LISA SWEETINGHAM

To understand the appeal of Mukul (+505.2563.7100, http://www.mukul​resort.com), Nicaragua’s first true luxury resort, one might consider the view from the 18th hole of its David McLay Kidd–designed golf course. A dozen sandy steps to the west lies one of the area’s best surf breaks. To the east, lush nature trails echo with the throaty cries […]

Lara Livingston was 22 years old when her father, a New York physician, passed away, leaving her in charge of his beloved La Sardinera, a 1,700-acre grapefruit-and-coconut plantation on three miles of palm-dotted coastline in northern Puerto Rico. It was 1925, and the young Livingston had already earned a reputation as an intrepid spirit, flying […]

Although best known as the Grammy Award–winning lead man of the Tijuana Brass, 77-year-old trumpeter Herb Alpert has a professional playlist that also includes songwriter (he cowrote “Wonderful World” with Sam Cooke and Lou Adler), record-label founder (he is the A in A&M Records), painter and sculptor (his latest works include 18-foot-tall bronze totems), Broadway-theater […]

Chef Eric Ripert’s temple to all that is piscine, Le Bernardin (212.554.1515, http://www.le-bernardin.com) has been at the top of Manhattan’s food chain since it opened in 1986. But while Ripert has continually and subtly updated the classic French menu, Le Bernardin’s dining room remained frozen in the past. Last fall, that finally changed: The restaurant […]

Los Angeles’s iconic Hotel Bel-Air—a woodsy, storybook getaway complete with resident swans—has been the preferred city retreat of Hollywood royalty for 65 years. Now, after completing a two-year, $100 million renovation, the famed hotel has a retreat of its own: the Hotel Bel-Air Spa by La Prairie (310.909.1681, http://www.hotelbelair.com). Opened in October, the 4,100-square-foot, Alexandra […]

Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North, Scottsdale, Ariz. The hike through cactus fields and balanced-rock formations to the top of Pinnacle Peak is a must for every guest at the adjacent Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North. Equally essential is a round on the nearby Pinnacle Course, one of two Tom Weiskopf designs at […]

Last february, while sailing off the coast of Oman, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., were taken hostage by pirates. The couple’s 58-foot yacht, on which they had been navigating the world since 2004, was soon tracked down by four U.S. warships, but the Adams were shot to death by their captors […]

The GIFT The famed Sol de Oriente estate at Mexico’s Costa Careyes resort. $18 million In 1968, Italian real estate developer Gian Franco Brignone fell in love with the lush jungles, vast sandy beaches, and agreeable year-round climate of Mexico’s Costa Alegre. After a single visit to the region—a nearly 175-mile stretch between Puerto Vallarta […]

ESPN analyst and former major-league ballplayer John Kruk once dubbed Dennis Gilbert’s house “Cooperstown West.” Indeed, hundreds, perhaps thousands—Gilbert has lost count—of photos, jerseys, bats, balls, and other baseball mementos fill the Los Angeles–area estate where the legendary sports agent lives with his wife of 33 years, Cindi. Dennis played in the minor leagues from […]

On a spring evening in 1951, my maternal grandmother, Margot Zündorf, a blonde, blue-eyed 21-year-old German immigrant, was shot to death outside her home in Atwater Village, Calif. The gunman was her 28-year-old husband and my grandfather, William Valenzuela. Moments later, William turned the weapon on himself. My grandparents met when William was a soldier […]