In High Idle

"He's an incredibly warm guy," says Dylan Lauren, Ralph's daughter and an entrepreneur who owns a candy store on the Upper East Side. "And he's always planning something."

For his wife, it was Basabe's calm, untroubled nature that drew her in. "When I met him, what made me stay with him is the one thing that attracts everybody to him, even if they don't realize it," says Borgomanero, who speaks with a thrillingly exotic accent and has joined us at Mediterraneo.

"He is the only man on the planet I have ever met who absolutely, truly has not one issue . I am a girl and live with being worried and you go to him with a problem and say, 'Oh my God, my life is over,' he fix it. Phone calls, whatever it takes. He fix it. To him, there is nothing that can't be solved. It's an amazing quality."

Basabe's apparent lack of issues is surely a matter of natural temperament, but it also has something to do with the seemingly limitless flow of cash he receives from his father. The elder Fabian Basabe is said to have come from a wealthy family in the capital of Ecuador and made money both here and in his native country through telecom, restaurants and real estate, according to his son. He also owns the Boulevard Hotel in Miami's South Beach. More particulars about the source of Basabe Sr.'s income are hard to come by, though the New York Post reported yesterday that over the past 15 years no fewer than seven companies have filed suit against him for failing to pay his bills, not to mention the IRS, which placed a $19,496 lien against him for taxes in August of last year. He seems to avoid publicity just as assiduously as his son seeks it out. Asked for an interview, he instead sends an e-mail, typed in all caps.

"As an Ecuadorean citizen, I have a home in Ecuador and do business there as I do in the U.S. and other parts of the world," he writes. "I am sure that you can understand that my life should not be part of the limelight."

Wherever his money comes from, Basabe I seems to enjoy sharing his wealth with Basabe II.

"My wife and I find comfort in knowing that we have exposed Fabian to many great aspects of life and living," he writes in another e-mail. "Fabian has always remained true to himself and although he continues to attract attention, I do not believe it will affect his personality. Fabian knows how to carry himself well and knows who his friends are. I like what he is doing. He is living 'his' life his way."

At the moment, the way young Basabe is living includes a major renovation to his apartment -- which is weird because it's an apartment he is renting. His mother is appalled.

"I know she's right but the thing is I just love the apartment," Basabe says. "There's nowhere else I'd rather live."

Until the work is complete, Basabe and his wife reside in an Upper East Side place that his parents keep. In a typical day, he rises at 11 a.m. or so, reads some e-mails, sets up dinner and a series of outings for the night. Often he's calling reporters to set the record straight about something he's read about himself. There's been a fair number of wink-wink items about Basabe's sexuality, mostly in blogs like Gawker.com and Jossip.com, which rarely let a week pass without alleging that Basabe is gay and everybody knows it.

"I would never respond," he says of those rumors. But on other subjects, he'll phone reporters if they write about him without asking for his side of the story.

"I may give that reporter a call and say, 'Listen, I realize you make a living writing about people you don't even know. But next time, here's my contact information. I'm pretty much available all day every afternoon. Come say hello, introduce yourself to me, and if you still don't like me, tear me apart in the press.' "