at the White House with kings and queens.

“There is never going to be another Kay, never in Washington, because the times are different,” said Sally Quinn, the columnist and the wife of Ben Bradlee, the editor whose partnership with Mrs. Graham was chronicled in “All The President’s Men.” “People just don’t entertain that way,” Ms. Quinn said. “People have kids, they work late. That is not what Katharine wants to do.”

Ms. Weymouth is many things: a working mother and enthusiastic cook; a fearless skier (“She has not met a slope she won’t take,” says Liz Spayd, a former managing editor of The Post); a fitness buff (“She can crunch till the cows come home,” said Pari Bradlee, a yoga instructor and daughter-in-law to Ben) and, for a while, one of the most sought-after dates in town. (After seeing a local architect, Ms. Weymouth has recently reunited with an old flame, Marty Moe, a former AOL executive.)

She does not take her famous name too seriously, and she likes to have fun. For years, she and Ms. Elkin, a labor lawyer, held a backyard Summer White Party, a spoof on the lavish Black and White Ball hosted in 1966 by Truman Capote to honor Mrs. Graham. Once, at a club in Aspen, Colo., Ms. Weymouth spied Yankees shortstop Alex Rodriguez watching her dance.

“We are the only people in this club who don’t want anything from you,” she announced. “Come dance with us.” He said he would rather watch.

To her 2012 “grown-up” dinner, she wore a $35 scoop-neck sleeveless sundress from J. C. Penney, a playful nod to an important Post advertiser whose chief executive at the time, Ron Johnson, was a guest. (She bought J. C. Penney dresses for Ms. Elkin, who wore hers, and Mrs. Weymouth, who wouldn’t be caught dead in one.)

Ms. Weymouth’s penchant for showing off her athletic figure — she arrived for a photo shoot in a crisp white sleeveless sheath and four-inch lime green Jimmy Choos — provokes titters in the newsroom. Then again, she works hard for it; Ms. Elkin said the two spend Sunday mornings doing free weights and “boy push-ups” with a personal trainer.

“We smack-talk each other the entire time,” Ms. Elkin said, “just like we did when we were 20 years old.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/fashion/katharine-weymouth-takes-charge-at-the-washington-post.html?partner=rss&emc=rss