WELCOME TO OUR MANSION: Gov. Cuomo, with crowd-charming girlfriend Sandra Lee at his side, greets lucky kids and other guests who won an online lottery to attend yesterday’s open house at the Executive Mansion. (Shannon DeCelle)
ALBANY — Hundreds of visitors flocked to the governor’s Executive Mansion yesterday and left dazzled — by Sandra Lee.
Oh, and Gov. Cuomo was there, too.
The state’s first couple greeted some 300 New Yorkers in a repeat of the public open house Cuomo held last New Year’s on his first day as governor.
PHOTOS: GOV. CUOMO AND SANDRA LEE
“She’s gorgeous and also very charming,” a star-struck Gina Crossetta, of New City, said of Lee, the “Semi-Homemade” Food Network TV star.
“She’s vivacious and beautiful and warm and friendly, and I love her!” gushed Darlene Sonthiemer, of upstate Troy.
“I think he’s charismatic,” she added of Cuomo.
Lee looked stunning in a sleeveless white dress as she, boyfriend Cuomo and his teenage daughter, Mariah, greeted the lucky winners, chosen through a lottery from about 1,600 people who went online in hope of a ticket.
Crossetta and Beth Rooney took along four 9-year-olds who attend St. Augustine School and the Rockland County Girl Scouts troop that the women lead.
Lee may have impressed the ladies, but Cuomo charmed the girls. Responding to questions, he told them the hardest thing about being governor was that “you have to work all the time.”
“You wanna know the good news? You get a very cool house,” said Cuomo, who actually lives in a Westchester County home owned by Lee.
“Totally awesome,” one of the girls, Skylar Small, said of the mansion afterward. “It’s huge, and he’s lucky he gets to live in it.”
Aspiring pol Kevin McManus Jr., 9, hopes the photograph Cuomo’s staff plans to e-mail each attendee arrives in time for his return to fourth grade in Binghamton.
“I’m gonna go into my class on Tuesday, and if I get the picture by then, I’m gonna be, like, ‘I met the governor!’ ” said the suit-and-tie-clad Kevin, who serves on his student council.