High-Flying Style

Landmarks are uncommon in the ever-changing landscape of Beverly Hills, but on Crescent Drive, one can discover such a rarity: a pair of elegant Georgian-style brick buildings that share a spacious courtyard featuring an Italianate bronze and terra-cotta fountain. Undisturbed by the surrounding hubbub of real estate development, the graceful columned structures, which are painted cream […]

Joyce Romanoff, wife of Chicago-based textile artist Maya Romanoff and president of his interior furnishings company, describes her 64-year-old husband as a visionary who will go to great lengths to perfect his craft of transforming wood, vinyl, kimono fabrics, and other matter into what he calls “texturally rich surfacing materials” and what others might describe […]

Not far outside the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the south of France, on a rise overlooking a field of sunflowers, stands the Mas de Baraquet. It is the kind of place the French do well, a country manor more understated than grandiose. Its limestone facade, with its simple elegance, bespeaks an ancient patrimony rather than overt […]

Robb Report seldom covers work-related issues, concentrating instead on intriguing ways to enjoy the fruits of labor rather than on the means of harvesting and increasing the yield. When we have ventured into the workplace, we have steered clear of the traditional office space.   In this issue, “Platinum Is Golden” showcases a Beverly Hills, Calif., office […]

“The French understand how to live much better than we do.” This pronouncement issued from an acquaintance who, recently and literally, basked in the practical benefits of that superior knowledge, comfortably situated as we were on one of the well-coved beaches of Cap d’Antibes, sipping chilled rosé. Under these circumstances, my friend’s observation seemed a […]

As early as may, shade becomes a precious commodity on the humid streets of Savannah, Ga. After several hours walking the city’s historic district, taking refuge in the shadows of antebellum buildings and moss-draped oaks, I stepped into a riverfront hat shop to purchase permanent protection from the sun. “And where are you staying during […]

Richard Richardson, a 52-year-old Lee Marvin look-alike, sits in the fighting chair, barefoot and bare-chested, eyes on the Sea of Cortés. Alongside him at the back of the 80-foot yacht Tatu, four pole-and-downrigger setups troll tunas the size of footballs through the choppy ocean. Two of Richardson’s three yacht mates, who together form a team […]

U.S. Navy Pilots patrolling the coast from Alaska to Baja during World War II reported sightings of large game fish springing from the waters near land’s end. After the war, some of the pilots settled at the tip of the Baja Peninsula, building a handful of simple fishing lodges and convincing their friends to fly down […]

Gesturing toward the silver pitcher on the table in front of him, Angelo Gaja asks if it contains water. When told that it does, he expresses his relief that it is not wine and pours a glass for his guest and himself. It is an ironic introduction to one of Italy’s most influential and celebrated wine […]

When the wine and spirits giant now known as Diageo first launched its Classic Malts Selection line of single-malt Scotch whiskies in America in 1989, those six exemplary new drams (Glenkinchie 10-, Dalwhinnie 15-, Cragganmore 12-, Lagavulin 16-, Talisker 10-, and Oban 14-Year-Olds) more than doubled the number of extraordinary malts available at the time. […]

For David Haddad, founder and CEO of Phoenix-based Fumar Cigars, nothing captures the spirit of Miami Beach like smoking a preembargo Francisco Farach on the veranda of the Hotel Victor. The South Beach hotel, which dates to 1937, reopened in February after being transformed by Parisian designer Jacques Garcia. The Victor now includes 91 rooms […]

Judged solely on his youthful appearance and alliterative name, Valentino Valentini seems as though he should be waiting tables in a Los Angeles trattoria while awaiting his big break. Instead, the 31-year-old is serving his second term as mayor of Montefalco, an Umbrian village that dates to the height of the Roman Empire and now […]

Thoughts of sharks, rocks, and the crushing weight of water all cross my mind as I stand within the outline of a surfboard that has been drawn in the sand, listening to Ty, the blonde surfing goddess. She is explaining to me and four other novices how we should center ourselves on our boards to […]

Aboard caravels built in the shipyards of the Algarve, Portuguese explorers sailed faster and farther than their European competitors in the race to conquer new worlds. Five centuries later, megayachts occupy the region’s modern marinas, and most international competitions are confined to the area’s golf courses. One such event, the World Golf Championships World Cup, […]

To prepare for the fashion shoot that would become “High-Fashion Fliers”, Los Angeles–based photographer Susan Anderson went to the movies. To be more precise, she visited the library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. “The question was how to create a series of images that wasn’t just models posing […]

The sea-green gemstone sat in Gerd Dreher’s Idar-Oberstein, Germany, workshop for three years while the sculptor, who specializes in creating animal forms from such stones, pondered what to carve from it. The rare specimen of Ukrainian heliodor posed artistic limitations because of its odd size: The top surface of the 5-inch-tall, octagon-shaped stone measured 4 […]

The long list of luxuries that are absent in Fidel Castro’s Cuba naturally includes fine mechanical timepieces. But before the 1959 revolution, Havana jeweler Cuervo y Sobrinos (Cuervo and Nephews) catered to the wealthy tourists who visited Cuba to indulge in sophisticated Caribbean leisure. When Castro seized power, however, the Cuervo family hastily fled, abandoning […]

Jhane Barnes built a faithful following with her boldly colorful sportswear, but the New York designer has encountered difficulty establishing a foothold in the more conservative suit business. Barnes’ early attempts at suitmaking were hampered by inferior quality, somewhat gimmicky details, and her predilection for bright colors. “The suits were simply never as fashion-forward and […]

As the daughter of diamond dealer Sherman Shatz, Laura Munder had amassed a sizable collection of diamond jewelry over the years. Satiated with diamonds, the stylish blonde developed a taste for vibrant, exotic colored gemstones and ultimately created collections inspired by her Palm Beach surroundings. “When it comes to jewels, forget the rules and simply […]

“Give me the luxuries of lifeand I will willingly do without the necessities,” wrote Frank Lloyd Wright in his 1932 autobiography. Vernon Swaback, principal of the Scottsdale, Ariz., architectural firm Swaback Partners, says he has spent his career pursuing Wright’s credo. Through the design principles that he applied to Hangar One, a private air facility […]

They say it’s a man’s world, but lately one wonders. After breaking through corporate glass ceilings, a small but determined contingent of women have seized upon the objects of our connoisseurship, the last bastions of male exclusivity. For years now, they have been puffing away at fine cigars, sipping single-malt scotch, cellaring cases of grand […]

When Chanel commissioned an elaborately constructed art installation to mark this summer’s Paris premiere of Éléments Célestes—the latest additions to its high-jewelry Collection Privée—it was an unusual way to make the introduction, but it was not unprecedented for the jewelry house. This unconventional merging of art, diamonds, and fashion parallels the launch of Coco Chanel’s […]

In the one summer that Land Rover’s Range Rover Sport has been ambling among us, it has ascended promptly through that unusual—some say contradictory—portfolio of high-priced, high-performance, luxury sport-utility vehicles. In doing so, it has created consumer confusion centered on the $90,000 question of why one would pay that sum for a supercharged, 390 hp, […]

The wailing exhaust note of a Porsche V-10 engine is not a wake-up call option at most resorts. Nevertheless, that distinctive reveille echoes early one morning off the high walls of the Chateau LaFayette, a grand, Ritz Paris–style hotel at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Farmington, Pa. The bugler, in this case, is […]

For a few years in the early and mid-1970s, one Italian coachbuilder abandoned the voluptuous rounded forms for which Italian cars had become famous and enjoyed a brief affair with the wedge. Although this is not the easiest profile to apply to an automobile, Carrozzeria Bertone, before moving on to other design concepts, created four […]

Creating limited edition automobiles can be a risque business, for too often the collectible nature of such a car is a complete contrivance. Made too many coupes? Simply repaint the leftovers, add some stripes, apply wreaths around the badges, and present them as commemorating some momentous event.   Yet, whether mild fraud or harmless gambit, […]

The name of the latest launch from Riva, the Ego 68, might reflect the swagger in parent company the Ferretti Group, which, including its purchase five years ago of Riva, now owns nine distinctive brands of quality boats. That acquisition and those that preceded and followed it are part of company president Norberto Ferretti’s benevolent […]

Climb the stairs to the owner’s deck of an Airbus A380 converted by German private-jet completion specialist Lufthansa Technik, and you might encounter first a spacious bar and then a full-size galley before entering a gently curving corridor that leads past two ensuite guest bedrooms to the master suite. Here you could find an office, […]