Muscle from Modena

His trip to space is the basis of his book, Gaia.

In his 1978 top-40 hit “Life’s Been Good,” Joe Walsh sang about his Maserati doing 185 mph (and about losing his license as a result of driving that fast). The boast was as dubious as the rock star’s run for president two years later. No road-going Maserati of that era could achieve such a speed. […]

Tales of the search for those raw materials that make possible the objects of beauty included in this month’s jewelry features (see “Brilliant Mines,” page 162, and “Forever Elizabeth,” page 177) are every bit as beguiling as the ornaments themselves. The intrepid souls who first set out to amass their fortunes in the diamond fields […]

“It is inconceivable that a man with my professional background and experience would not jump into it,” says Hublot technical director Mathias Buttet. “He would be crazy not to fall in love with it.” Buttet—who for years ran one of the watch industry’s leading complication specialty shops, BNB Concept—refers to his own inspiration to produce […]

Alex Wilcox is no stranger to innovation. He was the first JetBlue employee, in 1999, before moving to Mumbai to launch Kingfisher Airlines, which has become one of the largest operators in India. Each of those companies secured a sizable portion of its market, he says, by offering a better flight experience at a lower […]

Photography by Lisa Charles Watson. Styling by Charles W. Bumgardner. The lore may twist back through centuries, but the allure of colored gemstones is simply immediate and irresistible. From tempting pink spinel to lusciously green tsavorite, an especially rich cache of rare gems has turned up in remote mines around the world, inspiring some of […]

Photography by Benjamin Benschneider The serene retreat of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bill Nguyen and his family sits discreetly above Maui’s Honolua Bay, a spot renowned for epic surfing and the eerily titled Slaughterhouse Beach (named for an abattoir that once sat onshore). Completed in 2009 as three separate pavilions by Tom Kundig, co-owner of Seattle-based […]

Véronique Drouhin knew she had discovered a special place when, in July 1987, she first crested the remote Oregon hillside that would become home to one of the most respected vineyards in the New World. Dropping gently away to the southeast, the idyllic slope before her offered breathtaking views across the Willamette Valley toward the […]

Across the Douro River from the medieval heart of Porto, the Vila Nova de Gaia neighborhood houses a dozen warehouse-like port lodges along the waterfront. Installed during the 1700s, the lodges have for centuries stored aging barrels of port wine made from grapes grown upriver in Portugal’s Douro Valley. Patios beckon passersby to come in […]

Carnivorous plants, Disney cartoons, hallucinogenic drugs—the inspirations behind Victoire de Castellane’s jewelry designs are about as unconventional as it gets. But for more than a decade as the creative director of Dior Fine Jewelry, de Castellane has won acclaim for the French fashion house with mind-blowing combinations of major gems, vivid colors, and visionary, if […]

Valmont consultant agnès teffaud stares intently at what appear to be aerial photographs of a barren desert landscape. Studying the dry cracks and fissures running this way and that among dunes and craters, she comments intermittently: “Not so bad,” “Needs some work there,” “Quite dull indeed.” Teffaud’s remarks refer not to satellite images of Afghanistan, […]

Paris has waited a long time for Thierry Marx. For 10 years he ran the kitchen at Château Cordeillan-Bages in Gironde, where he made a name for himself as one of France’s most progressive chefs. Yet with two Michelin stars and daring dishes like risotto made of soy sprouts, he always seemed a little too […]

While summering in London in 1992, 19-year-old Francis Sultana paid a visit to David Gill’s furniture gallery in South Kensington. Sultana was familiar with Gill’s limited-edition contemporary furnishings and engaged the gallery owner in a conversation about the design world’s masters. Gill was sufficiently impressed with the young man’s knowledge of luminaries such as Emilio […]

An unadorned hog seems to scream for a few trinkets, and many Harley-Davidson customers respond by spending thousands of extra dollars to add meaner engine components, louder pipes, and chrome accessories to their new bikes. For owners who want their machines to stand out from the rest but are not inclined to à la carte […]

Good news for America’s children and vertically challenged who are going to ride shotgun in the Pagani Huayra: You will be able to do so without fearing harm from the car’s passenger-side airbag. But while Pagani tests a child-safe airbag for its $1.2 million, 700 hp supercar, the handful of U.S. drivers planning to become […]

It has been said that you do not need a wristwatch in the modern age—unless you need to know what time it is somewhere else. Our present society’s need for continual intercontinental travel—one of the many burdens of globalization—sets us apart from previous generations in that we seldom have the luxury of focusing solely on […]

At Musha Cay and the Islands of Copperfield Bay—700 acres spread across 11 private Bahamian islands that illusionist David Copperfield acquired in 2006—guests choose their adventure. With 40 beaches, a host of watercraft, and a specially trained staff that can pull off everything from the mundane to the unimaginable, this one-of-a-kind property offers plenty of […]

During construction at Song Saa Private Island, Melita Hunter sent fishing boats on daily excursions through the Gulf of Thailand to gather branches, warped tree trunks, and remains of painted longtail fishing boats. Hunter, a talented organic-sculpture artist who owns Song Saa with her husband, Rory, then placed the found items discreetly throughout the island’s […]

If private islands have a downside, it is that they are at times too private—cut off from the communities and cultures that make most destinations worth visiting. Not so at Dolphin Island, a 13-acre Fijian hideaway that is blissfully secluded yet never feels far removed from Fiji. Set just offshore from a forested peninsula on […]

At some point in the 16th century,piratesweary from pillaging and plundering took a break on Frégate Island, a 740-acre haven some 1,000 miles off the east coast of Africa. The island’s remote location, dense jungles, and pristine waters made for an ideal hideaway for the bandits, who claimed Frégate as their own. Stories of buried […]

Villa La Cassinella is technically not a private island. In fact, the 18th-century estate is not even on an island—it is perched on a secluded peninsula in Italy’s Lake Como. But this gloriously restored landmark, which can only be accessed by boat, offers all the comforts, cachet, and exclusivity of the world’s finest private-island resorts—if […]

Even at its 50-guest capacity, Calivigny Island never lacks for living space. The 80-acre island just south of Grenada was purchased in 2000 by a French businessman and his wife, who subsequently built a sprawling residential compound complete with a 10-bedroom, 107,600-square-foot main house. The couple added on to a second mansion, the nine-bedroom Overhang […]

The escort swipes his security card past the magnet, and the door opens. Then a second secured door, and a third. At last, we arrive in a small salon in the inner sanctum of Christie’s New York, where more security personnel is standing guard. Inside, 20 of Elizabeth Taylor’s most prized personal jewels are casually […]

Photography by David Roemer. Styling by Christopher Campbell. Formal attire once meant strictly black tailcoats—no exceptions—until one memorable evening in October 1886, when a few rebels attending a social event at the haughty Tuxedo Park country club caused quite a sensation by arriving in shortened black coats. This jacket without tails was christened the tuxedo, […]

Kaleidescape, a leading producer of home movie servers and playback systems, has devised a component that eliminates inconveniences associated with Blu-ray Disc viewing while also addressing movie-industry concerns about illegal content sharing. The M700 Disc Vault, which dealers began offering this summer, copies the contents of Blu-ray Discs to a Kaleidescape server, enabling any player […]

Oliver Cromwell may have famously instructed artists to depict him “warts and all,” but he had nothing to worry about when Samuel Cooper painted his portrait. Cooper ranked among the greatest painters of miniature portraits in 17th-century Britain, and his unfinished oval of Cromwell measures a mere 33/16 inches tall, leaving little chance of finding […]

A final set of admonishments prompted the expected groans of displeasure as we prepared to drive Lamborghini’s latest and maybe last versions of the Gallardo on the track at New York’s Monticello Motor Club. “There is no passing. This is not a race. There is no winner,” Lamborghini test-driver Richard Antinucci told us. “And the […]

It is an hour before midnight, and a large crescent moon has risen above San Miguel de Allende. The clangs of a church bell mark the hour, but silence soon returns to the Mexican city’s historic core. Suddenly, the whinnies and snorts of horses and the clippity-clop of hooves slapping against cobblestone streets signal the […]

Rich, extracted, full of fresh acidity, and rife with wild-honey, spice, and ginger notes, the Raats Family 2009 Chenin Blanc is powerful, elegant, and uniquely South African. Part of what makes Raats Chenin Blanc such a seducer is the lushness of grapes from 50- and 60-year-old untrellised bush vines, which produce lower yields and more […]

Joseph Kurstin’s first netsuke was inexpensive and unattractive. But after five decades, the piece is still part of his collection, which now numbers some 800 examples of the Japanese art form. The Miami ophthalmologist’s cache also includes a 3.25-inch-tall ivory horse that holds the world-record auction price for netsuke of £154,000 (about $300,000 at the […]