COLDWELL℠ Magazine Summer 2026

COLDWELL

Design

RANKING THE 20 MUST-DO LUXE TRAVEL EXPERIENCES BY KATE DOYLE

GREG GORMAN’S WONDER WOMEN BY KEVIN SESSUMS

JONATHAN

ALFREDO

BRIGETTE

Christian Siriano

SCANDAL ON THE PITCH: SOCCER’S BIGGEST HOAX BY RICHARD PÉREZ-FERIA + ANN DEXTER-JONES

The evolution of a fashion legend

By Hal Rubenstein

Photography by Myrna SuáRez

first KELLY SLATER, INC.

THE SURFING ICON IS DESIGNING ECO-FRIENDLY SANDALS FOR HIS NEW RED-HOT BRAND, KLLY. TALK ABOUT RIDING THE WAVE.

As a young boy in Hawaii during the 1960s, surfboards were beasts, single-fin longboards stretching up to 12 feet and weighing as much as 50 lbs. Although I was too young—and, truthfully, couldn’t swim yet—on weekend mornings I’d watch my high-school-aged brother methodically wax his fiberglass board atop two sawhorses with a block of paraffin, a traction-andsafety ritual. Beatles songs drifted from his Ford Falcon’s 8-track player as he visualized the perfect “hang ten” on Oahu’s massive North Shore waves, trying to emulate the true king of longboarding style, Hawaii’s legendary Duke Kahanamoku.

Modern surfing’s crown, meanwhile, belongs to Kelly Slater, arguably the most iconic and accomplished surfer in history. The 11-time World Surf League champion has spent decades redefining the sport through precision, athleticism and an enduring commitment to sustainability. Beyond competition, Slater’s influence extends deep into surf culture through his lifestyle brand Outerknown, his highperformance Firewire surfboards and accessories and, more recently, the launch of his eco-friendly KLLY line of sandals which he personally designs. Even a kook like me—who still can’t swim—can get stoked about that.

— JAMES LONG

piping hot Kelly Slater at the Outerknown Tahiti Pro 2022 in Teahupo’o, French Polynesia.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEROME BROUILLET/ AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

KATE DOYLE HOOPER

WAYNE

DAN KODAY

TARA SOLOMON

Liza Minnelli photograph by Greg Gorman, p.44 El Nacional Barcelona, p.64

Breakfast below hot-air balloons in Cappadocia, Turkey, p.24

dressed Superstar fashion designer Christian Siriano on the blue carpet at the 2026

Tony Awards with client and star of The Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City, Bronwyn Newport, in one of his sublime creations.

COLDWELL Sm

Richard Pérez-Feria

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Kathleen Gates

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

James Long MANAGING EDITOR

Sarah Carpenter-Peck

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Erika Phenner

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR

Marco Medrano

BEAUTY & LUXURY EDITOR

Linda Gates DESIGNER

Toni Gerunda

EDITORIAL ASSOCIATE

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Greg Calejo, Rebecca Hardiman, Carole Radziwill

Hal Rubenstein, Kevin Sessums, Tara Solomon, George Wayne

WRITERS

Abbe Aronson, Kate Doyle Hooper, Colu Henry Dan Koday, Simon Murray, Todd Plummer

ARTISTS + PHOTOGRAPHERS

Quentin Bacon, Nigel Barker, David Cowles, Bryan Derballa Lisa Mazur, Robert Risko, Mike Ruiz, Myrna Suárez

Jacqueline Kuron

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR, AGENTS

Heather Hartle

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR, BRANDS

Susan Gates

FINANCE DIRECTOR, GATES SISTERS STUDIO, INC.

Brandon Newman VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING

COLDWELLsm is published by Coldwell Banker® and the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury® program Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC 175 Park Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940

Volume 1, No.2 Summer 2026

No part of this publication may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without written permission from Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC

© 2026 Coldwell Banker . All rights reserved. Coldwell Banker , the Coldwell Banker Logo and the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury® logo are trademarks of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. The Coldwell Banker® System is comprised of company owned offices which are owned by a subsidiary of Anywhere Advisors LLC and franchised offices which are independently owned and operated. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. All third party products and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC does not endorse any products that may appear in this publication, and any information on any products has been provided by the manufacturer or service provider.

the team

GEORGE WAYNE

Famed opinion writer Nicholas Kristof once dubbed journalist and raconteur George Wayne one of Vanity Fair’s most provocative and provoking interviewers, citing the 22 years Wayne spent “interviewing more than 300 of the most compelling personalities this planet has ever produced.”

For his debut as the newest contributing editor to COLDWELLsm magazine, Wayne profiles two fascinating artisans, the post-millennial furnituremaker Djivan Schapira (p.8) and the legendary doyenne of high-style, jewelry designer Ann Dexter-Jones (p.58). Today, George Wayne’s biggest challenge remains the same one he’s always had to contend with: how to make his interview subjects as dynamic and worthy of the readers’ time as much as the charming wünderkind asking the probing questions. Here, GW delivers yet again. Of course he does.

wayne’s world The longtime celebrated provocateur George Wayne leans in at furniture designer Djivan Schapira’s showroom in New York City.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIMON LEUNG

BEAUTIFUL THINGS

’m an observant guy. Even as a kid, I remember thinking how the different environments my family and I lived in would affect people’s reactions on a range of issues. How a sudden gust of wind on a crisp fall evening made everyone—including my university professor mother—rush a little faster indoors across Harvard Yard; or how Christmas lunch sometimes meant a beach picnic at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Miami. Even as a child I realized what so many of us know as adults: Where you live matters in all ways, big and small. I’ve experienced this firsthand in my own evolving journey.

The night-and-day aesthetic differences between my birthplace of Boston and Miami, where I spent my adolescence, certainly shaped me in significant ways. But it was New York City, Manhattan specifically, that has (and continues to have) a special hold over me. We all know that Gotham is a place like no other; but, to me, NYC means that impossibly chic downtown basement lounge that only opens after midnight and is decorated to resemble the inside of a genie’s bottle; or that feeling as you’re racing to catch the train for a weekend escape to the Catskills, when you stop and admire the soaring ceiling inside Grand Central Station and silently thank Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for saving this irreplaceable American architectural marvel.

Real beauty leaves a mark.

When I moved on from my beloved 2 Fifth Avenue home in Greenwich Village to explore life (and career opportunities) in California—my amazing San Francisco brownstone in Pacific Heights may still be my favorite place I’ve ever called mine; while, a short time later, my sexy, historic West Hollywood crib was the undeniable HQ for many late-night, name-drop-worthy soirées— I always knew, like Billy Joel, I’ve been in a perpetual New York state of mind. So, back I went.

This time around, Manhattan’s grittier, trendy Hell’s Kitchen was my landing spot before going farther east to the beach and calling Southampton home. Again, my blood pressure, my speaking voice speed, my daily outfits, my to-do lists—all aspects of my life have invariably been directly impacted by my immediate environment.

It was palpable. It was vibrational. It was real

“Longing for beauty in my friends, my homes, my cities and, yes, my magazines doesn’t seem unreasonable to me whatsoever.”

The main throughline at every stop along my trek was how genuinely attracted I am to aesthetic beauty. I realize that, in and of itself, isn’t shocking news—who doesn’t gravitate toward gorgeous surroundings?—but I love bucolic, country open spaces just as much as I long for the modernity of steel, glass and chrome high-rises: I love it all. And that, friends, is unusual.

In this second edition of COLDWELLsm magazine—The Design Issue—my visual biases are on full display on every sumptuous page our Creative Director, Kathleen Gates, brings to life. And our hall of fame roster of writers also paint on this canvas with their colorful words and compelling explorations. Truth be told, it doesn’t hurt that the stories found inside this extraordinary publication involve some of the most talented stars in their given field: Christian Siriano is having yet another (deserved) fashion moment; Jonathan Adler, Alfredo Paredes, Brigette Romanek and Matthew MacDonald continue to redefine interior design in thrilling ways; jewelry designer, socialite and celebrity mom extraordinaire Ann Dexter-Jones sits with our George Wayne for an illuminating chat; Kevin Sessums peels back the greatness of portrait photographer Greg Gorman and of the artist’s decades of shooting Hollywood’s biggest icons and so much more.

Listen, this is what I know to be true: In an ever confusing, white-noise-filled-with-misinformation world most of us live in, longing for beauty in my friends, my homes, my cities and, yes, my magazines doesn’t seem unreasonable to me whatsoever. For me, this isn’t a choice, really. It’s necessary

Here’s hoping you, too, have a beautiful summer. I know I will.

— RICHARD PÉREZ-FERIA EDITOR IN CHIEF

builder CALLING ALL BOND VILLAINS

ONLY DJIVAN SCHAPIRA CAN MAKE RESIN-BASED FURNITURE THIS SEXY.

By George Wayne

Photography by Simon Leung

jivan Schapira wields a buffer-polisher with Merlin-like élan, but in this instance, the magic wand is an arsenal of tools and machines—“my mistresses,” he dubs the lathes and resin-shapers, the high-frequency machines and sanders he’s mastered to create some of the most sublimely provocative high-end home furnishings on the market today.

Take, for instance, his take on the 21st-century coffee table, work of exceptional form and function, a current masterpiece to the oeuvre.

“Aah, the Azura Coffee Table with that gorgeous deep navy,” he gushes. “That luminous blue void makes it feel both functional and atmospheric with its quiet, linear gestures.” And a perfect

option for the #bond26 movie set designer to craft any James Bond villain’s lair around. Add to that— Schapira’s visionary take on a simple mirror on the wall. “My divergent mirror,” he demurs. “I like to work with Bordeaux-sourced resin and see how it captures subtle depth, shifts and tone of light.

He’s 32, “a friendly Scorpio,” and unaware of his own sex appeal. French, born to a family with a generational pedigree as master wood-craftsmen, he obtained an architecture degree from New York City’s Parsons School Of Design, then graduated to the dusty, cacophonous workshop in Union City, NJ, satisfying the commissions rolling in from the likes of Louis Vuitton flagships from Dubai to Costa Mesa, and the calls flooding in to his representatives in Tribeca.

The other must-have Schapira masterpiece any Bond villain would drool over is the Rubis Side Table, for your consideration, along with the other pieces mentioned here, at the new Todd Merrill Studio—a three-room salon, part of the decorative arts seventh floor of tony BergdorfGoodman in Manhattan. Working with resin is both technical and unpredictable, and that makes the process even more alive. It’s arduous, meticulous, labor-intensive work. But someone seems to enjoy the drudgery.

“Resin rewards precision, but it also has its own behavior once it’s poured,” Schapira says. “There’s always a moment when the material takes on a life of its own, and that final clarity and depth of the work is what I live for.”

And live he does, even if his stunning furniture pieces are to die for.

piece by piece (above)

Djivan

Schapira; (left) Au Bout

Du Bois Dresser; (opposite)

Stellar Dial Console, bleached rosewood, resin, bronze, concrete, leather

by LISA MAZUR

fact check

LIAR, LIAR

HOW DID CARLOS KAISER HAVE A TWO-DECADE SOCCER CAREER WITH A DOZEN PRO TEAMS AND NEVER PLAY A MATCH? THAT’S A DAMN GOOD QUESTION. By

Richard Pérez-Feria

s I settled in to watch the first two World Cup matches I cared about—the US throttling Paraguay 4-1; and the stunning 0-0 draw Cape Verde pulled off against global powerhouse Spain making it what The New York Times called “one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history”—my mind wandered back to Carlos Kaiser, protagonist in the single biggest con in soccer, née fútbol, history, perhaps in all of sports…ever

Even his name is fake.

Kaiser, born Carlos Henrique Raposo in Brazil, impossibly managed to get signed to 12(!) professional soccer teams over two decades(!) and never actually play in a single game—he came closest when he manufactured receiving a red card while warming up. By constantly faking non-existent injuries and other jaw-dropping ruses, Kaiser hid his lack of skill at all times from everyone. Of course this was the era before social media (he used a toy flip phone to hype his worth by “speaking” to his “manager” in English about the many teams inquiring about him).

All lies. Every word.

Yet, somehow, wherever he went, the devoted team fans were always with him. A favorite anecdote is how Kaiser once avoided having to perform in a fan-attended team practice when he joined French club Gazélec Ajaccio by kicking all of the balls into the stands to the fans, leaving no balls to practice with—and the crowd absolutely loved it. I mean…nuts

Famously, Kaiser was also quite the raconteur and his charming personality got him far: He befriended star players who’d vouch for him to key management and coaches and made sure to get close to the top journalists who’d then write bogus stories about his supposed soccer abilities. No one, it seemed, was paying an ounce of attention.

But how? But why?

For more of this fantastical and, frankly, preposterous story, check out the Tribeca Film Festival 2018 documentary, Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never To Play Football.

I still don’t get it. And I never will.

“I was never obsessed with money. When you reach a certain level, money is important.”not

—Cristiano Ronaldo

Illustration by ROBERT RISKO exclusively for COLDWELLSM

CALL OF THE WILD

SAFARI IS THE NAME OF THE GAME AT LUXURIOUS FEW & FAR LUVHONDO IN SOUTH AFRICA.

By Abbe Aronson

dmittedly, when one’s friends return from safari, one is almost required to sit through a dinner party’s worth of tales and accompanying images, although via the insta-gratification of Instagram, many of the photos already have

been posted and the oohs and aahs are well underway. But don’t be so quick to dismiss this safari experience as another quasi-slideshow punctuated by a handful of humorous tales about roaming packs of lions or rhinos just outside of the camera viewfinder. This is a luxury eco-safari experience, and it has a much quieter roar, as well as a more meaningful footprint (or lack thereof).

With only six suites on property, situated on the remote cliffs of South Africa’s Soutpansberg Mountains in the Limpopo province, Few & Far Luvhondo offers an immersive adventure in nature while aiming to restore and protect a Bonafide UNESCO biosphere (yes, these two things can co-exist at once).

Let’s begin with the idea of “safari” itself—here, guests can experience a solar-powered, virtually silent cable car called a Solyrus, which gives a bird’s-eye view of flora and fauna. Traditional vehicle-based game drives are of course offered at Few & Far Luvhondo, but the guided hiking, e-biking and sky car options deliver an entirely different up-front-and-personal interaction with not just wildlife, but conservation at work. And that’s the point: Luvhondo lodge founders Sarah and Jacob Dusek (the couple behind Under Canvas, the US glamping brand) choose to operate under the lofty ambition to protect,

preserve, rebuild and regenerate more than 200,000 acres, while giving their guests a deeper connection with the land itself. The lodge is zerowaste, zero plastic and, yes, there is Wi-Fi.

Lest you think you’ll be roughing it in any capacity, think again. Private plunge pools, outrageous views, open-air rain showers and air conditioning are all part of the mix, as are farm-to-table locally sourced meals, served both communal style under the stars or elegantly presented as a five-course tasting menu in the lodge restaurant; those who wish to enjoy their infinity-style views from their private verandas may also dine in their suite, but life at Luvhondo is best enjoyed as part of the resort’s community. As such, the lodge is family friendly, both in programming and in babysitting offerings, and there’s no doubt that your wee ones will be talking about the giraffes and zebras that wander the outskirts of the property for years to come. Yes, a trip to nearby Mapungubwe National Park gives you the option to spot elephants, leopards and lions, and for the deepest pockets, there’s a private guided day trip to track down the illusive Samango monkey. But Luvhondo is a destination where everyone’s wearing hiking boots or sneakers, not Manolos, and you might find yourself taking a traditional Venda drumming class after your spa treatment. Feeling inspired after your visit? Stay engaged via Terraset, Luvhondo’s 501c3 partner dedicated to reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases by investing in high-quality carbon removal projects. This is a feel-good escape through and through.

out under the stars in the magic of the African wilderness.

star attraction Few & Far Luvhondo Lodge’s magical mountain Starlit retreat offers a chance to sleep

HBLING-A-DING-DING

ello, gorgeous! We’re putting some serious slay in our vacay with the fabulously fun Fuchsia Text Me Brick Phone Bag by Judith Leiber Couture, an icy ode to the super-sized cell phones of the 1980s.

Frosted out with more than 9,000 handset Swarovski crystals, this clever nod to one of pop culture’s most iconic status symbols epitomizes the opulence that defined 1980s fashion, says Judith Leiber Couture Creative Director Dee Ocleppo Hilfiger. “In the ’80s, style was all about a great statement piece—it still is.”

The $6,195 bag isn’t available until the holidays. #IYKYK judithleibercouture.com

JUDITH LEIBER COUTURE’S FUCHSIA TEXT ME BRICK PHONE BAG IS CALLING ALL OF US. By Tara Solomon

DINO MIGHT?

Sometimes I think we’re not using our free will enough. Sometimes maybe we’re going a bit overboard. A team of bioengineers in the UK used theirs in 2025 to create labgrown leather out of collagen harvested from the fossilized remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex—and then turned it into a handbag. They expected to sell it at auction for nearly half a million dollars. The media attention garnered by this black-and-blue clutch created by biotech firms The Organoid Company and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd., in collaboration with fashion label Enfin Levé, was apparently not a great indicator for how it would perform at auction. Bids reached less than half of its most conservative estimate making this Jurassic clutch seemingly as extinct as its forebearers.

— SARAH CARPENTER-PECK

spill the t. The T. rex handbag’s disappointing auction may yet signal its demise; (right) billionaire hoodie, anyone? Anyone?

HOW HEDY LAMARR CHANGED THE WORLD

HOLLYWOOD GAVE HER THE GLAMOUR; SCIENCE REVEALED HER GENIUS. | By James Long

Iwasn’t the only one captivated by Hedy Lamarr’s portrayal of the biblical siren Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1949 epic Samson And Delilah. Her beauty and undeniable allure made her an icon of the silver screen, but it was her brilliance that made her truly unforgettable. Beyond acting, Lamarr, almost unbelievably, co-invented frequency-hopping technology to help protect military transmissions during World War II—a breakthrough that helped lay the foundation for modern wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and the connected systems that power communication around the world. The irony is irresistible: the woman I first admired for her Hollywood glamour helped shape the invisible technology behind the devices that now connect our daily lives. Heady stuff.

The documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is currently streaming on Netflix.

You’ve seen the images: Silicon Valley billionaires in their uniforms of hoodies, sneakers and monochrome T-shirts. Think Steve Jobs in his Issey Miyake black mock turtleneck, or Mark Zuckerberg and his rotation of identical custom-made T-shirts, costing more than a month’s worth of daily lattes. While much of the corporate world still clings to silk ties and starched collars, the tech elite—ever eager to project disruption—helped normalize gym teacher fits through studied indifference to traditional corporate dress. Still, there remains a market for sartorial elegance with a class of ultra-wealthy men who gravitate toward “under-the-radar” luxury. Among the favored labels are three preeminent Italian brands: Brunello Cucinelli for its elevated casualwear, say, a $5,300 French terry sweatshirt perfect for an aperitivo by the pool; Kiton, the Naples-based house renowned for its rare

materials, whose legendary vicuña pieces can command more than $15,000; and Stefano Ricci, celebrated for ultra-luxury hand-stitched shirts, cashmere and refined outerwear, including a (cost-gasping) $41,000 nubuck calfskin-andcrocodile blouson.

TECH BROS COUTURE

HOW CLOTHES ARE ONCE AGAIN MAKING THE MAN. TIME TO DRESS UP, FELLAS. By

James Long

A prominent men’s fashion designer once lamented to me that he couldn’t sell a necktie, perhaps an even more daunting prospect now as casual Fridays have effectively become a dress code of “please wear clean sweatpants for Zoom.” Be that as it may, the growing preference among budding billionaires for these Italian houses—with their master artisans, meticulous craftsmanship and quiet confidence—suggests we may yet see a renewed aspiration among ambitious executives and professionals for tailored dress as a symbol of seriousness, success and style. Cin cin to that.

POETRY IN MOTION

WHEN LETTERS FROM LEGENDARY ENGLISH POET JOHN KEATS SHOWED UP IN A RARE BOOKS STORE IN NYC, THE PLOT THICKENED.

By Sarah Carpenter-Peck

Imagine coming in to work at the rare books store you own and picking up an old, leather-bound book with what appears to be original letters from English poet John Keats sent to his fiancée Fanny Brawne before his untimely death by tuberculosis. It was brought in by a seller and held for authentication. Would you recognize what you were holding? Would you know what to do next?

Here’s what Josh Mann, owner of B&B Rare Books did, when the book was presented to him by a new seller, who claimed it came from his grandfather’s collection in South Carolina.

dead poet society The drama surrounding

“We were immediately suspicious,” Mann says. He and his team recognized the letters—they’ve all been published, and literature is their specialty. But, they wondered, how could the letters be here and not in a private collection, auction or institution? “As booksellers, we had to ask ourselves if this was something we could buy and sell—but nothing about this seller felt like he owned the title.”

The B&B Rare Books staff became engulfed in the mystery of the book for two months, even temporarily shutting down operations. They refused to return the book to the seller until they figured out where it came from—a huge risk, which resulted in legal fees when the seller tried suing them. But their investigation panned out, and they were able to track down a police report from 1989 that described the theft of the book they were holding from the Whitney family’s private collection.

“When something is that rare and that valuable—we just felt that we didn’t want to let it out of our sight,” says Mann. “This isn’t the kind of thing you want to see disappear forever.”

The book is now back in the hands of the Whitney family, who’s taking it to Sotheby’s this year. Mann’s team hasn’t been compensated for their role in the recovery of the treasured book.

“A reward is nice,” Mann says, “but that’s not why we did it. I’d do it again—100 percent.”

Keats’ (above) love letters to Fanny Brawne (top right) engulfed NYC bookstore owner Josh Mann (right).

Christian Wins The exclusiv e !

Siriano Game

After two decades, Project Runway’s only notable winner is still the one to beat.

By Hal Rubenstein photography by Myrna SuáRez exclusively for COLDWELLsm

christian soldiers on “I don’t do shows for critics. I do shows to sell clothes to customers. If I show it, someone can buy it,” Siriano says from his atelier in New York City’s SoHo.

With his slight build and softly angular features, the guy looks like he might need to be lashed to a mast to survive a stiff wind at sea off the coast of his hometown of Annapolis, MD. But Christian Siriano knows how to weather a storm. While many of his fashion contemporaries who started out in the aughts strewn in more industry cognoscenti luster and handed more crystal awards are now diminished or history, the feisty sprite who won Project Runway’s fourth season at just 21 years old is still standing tall. Is he ever.

During his season’s run, Siriano became known as much for displaying the fearless confidence of a man twice his shoulder width—with a knack for quotable quips including “Ferocia Coutura”—as for his daring talent. No doubt about it: Christian Siriano remains a formidable and unapologetic showman.

But he’s also proved to be an astute observer and navigator through fashion’s frequently turbulent waters. Even more admirable, he’s that rare talent who doesn’t look over his shoulder at what others are running after, collaborating with brands others pooh poohed to get his name out there, dressing actresses ignored by ateliers in Paris and Milan to generate an entertainment industry wide wave of admiration that attracted the more coveted stars including Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Celine Dion and one very popular former first lady. And he deserves to be hailed as the Sir Galahad of runway diversity.

This summer, for a sixth consecutive year, Siriano returns for Project Runway’s Season 22, this time as a mentor. He’s determined to guide contestants not only through the show, but to help set them up for success in the tumultuous fashion industry after the cameras stop rolling.

Siriano is serious, sharp, focused, driven, nobody’s fool, nobody’s tool and the best ally of every woman who

wants to feel like the star of her own red carpet (just ask Janelle Monae, who donned custom couture Siriano in a nature-meets-tech inspired ensemble that doubled as performance art at the recent 2026 Met Gala). His designs recall the polish of Charles James, but his focus is pragmatically on staying in business. In boxing, there’s a term for underestimated bantamweight pugilists who know how to “punch above their weight.” What I admire so much is that when it comes to creating glamour, Christian Siriano knows how to deliver a knockout.

What’s the best part about designing?

Whether it’s a client, bride or red-carpet subject, I love seeing someone come in the showroom in their jeans, put on something I made and watch them transform into a more vibrant version of themselves or sometimes take on a character.

When did you get the itch to design?

When I was growing up. I watched every red-carpet event on TV with my family. Making people look glamourous became my fantasy. I didn’t know anything about fashion and, besides the award shows, I didn’t watch a lot of television. My major reference point, however, was that I was backstage watching every ballet my sister was in (Sharon was a member of The Ballet Theater Of Maryland), I checked out every dyed tulle skirt and embroidered bodice. I stalked the costumers. I became obsessed.

Was there a movie, say, Breakfast At Tiffany’s or The Thomas Crown Affair, to name two that other fashion designers often cite, that served as an inspiration?

Yes. Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead.

Really?

Hear me out. The film came out in 1991. Christina Applegate plays the oldest daughter of a family whose mom leaves mysteriously for the summer, and the babysitter left in charge of them suddenly dies and nobody knows where she stashed the money to take care of the kids. With mom not around, Christina has to get a job, so she gets one at a staid

and she turns it into a luxury house. It’s brilliant. [Laughs]

I’ll take your word for it. What made you want to do Project Runway?

I didn’t. I knew nothing about it. I was at school and working in London, so I had never seen the show. My American friends said you should do it. I was 20. I had nothing to lose. So, I took a chance.

You worked for two iconoclastic greats: Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood. What effect did they have on your fashion aesthetic and mission? McQueen was so creative and hands on.

billy’s idol “But more than anything, I believe my success is mainly due to listening to my clients,” Siriano says; (above) Among his dozens of A-list clients is fashion-forward Broadway and television star Billy Porter, here at the 91st Academy Awards in 2019, captivating in this showstopping Siriano instant classic creation and indisputably stealing the spotlight in an instant.

Nothing was ever “No, we can’t do that.” If someone came up with a fresh, unique idea, it was always, “We’ll figure out how to make it happen.” McQueen’s creative mindset was fearless and amazing, and it inspired everyone in his team to think that way. He was so open to collaboration, invention, taking risks and trusting his talent.

corporate fashion brand,

extra credit “To me, it’s much more important to teach the Project Runway contestants how to stay in business. I’ll ask them: After the show’s over, what exactly is your plan to survive?” Siriano says, here with his Runway colleague, supermodel, judge and host, Heidi Klum.

What people don’t realize when they look at Westwood’s wild, extravagant designs is that she was a meticulous pattern maker. Those looks weren’t spontaneous. Some of those wild, twisted, voluminous plaids had patterns with 400 elements. Her corsets were the result of 100 pieces. She taught me to leave nothing to chance.

Any idea why you’re the only winner in 21 seasons of Project Runway to create a lasting career of true significance? I can’t speak for anyone else, but after the show, I became very focused. The show gives you national exposure, but it doesn’t teach you how to build a business. So I approached it very guerilla style. I made sure to always have a new collection ready. To be consistent. I was willing to dress any actress or musician to get my name out there. And to grab the partnerships that came along because I realized very quickly that talent means nothing if you can’t keep the lights on.

Your first big deal was with Payless Shoes and I remember you getting universally snarked by the selfappointed ready-to-wear gatekeepers. Yeah. But you know what? I was 22. I had no investors (He still doesn’t). The Runway prize money wasn’t going to last more than a year. And Payless offered me a five-year deal. A billion-dollar company offered to get my name out in a market where millions of people shop. I sold my vibe, not my name. There was never a question about whether I’d take the offer. Plus, I had never designed shoes before, and I loved the challenge.

Anyone who has survived in fashion knows that perseverance is at least as essential as talent. So is luck and fortuitous timing. Proof of that is the way you achieved ‘legitimacy’ in 2016 thanks to two notable women who, oddly enough, you didn’t even pursue. My first big star may have been Whoopi Goldberg, whom I dressed in 2008 when she hosted the Tony Awards. But recognition kicked in when comedic actor Leslie Jones was set to attend the

premiere of 2016’s Ghostbusters, her first major movie, but like most women who aren’t model size, nor as famous as Oprah, she posted online that nobody would dress her. That took a lot of humility to post that publicly. I was a big fan of hers from Saturday Night Live. So I replied online with just a “wave” emoji. She responded, we connected and I dressed her in a custom off-the-shoulder scarlet gown. She looked amazing, just stunning, and she told everybody who put a microphone in front of her what I had done for her.

Two weeks later, you experienced the ultimate ‘pinch me’ moment. Right? Michelle Obama walked onstage at the Democratic National Convention in a royal blue dress of mine.

That moment shocked 7th Avenue. And suddenly, you’re on a roll. You designed Oprah’s dress for her National Gallery portrait. You became the patron saint of famous curvy women.

I know. It was wild, wasn’t it? Leslie again, Queen Latifah, Melissa McCarthy.

At the 2016 Emmys, you dressed nine actors as diverse as Niecy Nash, Laurie Metcalf, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett. Your embrace of these women and subsequent inclusion of models of all shapes forced more prominent designers into following your lead. I’m proud to be known as an American designer that celebrates all women. I found that dressing a lot of fabulous ladies who weren’t a size 0, 2 or 4, but more like 12, 14 and 20, proved what I always thought, that great style is more than just wearing a pretty dress. Great style is when you offer a woman the opportunity to feel confident about herself.

You have a fairly unconventional business structure. Your staff is small. You have no CFO. Your clothes are all made in your New York City studio, not overseas. You don’t spend money on advertising. Accessories don’t drive your business like most ready-towear brands. And your prices aren’t stratospherically out of reach. You

don’t even rely all that much on major retailers. And yet here you are, two decades later, unlike many of your contemporaries, still in business, more well known than ever. How?

I sell to women from all walks of life and ages, mostly some form of occasion dressing, mainly in the US, but we’re in other parts of the world, including the Middle East, though that’s taken a huge hit recently. We’re also building our custom suit business. Who doesn’t need a great jacket?

I had a CFO for 16 years. Now I run the company with a lawyer and an accounting firm. I took out some middlemen I didn’t need right now. My smartest decision

was to stop selling to most department stores prior to the pandemic. Many weren’t paying and I started noticing I didn’t need the retailer. I still work with Nordstrom and Macy’s, but by taking my business privately, working directly with clients, I wasn’t overproducing. When I do runway shows, I don’t send out conceptual clothes just to get posted on social media. I don’t do shows for critics. I do shows to sell clothes to customers. If I show it, someone can buy it.

Do you think we’re living in a challenging time for American fashion?

We’re in a very transitional period. I think it’s good to see so many new American

brava! brava!

“Great style is when you offer a woman the opportunity to feel confident about herself,” Siriano says; (above) Laurie Metcalf not only won a Tony Award for her role in Death Of A Salesman, but celebrated in a luminous custom Siriano gown. What a night.

brands. But we don’t have as much support as European labels. CFDA and Vogue do what they can but it’s not enough. Fashion has gotten so commercialized, driven by accessories, bottom lines and the insistence that everything be global. I think too many people who love fashion can no longer afford designer labels. It’s all so expensive. For example, leather goods have gone insane. Nobody should be spending five or ten thousand dollars on a leather jacket. They just don’t cost that much to make.

To be a respected American brand, you need longevity. A lot of the American designers are having a hard time. When you think about modern American fashion, the first big wave was led by Calvin [Klein], Donna [Karan] and Ralph [Lauren]. Then came another surge led by designers Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs and Vera Wang. But what happened to the next contingent?

Talented young designers such as Thakoon, Prabal Gurung, Adam Lippes and Jason Wu couldn’t seem to sustain it. Department stores haven’t helped. No one can build a successful business with a 40 percent margin. So many of them have cut back or stopped doing shows. Also, the shows in New York City used to be centralized. Everyone knew when it was Fashion Week. It was easy to get noticed. But the Bryant Park tents are gone; Lincoln Center gone. We don’t even have Spring Street Studios. Now the shows are scattered and lacking focus. Renting venues has gotten too expensive. I spent $40,000 of my Runway prize money (Siriano received $100k when he won), just on my first show in 2004. Now it costs $50k just to rent a space for two days. Young designers have gotten savvier digitally, so they can go to market quickly, but there’s no guidance to help them build a brand.

Is that your mission on Project Runway? Helping the contestants achieve their designs matters. But to me it’s more important to teach them how to stay

in business. After the show’s over, what exactly is your plan to survive?

How did you manage to survive 20 years? To be honest, after I won Runway, I had no idea. But I knew it wasn’t enough to be talented. Luckily, early on, I had a manager, Maria Chase, who had been in the business a long time, had companies, sold them, was instrumental in building Roger Vivier. I give her a lot of credit. As my years went on, I started listening to my publicist, Bianca Bianconi. She’s been my redcarpet maven for 17 years. But more than anything, I believe my success is mainly due to listening to my clients. My shows aren’t filled with influencers. My audience is made up of people shopping. It’s great exposure to do custom gowns for the Met Gala. I’ve done 12 of them. But what really matters is paying less attention to buzzy trends and more attention to what people want to buy.

Do you ever just turn it off and do something else. Like go fishing? Look, I love to work. I love what I do. But I have a great home in Connecticut. Of course, that meant I started to design furniture because I know the furniture that makes me feel comfortable. And I got an apartment in Paris in the 8th arrondisement. It’s probably the one place I come close to doing nothing but walk and eat. But it’s Paris! So fashion is never that out of reach. However, I’ve started painting and the more I do it the more I love it.

Painting? So, is this an exclusive? Is painting the next step in the evolution of Christian Siriano, fashion superstar? I don’t know. [Pause] There’s something so pure about art. Fashion is art that has to function. People get to live with what I do. But painting doesn’t have the same purpose. It doesn’t need to function. It’s complete on its own. Being able to paint full time might be the ultimate fantasy, and there are times I wish I could do just that. But then I’d have no money. And I would hate that. So we’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I have to race uptown to meet with Laurie Metcalf because I’m dressing her for the Tonys.

big story: amazing experiences

The Perfect Summer (After

Summer)

IT’S ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO STRETCH EVERYONE’S FAVORITE SEASON WELL INTO SEPTEMBER AND BEYOND. LET ME TELL YOU WHY.

BY KATE DOYLE HOOPER

board room Stop chasing experiences and actually experience them is the sage advice of the author, a seasoned global traveler. Exhibit A is this thrilling paddleboard moment in the calming waters at Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge in Vancouver Island, Canada.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KORESKI, THE CLAYOQUOT WILDERNESS LODGE

ack when the internet was barely a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye, and long before travel inspiration arrived via algorithm, there were travel magazines: big, glossy paper bricks that landed in shrink-wrapped bundles each month. A small wave of Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Condé Nast Traveller UK and The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler supplement would flood our mailbox, and I’d pore over them like treasure maps, which, to me, they essentially were.

I didn’t read them; I inhaled them. Their technicolor pages of those magical magazines were proof positive that the world was large, colorful and impossibly beautiful. Thanks to them, I knew that somewhere beyond the confines of our 11th-floor Stuyvesant Town apartment in New York City, there were people soaking in steamy thermal pools, tracking cheetahs on safari and wandering the ruins of Pompeii in summer whites and Marcello Mastroianni sunglasses, all looking as though they’d stepped out of a Slim Aarons photograph. I wanted in.

The one thing those magazines never really explained was timing. In magazine world, summer was endless, romantic and tranquil. Real life, however, is different. Show up too early and ocean temperatures are still on stun and towns haven’t fully opened; show up in July and you’re bribing maître d’s after sharing paradise with amped-up Instagrammers ticking off their “things to post before you die” lists. Get it right, around early August, as people start talking as if summer’s already over, and the energy shifts: July’s revved-up intensity recedes and a mellower rhythm settles in. Welcome to

second summer, the sub-season that begins in early August, eases into September, and, if you play your cards right, can carry you straight into October. That’s when you stop chasing experiences and finally get to experience them. So where to begin? I have some thoughts.

THE COAST

Having never lived more than a few hundred yards from the Hudson River and a handful of miles from the Atlantic Ocean, anything that involves a lot of water, that’s a siren call to me. Drop me by the shoreline and pick me up when sweater season begins.

I’ve always felt that coastlines show best once the crowds thin. Ferry horns sound less frantic and more romantic; footprints dot the sand instead of umbrellas; and seaside café chairs stay occupied for hours because no one’s in a rush to abandon the postcard view.

Washington State’s San Juan Islands suit this mood perfectly: early-August mist meanders along inlets and cedar-lined shores, workboats idle at their slips, kayaks glide across glassy coves. The water has warmed enough that a swim feels invigorating rather than an exercise in Nordic stoicism: a brisk dip and the clear-headed glow that follows keep you lingering on the dock, staring down the horizon and enjoying the soft white noise of the wild.

For a deeply connected-to-nature coastal escape with no shortage of creature comforts, I like Sonora Resort in British Columbia, Canada, which pairs private-island seclusion with shoreline suites, helicopter excursions into nearby fjords, conservation-led outings with local naturalists

waterworld If there’s water involved, we’re there, whether it’s e-biking across a river on a wooden bridge (above), waving to our new good friend, a local sea otter (left) or helicoptering to a remote lake for a private kayaking session (opposite). Yes, water, water everywhere, indeed.

and meals centered on garden-picked produce and line-caught seafood. It’s the rare place that manages to combine wilderness, adventure and luxury without feeling overproduced.

About 200 miles south, Wickaninnish Inn on Vancouver Island is a different animal entirely: rugged, exposed and wildly dramatic compared with the San Juans’ cozier, tucked-away mood. Here, cedar and stone meet pounding surf and jagged rock. Guided storm-watching excursions, coastal ecology walks and restorative spa rituals make thoughts of adding “just one more night”

seem entirely reasonable. Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge pushes the one-with-nature aesthetic even further with seaplane arrivals, safari-style luxury tents hidden deep within cedar forests and evenings beneath vast, star-filled skies. It’s the sort of otherworldly getaway where dinner plans may take a back seat to more important matters, like watching the last light disappear across the inlet. At all three properties, however, the experience most worth chasing arguably happens offshore. Whether by kayak, Zodiac or private boat, nothing compares to weaving between channels

and inlets in search of some of the world’s most captivating marine life: humpback whales, porpoises, seals and sea lions. No crowds. No blaring loudspeaker narration. Just still water punctuated by the sounds of fins and flippers cutting through the surface.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of North America, the Maine coast settles into its own familiar rhythm. Fog drifts through the harbors each morning, silhouetting sailboats and lobster traps before burning off to reveal endless Atlantic vistas. Lazy afternoons unfold around a low-key agenda of book reading, hammock napping, dockside oyster slurping, antiqueshop wandering, lighthouse cruising and long walks along rocky shorelines. The soundtrack is little more than gulls, distant buoy bells and the slow churn of the tide.

For a place to do so much and so little at once, Kennebunkport’s Hidden Pond leans into understated luxury, tucked discreetly into pine groves where sandy paths lead to cedar-clad cottages with unmarked doorways, private porches and low-key interiors designed for quiet and privacy. Got woodland seclusion? In a word, yes.

Meanwhile, 90 miles north, the Camden Harbour Inn delivers a more refined, Europeaninflected vision of coastal Maine, combining Relais & Châteaux polish with sweeping harbor views and tasting-menu dinners that feel improbably sophisticated this far from a major city.

And then, of course, there’s lobster. The question isn’t whether you’ll eat it, but how. Go big and have the concierge arrange a

private lobster-boat cruise complete with trap hauling, a wood-fire feast of lobster, corn and potatoes on a secluded sandbar and a twilight sail home beneath a sky slowly turning Maine pink. More of a landlubber? Then tackle the unofficial lobster-roll circuit, comparing the wares at Red’s Eats, McLoon’s Lobster Shack and The Clam Shack—the unofficial holy trinity of Maine lobster-roll institutions.

THE MOUNTAINS

Few nature-made tableaus are more stirring than the sight of massive, jagged, snow-capped mountain peaks rising above the heat of summer. They loom large, casting surreal shadows over the valley villages, making you feel wonderfully small.

In the Canadian Rockies, awe is yours for the taking, beginning with one essential ritual: greeting dawn at Lake Louise in Alberta’s Banff National Park. You can do it from the comfort of a king-sized Lakeview Suite bed at the Fairmont, as my husband did, or follow my lead and join the small, sleepy clusters gathered along the shoreline before sunrise. There, beneath a sky thick with stars and surrounded by towering rock faces, the lake feels almost extraterrestrial—at least until the first light gently nudges everyone back to earth and, for some of us, back to bed.

For a more adventurous start to the day, trade the lakeshore for altitude. Sign on for heli-hiking in the high country around the Bugaboos in eastern British Columbia or near the Columbia Icefield straddling the Continental Divide. Landing on a glacier with your boots crunching across ancient blue ice while peaks tower overhead has a way of recalibrating your sense of scale. Wilder still is British Columbia’s Glacier National Park, a raw, awe-inspiring, elemental wilderness complete with mountain goats and grizzly bears—so it’s best experienced with a professional guide at your side.

From the untamed high country, it’s a dramatic shift in mood to cross the Atlantic and enter the legendary Alps. Whether French, Italian, Swiss or Austrian, the Alps never lose their cool. Meadows remain lush and temperatures pleasant well into late September. Village eateries feed hungry hikers restorative, carb-forward après-marche lunches accompanied by good wine and an unholy amount of molten raclette.

When it comes time to sleep, Badrutt’s Palace on the shores of Lake St. Moritz—once favored by Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn and still beloved by myriad royals and prime ministers—

the

There are lots of ways to climb a mountain, from the snow-capped Alps in Chamonix, France (left) to the red-rock peaks of the American Southwest (above). It doesn’t matter if you get there by heli-hike, cable car or your own two feet—once you’re there, you’re on top of the world. How’s that for an amazing experience?

climb

remains the gold standard for old-world alpine glamour, at 5900 ft., no less. For something comparably luxurious in a more contemporary register, bunk in at the Chedi Andermatt in the Urseren Valley, where wood, stone and restrained Asian-inspired design create one of the chicest base camps imaginable for admiring mountain views with a glass of wine in hand.

For adrenaline-fueled types, the best way to experience the Alps may be by air—minus the plane. Airtaxi St. Moritz specializes in tandem paragliding and hang-gliding flights that let you soar above the Engadin Valley with pilots who’ve been navigating these peaks for decades.

As polished as St. Moritz can be, I remain partial to its livelier French cousin, Chamonix, especially in late August and early September. It’s where I go for snow-capped mountain bliss and for the dizzying ascent aboard the Aiguille du

Midi cable car. Once at the 12,605-foot summit, the incandescent views of Mont Blanc, Les Grandes Jorasses and, on especially clear days, the Matterhorn border on the spiritual.

Part of what keeps drawing me back is L’Hôtel Albert 1er, an elegant yet understated boutique property that balances classic Alpine charm with contemporary comfort: warm wood interiors, cozy lounges, a spa and pool, Michelin-starred dining and staff who know precisely which local trails and mountain guides are worth your time. Oh, and yes, there’s a little something they call Mont Blanc right outside your window to boot. Meanwhile, back in southwestern Montana, The Ranch At Rock Creek—set in the foothills of the Flint Creek Range near the Sapphire Mountains—remains the gold standard for experiencing frontier life without sacrificing comfort. Think A River Runs Through It-level fly-

fishing, guided horseback rides to thundering waterfalls and campfire dinners that somehow feel both genuinely wild and completely civilized. Montage Big Sky, set against the Madison Range and Spanish Peaks near Yellowstone, answers with a different rhythm: modern, clubby luxury spread across vast Montana panoramas that, in summer, rival their European counterparts. What all these places ultimately share is the sense of awe they inspire—the way mountains slow your breathing and subtly rearrange your perspective simply by being there. Mountain magic is real and it’s nature’s balm for the soul (and the nervous system).

THE DESERT

Deserts are unapologetically brutal beneath the high sun; they become something entirely different as evening cools the air and color begins to wake up.

In Southern Utah, that transformation arrives at dusk. Zion and Bryce shift through a slow-motion

spectrum, stone fading from white to orange to deep, tannic red. Trails that felt punishing at noon suddenly become inviting. Terrace dinners unfold. Silence settles over the landscape as though the entire world has agreed to lower its voice.

Amangiri sits squarely within that geological drama, its architectural minimalism feeling both luxurious and monastic in its reverence for space, shadow and stone. Design here exists entirely in service of place.

Then there’s Bishop’s Lodge, which offers adobe warmth and Southwestern soul through fireplaces, intimate courtyards, horseback rides at sunset, guided gallery walks and private astronomy sessions beneath astonishingly dark skies. Miles from light pollution, the Milky Way becomes an overhead highway. The modern world recedes and the sky does the talking.

Sedona’s reputation can feel overplayed by day. But, at dusk, it sheds the clichés: red rocks go cinematic in silhouette, air cools and paths pull you toward quieter horizons. I like the Ambiente Sedona which brings design-forward rooms right into the landscape; and the perennial favorite Enchantment Resort still excels at casita-style calm and unforgettable experiences—think hot-air ballooning, stargazing, heli-tours over the red rocks, guided canyon hikes and those sunsets that make you reconsider your departure plans.

THE LANDS BEYOND

Summer’s not a fixed point on a calendar; it migrates.

While the north tips toward crispness as the days push into early September, the Southern Hemisphere is just waking up. In South America’s southern tip encompassing both Argentina and Chile, Patagonia in early spring has that outsized, windswept drama that recalibrates your sense of scale (and seasons). Snow clings to peaks, lakes shift moods by the hour and ungainly winds teach you respect. Explora Patagonia, a high-design, all-inclusive lodge in Torres del Paine offering guided treks, horseback rides and boat trips, places you literally inside the frame, while the more private and remote Awasi Patagonia, set in a private reserve, offers villas and dedicated guides for intimate, tailormade exploration. Horses and gauchos are the connective tissue—long rides across steppes that feel eternal and quietly epic.

Zanzibar is another hemispherian antidote: lazy dhow sails, seafood lunches that dissolve into sunsets and water so impossibly clear it scarcely

pinch me moments Summer’s greatest luxury may simply be presence, the author says. Get cozy with a lionfish (opposite) on an uncrowded dive or explore the most incredible vantage points of the Grand Canyon in Sedona, AZ (left). Whatever you’re doing, the sage scribe says, let time and place change you a bit before returning home. Couldn’t agree more.

looks real. Mnemba Island distills the idea of barefoot luxury down to its essentials with elegant beachfront bungalows, snorkeling, scuba diving, nesting turtles, private reefs and service polished enough to anticipate your needs before you do.

For a more intimate residential feel, Xanadu Villas creates the sensation of having an entire stretch of coastline largely to yourself.

On the opposite side of the Indian Ocean, Bali repays a slow approach. Once you allow the island to reveal itself at its own pace—morning mist in rice terraces, incense drifting through village lanes—a softer, deeper magic begins to emerge. Deep in the rainforest, Capella Ubud translates that mood into a dreamlike jungle world of suspension bridges, hidden pathways and tented luxury that marries childhood adventure fantasies with grown-up indulgence.

Roughly 4,000 miles southeast, the Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary, a wellness resort set on a wooded hillside in the Paro foothills of the eastern Himalaya, offers a more contemplative form of respite. Bhutanese-rooted wellness programs, traditional healing therapies, contemplative walks,

mountain views and profound quiet combine into the sort of restorative experience that stays with you long after you leave.

THE SEASON THAT STAYS WITH YOU

Summer’s greatest luxury—increasingly rare and infinitely valuable—may simply be presence. Not privilege, exactly, though there’s certainly some of that involved. Rather, it’s the ability to let time and place change you a bit before returning home. To stay somewhere long enough for its rhythm to work gently on yours. That’s the season I’m proposing you chase this year: not an exact date, but a feeling.

Second summer is forgiving. It’s slow. It lets you nap. It gives you room to become less urgent and more curious. So, pack your summer whites and Marcello Mastroianni sunglasses, along with a little patience and push the season a bit further. You’ll thank yourself later, when the light grows softer, dinners stretch languidly and the places you love quietly decide to keep you entranced for just a little while longer.

big story: the 20

Beyond The Bucket List

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME OF THE PLANET’S 20 MOST OVER-THE-TOP, MUST-DO RIGHT NOW RANKED LUXURY TRAVEL EXPERIENCES? I BET YOU ARE.

REPORTED BY SARAH CARPENTER-PECK AND JAMES LONG

lights! camera! action! A world-class golf course under the Northern Lights in Norway? Who’s saying no to that?

Welcome to Lofoten Links Lodges, specifically hole No.2.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES HOGG

or experienced luxury travelers, the true measure of a destination lies in its defining experience. These are the moments worth planning around—rare encounters, privileged perspectives and otherworldly landscapes that reveal each place at its most extraordinary. Here, we’ve selected signature locations with moments and activities that will elevate your journey from memorable to genuinely epic.

(1)

Golf And The Northern Lights In The Lofoten Islands (NORWAY)

It’s been on your wish list for some time: A bespoke Northern Lights expedition through the island’s soaring Arctic landscapes. View them after a round of golf at Lofoten Links Lodges, a world-class championship course carved into the coastal rock of Gimsøy Island.

(2)

Charter A Private Yacht Through Limestone Seascapes In Ha Long Bay (VIETNAM)

For this UNESCO World Heritage Site, secure an intimate private yacht charter through Ha Long Bay’s limestone labyrinth, with access to hidden coves, quiet lunch anchorages and sunset cocktails amid one of Asia’s most cinematic seascapes.

(3)

Explore The Kimberley Coast By Land, Air And Sea (AUSTRALIA)

There’s no better way to immerse yourself in Australia’s legendary outback than ensuring your itinerary includes a helicopter, a cruise ship and a beach lounge. Maybe even a high-clearance 4x4 through El Questro Wilderness Park. Check in with Audley Travel for the ultimate 20-day luxury adventure.

(4)

Breakfast Below Hot-Air BalloonFilled Skies In Cappadocia (TURKEY)

Watch hundreds of hot-air balloons from below at your bespoke traditional Turkish breakfast as they drift silently across the morning sky among Cappadocia’s stunning “fairy chimneys” (rock pillars). Ride on horseback at sunset through rose-hued valleys, tracing ancient routes between the rock-hewn dwellings and surreal volcanic formations.

(4) (3)

(The Kimberley Coast) FINNISS RIVER LODGE; (Balloons) MUSEUM HOTEL, CAPPADOCIA

(5)

Stand Atop The World At The North Pole

Few journeys carry greater cachet than reaching the Geographic North Pole itself, whether on Ponant’s Le Commandant Charcot state-of-the-art luxury icebreaker or by helicopter. Stand atop the Arctic ice cap in a destination that remains inaccessible to most of the world.

(6)

Adventure Through The Adriatic On A Self-Driven Kotor Speedboat (MONTENEGRO)

Eschew the crowded cruise and explore the Bay Of Kotor by a self-captained speedboat, gliding between medieval stone villages, secluded Adriatic coves and the storied island church of Our Lady Of The Rocks, all set against one of Europe’s most spectacular natural harbors.

(7)

Admire Picasso Masterpieces

Paired With Costa Del Sol Sail In Málaga (SPAIN)

The city’s renaissance—is there a single hotter destination on the planet right now than Málaga?—is best appreciated from both land and sea. Those in the know pair exclusive access to Málaga’s world-class art collections, including works from its most famous native son, Pablo Picasso, with a romantic sailing escape along the majestic Mediterranean in Costa del Sol.

(8)

Heli-Hike The Swiss Alps In Anzère (SWITZERLAND)

Book with Swiss Ski Safari for a guided heli-hiking safari that’s full of adventure and luxury alike. Bespoke experiences may include lunch in a mountain refuge, a night in a treehouse or even a torchlit evening hike.

(9)

Fly Fish In Wyoming’s Platte River Valley (USA)

Stay at the luxury Brush Creek Ranch, the 2026 Orvis endorsed Fly Fishing Lodge Of The Year and take advantage of the expert guides to hone your fly fishing game.

(10)

Ride A Cable Car Up Vogel Mountain— Then Paraglide Down (SLOVENIA)

Glide 1,000 meters down the mountain (tandem available), over the stunning turquoise waters of Lake Bohinj, the deep Bohinj Valley and the dramatic peaks of the Julian Alps and Triglav National Park. Stop in one of the many farm-to-table restaurants here for some well-earned štruklji or žlikrofi.

(11)

Scuba Dive With Marine Biologists In Raja Ampat (INDONESIA)

Home to nearly 75 percent of all known coral species on the planet, Raja Ampat’s reefs are considered the epicenter of marine biodiversity, and therefore a bucketlist scuba diving destination. Guided by the experts, you’re sure to experience this ecosystem at profound depths.

(12)

All Access To Cascading Turquoise Lakes In Plitvice Lakes (CROATIA)

Known for its 16 cascading, terraced turquoise lakes, the insider move is an early private-guided visit before this national park opens fully, when the striking waterfalls and timber walkways can be experienced in breathtaking silence.

(13)

Learn Tai-Chi From A Master In Beijing’s Jingshan Park (CHINA)

Hire a teacher to meet you and your party, or experience this as part of a broader 14-night, impeccably planned Black Tomato itinerary from Beijing to Shanghai via Xi’an and Guilin.

(14)

(14)

Race A Porsche In Hockenheim (GERMANY)

With a track day at the Porsche Experience Center at the Hockenheimring, you’ll choose from a fleet of Porsches—including, yes, the GT2 RS—and take it for a spin on the Grand Prix circuit. Vroom!

(15)

Charter A Floatplane In Alaska To Top Resort In Pacific Northwest (USA)

The Tutka Bay Lodge is an all-inclusive luxury wilderness retreat in Kachemak Bay. Set on 40 scenic acres of private seaside coves and lush forests by one of the richest ocean estuaries in the world, it’s only accessible via boat from Homer or floatplane from Anchorage.

(16)

Motorcycle The Foothills Of Mt. Fuji (JAPAN)

Concierge services will plan a luxury tour, carrying luggage to meet you at your next ryokan while you hop aboard the bike of your dreams and take in the mountain as never before. A robe and slippers await you at the onsen at the end of each day—not to mention an impossibly delicious sushi dinner.

(17)

Become James Bond In No Time To Die In The Faroe Islands (DENMARK)

Take the James Bond Executive Helicopter Tour (starting at $19,000 per person) from Vágar airport to Kalsoy island and jump off the helicopter at Kallur Lighthouse. You’ll recognize several iconic landmarks from the film, from the villain’s lair to Kallur promontory, where (spoiler!) James Bond gets killed off.

(18)

Host A Murder Mystery Party At Ardross Castle (SCOTLAND) Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, the magnificent 19th-century baronial

(15)

mansion where the global smash television show The Traitors is filmed, is only available for exclusive use hire for both corporate and private clients. Rent the whole thing out and make your own Traitors experience—but you might have to fight Scottish actor and The Traitors host Alan Cumming over scheduling.

(19)

Ditch Crowds On Private Luxury Gozzo On Amalfi Coast (ITALY)

Increasingly congested by social-mediadriven demand, the most unruffled way to experience the Amalfi Coast dolce vita style

is in a luxury gozzo, the classic Southern Italian fishing boat, where hidden coves, dizzying cliffside villages and the coastline’s cinematic beauty can be treasured without the bottleneck ashore.

(20)

Ski Cerro Catedral In the Patagonian Andes (ARGENTINA)

July is peak ski season at the Southern Hemisphere’s largest and most developed winter sports destination in South America. Cerro Catedral rises from a 1,030-meter base to twin granite towers whose spires resemble a Gothic cathedral, inspiring its name.

American Legends Of Interior Design

IN THIS ERA OF VIRAL DECORATING TRENDS, THESE FOUR CONTEMPORARY DESIGN STARS JONATHAN ADLER

ALFREDO PAREDES BRIGETTE ROMANEK AND MATTHEW MacDONALD REVEAL HOW THEY CRAFT HOMES THEIR CLIENTS LOVE FOREVER. BEHOLD THE GORGEOUSNESS.

By Todd Plummer

this page, from top Alfredo Paredes

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK FRANCES

Matthew MacDonald

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOUIS AGUIRRE

opposite page, from top Jonathan Adler

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JONATHAN ADLER NYC Brigette Romanek

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL CLIFFORD

ood design doesn’t need to announce itself. You register it instinctively—in the way a room settles around you, in the quiet confidence of materials and colors that feel exactly right, in the sense that every element has been carefully considered without anything feeling overworked. At its best, interior design disguises its own complexity. What is, in reality, a thousand precise decisions reads as seamless, composed and, yes, effortless.

If that process once felt intricate, it now feels exponentially complicated. The digital age has collapsed distance and expanded access, placing an endless archive of interiors at our fingertips. Every aesthetic exists simultaneously: minimalist and maximalist, historic and contemporary, polished and raw. The result is a kind of aesthetic saturation. “Good taste” is no longer fixed, and reference points are as limitless as they’re conflicting.

The real skill these days is knowing how to cut through the noise. Not every house tour seen on Instagram constitutes “good taste,” and not every viral trend deserves to stand the test of time. What we’re seeing, however, is that the most compelling designers of today are moving away from prescriptive ideas of style and toward something more personal, more exacting. The visionaries shaping this moment aren’t offering definitive answers—but asking better questions about how people want to live, what spaces should feel like and how design can reflect something deeper.

We spoke with four legendary designers working at the center of that shift and at the height of their powers. Their work looks nothing alike, but it shares a common rigor: a commitment to interiors that move beyond decoration into something layered, personal, enduring and exciting. In short, they’re genuine American masters.

Jonathan Adler

THE INSTIGATOR

Jonathan Adler has built his career on the idea that design can be serious without taking itself too seriously. His work—colorful, witty and unmistakably confident—pushes against the notion that good taste must be restrained. “My work has always been about impeccable craftsmanship, timeless elegance and a soupçon of wit and cheekiness,” he says.

The humor is intentional, as is the rigor, and Adler’s foundation as a ceramics artist still shapes his approach. Craft always comes first. The playfulness sits on top of it, giving his work both structure and personality. “I’ve always tried to find a different way of doing something,” he says. That instinct has kept Adler’s work from feeling predictable, even as it has become instantly recognizable.

If Adler feels particularly relevant now, it’s because the design world has finally caught up to the philosophy he’s championed for decades. In his view, the internet has created an aesthetic landscape where style has become a chooseyour-own-adventure story. Minimalism and maximalism, traditionalism and futurism, muted palettes and riotous color can all feel contemporary at the same time.

“All trends exist simultaneously now,” says the celebrated New York City-based designer. “It’s everything, everywhere, all at once, and there are no rules.”

For Adler, that collapse of convention is liberating. Earlier generations were typically defined by a dominant visual language; today’s interiors, especially Adler’s, resist categorization altogether. And what excites him about the future of American design is that sense of possibility—that a room can be millennial, ultramodern, cottagecore, glamorous or all four at once. The disappearance of the old design rules, he says, is an invitation to embrace individuality.

The Manhattan resident’s long-held outlook isn’t just coincidence, either: it dates back to his grandmother, whom he describes as a “glamorous eccentric.” Her home was filled with singular objects collected over a lifetime of travel, each carrying its own story. The pieces fascinated Adler as a child and he jokes that, when she died, they practically fought over who would get what.

Asked what he hopes his own legacy will be, Adler doesn’t talk about trends or commercial success. He hopes to inspire the same sense of curiosity and attachment that his grandmother inspired in him: to create objects and interiors that people live with, cherish and will perhaps one day fight over themselves.

and the kitchen sink

“All trends exist simultaneously now,” Jonathan Adler says. “It’s everything, everywhere, all at once and there are no rules.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JONATHAN ADLER NYC

Alfredo Paredes

THE DIRECTOR

Alfredo Paredes, named on ELLE Décor’s A-List 2026, designs with a narrative in mind. Before materials or layouts, there’s a larger question: what’s the story of this place? It’s an approach shaped by his 34 years at Ralph Lauren as head of both Global Store Design and Architecture, where environments were built around a clear, cinematic idea. “Ralph is like a movie director,” Paredes says. “Everything is about a concept.”

That approach still anchors his work. Whether he’s designing

a Palm Springs desert getaway, a members club in Newport, RI, or his own stunning home on Shelter Island, NY, the starting point is always the same: Rather than working room by room, he builds a complete vision first. Clients aren’t just reviewing samples; they’re stepping into an idea. Materials are meant to be touched, spaces imagined in motion. Once the concept is clear, everything else falls into place.

“I don’t have a particular look,” the Cuban-American designer says. “My ability is to channel what the client has in their mind and bring it to fruition.”

That distinction is central to Paredes’ practice. Many designers begin with furniture, fabrics or architectural details—

Alfredo Paredes says he doesn’t have a particular design look. “My ability is to channel what the client has in mind and bring it to fruition.”

but Paredes begins with a world. Years spent translating Ralph Lauren’s ideas into immersive environments taught him that clients often know how they want to feel long before they know what they want something to look like.

“People come to me when they’re building their dream houses,” Paredes says. “But they can’t always articulate it.”

Through conversations, storyboards, materials presentations and references, he gradually helps his clients construct that narrative, helping them see not just individual rooms, but the life that will unfold within them. That approach explains why Paredes moves so comfortably between private residence and hospitality projects. In many ways, the private clubs and restaurants now

filling his portfolio are a continuation of the work he spent decades refining at Ralph Lauren. This year, his studio is completing groundup residences from New Hampshire’s tony Lake Winnepesaukee to Bedford, NY, alongside projects in the Woolworth Building in Tribeca and a new athletic club in Brooklyn Heights.

But don’t expect Paredes to just copy-paste his Ralph Lauren approach, either. For years, he devoted himself to helping realize someone else’s vision. Now, through his own studio, Paredes is discovering where the Ralph Lauren influence ends and his own voice begins. That voice, it turns out, was not a signature aesthetic, but a way of thinking. Alfredo Paredes isn’t simply designing rooms. He’s helping clients direct the sorts of lives they want to live.

bearing fruit

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BJÖRN WALLENDER/ALFREDO PAREDES

Brigette Romanek THE LISTENER

Brigette Romanek begins with people, not rooms. Her process is fundamentally rooted in observation—how clients live, what they respond to, the details they don’t realize they’re revealing. “I don’t want it to be ‘just a beautiful house’—I want it to be a place people really love and enjoy.”

That distinction defines her work. Romanek’s interiors are polished, but never precious. There’s an ease to them, a sense that they’re meant to be lived in rather than admired from a distance. Her rooms are often bold with color and pattern, deployed with artful intention, crafting joy and soul into daily life without feeling overstimulating. She studies what her clients wear, how they move, what draws their attention. Early on, she writes down what she believes matters most to them, then returns to those notes at the end to see if she was right.

The result is what she calls “the most beautiful version of their diary.” Her spaces feel intimate without being overly revealing, expressive without feeling staged. A recent project in Italy captures that balance, layering contemporary and mid-century elements with custom pieces that feel entirely at home. “I want people to feel like it’s theirs,” she says. In a design landscape that often rewards a recognizable signature, that instinct—to step back just enough—sets her apart.

That gift for creating deeply personal interiors is rooted in her creative, eclectic past. The daughter of singer-songwriter Paulette McWilliams, whose career included collaborations with everyone from Aretha Franklin to Michael Jackson, Romanek spent much of her childhood moving around. Decorating became her way of creating continuity from one home to the next, especially when accompanying her mother on tour. Wherever she landed, she instinctively transformed unfamiliar spaces with treasured objects and keepsakes. Long before her design career, she was already practicing the principle that’s come to define her practice: that a home should reflect the life of the person living in it, not the designer who created it.

Her actual entry into the field arrived almost by accident. Friends became captivated by the storied Laurel Canyon home she shares with husband Mark Romanek and began asking for help with their own spaces. What started as informal requests between friends evolved into one of the most sought-after studios in the country. This year, Romanek Studios was named on the ELLE Décor A-List 2026 in the ultra-exclusive “Legend” category—the highest honor in the publication’s design roster.

In just a few years, Romanek has become the designer of choice for an influential roster that spans Beyoncé, Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore. But the glitz of celebrity names is beside the point. Across projects and personalities, Brigette Romanek returns to the same question: How can a space feel unmistakably like the person who lives there? She, clearly, always has the answer.

it’s not about you

Brigette Romanek says she believes that a home should reflect the life of the person living in it, not the designer who created it.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY YOSHIHIRO MAKINO/BRIGETTE ROMANEK

Matthew MacDonald

THE ALCHEMIST

Matthew MacDonald’s work rests on a deceptively simple idea: that the most interesting rooms live somewhere in-between. Not fully modern, not entirely traditional, but carefully balanced between the two. He’s refined this aesthetic tension over decades, and one that reads as effortless only because it’s so controlled. His rooms feel airy and light with restrained pops of color. There are rounded corners balancing rigid structure and straight edges commanding boundaries in more nebulous spaces.

“Anyone can mix,” MacDonald says. “But to do that mix well, it takes talent.”

What he’s really describing is discipline. Contemporary pieces sit alongside vintage ones, but nothing feels forced or overly curated. There’s a sense of ease, even when the combinations are unexpected. That balance shifts depending on where the project is.

“A project in Miami has a slickness, a bit of sexiness,” he says, while homes in the Hamptons or the Carolinas move toward something softer, more subdued. He treats geography almost like a collaborator, adjusting tone without losing clarity.

Clients have changed just as much as the landscape. They arrive with references, opinions and a point of view shaped by social media. MacDonald says he never pushes against it so much as refine it. “You have to be gentle,” he says. “It might work where they saw it, but not necessarily where you are.” The work becomes a process of editing, he says, taking a flood of inspiration and shaping it into something that feels grounded and cohesive.

MacDonald’s own path into design began unexpectedly. Originally on a pre-med track, he returned home from college one summer to find his mother renovating the family house. What started as curiosity quickly became obsession. More than three decades later, he’s evolved into a designer responsible for some of the country’s most coveted residences, including projects for global superstar Jennifer Lopez.

What distinguishes MacDonald isn’t a signature look so much as a refusal to rely on one. His projects are shaped as much by their surroundings as by the people who inhabit them. Rather than imposing a formula, he says he allows each project to develop its own identity, drawing from architecture, landscape and the rhythms of everyday life.

In an era when clients arrive armed with endless inspiration from Instagram and Pinterest, MacDonald has also become an editor. He welcomes references—but rarely takes them at face value. A striking detail from one image, a color palette from another, the mood of a third—these fragments become raw material rather than instructions. The challenge is knowing what to leave out. Good design, he says, comes not from accumulating ideas but from refining them, stripping away the unnecessary until a room feels inevitable rather than assembled. Making sense with a sense of style. Yes, please.

miami heat

“A project in Miami has a slickness, a bit of sexiness,” says Matthew MacDonald of his celebrated body of work, including for his client, Jennifer Lopez. PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRIS TAMBURELLO/MacDONALD DESIGN ASSOCIATES

GREG GORMAN RUNS THROUGH IT

THE LEGENDARY PHOTOGRAPHER TALKS ABOUT A CAREER BUILT ON FAME IN THE HILLS OF HOLLYWOOD AND HIS NEXT CHAPTER IN THE RIVERS OF WYOMING.

By Kevin Sessums

photography by Greg Gorman

y father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe,” wrote Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It, his novella about family and fishing and how we cast about in each in an attempt to find a way to define ourselves before we end up at redemption. “To him all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”

Photographer Greg Gorman is such a master of his craft that he can make the art of it look easy—but finding the grace to define himself professionally and personally within his midwestern upbringing wasn’t quite so easy for him. That took a craftiness and guile, the hallmarks of any professional career carved out of the geography of hype that long ago formed Hollywood itself, that just didn’t come naturally to someone with his lanky likability. It is limned, that likability, with a deeper oft noted decency

that doesn’t brook the brusque unkindness that can pass for power in show business but needlessly masks instead the neediness of the insecurity of those who think of themselves as the guardians of its gaudy order.

The key to Gorman’s own ordered art is, in fact, its lack of gaudiness even as it luxuriates not only in his knowledge of light—he got his Master of Fine Arts degree in cinematography at USC—but also light’s knowledge of him. He talks about his goal of creating “connected portraits” about these iconic ones editorially curated here in COLDWELLSM magazine. He meant the term as one that encompasses his subjects and himself. But I suspect it goes deeper than that. It is about how he and the light are connected as well.

There is a technical expertise that the most successful photographers pair with their visual instincts, but the greatest of them have a spiritual bond with light in which they have found, yes, a kind of redemption which in turn redeems their photography from “a [predatory] medium in

candid camera “I just loved that moment in that dark room—that image coming out of nothing on that piece of white paper. That was the decisive moment; that’s when I felt the magic of photography,” Gorman says of his first experience in the dark room.

which works of art are made,” according to Susan Sontag, displaying the joyless jut of her academic jaw in On Photography, into just that: a work of art. Helmut Newton, Gorman’s mentor and great friend with whom he shared duo-exhibitions (the anti-intellectual Helmut shared nothing in common with the brainy Sontag except a taste for women that they each found to be transgressive in themselves and each other) put it this way: “Practically any light, somehow or other, I can deal with… Any light that God sends me is different. This keeps me interested: ‘quick, quick, quick, something is happening!’”

But it was a slow-slow-slow-something-ishappening moment Gorman remembers as the one in which he himself decided to become a photographer. “There was a buddy of mine I used to go huntin’n’fishin’ with back in Kansas where I grew up,” he says, always better at dropping his g’s than dropping names. “My buddy was a photography buff. I had third row center seats to see Jimi Hendrix in Kansas City, so I asked him if I could borrow his camera. I shot some pictures during the concert and went over to his house the next day. With his help, I started to develop the film in his dark room. I began seeing this picture gradually emerge on this white piece of paper and I went, ‘Wow... this is pretty amazing…’. I decided to enroll

in photojournalism school at the University of Kansas since that’s all they offered then. I just loved that moment in that dark room. The pictures themselves were awful. I might have been too stoned when I was taking them. But it was that image coming out of nothing on that piece of white paper: that was the decisive moment.”

“It lit your creative spark,” I say. “It spoke to your longing to be a conjurer of some sort even if you couldn’t quite cope yet with the idea of being an artist.”

“Very much. I felt the magic of it,” Gorman agrees. “Then I went out to USC. Got my degree there. And stayed in LA,” he says. He spends much of his time now more than 50 years later—he’s 77—passing on his knowledge and experience by teaching students around the world eager to garner some of his wisdom not only as a photographer but also as a gentleman who managed to navigate Hollywood with his gentleness intact. “I didn’t end up being a cinematographer though because I am too much of a control freak,” he says, that regret, if it ever was one, no longer a narrative wrinkle to be faced after setting its story in such a place where narratives are sold for their wrinkles but faces lose their currency for having a few too many. “Directors will ultimately go for the best acting take over the best camera take,” he tells me. “And I wanted to make the better visual choice. I wanted that control.”

GREG GORMAN: ALL ACCESS

BETTE DAVIS

The first time I photographed Bette, I got a call from her friend, Claude DeLoffre, asking if I wanted to do it. I said absolutely. So, I went to meet her and she was wearing a short skirt that barely covered her. She was sort of perched on a chair at her apartment. She showed me her place and I suggested a spot next to the mantel to use in the photograph and she said, oh, no, we couldn’t shoot there because it wasn’t a yankee fireplace. She really was kind of a character. She was very funny. Claude came over and was present for the shoot. Bette didn’t like women that much. She even made Claude wait in the other room.

But that first time, after she rejected the fireplace, I suggested a room where she kept her Oscars. She said I couldn’t shoot there either because there were too many reflections in the glass all about the room. She knew her stuff. After later shoots, when we’d become friends, I’d go over to her house and she’d put the lightbox on her lap and she’d check them off. “No, no, no, no…Terrific!”

About ten days before she passed away, I called her because I wanted to do an l.a.Eyeworks ad with her. She was at the San Sebastián Film Festival in Spain. She called and left a couple of messages to tell me she was out of town, but she was going to call me when she got back. But she never got back. She got very sick there and was flown to a hospital in France, where she died. She was a remarkable woman. One of the real legends of all time.

LIZA MINNELLI

I’ve known Liza forever, too. This is an early portrait here. I was down in New Orleans and was having dinner. My phone rings and I see it’s Liza, so I pick up. “When you’re retouching the picture, think Audrey Hepburn.” I told her I’d tell the retouchers. She’s another one who’s funny and very selfdeprecating. One of my favorites.

But there’s another way of looking at it, because there’s always another way (the photographer’s mantra) of looking at something, which is that Greg Gorman won’t let anyone assert control over him, not even himself. He insists to me that he enters a photo shoot with no prior judgment about a subject. It is as if he were the white piece of paper through which the image will emerge once it is discovered in the real-time juncture of a photo shoot.

I shot her recently. She had to tape a segment for one of those morning shows to promote her new memoir, and they took up almost all the time we had. I was panicked. We were at Michael Feinstein’s house and I was supposed to shoot her at 6:30pm and she walked in at 9:30—not even tired.

MERYL STREEP

She was quite young. Lovely. On time. Willing to try anything. The paired image with that photograph is one with her eyes closed. They’re in my book, It’s Not About Me. I saw Meryl at a party a year or two ago, and she had absolutely no idea who I was. [Laughs]

SOPHIA LOREN

I once asked her if she liked being photographed—since objectification is embedded in the process. “It depends on the day,” she said. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Being photographed is exactly the opposite of acting. When you act, your job is to react to everything around you, every moment calls for a different emotional color. Being a model is to hone in on the color the photographer is seeking and when you find it, freeze in that moment until the photographer tells you to shift. So really, being a model and being an actor are two opposite things.”

I love that. I love her. There was once a magazine called Detour. They knew I’d always wanted to shoot Sophia Loren so they called me to tell me that they had booked her but they couldn’t pay any of my expenses. This was when I was working a lot, so I flew myself and my assistant first class to Rome. I was so excited to get to work with her. She called me before I left and I asked her if there was anything I could bring her.

“Oh, you know, it’d be very nice if I could have a short wig,” she said. I said, OK, I’ll see what I can do. I called my makeup and wig guy who made a short little wig, almost like one Barbra Streisand wore. So I took it to her. I felt like one of those hairdressers running through airports with one of those Styrofoam heads with a wig pinned to it. But Sophia was great. She didn’t have an entourage. She came with her sister. She did her own makeup. She was fantastic. I fell in love with her right away.

This was about 30 years ago. So over lunch she said, “Oh, you know, Greg, I’m not really 60. I’m three times 20.” I thought that was great. You have to give it to her: What a star!

Sontag insisted that any art that does emerge from photography is happenstance, a more grudging than happy one. “Photographs owe their existence to a loose cooperation (quasi-magical, quasi-accidental) between photographer and subject mediated by an ever simpler and more automated machine,” she wrote, “which even when capricious can produce a result that is interesting and never entirely wrong.” Helmut Newton, who knew more about the subject in his shutter finger than any cortex capable of contextualization, referred to being open to such unplanned moments as capturing the “divine mistake.” Or, as Maclean wrote in his book about family and fishing not knowing he was also writing about photography when the mystery of the unseen is somehow captured not with the equipment needed—sorry, Susan—but the artistry of the person handling it: “All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.”

Which brings us to...

Thomas Hart Benton.

President Harry S. Truman. And Greg Gorman’s daddy.

Gorman was born in Kansas City, MO, and still goes back each year to hang out with lifelong friends for Thanksgiving. “I was a preemie. My mom slipped and fell and broke her water. I came out two months early and was in an incubator for another two months in 1949. That was pretty serious back then so I’m lucky to be alive. I was born over in the Missouri part of Kansas City, but we lived over in Kansas for most of my life…I went to a private boys school, Pembroke Country Day—Pem Day we called it—and one of my best friends growing up lived next door to Thomas Hart Benton and his wife, Rita. I was probably around

10 or 11 and went over to his house one day and sat for him for a couple of things. He used one of my hands and one of my feet for that huge mural in the Truman Library. It’s called Independence And The Opening Of The West. I’m going to have to check it out next time I’m there and try to figure out where parts of me are.”

As Gorman continues to talk about his midwestern upbringing—he’s had a lifelong love of fishin’ and football “and all the things you’re not supposed to love if you’re a gay guy”—I kept thinking about that Maclean quote about seeing something noticeable which leads one to seeing something that isn’t even visible and his story about being in that mural but not being in it, which is a good way of describing any gay child’s boyhood. His mother knew he was gay, but he never came out to his father. “Although I’m sure he knew,” says Gorman. “We just never discussed it.”

“My theory is that we don’t come out to our parents, but we confirm what they already know,” I posit, a bit shocked, actually, that he never told his father. “They made us. We are their flesh and their blood. They have a knowledge about us

DIANA ROSS

I rented a daylight studio up in the Hollywood Hills. I had built all these sets for Miss Ross, as she had to be addressed. I had three or four different sets because the whole place faced southwest and it got beautiful light. I had all these incredible shots set up. Well, she was five hours late. So there was no light. Thank God I had the right lights with me to light those sets. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had any light. But you have to be able to harness your energy in; you can’t let something like that get to you. I read that Platon listens to Miles Davis to stay focused when you did that profile on him for this magazine. I love Miles, too. But I also listen to Chet Baker to stay calm, to stay focused. Anyway, I couldn’t have this hostility toward her, even though, of course, I had it inside me after those five hours waiting for her to show up. I had to pull it together just as though we were beginning the day on time.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I’ve known her forever. We did this portrait for Flaunt magazine. Jamie came in and was in a great mood. She even wanted to do a nude with me for just us. But they had one designer that they were using for that whole issue and she was not happy with the clothes, which looked weird on her. So she ended up not wanting to do the nude and I was excited to do that nude with her. I mean, it was her idea. But she got so pissed off about the clothes that it put her in a kind of a funk. We got some great pictures though, finally.

I’ve known Jamie since the early days. She’s in my very first book. She’s incredibly sexy. She probably has one of the wildest senses of humor of anybody I know. I always had a crush on her before I realized I was gay. Well, I always realized I was gay. I just wasn’t buying off on it 100 percent.

I’ve been shooting her since the late 1970s at the very, very beginning of my career. She’s always been a beauty. The kind of girl I’ve always been attracted to are tomboy girls, and she’s kind of that type. She’s a very special person.

before we have it about ourselves. We are the white paper they stand over watching the image that is slowly emerging that they’ve already created. We’re their Jimi Hendrix.”

“I think you’re right,” says Gorman. “My dad was in the furniture business like all the Gormans before him. He wanted me to go into the business, too. When I told him I was going to be a photographer, he said, ‘What? Ya’gonna be a bum ya’whole life?’ I told him what I wasn’t going to do is wear a coat and tie and kiss ass and hurry down the freeway to sell a bunch of furniture. He did live long enough to see me become successful, my Jewish furniture salesman father. My first big job was shooting a Life magazine cover in the 1980s. It was about the five most powerful women in Hollywood at the time—Jessica Lange, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn, Sally Field and Jane Fonda. When I told him about it, his first question was, ‘How much did you get paid?’”

So how much did he get paid? “A thousand dollars.”

Greg Gorman has always felt comfortable as an outsider, not only being that gay kid growing up in the Midwest in the 1950s and 1960s, even if he was one who loved fishin’ and football and knew how to hold a huntin’ rifle, but also within the modern pantheon of portraiture photographers. Art critics, those rationers of respect, have never quite known what to make of him and his work, a man who personally presents as the most informal of people who has the educated eye and sculptural photographic skills of a formalist. But dichotomy is what delineates the work—and the man. It gives depth to each. He loves, for example, the camp it takes to imitate the voices of many of the divas he’s photographed—check those out in the adjacent conversation—as much as he does camping

along the rivers in Wyoming where he settles in to fly fish for trout. He’s kind of like Gary Cooper, but the Bea Arthur version.

Cooking is another of his passions and Gorman has become known for his dinner parties and their guest lists which often include his best friends, fellow outsiders John Waters, Heidi Fleiss and Patty Hearst. I’m sure he’d still like to be able to invite two other dear friends, Paul Reubens and David Bowie along with Helmut Newton. When I ask him to name a couple of others he’d put on the now-dead Dinner Party Guest List he surprises me. “Brigitte Bardot,” he says. “And [Mikhail] Gorbachev.”

Another feature of Gorman’s life for many years now has been a long line of French bulldogs. Cyrill, his seventh, sits on his lap during our Zoom call for this story. Siegfried and Roy were the ones who originally convinced him to get a Frenchie. Patty Hearst fell in love with that first one and not only got one herself but also began to breed them. Each subsequent pet French bulldog has come from one of her litters.

“I always get the one that nobody else wants,” he says, cupping Cyrill’s jowls in his hands. “But look at that face,” he tells me, which is what his photographs tell us to do as well.

As for those other parts of himself, he’s still looking for them in his way, this midwestern boy who became a Los Angeles legend because he never went out there searching for fame but allowed it instead to find him where he waited in the light to understand its shadows. His heart? As he approaches 80, he has found a way to quiet its own quivering needs with the flutter of the fly he flicks out into a Wyoming river’s rushing depths to hook a trout instead of the click of a camera’s shutter to capture the latest bit of fame fluttering about him. In each case, though, trust is needed; he, stalwart, is that element. Standing in the light of a river or in the light of photo studio, Greg Gorman, the straddler of worlds, never strays from what gives his work the mark of art: that trust. He inspires it in others because he has it for himself.

“What do you get from fishing?” I finally ask. “Is it a spiritual practice?

“Yes. It is. I get peace and solace from it. I don’t meditate. I’m a real people person. I’m

hardly ever alone. I don’t do the fishing exactly alone because I’m usually with a good friend and a guide. But I go up to the middle of nowhere outside Saratoga, WY, and trout fish on those rivers. It’s so gorgeous. It’s breathtaking. You don’t see another soul. I put all the fish back. I don’t kill ’em or anything. But I just love fishin’. It is as close to meditation as I get.”

GRACE JONES

Grace has been one of my best friends for more than 40 years. I adore her. I’ve had many nights that were all-nighters with her. Yeah, she would come late, but she would work all night long. She’s a trouper. One of the hardest working people I’ve ever photographed in my life. A real perfectionist down to every degree. Her whole life has been her visual image more than anything even though her music has been an important part of her career.

She’s also known for being late— yeah, that’s her whole thing, her whole persona—but she’s such a terrific person and so much fun to work with. And so giving. She’s an artist.

BARBRA STREISAND

This was very early in my career. I was living in a little apartment in Laurel Canyon [Los Angeles]. It was when I was doing specials on movies back then—you know, movie stills—which I did a lot during that time.

I was in my little one-bedroom apartment and my phone rings. I pick it up and this voice goes “Hello, this is Barbra Streisand.” Thank God I didn’t think it was a prank. “So you’re going to be shooting me on this movie. What do you have in mind?” I asked her what colors she liked for background. She said, “I like popsicle colors: pinks and lavenders.”

We got along great. I shot many days on the movie itself and then I’d go up to her house and we’d approve the pictures. She’d X out the ones she didn’t like or cut ’em up or use a hole punch to punch a hole in them. She was the ultimate pro. A lot of people mistake her for being difficult; she’s just being professional.

One night she asked if I would stay and shoot some photos with her after work. We were playing around with this short wig seen here in this portrait. That wig led her to start talking to me about a film she wanted to make, something called Yentl in which she had to play a boy. I suggested she should experiment with shooting that part of the film from the other side of her face from the one that’s in all the photos of her.

Maclean tried in A River Runs Through It to explain to the rest of us what it is like for Gorman and others to stand in such rivers amidst nature’s grandeur and think that they are as close to meditation as they can get but aren’t, not really. Because it is not they who are meditating. They are, in fact, the meditation. “I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched…,” wrote Maclean. “Eventually the watcher joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.”

I love Barbra. We had a great relationship over the years. I see her occasionally. I just saw her recently at a party at Pierce Brosnan’s. She was very sweet. As always.

These photographs are Greg Gorman’s river.

Fantasy Meets Reality

TIM FU’S AI ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO IS CREATING ACTUAL BUILDINGS WITH THE SAME TOOLS CURRENTLY FLOODING YOUR EYE-POPPING DESIGN INSTAGRAM FEED. BUT HOW?

By Dan Koday

croll architecture Instagram for ten minutes and you’ll see Gaudíon-mushrooms cathedrals, cities suspended in clouds, houses carved into single boulders. The Hassan Ragabs and Midjourney auteurs of the world have built enormous followings on AI-generated structures that will never, in any meaningful sense, exist. The genre even has a name now: paper architecture, updated for the diffusion-model era, a riff on the long tradition of architects who built reputations on work that was never meant to leave the grid. It’s produced some of the most viral design imagery of the last three years and yes, most of it is indeed fantasy that’s beautiful, provocative, occasionally sublime fantasy—but always fantasy.

Tim Fu’s work sits in a different lane.

His London HQ, Studio Tim Fu, is one of a small number of practices using the same generative tools to actually build things: a federally approved chocolate factory expansion in Switzerland; a 70-villa hospitality development on the coast of the Dominican Republic; a hospitality estate on Lake Bled in Slovenia; master plans and speculative urban research for cities of the future. He’s a Zaha Hadid (iconic late “starquitect”) alum who left to start something leaner and more radical, and

mr. bean “We literally came in with the idea, ‘let’s put a cacao bean as a building,’” says Fu, superstar architect Zaha Hadid alum and founder and director of the London-based AI architectural firm, Studio Tim Fu, of the Cacao Greenhouse in Broc, Switzerland.

his studio of ten—three of whom are dedicated to a self-funded research wing—is producing work at a scale that would have required a firm of 50 a decade ago. The studio’s stated mission is to bridge human and machine creativity, championing human artistry in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

Icame to understand my own version of Fu’s work by happenstance. Last summer, my husband and I were envisioning the landscaping at our country home in the Catskills. We’d hired a great landscape architect but neither of us could quite picture what we were committing to, a huge problem for any slightly neurotic, aesthetic-driven couple. Boulder placements, hardscape transitions, where a shrub line would sit relative to the house all started to feel overwhelming. So we turned to AI for help and started feeding photos of the house into ChatGPT and Gemini, layering in proposed plant materials and stone, generating and then refining dozens of versions. It turned into a parttime passion project, none of it replacing our designer’s expertise, but instead, enhancing it. Ultimately, the process let us walk into our next meeting knowing what we wanted, what we didn’t and which of his ideas we’d been quietly worried about. The renderings weren’t the design, but instead, they became a language in which we all could communicate.

Which, it turns out, is exactly the shift Fu has built a practice around, just at a vastly more sophisticated scale.

“Day one, we can already generate a lot of the early concept visuals and ideas to a high degree of accuracy,” Fu tells me. “If we get a project, we’ll do a massing model very quickly on site, sketch over our models and produce AI-supported, detailed visuals with enough control of accuracy and context—exposure requirements, all of it—to get our ideas across on day one in high quantity. That is the fundamental shift.”

The studio’s current marquee project is the Serre de Cacao, or Cacao Greenhouse, a centerpiece of the new Parc du Chocolat Cailler in Broc, Switzerland. Cailler, the originator of milk chocolate, a Nestlé heritage brand and effectively the birthplace of an entire national industry, is redeveloping its visitor experience around the history of cacao cultivation and Swiss chocolate craftsmanship. Studio Tim Fu led the design of the Serre, an immersive greenhouse pavilion shaped, with cheerful literalism, like a cacao bean. Fu told

me they’re aiming to grow annual visitors from 500,000 to a million and the project just cleared its public inquiry phase earlier this spring.

“We literally came in with the idea, let’s put a cacao bean as a building,” Fu said. “Very bluntly: just prompt it out and see what it gives us. Start applying materials to it, put it in the right context, and then we start to get inspiration from the output of the AI and go from there.”

That openness and willingness to let the machine throw something onto the table before the architect imposes a thesis is what separates Fu from both his old employer and the Instagram fantasists. At Zaha Hadid, he says, AI was additive: a suggestion engine bolted onto an existing process. The Midjourney crowd, conversely, lets the AI do everything and never has to defend any of its work to a structural engineer. Fu’s studio sits somewhere in the middle, where the tools generate and the architects vet every decision.

The same approach is now being used on the Domincan Republic’s Secret Samaná. Studio Tim Fu is leading the architectural development, bespoke interior design and overall visual identity, a wider scope than Cailler and the clearest test yet of whether a methodology that produced one iconic building can hold up across the entire 70-villa master-planned environment.

But, it hasn’t always been a smooth handoff, though. A few years back, the studio’s Lake Bled estate, a hospitality project in Slovenia that brought the firm international attention, produced enough friction with the local architecture team that the client briefly removed them from the project. “They didn’t understand how we were going to do any of this design,” Fu said. “Balustrades at the wrong heights, details that were structurally questionable. From a traditional practice point of view, they didn’t understand how we were working.” Studio Tim Fu finished the package alone, then walked the local architect through it in a board meeting. “He said, ‘Congratulations, you guys changed my mind. I thought it was going to be worse.’”

The lesson, Fu told me, is that traditional architects mistake an AI-generated render for a finished proposal rather than a sketch. Treat it as a sketch that’s fuzzy, approximate, refinable; suddenly the workflow makes sense.

That diffusion-model logic, start fuzzy and refine toward specificity, has become Fu’s entire design philosophy. “We use the word vibe a lot in

sketch artist “AI-generated renders aren’t finished proposals,” Fu says. “Treat it as a sketch that’s fuzzy, approximate, refinable; suddenly, the workflow makes sense;” (right) a dream bedroom straight from Fu’s imagination; (bottom) Lake Bled Estate in Slovenia.

this office,” he says. “We look at people, general massing; shape and things just get more and more high-resolution as we detail with more accuracy, with specific catalog, with exact dimensions.” It’s a near-perfect inversion of how architects have been trained for a century, and it’s the part Fu thinks will, eventually, eat the industry.

“I don’t see why this wouldn’t apply to every design field such as fashion design and film.”

As we near the end of our revealing conversation, I ask Fu how he thinks about agency in all this and whether he ever worries about ceding too much to the machine.

“I started this process being very intentional about controlling the AI,” the creative visionary says candidly. “And as I developed, I realized you’ve got to let go of the agency. You’ve got to let AI do its own thing, be creative and accept that if the results come up positive, you should take the creative suggestions from the AI, and not the other way around.”

What I kept thinking about, the longer we talked, was my own industry. Publishing has

spent the last couple years cycling through every available shade of doom about AI: the writers it’s coming for, the bylines it’ll erase, the slow strangling of a time-honored craft. And while there’s legitimate cause for concern, listening to Fu describe a practice where AI surfaces ten ideas a minute and the architects vet every one of them, the picture started to look less like replacement and more like the same dynamic I’d stumbled into with my landscaping project. The tools weren’t doing the creative work. They were giving us a faster, more vivid language to do it in. I now fully see how AI could enhance, not replace, my own process, and how the same might be true, eventually, across the rooms of writers and editors I work in. The doom-andgloom version of this story has been written a hundred times. The version where the tools sharpen the work rather than erase it has barely been written at all. Fu, building actual buildings with the same software flooding everyone else’s fantastical feeds, is proof that the latter scenario is the more honest and hopeful story after all. Nothing artificial about that intelligence, if I do say so myself.

Ann Dexter-Jones Shines Bright Like A Diamond

Mom to Mark Ronson and wife to Mick Jones don’t define this jewelry design powerhouse. Her talent does.

By George Wayne

photography by Mike Ruiz exclusively for COLDWELLsm

nn Dexter-Jones emerges from the boudoir of her light-filled, airy, artfilled, book-filled home. It’s the pitch-perfect ideal of what a loft in Manhattan’s SoHo should be. She’s as fresh as an English rose, still, not looking a

day older than when I first became acquainted with ADJ some 22 years ago and counting. She remains that glamorous yet grounded and effortlessly chic fixture of fashion, music and high society. The better half of the rock ’n’ roll royal (and Foreigner founder) Mick Jones, she’s an amazing mother who’s spawned no less than four Mensa-level genius offspring who’ve themselves become household names in the pop cultural zeitgeist including, of course, superstar music producer Mark Ronson; singer/songwriter/ DJ Samantha Ronson; fashion designer Charlotte Ronson; and actor/director/writer Annabelle Dexter-Jones. I so want to come for Thanksgiving dinner—I mean, who wouldn’t?

ADJ’s idea for empty-nest syndrome was to rejig the mindset and focus her passion on a bespoke, handcrafted line of artisanal haute joaillerie—bracelets, earrings, necklaces and pearls honed through gold and sterling silver, many a nod to carbon diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls. An exuberant iconoclastic collection inspired, no doubt, by her globetrotting lifestyle.

On this glorious sun-splashed early summer New York City afternoon, she is barefoot, in a pair of jeans and men’s-style button-down white shirt. Her neck, not surprisingly, is graced with an elegant rope of diamonds; her fingers and wrists with gold statement pieces; her jeans are from Khaite; and

the shirt, again no surprise, is from The Row. ADJ remains the doyenne of elegant nonchalance. And so we popped the bottle of Moët and, for the next 90 minutes, talked shop, so to speak.

Well, first of all, congratulations on the breaking news, Ann! You’ve been asked by a major talent agency (UTA) to begin penning your memoirs. Amazing. Yes, it’s still very early breaking news, George. It’s exciting, and it all happened so organically and is still in its early stages, but it’s truly exciting. It just feels like a natural progression.

Well, if it’s anything like the audacious debut of the Ann DexterJones bespoke line of jewelry 11 years ago, this memoir will be as seminal. When we think back to 2009 and the launch of your line, when you had the audacity to debut the collection during that year’s Art Basel fair in Miami Beach, one can only assume your statement’s intent from the get-go was that this is not just fine jewelry, this is art. That actually wasn’t a conscious statement of mind—that was all serendipitous. Debuting the line during that art fair that, too, was just organic. But I do consider my jewelry wearable art.

And there’s a certain machismo, a rock ’n’ roll flex to the core of the collection. The signature Cubanlink-styled sterling silver, pave-diamonds studded ID bracelets, for instance, and the chunky,

queen ann

Ann Dexter-Jones Designs’ signature ID bracelets, perhaps her most famous creation, are handcrafted and made to order using only the finest of materials; (opposite) Dexter-Jones in her airy, book-filled Manhattan loft.

brass-toned ropes with the 2.3 micron layers of gold that definitely speak to you, Drake. The goldguitar-enameled colored guitar pick necklaces definitely speak to you, Lenny Kravitz. They totally emote the bespoke version of heavy metal. Yes, there’s a masculine flex to many of the pieces...

Which is expected, after all; you’re from a world— seminal rock ’n’ roll royalty. You are married to one of the iconic legends of that business, an equally legendary marriage to Mick Jones. Surely he had to be an inspiration to your collection. Well, you know, it all began with my first design and finding the master artisans, many of whom I still work with, to create the pieces for myself. And I’ve always worn myself, from the very beginning, the ID bracelets. I’ve always believed that these pieces express duality and are enjoyed by all sexes, even the range of pearl earrings I do—I call those my pearls for boys and girls.

Don’t get GW started on your earwear—your earring designs are the most sublimely beautiful pieces and, my personal belief, the pillar to the ADJ collection. I saw those gorgeous yet rather

odd pearl danglers—and immediately thought Matthieu Blazy should be calling Ann DexterJones for a Chanel collab incorporating your take on pearl earrings. What a thought, GW—tell him! [Laughs]

The ADJ range with the earrings—love the sophisticated crescent-shaped drop earrings in solid gold, sparkling with diamonds and rubies. Not to mention the butterfly-shaped inspired earrings that make any heart flutter, so light and yet studded with sparkling yellow sapphires. Butterflies, long seen as a symbol of transformation and energy shifts—and yours are absolutely divine.

And you have to remember that all these pieces are individually handcrafted, featuring the finest metals and precious stones with the help of some of the best craftspeople in New York City. And I love my baroque pearls because they’re also atypical.

There needs to be a Chanel collaboration, Ann. Call up Dame Anna! She lives up the street. Does your famous Oscar- and Grammy-winning music producer son Mark Ronson own any pieces?

Funny you mention that. When Mark worked on that hugely celebrated album with Bruno Mars, and then Chris Martin and Coldplay called him to ask him and Bruno to make a surprise cameo with his band at the Super Bowl that year, he called me up... “Mum, I’m so excited, I was hoping you could create something for both Bruno and me.” So I had two of the signature ID bracelets with the best carbon-produced diamonds, and on the back, inscribed: “we crashed the Super Bowl Bruno.”

The moment I realized that I ought to design for others was probably that moment when a reporter from The Los Angeles Times approached me at some event, asked about the bracelet I was wearing, and then asked to do a story on me, and then and there, something clicked. I always say nobody needs another piece of jewelry, but when they see mine, they must want one, too. And, yes, I do have a lot of male clients.

I love it. And your 40 years of studying Reiki also played an integral role in the design narrative. I design with the idea that these are pieces that are key to your soul. I’ve studied Reiki for more than 40 years.

Here’s my most favorite Mick Jones + ADJ sighting ever. It was in LA circa 1995; I was in residence at the Sunset-Marquis. I remember

yes we ann “I’ve always worn myself, from the very beginning,” says Dexter-Jones, sporting her baroque pearl earrings and her heavily in demand black bolo tie necklace; (opposite, clockwise from top left) Guitar pick necklace collection, close up of the atypical strings of pearls she uses in her Rock Your Pearls collection, star bracelet, bolo tie necklaces, Midnight Hour Watch Bracelets, chunky necklace.

being poolside, basking in the glorious late afternoon golden Hollywood sunshine, and I look up and see Mick and Ann emerging from their poolside room to take in the pool scene. Oh!

My Gawwd! They were so cool, exuding all that rock ’n’ roll royalty. ADJ is chicer than even Jane Birkin ever was, and there she was, legs crossed, comfortable in a simple white T-shirt and short skirt, with that ADJ head of hair. It’s as if Marisa Berenson and Sonia Rykiel had a hair tryst to create that signature look of yours. The entire moment, the scene, the setting that afternoon glow by the pool of Hollywood’s celebrated

hotel, especially loved by the icons of rock ’n’ roll and there was Ann and Mick! I’ll never forget it. We never stayed in the Sunset-Marquis bungalows like everybody else. We loved staying in one of those cheesy rooms by the main pool so we could swan in and out right there.

That’s exactly where I saw you. BTW, I love the big-face watches.

We call those the Wilson Pickett watches—the Midnight Hour—and Kate Moss also owns one. It’s an homage to the classic Wilson Pickett song. And I always have a slogan for all my pieces, and this one is—keep the dial always at midnight so you never have to leave the party.

No wonder Kate owns one.

And what about these pieces I like to call the black-tie Warhol bolo state, the piece, which was a commission with the Warhol people, which started as a commemorative piece done on the 25th year of his passing. The sterling silver bolo with a bow-tie clasp.

Queenious! I must own one—one day. By the way, what was The Foreigner classic that Mick wrote about you? Wasn’t it “Cold As Ice?” [Laughs] No, that was the ex-wife—I can’t go into that story, but I’ll tell you this one. Early in our relationship, he was always asking to marry me, and I always said no, I’m not ready yet. I didn’t feel the need to be married. I told him I’d have his baby, but I didn’t need to be married. A few months later, I’m in my bedroom in London, and I hear Mick screaming, “You gotta wake up! You gotta wake up, I’ve written a song!” Of course, I told him to go away, I need my sleep. But he walks into the bedroom and starts warbling the early chorus of “I Want To Know What Love Is.”

And the rest is history. You’ve long said, “My most precious jewels are my family and friends.”

I hope I’m one of them, Darlinka. The collection isn’t found in any brick-and-mortar store. It was once sold at Barneys New York and Collete in Paris. Sadly, both no longer exist. So if, say, Sombr’s stylist were to call with a request for that turquoise diamond-clad silver ID bracelet, to order a stack to grace his skinny wrists for the next red carpet calling, who would his people call? Simple. Direct all inquiries to anndexterdesign@ gmail.com. Isn’t that original? [Laughs]

It’s absolutely genius. Just like you, ADJ.

wish you were here

Barcelona Beckons

FROM A PRIVATE SUNRISE TOUR OF GAUDÍ’S MAGNUM OPUS LA SAGRADA FAMÍLIA TO A 25-COURSE, THREE-MICHELIN-STARRED CULINARY THEATER, A COLORFUL COMPENDIUM FOR 48 BLISSFUL HOURS IN SPAIN’S DREAMY CATALAN CAPITAL.

By Tara Solomon

howdy gaudí Arguably the most famous—and grandest—church outside the Vatican grounds, Barcelona’s religious jewel, Sagrada Família, just celebrated its visionary creator’s centenary of his death; (opposite) Another Gaudí masterpiece is Casa Batlló, in the city’s chic L’Eixample neighborhood, celebrated for its shimmering mosaic facade and surrealist chimneys on the roof.

arcelona has been described as a woman—an “extremely vain” one at that. With no offense to renowned Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafón, I beg to differ. The vibrant, poetic, architecturally superior Catalan capital clearly exudes leading man energy.

To me, Barcelona is the proverbial Perfect Man. Let’s call him “Barna,” the nickname locals use for their city—never “Barça,” which is reserved for the fútbol, née soccer, club FC Barcelona, although it’d make a great evil twin name if ever needed.

Hip yet proper. Erudite yet soulful. Cultured. Easy-going. Creative. Great bone structure.

Barna checks all the boxes on my list.

Dubbed the “Paris Of Spain” by Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, Catalonia’s magical city is cosmopolitan and hauntingly beautiful, its iconoclastic charms on display at every turn. From Gaudí’s wildly surreal buildings scattered about the metropolis like architectural fairy dust to the Gothic Quarter’s moody labyrinth of winding streets and medieval statuary, Barna has no bad angles.

Bordered by the majestic Serra de Collserola mountain range with its verdant canopy of whispery pine and stately oak trees, Barna and friends love the great outdoors—and a good

party. Blessed with sunshine 300 days of the year, Barcelona is known for its lively beach clubs along the Mediterranean coastline—its three golden-sand beaches just eight minutes from the city—making my fantasy of lounging on an oversized Balinese daybed while a cabana boy bearing Cava on ice hovers nearby, totally doable. Even within the confines of a 48-hour trip.

Hot Barcelona Summer, I’m coming for you!

While plotting ways to get a “48 weeks” travel column, I researched the best of Barna for a two-day itinerary that felt authentic, fun and, honestly, indulgent. To lessen the trauma of packing, I took wardrobe cues from Woody Allen’s epic film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Although I’m now concerned that lingerie slip dresses and messy Bardot hair could in fact provoke antitourist protesters with water guns. Note to self: Book hair appointment and carry own water gun in hopes of blending in.

¡Hola, Barna! Let’s go!

My top five-star hotel options start with the grandest: The premier penthouse at Mandarin Oriental Hotel on posh Passeig de Gràcia in the impossibly chic Eixample district. In addition to a private elevator, walk-in closet and set of wraparound terraces large enough for flamenco lessons, the 2,542-square-foot suite comes with two enticing perks: A “guest experience team” and the all-important 24/7 private butler to manage unpacking, en-suite cocktails and #ootd photo ops. Avant-garde interiors by renowned

architect Patricia Urquiola further enhance the hotel’s on-point amenities which, include a fullservice spa with salon, rooftop bar and the twoMichelin-starred restaurant Moments, featuring chefs Raül Balam and Carme Ruscalleda.

Boutique ABaC Hotel at the base of Tibidabo Hill in the fancy Sarrià-Sant Gervasi neighborhood (the area’s modernist mansions are beyond) is sleek and design-driven, cocooned in a lush garden setting—a fitting environment for the three-Michelin-starred ABaC Restaurant where celebrated chef Jordi Cruz’s 25-course tasting menu is culinary theater at its immersive best. To wit: The “Aqua Mirabilis” dessert—a tribute to the world’s first perfume—invites diners to “taste a scent” as fragrance notes are translated into flavors. Sheer genius.

The vibey Little Beach House, 30 minutes south of Barcelona in the tiny fishing village of Garraf, sits on the sand between the Mediterranean and dramatic mountain cliffs. While somewhat remote, the restored 1950s hotel—a Soho House property with coastal décor and three waterview restaurants—would be the perfect place to do nothing but drink adult beverages and eat seafood paella in one’s swimsuit. (Consider extending your stay.) If you go, book the two-level, beachfront “Beach Studio” suite. There’s only one. What’s better than bragging rights?

Day 1. Your driver Mateo and personal tour guide are waiting by a gleaming black Maybach to whisk you around Barna on a scenic tour, starting at historic Montjuïc Hill for an exhilarating panoramic view. A focus point for the city since 600 BC, Montjuïc Hill is home to Fundació Joan Miró, featuring the world’s largest collection of work by the Barcelonan surrealist, and Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, famous for its Romanesque galleries and Catalan modern art. Your early entry has already been arranged, but of course. As Mateo heads back to central Barna, your guide will share fascinating details of the otherworldly buildings designed by visionary architect Antoni Gaudí, the most prolific champion of the Modernisme movement (the Catalan variant of Art Nouveau). There are 12 Gaudí structures in Barcelona proper, seven of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including two offering interior tours: Casa Batlló, famous for its shimmering mosaic façade, trellis of bones and dragon roof, and La Pedrera-Casa Milà, recognized by its surrealist chimneys on the roof. Anyone else hungry? A hearty lunch at 2 or 3pm is the Barna style. So is aperitiu, the Catalan

culture of socializing over tapas and wine to tide one over until dinner at 10pm. Very Barna is going for vermut—vermouth served on tap with a citrus or olive garnish—served with salty bar bites. Barcelonans love a good meal, and with 29 Michelinstarred restaurants—the third-highest number of Michelin stars in all of Europe, after Paris and London, Barna’s culinary scene is easily among the most sophisticated globally.

A reservation at the threeMichelin-starred Disfrutar will give you a worthy cocktail conversation topic for years. Helmed by a trio of disrupter chefs with El Bulli pedigree (Eduard Xatruch, Oriol Castro and Mateu Casañas), the internationally acclaimed eatery brilliantly defies convention with signatures dishes including, yes, the Frozen Gazpacho Sandwich. Have a famous friend call to circumvent the waiting list, especially for the exclusive Table M#01 a.k.a. “The Living Table,” located in a private dining room. Beyond. Another three-Michelin-starred pilgrimage is Cocina Hermanos Torres, where identical twin brothers Sergio and Javier Torres transform open kitchen into theater, orchestrating high-concept Mediterranean meals from three cooking stations in the center of the dining room, surrounded by diners whose tables are bathed in soft “clouds” of light. The wine cellar of more than 2,000 vintages is managed by no fewer than five sommeliers.

Celebs and young creatives love Jacqueline Barcelona, a glamorous multi-concept destination with maximalist décor by the Rockwell Group. Open seven days a week from noon till at least 1am, the three-floor space

miró, miró on the wall

Fundació Joan Miró, located in picturesque Montjuic Hill, features the world’s largest collection of work by the Barcelonean surrealist; (opposite) Mandarin Oriental Barcelona’s famed Blanc restaurant; seafood “mariscada” is a specialty at red-hot Jacqueline Barcelona, the maximalist luxe restaurant designed by the Rockwell Group.

features Mediterranean fine dining with elegant vegan options by Executive Chef Dani Padró, as well as an intimate six-person Omakase bar, sexy champagne bar and clandestine jazz club with live music. Even the peacock-themed, goldceilinged powder rooms are a moment.

Speaking of moments, you really should see the opulent Palau de la Música Catalana, an ornate UNESCO World Heritage Site concert hall designed by modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, even if you slip out at intermission.

Day two starts at sunrise (you were warned) with a private VIP tour of Gaudí’s magnum opus La Sagrada Família, a spellbinding, visually arresting, behemoth basilica with 18 soaring Neo-Gothic spires and technicolor stained-glass windows adorning impossibly high naves. Although construction is still underway after 144 years(!), the entire city is celebrating the February 2026 completion of its highest point—the central Tower Of Jesus Christ—making La Sagrada Família, at 172.5 meters (566 feet), the tallest church in the world. This year also marks the centenary of the death of its great creator, at eternal rest in the basilica’s Neo-Gothic stone crypt.

Reflect on the morning’s significance as you enter another Gaudí landmark, Park Güell, its shimmering dragon fountain and whimsical mosaic terraces better than any Disney attraction. Take a few selfies before heading to Museu Picasso for an exclusive private tour.

DIRECTORY

ABaC Hotel & Restaurant

Avinguda del Tibidabo, 1 +34 933 19 66 00 abacbarcelona.com

Casa Batlló Passeig de Gràcia, 43 +34 932 16 03 06 casabatllo.es

Cocina Hermanos Torres Carrer del Taquígraf Serra, 20 +34 934 10 00 20 cocinahermanostorres.com

Disfrutar

Carrer de Villarroel, 163 +34 933 48 68 96 disfrutarbarcelona.com

Els 4 Gats

Carrer de Montsió, 3, +34 933 02 41 40 4gats.com

Fundació Joan Miró

Parc de Montjuïc +34 934 43 94 70 fmirobcn.org

Jacqueline Barcelona Carrer d’Enric Granados, 66 +34 930 46 75 11 jacquelinebarcelona.com

La Manual Alpargatera Carrer d’Avinyó, 7 +34 933 01 01 72 lamanual.com

La Pedrera - Casa Milà

Passeig de Gràcia, 92 +34 932 14 25 76 lapedrera.com

La Sagrada Família Carrer de Mallorca, 401 +34 932 08 04 14 sagradafamilia.org

Housed across five grand medieval palaces in the historic El Born neighborhood, the staggering collection of 4,251 Pablo Picasso works is a genuine gift. Bonus points will be given for a stop at Els 4 Gats, the bohemian café where Picasso, age 18, held his first solo exhibition in 1899..

Literally one minute from the museum is Tapeo, the best tapas bar in Barna (reservations are a must). Don’t miss Executive Chef Daniel Rueda’s take on Spain’s traditional Patatas Bravas—crisp fried potatoes topped with a slather of rich, smoked paprika-spiced tomato sauce. Addictive doesn’t begin to cover it.

Shopping for local gifts is always easier with advance planning, and these trusted shops feature worldwide shipping to boot: Vom Fass Barcelona, where premium olive oil is treated as art in limited-edition bottles, each authenticated; and legendary atelier La Manual Alpargatera, which has handcrafted traditional Catalan espadrilles for notables since 1943 include the pope, Salvador Dalí, Jean Paul Gaultier and Penélope Cruz. (Pro Tip: The fit runs small, so size up.) For authentic Modernisme jewelry, peruse the well-curated selection at Portolá Antique Jewels.

With your list complete, it’s the perfect time to enjoy that Balinese day bed at a Barceloneta beach club, drinking chilled Cava before sunset, toasting Barna for an unforgettable brief romance before returning to reality. Adiós, Barcelona Te amo.

Little Beach House

Carrer Mirador del Port, 1 +34 935 22 15 52 sohohouse.com

Mandarin Oriental Barcelona

Passeig de Gràcia, 38-40 +34 931 51 88 88 mandarinoriental.com/ barcelona

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

Palau Nacional, Parc de Montjuïc +34 936 22 03 60 museunacional.cat

Museu Picasso

Carrer de Montcada, 15-23 +34 932 56 30 00 museupicassobcn.cat

Park Güell

Carrer d’Olot +34 934 09 18 31 parkguell.barcelona

Palau de la Música Catalana

Palau de la Música 4-6 +34 932 95 72 00 palaumusica.cat

Portolá Antique Jewels Carrer de Mallorca, 299 +34 935 63 06 73

Tapeo

Carrer de Montcada, 29 +34 933 10 16 07 tapeoborn.cat

Vom Fass Barcelona

Carrer del Cigne, 16 +34 934 16 06 73 vomfass-barcelona.com

brain food “My favorite meals are ones I don’t have to think too much about,” says celebrated cookbook author Colu Henry, sharing some of her recent culinary and cocktail creations.

AT LAST! ENDLESS NIGHTS, PERFECT DINNERS

THE AWARD-WINNING COOKBOOK AUTHOR REVEALS COOL RECIPES FOR THOSE WARM NIGHTS.

BY COLU HENRY

Photography by Silver und Seck

After months of overcomplicated cooking, produce has begun to peak in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley where I live and the weather finally allows ingredients to speak for themselves. My favorite meals are ones I don’t have to think too much about, ones that, after a long afternoon splashing about creekside, lakeside or both, I can simply come home and assemble. On hot and sticky days (of which there are plenty in this corner of the planet), I crave bright salads and sophisticated snacks for dinner. Sliced tomatoes with good olive oil and flaky salt. A wedge of something creamy and cold. A cocktail, too (lots of ice, please) and, of course, rosé. Always rosé.

The following recipes from my latest cookbook, Better At Home, are easy to assemble and get dinner on the table quickly—but feel incredibly elegant. Summer nights are meant to be spent lingering outside around a table with friends until the wee hours—what the Spanish call sobremesa—not in front of a hot stove. That kind of evening is a luxury in itself. Each of these dishes requires very little to appear as if you’ve been fussing all day. Some might even say effortless.

Fizzy Negroni

Pompelmo

Makes 1 cocktail Time 5 minutes

I love Negronis—who doesn’t? Personally, when I start making this classic Italian cocktail, it signals that the weather has turned brisk and we’re now relegated to drinking indoors for the next few months. They are a perfect way to start off the night. In this version I’ve added some grapefruit juice for a bit of punch and some bubbles for festivity.

INGREDIENTS

2 ounces (60 ml) gin

2 ounces (60 ml) sweet vermouth

2 ounces (60 ml) Campari

1 ounce (30 ml) grapefruit juice

Splash of prosecco or other sparkling white wine

Grapefruit twist, for garnish

METHOD

In an ice-filled cocktail shaker, combine the gin, vermouth, Campari, and grapefruit juice and stir together briskly until very cold. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Top with the prosecco and garnish with a grapefruit twist.

Spicy Shrimp Butter

Serves 6 to 8

Time 20 minutes

This retro-inspired snacking butter will be a hit at any cocktail party. It’s best served right away but can be made a day in advance; just be sure to bring it to room temperature before serving to maximize its spreadability. I love serving this dip with Triscuits, but any cracker will suit. Leftovers can be stirred into pasta.

INGREDIENTS

Kosher salt

½ pound (225 g) wild-caught shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 medium shallot, roughly chopped 2 oil-packed anchovy fillets

¼ cup (8 g) loosely packed fresh Italian parsley, both leaves and tender stems

8 tablespoons (115 g/1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon grated Meyer lemon or regular lemon zest

2 tablespoons Meyer lemon or regular lemon juice, plus more to taste

1 teaspoon Calabrian chili paste, Triscuits and crudités, for serving.

METHOD

• Set up a large bowl of ice and water and have near the stove. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the shrimp. Cook until the shrimp are completely pink and firm to the touch, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to the ice bath and let sit until cool enough to handle and then pat them dry.

• Transfer the shrimp to a food processor along with the shallot, anchovies, and parsley and pulse together until they form a paste. In a large bowl, beat the butter with a wooden spoon or spatula until smooth. Transfer the shrimp paste to the bowl of butter, along with the lemon zest, lemon juice, Calabrian chili paste, and a good pinch of salt. Stir together until everything is well combined. Taste and adjust with more lemon juice and salt if needed. Transfer to a shallow bowl and serve immediately with crackers and crudité

Shaved Asparagus Salad With Comté, Toasted Almonds, And Fried Prosciutto

Serves 4

Time 25 minutes

The idea for this recipe came to me in a dream—it happens sometimes! I’m glad it did, and you will be, too. Asparagus is shaved and tossed with cheese, toasted almonds, and fried prosciutto and then tossed with bright lemon juice and olive oil—it hits all the notes you want it to. I’ve called for Comté cheese, which has been increasingly available in grocery stores, but if you can’t find it, feel free to substitute Gruyère; they both offer great nuttiness. If you’d like to make this vegetarian, simply leave out the prosciutto, it’s still delicious. This salad is best served in spring when asparagus spears begin popping up at the market.

INGREDIENTS

1 bunch asparagus (about 12 ounces/340 g), woody ends snapped off

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4 thin slices prosciutto (about 2½ ounces total)

½ cup (70 g) roasted Marcona almonds or regular almonds

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup (80 g) shaved cheese, such as Comté, Gruyère, or Parmesan

½ cup (25 g) roughly chopped soft fresh herbs, such as mint, tarragon, or parsley, or a combination

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Flaky salt, for serving

METHOD

• Using a Y-peeler or vegetable peeler, shave the asparagus into long, thin strips (I like to leave most of the tips whole) and transfer to a large bowl and set aside.

• Line a plate with paper towels and have near the stove. In a 12-inch (30 cm) skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Add the prosciutto and cook until it is golden and crispy, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the skillet and place on the paper towels to drain.

• Add the almonds to the pan, toss to coat in the prosciutto oil, and cook,

stirring frequently, until toasty and golden, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and when cool enough to touch, roughly chopped the nuts. With your hands, tear the prosciutto into bite-size pieces.

• Season the asparagus with salt and pepper. Add half the cheese, half the nuts, half the prosciutto, half the herbs, and toss with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the lemon juice. Taste and adjust with more salt if needed. Top with the remaining cheese, nuts, herbs, and prosciutto.

All recipes taken from Better At Home by Colu Henry. Published by Abrams 2026

CASA SAFE AT HOME

FOR THE ULTRA-WEALTHY, THE BEST DEFENSE AGAINST DRONES, DATA LEAKS AND AI-DRIVEN THREATS IS A MORE ADVANCED COMBINATION OF TECH AND INTELLIGENCE. SOUNDS COMPLICATED. By

Simon Murray

’ve been thinking about Tesla a lot recently. No, not the car company, the brilliant, but-notexactly-famous inventor for whom it was named: Nikola Tesla. If you’re aware of him, it’s probably in relation to his long-running feud with Thomas Edison. But the Serbian American contributed far more to the modern world than the crude caricature he left behind, most notably helping to bring alternating current into the mainstream—and into our homes— laying the groundwork for pretty much everything that plugs into a wall.

But more than his achievements, it’s an apocryphal quote, often attributed to Tesla, that I can’t seem to shake: “You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

Supposedly, he said it in reference to a radio-controlled rowboat. If so, such an invention would be considered far too

quaint now, what with swarms of drones patrolling battlefields in Ukraine, Kalshi putting near-even odds on artificial general intelligence (AGI) by 2028 and LLMs threatening to turn white-collar workers of my ilk obsolete.

Maybe it’s just me, but that “may” used in that Tesla quote feels kind of superfluous—the modern world doesn’t leave much room for doubt.

So, how does one protect oneself? If your net worth is an eye-wateringly large number, it’s certainly not with a single Ring camera on the front door. But there are certainly more robust options that can have a real impact on home security—and the higher your available funds, the more advanced your system should be.

Tait Reimers, a director at SureFox North America, calls it an arms race between the threats and the protections.

“With the rapid rise of technology, it actually leaves these ultra-high-

net-worth individuals more exposed,” Reimers says. “It’s a strange dynamic; the ubiquity of it creates more vulnerability, not less.” Examples include corporate espionage targeting executives working from home, drones flown under the guise of real estate photography that are casing properties for vulnerabilities and increasingly sophisticated hacking efforts. And that’s without getting into what AI can do now: deepfakes and cloned voices that cybercriminals are using to convincingly request money or sensitive information.

Reimers would know. A former US Navy SEAL with a background in corporate security at Tesla, Meta (Facebook) and

BY

PHOTO

DON BARTLETTI/LOS ANGELES TIMES

seal the deal Tait Reimers, a former US Navy SEAL and a director at SureFox North America, says wealthy clients now need a “protective concierge” to fully ensure their home’s safety.

Amazon, he once served on the personal security detail for Bill Gates. Today, he advises everyone from technocrats on remote islands to wealthy homeowners trying to safeguard their mega mansions from break-ins.

If you think the latter only happens on hit shows such as Your Friends & Neighbors, consider Tiburon, CA, an affluent enclave just outside San Francisco where Reimers lives. Since December 31, 2021, there’ve been 16 break-ins in lower Marin County, CA, according to police. As of this writing, the three men believed to be responsible have yet to be arrested.

Reimers points to a bigger structural issue underneath it all: law enforcement is stretched thin, underfunded and often hamstrung by what it can realistically pursue—which helps explain why a break-in occurs every 28 seconds in the US, according to 2019 FBI data. Property crime, as the saying goes, “does no time.” By the time someone has moved stolen goods—designer bags, jewelry, artwork— across international borders and into a broader black-market network, the trail has gone cold. The follow-up work can take months or even years, and most departments simply don’t have the investigative bandwidth to keep up.

“You watch CSI and other television shows like it and you think, it’s all over

for these guys, right?” Reimers says. “In reality, they usually do get away with it.” So, what’s to be done about it? We’ll start at the private-jet-on-standby end of the spectrum. For these public figures, protection means residential security teams posted 24/7 at the home, agents moving with the principal and roundthe-clock intelligence gathering to inform every step in between. (If that sounds like security befitting a president, you’re not far off.) Reimers describes these clients needing a kind of “protective concierge”— deterrence, logistics and friction removal all at once. Sounds like a plan.

Below this specialized tier are firms that help secure the physical stack: sensors and cameras designed to continually monitor a property. The model works, but it’s expensive and uneven, with quality varying widely depending on the provider. What’s changing is the intelligence layer. Firms such as SureFox are pushing toward AI-driven, intelligenceled systems that actually interpret what those cameras see. Instead of passive recording, computer vision flags weapons, intrusion patterns or behavior that deviates from baseline, while multimodal setups blend video, infrared and other inputs to reduce blind spots and extend coverage into low visibility. It’s not seamless—false positives happen—but it allows leaner teams to do more with less and starts to shift security from manpower-heavy protection to something closer to continuous, networked awareness.

Will it stop someone from finding your home address online and showing up to your gates with a Molotov cocktail? Harder to say. But in both these cases— the shocking attack on Sam Altman’s $27 million compound in San Francisco and the unsettling string of home invasions in Tiburon—robust video surveillance either spooked the masked assailants or helped to swiftly identify the perp responsible. And in the age of doomerism, with old warnings coming to fruition seemingly every day, that begins to look like a win. As always, safety first.

MACHINE FOR THE HIPS, KNEES AND EARS

FROM BODY HEALING TO ENTERTAINMENT, TWO FUTURISTIC GADGETS HAVE ARRIVED. COOL!

By Simon Murray

In the middle of a move—with a newborn in tow—I’ve gotten more ruthless about the things in our home. The new mantra is simple: if it’s going to live with us, it should work beautifully, disappear when it can and justify itself over time. Luckily, the newest wave of design-led tech gets closer to that standard than ever before. What follows are gadgets that, in different ways, make a compelling case for staying than ever before.

BANG & OLUFSEN BEOLAB 90 ATELIER EDITIONS

There are speakers that play loudly, and then there are systems that understand a room. The Beolab 90 is monolithically in the latter camp. Each unit contains multiple drivers, each with its own amplifier, allowing it to direct sound in specific patterns—wide, narrow or focused—depending on where you are. It also calibrates itself to the room’s acoustics, correcting for reflections and dead zones. Across five limited editions, the emphasis shifts outward, with industrial designers treating each exterior as a study in material and finish.

DNSYS Z1 DUAL JOINT PRO

Meet the AI-powered, wearable knee exoskeleton designed to relieve knee joint stress, boost leg power and assist with walking, hiking or climbing. Most mobility devices still feel like machines you adapt to. The Z1 flips that notion on its head. Its dualjoint system mirrors the way hips and knees actually move, distributing force across two pivot points instead of one. That matters because it reduces the stop-start feel you get with more rigid designs. Sensors handle balance and torque adjustments in real time, so motion reads as continuous rather than corrected. If you’re thinking about longevity—not just recovery but preserving how you move over decades—it’s an early look at where this category of cybernetics is going.

GORGEOUS

SUN, ACTUALLY

FIVE THINGS MEN NEED. FIVE THINGS WOMEN WANT. AND WHY I NEED AND WANT THEM ALL.

By Marco Medrano

f you’re headed to an overseas holiday or to a nearby resort for a pool and beach weekend, having a few favorite things at hand is of course paramount. I have my special part of the closet reserved just for this, knowing I’m going to add a few “gotta have it” updates for the new season. I mean…I’m only human. Here are a few worthy beachy upgrades as well as climate sensitive skin suggestions that should put a bounce in your step. I’m skipping into summer for sure.

HIM

Trying to stay moisturized and not have a shiny face is a summer chore. Enter Germaine de Capuccini’s oil-free HydroMattifying Gel-Cream. I especially love this at dinner, when you need intense after-sun hydration but don’t want to look like a gleaming lighthouse from across the room. This amazing product can even be used over another serum/ moisturizer if you tend to be dry after an intense sun day ($60) germainedecapuccini. com/us_en

CellMen is next level men’s skincare. At first awakening, CellUltra Eye Serum-XT erases the night before with its cool rollerball serum ($235) Wash N’

($26-$52); Lotion SPF 60+ with algae extract and licorice root ($26-$94); and Urban Environment

Oil-Free Sunscreen SPF 42 has a plumping hyaluronic acid ($39-$90) shiseido.com

Shave provides a refreshed, alcohol-free, aeriated one-step cleanse ’n’ shave ($135). Don’t let her steal your CellLift Lotion Essence as a first step skincare item ($294) Face Ultra provides intense hydration and firmness ($365). With a vial a day, UltraCell IntensiveXT is a super potent 24-day skin renewal reset treatment ($1,270) cellcosmet.com

Sunburn and redness are genderless. Once these Shiseido super sumptuous Ultimate Sun Protector treatments touch your skin, you’ll know just how good this feels.

Mineral SPF 60+

Want to quickly stimulate collagen, enhance radiance and promote a tightening lift with no down time? (The answer is “yes”). The coveted Quadthera Titan also swiftly counteracts texture, uneven tone (spots) and fine lines with regular use. This professionalgrade ultrasound device has a titanium head, offers five modes and four-level frequency and is completely safe for daily use. This is an easy-to-use device for face, neck and undereye remedy in five-to-ten minutes that travels extraordinarily well ($1,200) quadthera.us

Now that our manly skin is safely and luxuriously protected, let’s safeguard our feet. SWIMS allows you to seamlessly go from swimming to surfside luncheon, wrapping your feet in the chicest of ways with the super stylish Braided Lace Loafer ($178) designed with ventilated drainage and a cushioned, algae-based footbed. Nice! swims.com

But what will carry our new favorite necessities? Handmade in England, The Commuter updates the classic duffle with clever pockets, external phone/passport zip and a padded laptop sleeve, as well as a detachable waterproof clutch for trunks or grooming products. Both flexible and sturdy, you’ll arrive in style ($1,400) BennettWinch.com ( couple ) ADOBE STOCK; ( duffle ) BENNETT WINCH; ( device ) QUADTHERA; GERMAINE DE CAPUCCINI; SHISHEIDO; CELLCOSMET; ( shoe ) SWIMS

HER

Providing both a stunning entrance and a wide-brimmed sun shield is the oversized Sunny Striped Toyo Sunhat, complete with a discreet size adjuster internally for windy days ($395) eugeniakim.com

Don’t do sun or facial sunscreens but still want some protection? Crème Defense - Age Protective Day Cream + UV-A is a transformative age-protective day cream enriched with Alga Nori—a naturally powerful sunlight radiation protector ingredient without the chemicals ($205) chateliercosmetics.com

and spirulina extract cleansing bars ($87) ayuna.co

Make room for this unique, go everywhere skin defense compact: velo [c] 7-In-1 Guardian Balm nourishes, repairs and protects as a water-free powdered balm. Deluxe! ($98) velo [x] 8-In-1 Defending Supraserum is a multifunctional powerhouse ($150). Bring the spa

Vivier is a top-shelf pharmaceutical that excels with mature skin. QuintiSerum is a rare antioxidant combo 15% Vitamin C + Vitamin E + Peptides to fix, well, everything ($276) GrenzCine Face boosts collagen production, increases elasticity and thickens the skin ($292) CRÈME 47 is a luxe, cream-based concentrate that rejuvenates with 47 key pharma-grade ingredients ($399) vivierskin.com

Need to slim down on beauty

The Absolute: Complete offers a pre-packaged month of superlative skincare with Intense Renewal Serum, Active Replenishing Moisturizer, Rejuvenation Night Balm, Nourishing Lift Oil and Restoring (30 doses x 5; $1,550) noblepanacea.com

Don’t skimp on selftanners if you want streakfree, lightweight and buildable color. Dior Solar Radiant & Glowing Skincare is The Self-Tanning Drops, The Sublimating Oil and The Self-Tanning Gel DIOR.com

Summer is the absolute best. As always, protect yourself and enjoy.

INTERNATIONAL

NEW! AGENT PROFILES

THE PORTFOLIO

Resort-Style Living in The Florida Keys

Located in exclusive Key Colony Beach, this 4,888 sq. ft. oceanfront estate offers a private sandy beach, saltwater pool and spa, outdoor kitchen, and dock with 40K-pound boat lift, plus an additional buildable lot. Soaring glass doors reveal a courtyard with turquoise views, complemented by a Great Room, wet bar, chef’s kitchen, guest suites, and a private primary wing with balcony. Designed for indoor-outdoor living, this resort-style retreat is moments from premier dining and amenities.

KEY COLONY | FLORIDA

Experience refined beachfront living in this exceptional Gulf-front estate on Clearwater Beach’s sugar-white sands. Blending timeless elegance with modern luxury, the home offers sweeping Gulf views, expansive covered terraces for seamless indoor-outdoor living, and a heated pool and spa overlooking the shoreline—creating the ultimate private resort retreat.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 2 Half Baths | $8,999,999 represented by Martha Thorn, The Thorn Collection 727.432.9019 | Martha@MarthaThorn.com | MarthaThorn.com Coldwell Banker Realty

BELLEAIR | FLORIDA

Gated Island Living At Its Finest

Behind the guarded gates of Belleview Island in Belleair, this remodeled luxury home offers stunning Intracoastal and golf course views from wraparound balconies. Light-filled interiors feature custom ceilings, elegant floors, and a chef’s kitchen with quartz island and premium appliances. Outdoors enjoy a resort-style pool, 2022 seawall, and dock near golf, beaches, dining, and airports.

5 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,999,999 represented by Martha Thorn, The Thorn Collection 727.432.9019 | Martha@MarthaThorn.com | MarthaThorn.com Coldwell Banker Realty

Nestled in the prestigious Beach Park neighborhood, this Southern Living Showcase Home was designed to bring together timeless coastal style and modern convenience, creating a space that feels as elegant as it is functional. Built by Devonsire Custom Homes, a spectacular bay front location offers light-filled interiors and carefully chosen finishes, along with indoor/outdoor living, an elevator, resort-style pool, 10+ car garage and private dock.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $9,950,000 represented by Jennifer Zales

813.758.3443 | Jennifer@JenniferZales.com | JenniferZales.com Coldwell Banker Realty

TAMPA | FLORIDA

Waterfront Southern Living Showcase Home

Positioned along scenic Bayshore Boulevard on a .6-acre lot, this water view residence offers an exceptional combination of newer construction, generous grounds, and timeless architectural design in the heart of South Tampa. Designed by Cooper Johnson Smith, every detail has been meticulously curated from the slate roof and hand-finished Venetian plaster walls, to the elevated gourmet kitchen, expansive covered lanai, courtyard pool and private guest retreat.

5 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 2 Half Baths | $8,950,000 represented by Jennifer Zales

813.758.3443 | Jennifer@JenniferZales.com | JenniferZales.com Coldwell Banker Realty

TAMPA | FLORIDA

Refined Bayshore Boulevard Luxury

ISLAMORADA | FLORIDA

Casa Mar Azul Welcomes You To Islamorada

Discover a rare oceanfront estate in Islamorada with 200 feet of shoreline, a private jetty with dockage and sweeping Atlantic views. This elegant retreat features vaulted ceilings, sun-filled living spaces and seamless indoor-outdoor living. A bonus room opens to a covered lanai and your own sandy beach. Lush tropical landscaping and close proximity to dining and boutiques complete this serene coastal escape.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Baths | $6,900,000 represented by Alina Davis 305.393.0541 | Alina@YourFLKeysAgent.com | yourflkeysagent.com Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate Co.

A Private Waterfront Sanctuary

Behind gated Pine Tree Drive, this renovated waterfront retreat offers 76’ of frontage, wide water views, and seamless indooroutdoor living. Set on a lush 12,920 SF lot with a pool and guest house, it embodies tropical luxury in Miami Beach.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $14,900,000 represented by The Jills Zeder Group | Danny Hertzberg 305.505.1950 | danny@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

A New Standard in the Grove

Newly completed Coconut Grove estate on a 16,741-SF corner lot with 10,000+ SF of modern luxury. Featuring dual gated entry, chef’s and prep kitchens, theater, gym, office, pool, spa, Crestron smart home tech and resort-style outdoor living.

6 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 1 Half Baths | $16,992,000 represented by The Jills Zeder Group | Danny Hertzberg 305.505.1950 | danny@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

Exclusive Living on the Bay

Set on an oversized 18,463 SF lot with 125 FT of waterfront, this Hibiscus Island estate offers skyline views, breathtaking sunsets, and over 6,000 SF of refined living. Private dock access, set within one of Miami Beach’s most exclusive communities.

5 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 1 Half Baths | $29,000,000 represented by The Jills Zeder Group | Jill Hertzberg 305.788.5455 | jillh@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

Modern Luxury on the Water

Just moments from the beach and boardwalk, this contemporary waterfront estate delivers resort-style living on a 25,850 SF lot with 237’ of waterfront. Featuring open chef’s kitchen, wine cellar, pool, rooftop deck and dual primary suites.

9 Bedrooms | 8 Full & 1 Half Baths | $16,995,000 represented by The Jills Zeder Group | Jill Hertzberg 305.788.5455 | jillh@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

MIAMI BEACH | FLORIDA

MIAMI | FLORIDA

MIAMI BEACH | FLORIDA

MIAMI BEACH | FLORIDA

Miami’s Ultimate Oceanfront Estate

Set on 250 feet of pristine beachfront in exclusive Golden Beach, this 1.5-acre oceanfront property offers endless sunrise views and plans for a spectacular 23,695 SF estate. A rare opportunity to create a generational beachfront compound designed for privacy, scale and elevated coastal living.

13 Bedrooms | 17 Full & 4 Half Baths

$89,000,000

represented by The Jills Zeder Group Jill Hertzberg | 305.788.5455

jillh@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

Bal Harbour’s Ultimate Trophy Home

Set on nearly an acre with 150’ of Biscayne Bay frontage, this 21,927 SF Bal Harbour estate redefines waterfront luxury. Featuring 4 levels of curated living, rooftop amenities, 2 saltwater pools, smart home technology and sweeping bay views, this is trophy living at its finest.

9 Bedrooms | 11 Full & 2 Half Baths

$78,000,000

represented by The Jills Zeder Group

Danny Hertzberg | 305.788.5455

danny@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

BAL HARBOUR | FLORIDA

GOLDEN BEACH | FLORIDA

GABLES | FLORIDA

Elegant Cocoplum Villa

Situated in exclusive Cocoplum Phase 1, this Italian villainspired waterfront estate offers direct Biscayne Bay access, resort-style outdoor living, grand interiors, private dockage and timeless Mediterranean elegance on nearly one acre.

6 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 1 Half Baths | $31,000,000

GABLES | FLORIDA

Luxury Waterfront

Spectacular waterfront estate in exclusive Gables Estates with 180 feet on the water, no-bridge Biscayne Bay access, timeless Dutch-inspired architecture, luxurious interiors, resort-style outdoor living, and private dockage for effortless coastal elegance.

6 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 2 Half Baths | $27,500,000

PINECREST | FLORIDA

Pinecrest Tuscan Estate

Set on 1.12 acres in the heart of Pinecrest, this grand Tuscan-inspired estate offers 6 beds, 8.5 baths, resort-style amenities, guest residence, home theater, smart-home features, exceptional privacy and is also available for rent.

6 Bedrooms | 8 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,975,000

CORAL GABLES | FLORIDA

Tahiti Beach Estate

Extraordinary bayfront estate on the private island of Tahiti Beach in Cocoplum, offering panoramic Biscayne Bay and Atlantic Ocean views, resort-style amenities, private dockage, and unmatched privacy within one of Coral Gables’ most exclusive enclaves.

5 Bedrooms | 8 Full & 2 Half Baths | $52,500,000

represented by The Jills Zeder Group | Judy Zeder 305.613.5550 | judy@jillszeder.com and Nathan Zeder 786.252.4023 | nathan@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

CORAL

CORAL

KEY BISCAYNE | FLORIDA

Coastal Luxury Home

Elegant Coastal Mediterranean estate in guard-gated Old Cutler Bay with 140 feet on a wide canal, direct Biscayne Bay access, resort-style outdoor living, expansive terraces, infinity-edge pool, private dock and timeless luxury throughout.

6 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 2 Half Baths | $35,000,000

MIAMI | FLORIDA

Brickell Sky Penthouse

Rare Four Seasons Brickell penthouse formed by four units, offering 6,671 SF with 4 bedrooms and 6 baths. Features ocean and skyline views, private elevator foyer, marble interiors, theater, wine cellar, chef’s kitchen, and luxury resort amenities.

4 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 2 Half Baths | $16,500,000

Luxury Key Biscayne home

Refined 3-story modern home on Key Biscayne’s Harbor Drive, 5,328 SF with 6 beds, 4 baths, 3 half baths, just 15 min from Brickell. Features rooftop terrace, resort saltwater pool, chef’s kitchen, smart home tech and seamless indoor-outdoor living.

6 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 3 Half Baths | $7,590,000

MIAMI | FLORIDA

Modern Estate Living

Villa Straordinaria is a modern masterpiece in coveted Ponce Davis on a lush one-acre lot, offering 6 bedrooms, resort-style amenities, theater, spa, gym, and expansive outdoor living with a 150-foot pool, summer kitchen and refined CALTA Group design throughout.

6 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 1 Half Baths | $19,950,000

represented by The Jills Zeder Group | Judy Zeder 305.613.5550 | judy@jillszeder.com and Nathan Zeder 786.252.4023 | nathan@jillszeder.com | jillszeder.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

CORAL GABLES | FLORIDA

This iconic waterfront estate sits on 2.38 acres with an extraordinary 862’ of direct Biscayne Bay frontage and sweeping Miami skyline views. Once Richard Nixon’s “Winter White House” and featured in the movie Scarface, this property offers 5BR + gym/7+2BA, and over 13,000 SF with soaring ceilings, glass elevator, and marble floors. Resort-style grounds include a piano-shaped saltwater pool, lush landscaping and a private marina with rare 3-phase power and dockage for yachts up to 200'.

5 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 2 Half Baths | $237,000,000 represented by Jill Eber and Judy Zeder, The Jills Zeder Group Jill Eber | 305.915.2556 | JillE@JillsZeder.com | Judy Zeder | 305.613.5550 | Judy@JillsZeder.com | Jillszeder.com Coldwell Banker Realty

MIAMI BEACH | FLORIDA

Sunrise-to-Sunset Bayfront Living

“My Paradise” lives up to its name. Set on a 32,025 SF lot with 250’ WF, this estate captures sweeping sunrise-to-sunset views across Biscayne Bay, Downtown and Key Biscayne. Resort-style grounds with a sandy beach, gazebo, elevated pool, 60FT private dock and development potential.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full Baths | $19,800,000

SURFSIDE | FLORIDA

Oceanfront Corner Residence

Spectacular direct oceanfront corner residence at Fendi Château Residences. This 4,487 SF home offers 3BR plus media room, 5.5BA, private elevator entry, expansive living areas, and a 1,599 SF wraparound terrace with ocean and city views. Mia Cucina kitchen, luxurious principal suite and 5-star amenities.

3 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Baths | $16,750,000

Hibiscus Tri-Level Masterpiece

Contemporary tri-level waterfront home on guard-gated Hibiscus Island. Panoramic bay and skyline views. Soaring ceilings, luxury finishes and a chef’s kitchen. Expansive living areas, bayfront principal suite, rooftop lounge, pool, summer kitchen, cabana bath and large dock with direct ocean access.

5 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 1 Half Baths | $19,500,000

FISHER ISLAND | FLORIDA

Oceanfront unit featuring 3BR/3.5BA and 3,567 SF. Oak floors, custom finishes, designer lighting, and a wraparound terrace with sweeping ocean views. Italian chef’s kitchen with premium appliances and luxurious principal suite with spa bath, plus two additional en-suite bedrooms.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | $12,900,000

CORAL GABLES | FLORIDA

Architectural Sanctuary

A seamless blend of sophistication and comfort, where expansive interiors, refined finishes, and resort inspired outdoor living create an elevated everyday experience. Positioned in one of Pinecrest’s most prestigious enclaves, this home offers privacy, prestige, and proximity to Miami’s finest lifestyle destinations.

6 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 5 Half Baths | $6,690,000 represented by Denice Landaeta | Denice.Landaeta@dluxuss.com | dluxuss.com Coldwell Banker Realty

Coastal Beachfront Retreat

A reimagined waterfront estate on exclusive Snead Island, blending elevated design with effortless Gulf-front living. This renovated coastal retreat offers 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, an office suite, elevator, beach views, sunset vistas, private beachfront access and refined luxury throughout.

Peninsula Estate, Private Sanctuary

Experience private resort-style living at this fully renovated waterfront peninsula estate with panoramic sunset views. Enjoy 730’ of waterfront with heated pool, hot tub, cold plunge, fire pit and 2 boat lifts.

4 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,200,000 represented by Lisa Ferringo, The Lisa Ferringo Group 305-797-1221 | lisaferringo@gmail.com lisaferringo.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

4 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | Price Upon Request represented by Alecia Savas and Chris Savas, Savas Group Alecia Savas | 727.967.0955 | alecia.savas@cbrealty.com Chris Savas | 727.560.9132 | chris.savas@cbrealty.com Coldwell Banker Realty

Brand-new modern coastal design, open-water views from a rooftop deck, 8-car garage capacity, and premium appointments deliver the perfect Florida lifestyle. Built by Modesta Homes, this Madsen Isles quality design offers a true coastal escape.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,900,000 represented by Jennifer Zales 813.758.3443 | Jennifer@JenniferZales.com JenniferZales.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

PALMETTO | FLORIDA

SUGARLOAF KEY | FLORIDA

TAMPA | FLORIDA

South Tampa Modern Coastal Luxury

TONY SICA

The Perfect Keys Retreat

This Islamorada waterfront home offers easy bay access, open water views, and nightly sunsets. Featuring vaulted ceilings, open living spaces, impact windows/doors, generator, concrete dock and spacious terraces for effortless Keys living.

3 Bedrooms | 2 Full Baths | $2,950,000 represented by Alina Davis | 305.393.0541 Alina@YourFLKeysAgent.com | yourflkeysagent.com

Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate Co.

Cocoplum Modern Oasis

Elevated waterfront living in this architectural masterpiece in Cocoplum featuring double-height spaces, floor-to-ceiling glass, a pool, private dock and direct access to Biscayne Bay.

5 Bedrooms | 6 Full Baths | $16,500,000 represented by Judith Zeder and Nathan Zeder 305.613.5550 | judy@jillszeder.com 786.252.4023 | nathan@jillszeder.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

Modern Gulf-Front Elegance

Experience luxury at Onella in Indian Shores, with panoramic Gulf views, a designer interior, expansive terrace, private elevator access, two-car garage and exclusive beach, pool and spa amenities

4 Bedrooms | 3 Baths | $3,997,000 represented by Martha Thorn, The Thorn Collection 727.432.9019 | Martha@MarthaThorn.com MarthaThorn.com | Thorn Collection with Coldwell Banker

Developer Opportunity

The 200-room Ascend Hotel, which operates under the Choice Hotel umbrella, is currently undergoing significant renovations. Located minutes from Disney, this is an ideal investment opportunity to tap into the thriving hospitality market in this sought-after area.

$32,000,000 | represented by Max Cawal 407.342.8866 | maxcawal@icloud.com maxpcawal.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

TAVERNIER | FLORIDA

CORAL GABLES | FLORIDA

INDIAN SHORES | FLORIDA

KISSIMMEE | FLORIDA Rare

Lakefront Estate Worthy of the Life You’ve Built

Rarely available in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this turnkey modern mountain home sits in one of Western North Carolina’s most exclusive private communities. Floor to ceiling windows showcase unobstructed water views, with designer interiors, four fireplaces, and 150 feet of pristine waterfront. Country club and golf are minutes away. For those who accept nothing less.

4,925 Square Feet | $5,499,000 represented by Jeff Ramm

614.332.1563 | jeff@nthliving.com

nthliving.com | Coldwell Banker Advantage

English-Inspired Estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains

Tucked within the mountains of Western North Carolina, this handcrafted English-inspired sanctuary is defined by old-world character, rich natural textures, and spaces that feel warm, and collected. Sweeping mountain and lake views, wrap-around decks, and hidden outdoor spaces among moss-covered pathways, a tranquil waterfall, and a gazebo suspended above the trees.

5,935 Square Feet | $2,699,000 represented by Jeff Ramm

614.332.1563 | jeff@nthliving.com

nthliving.com | Coldwell Banker Advantage

A Storied Coastal Retreat

Rooted in the legacy of Provincetown’s storied East End, this exceptional coastal residence is defined by a rare sense of place. Uninterrupted views of Cape Cod Bay, mature grounds, direct beach access, and the enduring character of old Provincetown converge in a setting of remarkable privacy and quiet elegance. Presented for the first time in over three decades, it offers a timeless connection to the landscape, history, and spirit of the Outer Cape.

Featured in Architectural Digest, this Amelia Hannagan–designed residence anchors one of Virginia’s most distinguished country estates. Set on 352 acres, Rose Hill Estate blends timeless elegance, masterful restoration, and exceptional privacy.

4 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 1 Half Baths | $6,900,000 represented by Charlotte Rouse 540.419.9206 | crouse@cbeva.com FredericksburgVAHome.com | Coldwell Banker Elite

2 Bedrooms | 4 Baths | $3,195,000 represented by Ricardo Rodriguez Ricardo Rodriguez & Associates 617.823.0072

Ricardo.Rodriguez@NEMoves.com RicardoHome.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

Extraordinary estate with a true resort lifestyle. Rich finishes, dramatic spaces and seamless flow define the interiors. Thoughtfully designed with warmth and sophistication. Stunning pool, cabana and stonework.

6 Bedrooms | 8 Full & 2 Half Baths | $9,998,000 represented by Michele Kolsky Assatly 973.277.1640 | michaelkolsky@gmail.com thekolskyteam.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

PROVINCETOWN | MASSACHUSETTS

RAPPAHANNOCK ACADEMY | VIRGINIA

Rose Hill Estate, An Elevated Lifestyle

SADDLE RIVER | NEW JERSEY

Saddle River Splendor

WESTFIELD | NEW JERSEY

Historic Soul Meets 21st-Century Luxury

CITY | STATE Head

Text

XX Bedrooms | X Full Baths | $29,500,000 represented by Agent Group, Agent Name

This extraordinary 5-bedroom, 5.2-bath 1901 original house has been lovingly brought back to life through years of historically accurate renovation and a thoughtfully modern expansion. Enjoy the best of both worlds—the charm and character of a historic “quintessential Westfield” home updated with all the space and conveniences for turn-key modern living and entertaining, both indoor and out.

888.555.5555 Name@group.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 2 Half Baths | Price Upon Request represented by Frank D. Isoldi

908.787.5990 | frankisoldi@gmail.com | TheIsoldiCollection.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

WESTON | CONNECTICUT

Timeless Luxury on 2.5 Private Acres

Set on 2.5 acres in Fairfield County, this distinguished estate blends refined craftsmanship with modern luxury. From the grand foyer’s floating staircase to the gourmet Wolf/ Sub-Zero kitchen, every detail inspires. Enjoy a resort-style Gunite pool, lush lawns, and a finished lower level with gym and bar. Moments from top schools and the Merritt.

6 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 4 Half Baths | $3,450,000

WESPORT | CONNECTICUT

Masterpiece of High-End Minimalism

NOW SOLD Bordering the Paul Newman-Poses Nature

Preserve, this gated Modern masterpiece offers unparalleled ICF construction and minimalist style. Originally a builder’s own home, it features triple-glazed glass, radiant heat, and a Miele kitchen. The resort-style grounds boast a pool, spa, and summer kitchen, with a speakeasy pub and climbing gym.

6 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 2 Half Baths | $7,750,000

WESPORT | CONNECTICUT

Modern Masterpiece in Coleytown

Crafted by award-winning Able Construction, this newly completed masterpiece blends scenic calm with high-design luxury. Glass walls and a dramatic stair tower flood the home with light, highlighting the marble fireplace and Thermador kitchen. Retreat to a primary suite with balcony or enjoy the resort-style pool. A showcase of style in a premier estate area.

6 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 1 Half Baths | $4,750,000

WESTON | CONNECTICUT

Premier Estate: Pool & 4-Car Garage

Tucked away on a premier cul-de-sac, this Modern Colonial is a sanctuary of luxury and fun. The reimagined designer kitchen and elegant formal rooms flow effortlessly to a resortlike exterior featuring a heated pool, sports area, and treehouse. With five-plus bedrooms, a finished lower level, and a four-car garage, this estate offers versatility near top schools.

5 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 2 Half Baths | $2,350,000

Tiffany Hill

Enjoy spectacular sunrises and sunsets from your Great Room on “Tiffany Hill”. A 14 Acre estate with swimming pool, pool house and around the corner from Hamburg Cove and access to the Connecticut River. High ceilings, classic custom millwork and elegant high-end finishes allow this home to stand apart from most.

Fox Hopyard Golf & Country Club

The impeccably crafted Colonial with first floor Primary suite, refined living space and distinctive architectural detailing. This thoughtfully designed residence combines comfort, craftsmanship, and sophistication in one exceptional offering.

3 Bedrooms | 2 Full & 1 Half Baths | Price Upon Request represented by Maddy Mattson

860.575.4344 | Maddy.Mattson@CBRealty.com MaddyMattson.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths

Price Upon Request

represented by Maddy Mattson

860.575.4344 | Maddy.Mattson@CBRealty.com

MaddyMattson.com

Coldwell Banker Realty

Stunning Nantucket-Style Residence

Sweeping Fareway vistas, perfectly positioned along the 13th fairway of the prestigious Fox Hopyard Golf & Country Club. Timeless architecture with the ease of luxury turnkey living. Set on a double lot and custom built in 2006.

3 Bedrooms | 4 Full Baths | Price Upon Request represented by Maddy Mattson

860.575.4344 | Maddy.Mattson@CBRealty.com MaddyMattson.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

OLD LYME | CONNECTICUT

EAST HADDAM | CONNECTICUT

EAST HADDAM | CONNECTICUT

BOSTON | MASSACHUSETTS Classic Boston, Reimagined

Set along one of the South End’s most coveted tree-lined streets, this exceptional bow-front brownstone embodies the enduring elegance of classic Boston architecture reimagined for modern living. Thoughtfully renovated throughout, the residence pairs refined craftsmanship, bespoke millwork, and dramatic entertaining spaces with private outdoor retreats, skyline views, and a rare sense of scale in one of the city’s most storied neighborhoods.

6 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 2 Half Baths | $8,250,000 represented by Ricardo Rodriguez, Ricardo Rodriguez & Associates 617.823.0072 | Ricardo.Rodriguez@NEMoves.com | RicardoHome.com Coldwell Banker Realty

| MASSACHUSETTS

A Life Well Curated

Set behind mature landscaping on a private .73-acre parcel in one of Lexington’s most coveted enclaves, this exceptional estate is defined by architectural presence, remarkable scale, and a rare sense of retreat. Grand entertaining spaces, refined interiors, and resort-caliber amenities are seamlessly woven throughout, while expansive stone terraces and manicured grounds create an atmosphere of understated luxury and timeless permanence.

| MASSACHUSETTS

A Once in a Generation Estate

7 Bedrooms | 7 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,500,000 represented by Ricardo Rodriguez Ricardo Rodriguez & Associates 617.823.0072

Ricardo.Rodriguez@NEMoves.com

RicardoHome.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

Introducing The Loring-Atherton House, an extraordinary Georgian Revival estate set within Brookline’s storied Cottage Farm Historic District. Held by the same family for over half a century, this architecturally significant residence stands as a rare expression of heritage, craftsmanship, and permanence. Surrounded by some of the region’s most distinguished homes, it offers a oncein-a-generation opportunity to become the steward of a truly enduring legacy.

6 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,850,000 represented by Ricardo Rodriguez

Ricardo Rodriguez & Associates

617.823.0072

Ricardo.Rodriguez@NEMoves.com

RicardoHome.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

BROOKLINE

LEXINGTON

ESTES PARK | COLORADO

A Rocky Mountain Estate With Showcase Garage And Guest Quarters

Nearly 11 flat, usable acres beneath the Continental Divide. Spectacular property with postcard views capturing Longs Peak, other recognizable summits from nearly every window. 4,100+ SF main residence plus 1-Bed guest suite. 4,000+ SF heated garage building: 8+ vehicles, RV bay. Large greenhouse. This secluded valley lives like your own private park. Rocky Mountain National Park and downtown is just 10 min away.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full Baths | $2,995,000 represented by Laura Levy 303.931.8080 | laura.levy@cbrealty.com | LauraLevy.com Coldwell Banker Realty

|

Modern Architecture Meets an Iconic Boulder Panorama

Rare 2-acre premium site with a new 6,448 sf contemporary masterpiece showcases vistas few homes can claim: the Flatirons, Longs Peak, and Boulder city lights. The main level was designed for entertaining, opens to the outdoors and offers 3 en-suite bedrooms. A distinctive upper level offers curated flex space and a rooftop deck. Walkout lower level and an oversized 3-car garage complete the design. A unique partially-completed new construction opportunity built by one of Boulder’s most respected builders.The next owner steps in after closing to finish the interior and landscape (Photos are artists renderings).

3-4 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $3,895,000 represented by Laura Levy | 303.931.8080 | laura.levy@cbrealty.com | LauraLevy.com Coldwell Banker Realty

BOULDER

COLORADO

Tall Timber: A Secluded Fly-In Retreat

This 200-acre private sanctuary surrounded by the San Juan National Forest, is accessed only by helicopter or private rail, with a dedicated airport hangar. This rare legacy property features a 12,000+ SF luxury lodge, mountain vistas and four-season backcountry recreation near Purgatory Ski Resort—ideal as a family compound, corporate retreat or legacy investment. For more information contact Max Cawal 407.342.8866 / maxcawal@icloud.com or visit talltimberinfo.com.

DURANGO | COLORADO

Minutes from Auburn. Miles from Ordinary.

A rare opportunity, calling you home. Set on 8 pristine acres, this Bridle Creek estate lives like a private resort just minutes from one of the nation’s most storied universities. Vast showcase garages, a resort-style pool, wine cellar, and private theater set the stage for entertaining on a grand scale — while the surrounding acreage holds the rest of the world at a distance. The prize of the Plains, for those who know exactly where they belong.

Stunning Rural Enclave

Nearly 10 acres in highly desirable location minutes from downtown Lyons and 20 min to Boulder. 3,000 SF singlelevel home, fully fenced and gated. 6-stall barn and Roosevelt National Forest nearby.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full Baths | $1,395,000 represented by Laura Levy | 303.931.8080 laura.levy@cbrealty.com | LauraLevy.com Coldwell Banker Realty

5 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,000,000 represented by Steve DuBrueler 540.667.7400 | SteveDuBrueler@PremierMove.com PremierMove.com | Coldwell Banker Premier Co-listed by Austin LeCroy, The Talons Group TheTalonsGroup.com

Custom Home on Cedar Creek Lake

Architectural lakefront showpiece with 4,100 SF, 23-ft ceilings, chef’s kitchen, resort-style outdoor living, heated saltwater pool/spa, private marina access & boat slip on Cedar Creek Lake.

4 Bedrooms | 4 Full Baths | $3,000,000 represented by Tammy Flynn 214.546.1948 | tammyflynnhomes@gmail.com tflynn.cbapex.com | Coldwell Banker Apex

LYONS | COLORADO

KEMP | TEXAS

Sold Starts With Strategy

This masterfully remodeled 5,183SF in prestigious Oakwood Estates went under contract in just 2 days. The estate features soaring ceilings, a well-appointed chef’s kitchen, heated saltwater pool/spa, outdoor kitchen, media lounge, 3-car garage plus detached 2-car garage with office, all in Lovejoy ISD. Experience. Integrity. Results You Can Trust. Call Tonya today.

|

represented by Tonya Walker 469.207.8658 | Tonya@Walkerdfw.com TWalker.cbapex.com Coldwell Banker Apex, Realtors

Spectacular Architecture Meets Modern Luxury In A Mountain Paradise

Nestled in a serene mountain forest, this architecturally designed custom home blends modern luxury with natural beauty. Expansive windows and a disappearing glass wall create seamless indoor-outdoor living, while three bedrooms each enjoy a private deck. A gourmet kitchen, spa-inspired primary suite, and oversized garage with RV parking and storage loft complete the home. Equestrian facilities, skiing, golf, hiking, biking and outdoor recreation are available through Angel Fire Resort membership.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full Baths | $2,300,000 represented by Lisa Sutton 505.603.0525 | lisa.sutton@cbmp.com cbmp.com/agents/lisa-sutton Coldwell Banker Mountain Properties

Totally Remodeled Modern Contemporary Condo At Esplanade Place

Completely updated 2,417 SF residence with every space and finish thoughtfully curated for the maximum enjoyment of the buyer seeking move-in ready state-of-the-art features! Residents enjoy access to premier services and exclusive amenities. Close to area fine dining, theaters, high-end shops and a Life Time Fitness. The rooftop pool, 24-hour lobby desk, the full fitness center and the valet parking offer smart reasons for choosing the ultimate high-rise address, Esplanade Place.

2 Bedrooms | 2 Full Baths | $1,749,000 represented by Susan Polakof 602.738.5500 | susan.polakof@azmoves.com | susanpolakof.com Coldwell Banker Realty

PHOENIX | ARIZONA

Two thousand acres. A private valley five minutes from St. Helena. Two centuries of stewardship. Glendale Ranch awaits its next custodian. GlendaleRanch.com

$100,000,000 represented by Erin Lail

707.333.5596 | erin@erinlail.com | erinlail.com Coldwell Banker Brokers of the Valley

NAPA

Secure one of our upcoming residences by a prominent San Francisco developer, with offerings from $2M–$18M. As featured in the New York Times and Forbes magazine, each project honors original character, reimagined through elevated materials, thoughtful spatial flow and a curated aesthetic. Clean lines, rich textures and abundant natural light come together to balance beauty and function, resulting in sophisticated homes where period elegance meets contemporary luxury. It’s boutique, curated and unparalleled.

Set on a private 11+ acre ridge in Santa Rosa, this luxe home blends modern design with nature, offering breathtaking 360° views. Enjoy seamless indoor-outdoor living, an infinity pool, spa and expansive patio. An elevated wine country retreat designed for relaxation, entertaining and unforgettable sunsets is an ideal primary residence, secondary residence, or high grossing 5-star Airbnb.

SANTA ROSA | CALIFORNIA

Wine Country Escape with Infinity Pool

An

Emblem of Unparalleled Luxury

An extraordinary expression of coastal luxury, this custom Crystal Cove estate showcases unparalleled craftsmanship, world-class amenities, and breathtaking panoramic ocean, coastline, and sunset views. Designed for the most discerning buyer, the residence offers a private wellness retreat, a wine cellar, indoor and outdoor pools, and sophisticated entertaining spaces. More than a home, this iconic estate is a rare and enduring legacy.

5 Bedrooms | 6 Full & 2 Half Baths | Price Upon Request represented by Georgina Jacobson & Tim Smith 949.285.8380 | Georgina@GeorginaJacobson.com | GeorginaJacobson.com Coldwell Banker Realty

NEWPORT COAST | CALIFORNIA

As Featured In Sonoma Magazine

Nestled behind a tree-lined gate in Wine Country, this hidden gem blends privacy with convenience. The renovated home connects seamlessly to lush gardens, patios, fire pit, and lap pool — perfect for relaxing or entertaining in style year-round.

Gem in Hidden Valley Estates

Guard-gated Hidden Valley Estates stunning traditional with refined interiors, Officine Gullo kitchen, Sonos and seamless indoor-outdoor living. Private resort-style grounds include a pool, outdoor kitchen and lighted championship tennis court.

6 Bedrooms | 4 Baths & Powder Room | $14,250,000 represented by Jade Mills and Alexis Lamontagna 310.285.7508 | homes@jademills.com JadeMills.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

3 Bedrooms | 2 Full Baths | $1,685,000 represented by The Swann Group 415.225.7743 | team@swanngroupsf.com swanngroupsf.com Coldwell Banker Realty

Modern Organic Luxury

Architecturally distinctive 6BR + 5.5BA estate on a 10,500 sqft lot with a detached 1BR ADU. Features a chef’s kitchen with Wolf range, serene primary suite, and seamless indoor-outdoor living with pool, spa + fully equipped outdoor culinary center.

6 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $4,299,000 represented by Nanette Basin nanette@nanettebasin.com nanettebasin.com | Coldwell Banker Realty

SONOMA | CALIFORNIA

BEVERLY HILLS | CALIFORNIA

ENCINO | CALIFORNIA

A Living Work Of Art

A rare, oceanfront jewel, Mau’s premier estate blends timeless architecture with a magnificent setting. Perched 25 feet from the shoreline, of all concrete construction. Gracious lanais set the stage for the inviting palapa, perfect for casual outdoor living and dining.

4 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 1 Half Baths | $19,750,000

| HAWAII

Modern French Farmhouse in Maui

This brand-new single-level estate, situated on a 5-acre lot within Puunoa Estates, a prestigious gated community, embodies a French Country Farmhouse-style architecture with chic modern interior design. It includes 5 bedroom suites, separate media suite, pool, spa and outdoor kitchen.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $10,950,000

Rim Masterpiece

This alluring oceanfront West Maui estate rests on a half-acre of prime land with over 250 feet of ocean frontage. With nearly 10,000 square feet of living space, this residence and private ohana epitomizes Pacific Rim architecture. All 7 suites are oceanfront with ocean and neighbor island views.

7 Bedrooms | 8 Full & 1 Half Baths | $19,750,000

1 Bedroom | 1 Bath Ohana

WEST MAUI | HAWAII

Prestigious Maui Estate

Located in Puunoa Estates, a prestigious gated community, this estate features the best of style and modern amenities in an elegant 5 bed, 5.5 bath main residence. A separate 2 bed, 2 bath guest home is privately situated with its own gated access. Both showcase abundant, covered, wraparound patio space.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $9,500,000

2 Bedrooms | 2 Baths Ohana

WEST MAUI | HAWAII Pacific

WEST MAUI

WEST MAUI | HAWAII

Oceanfront Island Luxury

This contemporary Polynesian-style oceanfront gated estate is built with the highest quality, high-tech materials, and finishes. Featuring a great room, dining area, kitchen, 3 bedroom suites, additional bedroom/home office, media room, infinity pool, spa, water features and attached 1-bed ohana.

4 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | $12,000,000

1 Bedroom | 1 Bath Ohana

| HAWAII A Tuscan Villa in Paradise

This one-of-a-kind Tuscan Villa in Paradise is located in the exclusive gated community, Lanikeha within the Kaanapali Golf Estates. This 3 bed, 4.5 bath single-level estate also offers an office, surround sound HD theater, pool and spa with complete outdoor kitchen accessible via multiple ramp pathways.

3 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 1 Half Baths | $7,400,000

Private Wellness Sanctuary

Extremely private and serene, this 2.18-acre sanctuary consists of mature tropical landscaping and built with impeccable craftsmanship. This single-level estate features 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 2 living spaces, dining area, private office, wine cellar, gourmet kitchen, resort-like pool with grotto and adjoining spa.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | $9,900,000

WEST MAUI | HAWAII

Refined Island Living

A true masterpiece of modern design and craftsmanship, this brand-new, 4-bed, 4.5-bath home is located in the prestigious double gated Lanikeha subdivision of Kaanapali Golf Estates. The open-concept layout features expansive living spaces, chef’s kitchen and an attached 1-bed, 1-bath ohana.

4 Bedrooms | 4 Full & 1 Half Baths | $7,500,000

1 Bedroom | 1 Bath Ohana

WEST MAUI | HAWAII

WEST MAUI

WEST MAUI | HAWAII

SALZBURG | AUSTRIA

High above Salzburg’s UNESCO-listed Old Town, hidden within private parkland on the legendary Kapuzinerberg, Paschinger Schlössl is one of Europe’s rarest estates. Once home to author Stefan Zweig, this restored historic villa offers 6,630 sq ft of refined living space, blending timeless architecture, privacy, and modern comfort. Overlooking the Salzach River and Salzburg’s baroque skyline, it is a unique opportunity for collectors of exceptional world properties.

6 Bedrooms | 5 Full & 1 Half Baths | $14,775,000 represented by Vanda Demeure & Florian Freytag +336 72 95 68 30 | + 49 172 6880322 | vanda.demeure@coldwellbanker.fr | florian.freytag@coldwellbanker.de coldwellbanker.fr | Coldwell Banker Europa Realty

Steps from Avenue Montaigne and Paris’ finest luxury boutiques, this elegant apartment is set within a prestigious and peaceful building. Designed like a 5-star hotel suite, it features a spectacular reception room with 4-meter ceilings, fireplace, and refined volumes. The bedroom includes a bespoke dressing room, while the marble bathroom offers both bathtub and walk-in shower. A modern separate kitchen completes this fully furnished Parisian residence.

1 Bedroom | 1 Full Bath | $3,460,000

represented by Vanda Demeure + 33 6 72 95 68 30

vanda.demeure@coldwellbanker.fr

Coldwellbankerprestige.fr

Coldwell Banker Europa Realty

In prestigious Marnes-la-Coquette, this historic estate was once home to Maurice Chevalier and linked to the creator of the Wallace fountains. Set within a private landscaped park, the residence offers elegant reception rooms, refined architecture, and absolute tranquility just minutes from Paris.

6 Bedrooms | 5 Full Baths | $10,447,000 represented by Vanda Demeure + 33 6 72 95 68 30

vanda.demeure@coldwellbanker.fr

Coldwellbankerprestige.fr

Coldwell Banker Europa Realty

SAMARA, GUANACASTE | COSTA RICA

Luxury Above The Pacific

Perched above Dominical in Costa Verde, Casa Luz blends rainforest serenity with sweeping Pacific views. This 5-bedroom estate features a curved infinity pool, guest suites, solar power and seamless indoor-outdoor luxury.

5 Bedrooms | 5 Full Baths | $3,300,000 represented by Daveed Hollander +506 8822 3939 | d.hollander@cbcostarica.com daveedhollander.com | Coldwell Banker Vesta Group

Luxury Coastal Retreat

The Resort at Kapalua Bay Residence 5102 offers an opportunity to own in one of Maui’s most exclusive beachfront communities. This spacious ground-floor villa offers seamless indoor-outdoor living and easy access to Kapalua Bay.

3 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | $5,795,000 represented by Mary Anne Fitch | 808.250.1583 maryanne@soldmaui.com | soldmaui.com Coldwell Banker Island Properties

Costa Rica Meets the Mediterranean

Casa Niri blends Mediterranean-inspired design with jungle serenity and Pacific views in Playa Sámara. This 5-bedroom retreat features an infinity pool, open-air living and lush gardens.

5 Bedrooms | 4 Full Baths | $1,995,000 represented by Daveed Hollander and Nick Ruhlow +506 8822 3939 | d.hollander@cbcostarica.com +506 8841 0634 | nick@coldwellbankersamara.com coldwellbankercostarica.com | Coldwell Banker Costa Rica

Trocadero, Eiffel Tower View

In a prestigious Haussmannian building, this elegant apartment blends classic Parisian charm with refined finishes. Features luminous reception rooms, exceptional amenities and Eiffel Tower views.

4 Bedrooms | 3 Full & 1 Half Baths | $9,867,000 represented by Vanda Demeure | + 33

vanda.demeure@coldwellbanker.fr coldwellbankerprestige.fr | Coldwell Banker France & Monaco

PARIS | FRANCE

DOMINICAL, PUNTARENAS | COSTA RICA

WEST MAUI | HAWAII

Casa

Earth—An Architectural Experience

This exceptional award-wining estate blends modern, low-profile architecture with the natural textures of San Miguel de Allende. Twelve rammed-earth volumes connect through central corridors, creating fluid spaces inspired by grand Mexican haciendas. A sculptural cactus roundabout reveals warm, understated forms. Within La Candelaria, the home offers privacy, quick access to the historic center and a serene courtyard with pool, jacuzzi and firepit.

8 Bedrooms | 8 Baths | $7,000,000 represented by Daniel Ortiz +52 415 113 9779 | daniel@coldwellbankersmart.com Coldwell Banker SMART

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE | MEXICO

Rammed

Jade Mills, The 9 Billion Dollar Woman

As a Global Luxury Ambassador for the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury® program and one of the top-producing agents for the Coldwell Banker® brand worldwide, Jade Mills has built her business on trust, discretion and an unwavering commitment to excellence. Having sold more than $9 billion in real estate, she still approaches every client with the same enthusiasm and dedication that she did at the start of her real estate journey.

What sets you apart from other real estate agents?

I never stop working for my clients. Real estate is not a nine-tofive profession, and I’ve always been known for being accessible, responsive and personally involved at every step. I’ve cultivated relationships around the world and built a reputation for integrity, discretion and results. While I’m proud of my accomplishments, I’m even more proud that much of my business comes from repeat clients and referrals. I believe success is about much more than

sales—kindness, gratitude and treating people well have always been at the heart of my business and my life. Three of my four children have joined me in the business, which has brought me tremendous joy and made this journey even more rewarding. After more than 30 years in the business, I still wake up excited to work every day.

Tell us about a recent sale that stands out.

One exceptional sale this year was 804 N. Elm Drive in Beverly Hills, which closed for $30,260,000. The transaction marked the third-highest sale ever recorded in the Beverly Hills Flats. I’ve always loved representing special properties; it was incredibly rewarding to help my client achieve such a wonderful result.

What’s your unexpected talent?

I can remember names, homes and details from transactions that happened decades ago. My family and my assistant joke that I have a real estate encyclopedia hidden somewhere in my brain. H

Mary Anne Fitch, Maui’s Finest

Ranked Maui’s #1 REALTOR® five times, with more than $1 billion in career sales and more than three-and-a-half decades representing the island’s finest properties, Mary Anne Fitch is West Maui’s most decorated luxury real estate broker. As Senior Partner with Coldwell Banker Island Properties-luxury division, member of the exclusive International Luxury Alliance and a certified Luxury Property Specialist, she offers clients access to one of the most powerful high-net-worth referral networks in global real estate.

Tell us about a recent sale that stands out.

I was blessed to represent both the seller and buyer of a beautiful oceanfront estate. Shortly after the sale, the buyer approached me about an unlisted vacant lot nearby that they were interested in. Not only were we able to negotiate on the purchase of that lot, but the owner of the lot ended up buying another one of my listings—

probably the most prestigious property on Maui. It was a beautiful way of one sale producing another sale, which resulted in another— all iconic properties in the Kapalua Resort, the resort I specialize in.

What sets you apart from other real estate agents?

I’ve been on Maui since 1988. I’ve built a strong network here—both in real estate and the community. My relationship with a client often goes beyond the sale, where I’m assisting them with where their children are going to go to school, for example.

Describe the client who’ll love working with you.

A client who’s ready to purchase on Maui, but may need some reassurance about the process and how they’ll fit in here. Having relocated to Maui myself—by myself—I can help them feel good about that decision if it’s right for them. I don’t have an aggressive sales style; I’m focused on lifestyle and what’ll make my clients happiest. H

Erin Lail, Napa Valley Insider

Erin Lail with Coldwell Banker Brokers of the Valley, considers it a privilege to be one of Napa Valley’s topproducing luxury real estate agents, with more than $1 billion in career volume and a list of clients from vintners and family offices to public figures who require absolute privacy. Owner of Lail Vineyards and a fifth-generation Napa native whose family helped shaped the American wine industry, she brings to her practice both an insider’s access and a process handled with care, discretion and joy.

Tell us about a property you’ve represented that stands out. The listing I’m most honored to represent right now is Glendale Ranch, a private 2000-acre valley in the center of Napa Valley— the kind of unencumbered land that’s incredibly rare today. My family once owned thousands of acres in Napa Valley, generations ago. It’s truly an amazing feeling to get a glimpse of what it may have looked when my ancestor arrived in 1879 to build Inglenook.

Representing Glendale Ranch, to me, means more than finding a buyer—I’m connecting its past and future legacies.

What sets you apart from other real estate agents?

When helping a client move to Napa, I welcome them into a community I know and genuinely love. Because much of my work is off-market, with clients who require absolute discretion, the relationships I’ve built over a lifetime here are how the right buyers and the right properties quietly find each other.

What’s your unexpected talent?

I read architectural plans almost instinctively. I grew up working alongside my architect father, and a few years in construction management taught me what’s behind the walls. When touring a property, I naturally start imagining how it could live even better where to bring in more light, how a floor plan might flow differently or simple changes that could make a house truly feel like home. H

Linda Skolnick, The Connecticut Connection

The top-rated individual REALTOR® in Westport, CT, by Zillow.com and the #1 Coldwell Banker agent in the state, Linda Skolnick is an International Global Luxury Ambassador for Coldwell Banker and is ranked in the Coldwell Banker International Society of Excellence, an honor reserved for only the top half of 1% agents globally.

How did you meet star fashion designer Christian Siriano who’s also gracing the cover of this issue of COLDWELL?

I tried on this fabulous blazer with ruffled sleeves at his shop— but it didn’t hang quite right. Christian walked in and pinned it to perfection. I told him I needed a dress for my daughter’s wedding, and he told me he needed a realtor.

Tell us about his property which you’re representing. He completely gutted this home and Siriano’ed it. When we were looking at homes, it didn’t matter how awful it was—he wanted to

create something. He didn’t change the floor plan, just added a bathroom, but he changed the whole space by injecting his style into details most people don’t think about: the trim, a showstopper Calacatta marble farm sink—he upgraded not just the look, but the quality of the whole house. And, of course, he brought in furniture from Siriano Interiors.

Here’s an interesting one: How would you describe the real estate client who’ll absolutely love working with you?

“When I work with a client, I’m all in.” No matter what you do outside your home search, most don’t buy a house every day. It’s one of the biggest purchases one ever makes, and it’s scary. I’m the person who envelops you and says, “I’ve got you; I’m going to make sure there are no surprises and the relationship with the other side of the transaction will be transparent and as nice as possible.” Plus, I make crazy-decadent brownies that I deliver to my clients every year—possibly worth working with me for those alone! H

Linda Skolnick 203.246.0088 Linda@goasklinda.com goasklinda.com Coldwell Banker Realty Westport

Rachel Swann and The Swann Group, San Francisco Giants

A top 0.01% producing agent of Coldwell Banker Realty, Rachel Swann brings more than a decade of real estate experience serving clients in some of San Francisco’s most desirable neighborhoods. She, along with Kristal Pollack, Isa Canlas and Kelly Bennett, form The Swann Group, a team with remarkable depth that’s earned International Society of Excellence recognition, ranking in the top 0.01% of all sales teams worldwide across the Coldwell Banker network.

Tell us about a time you got creative for a sale.

Many move here to work in AI, and in this current seller’s market, they wish they could use their company stock to purchase ahead of their IPO. That gave Rachel the idea to market a recent listing as “Seller willing to accept Anthropic and OpenAI stock as payment.”

It created a ton of buzz around our listing from Business Insider Africa to The New York Times to The Real Deal and more. We were

able to spotlight our client’s home and the dynamic economy of the San Francisco Bay housing market. As Zillow Gone Wild opined: “You broke the internet in 24 hours!”

Tell us about a recent sale that stands out.

While we were working with a wonderful couple to put in an offer on their dream home, an offer came through from a competing party. It became all-hands-on-deck to write an offer in one hour and remove all contingencies by 5pm. These firsttime home buyers were extremely motivated to get this home and our wonderful team supported the effort and got them all the information they needed in time.

If your team were the cast of a TV show, which would it be? It would be Friends—but we’re all Monica. Or Full House, because we’re tight knit like family—and we’ve sold the actual Full House home four times. H

Ricardo Rodriguez, Boston’s Matchmaker

The founder and leader of the #1 large team in New England, Ricardo Rodriguez has guided clients throughout Boston and the greater New England market for more than 20 years. With more than $4 billion in closed sales, exceptional marketing metrics—with a social media reach greater than 37 million annually and more than 15 million annual news impressions— his approach is rooted in strategy, discretion and long-term relationships.

What sets you apart from other real estate agents?

I always say real estate isn’t about where you live, it’s about how you live. If I understand how a prospective client is going to live, I can make recommendations and create a narrative for that home that fits. I’m not really a salesperson—I’m a matchmaker with a strong marketing and storytelling background. Understanding what luxury means in the vernacular of a particular client is key

to how I build a narrative around the experience a property offers. The top luxury clients don’t have time to visit 100 listings—my ability to discern which listings are worth their time is an important part of my valuable position on the luxury market.

What’s your unexpected talent?

I’m actually a trained actor and was a working actor before I got into real estate. The skill has translated surprisingly well, though, as real estate is quite presentational.

Describe the client who’ll love working with you.

Clients who appreciate the lifestyle and visual elements of luxury real estate. As someone with a strong sense of aesthetics and 20 years of relationships with developers and interior designers, I have a point of view that clients value. I can walk into a space and tell you what makes sense and what could be better, from the build plans to the color palette. H

AMERICAN GLAMOUR STORY

TIFFANY & CO., AMERICA’S FIRST LUXURY JEWELRY HOUSE AND A SYMBOL OF ELEGANCE FOR NEARLY TWO CENTURIES, HAS AN EDGE ON WOULD-BE COMPETITORS: IT GENUINELY MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY.

By Tara Solomon

y love affair with Tiffany & Co. started many moon rivers ago, watching Breakfast At Tiffany’s on the Movie Channel in my parents’ wood-paneled Florida room, obsessing over Holly Golightly’s every move.

Her black Givenchy sheath. Her blonde-streaked updo and tiara. The statement pearls cascading down the back of her gown.

Portrayed with gamine perfection by Audrey Hepburn, the eccentric heroine of Truman Capote’s mid-century novella had a unique way of beating the blues (and the more intense “mean reds”): Taking a taxi to Tiffany’s after a night of parties with her rich yet soulless suitors, finding solace by gazing into the pristine Fifth Avenue windows of her happy place, a takeout coffee in her opera-gloved hand. As she told “Fred, baby” in the iconic 1961 film, “Nothing very bad could happen to you there.”

Holly Golightly was right.

For nearly two centuries, America’s first luxury jewelry house—responsible for bringing rare and major gemstones to the US—has remained a sanctuary of serenity where shopping for jewelry and other pretty things has an air of calm that feels almost spiritual. Just perusing the gleaming vitrines, their contents arranged with museum-like precision, can put me in a meditative state. I’m not remotely kidding.

And then there’s the signature robin’s-egg blue Tiffany box, ribboned in white satin, which elevates gift-giving (and -receiving) to anticipatory heights, triggering a tsunami of dopamine at even a peripheral glance.

I can only imagine the love fest ignited by the blue box Richard Burton gave Elizabeth Taylor in 1964, containing a dazzling, stylized swimming fish encrusted with diamonds, gold scales, sapphire eyes and an emerald mouth. Designed by Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co., the iconic The Night Of The Iguana brooch sold for a whopping $1.2 million at the actress’ landmark 2011 Christie’s auction in New York City.

Schlumberger, well-regarded in elite art circles for his surrealist buttons and costume jewelry for Parisian couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, joined Tiffany & Co. in 1956 with the distinction of being the first designer permitted to sign their own work. Two high-profile collaborators followed: Halston muse Elsa Peretti, in 1974, marking the first time in 25 years that Tiffany sold sterling silver jewelry; and Paloma Picasso (yes, the legendary artist’s daughter), in 1980, whose bold “Graffiti” jewelry collection had all the beautiful people wearing Xs and Os.

Lady Gaga had the ultimate red-carpet moment—and good-luck charm— when she wore the historic 128-carat Tiffany yellow diamond necklace, valued at $30 million, to the 2019 Oscars, where she won her first Academy Award.

Actor Michael B. Jordan rocked two Tiffany “Bird On A Rock” vintage brooches designed by Schlumberger at the 2023 Oscars.

And the legacy company has partnered for a second year with the Council Of Fashion Designers Of America (CFDA) Jewelry Designer Award to “elevate the next generation of American jewelry designers.” Let’s just say Tiffany is here to stay.

If I were asked to name my favorite Tiffany possession—and there are many, from a gold repoussé bamboo pen circa 1940s to an Art Nouveau femme-flower pendant of forged silver—I’d like to think my top Tiffany trophy is still waiting to be discovered. That is, unless I splurge on a vintage 18K gold Elsa Peretti “Open Bottle” pendant necklace, which I’ve been lusting after for years. Yes, that would make me very, very happy. Blue box and all.

breakfast of champions

Tiffany & Co. is a major character in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, the iconic film starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. Chic doesn’t begin to cover it.

Buy and sell luxury properties through auction.

The world’s finest art, cars, yachts, and antiques are sold at auction—so, too, is luxury real estate.

Now accepting consignments for upcoming sales in Hong Kong, London, New York City, and more. Submit a property for consideration or browse and bid on current offerings at conciergeauctions.com.

$24.136M

coooperation with Coldwell Banker Coronado Cays, San Diego Bay, California