Editor in Chief

The majestic hotels that gleam like beacons of refuge amid the bustling boulevards of the world’s metropolises entice the traveler with their picturesque panoramas and storied pasts (see “The Robb Report 100,” page 91); yet few if any of these establishments can claim the same curious distinction as Monaco’s Hôtel de Paris (pictured), whose city […]

In 1848, when James Marshall discovered gold in California, travelers from the East Coast to San Francisco were essaying a perilous and prolonged undertaking. These pioneers were condemned to choose between the hazards of crossing the continent’s hostile wilderness by stagecoach and the dangers of traversing the fever-infested jungles of the Isthmus of Panama—a journey […]

Those of us who write about topics of interest to affluent readers might find our labors more remunerative—and perhaps, for some, more entertaining—if we turned our literary attentions from such subjects as appear in this month’s “Private Preview 2013” (see page 77) to the members of our audience themselves. This formula certainly proved lucrative for […]

In 1755, when Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, third Duke of Richelieu and marshal of France, was taken ill while in Guienne, a physician prescribed liberal doses of a certain red wine from Bordeaux. When Richelieu returned to Versailles, Louis XV remarked that he appeared to be at least 25 years younger than when he […]

In the lore of famous jewels, these objects of great price are invariably plucked by bandits from the eyes of idols. Such is the case with the 195-carat Black Orlov diamond, which reputedly served as ocular ornamentation for a likeness of the god Brahma. Yet a handful of history’s most alluring gems gained their notoriety […]

Dinner in the impeccably sober brownstones of Old New York, as the author Edith Wharton termed it, was a solemn affair. For these prosperous and proud Dutch and Anglo-Saxon families, the dinner party was a staple of their immutable and stately social routine. These gatherings of Knickerbockers commenced at five or six o’clock in the […]

No other metropolis enjoys Paris’s particular reputation as a center of style and culture. Yet the City of Light, which serves as the backdrop for this month’s fashion feature (see “Man About Town“), was not always so well lit, nor were its inhabitants always so enlightened. The French capital we know, after all, is in […]

If the gentlemen of Gilded Age Newport had as their toys of summer splendid yachts, the latest motorcars, and stables of Thoroughbreds, then their coddled wives had their court jesters—single young men with no occupation other than to relieve these pampered matrons’ ennui during the brief interludes between fêtes champêtres, teas, and balls. Of these […]

On the afternoon of November 26, 1922, a small group descended a flight of 16 steps that led below ground to a plain stone-and-plaster wall bearing a seal. One of the men pried a stone loose and inserted a candle inside. “At first I could see nothing,” he later recalled. “But presently, as my eyes […]

An unshakable desire to possess what divine providence or the dictates of overzealous lawmakers would deny us is a peculiarly American trait—one magnified to the point of frenzy by this nation’s curious social experiment, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In its efforts to suppress the seemingly unwholesome appetites of the general public, this legislation […]