VillaHotel Natasha

Villazzo VillaHotels is one component of Villazzo, the boutique villa company well-known in the US and Europe, partly because it is one of the most expensive, and luxurious, and also because it is modeled on a unique hybrid, combining the boutique hotel and villa models into one. The Villazzo VillaHotel serves celebrities and their entourages, diplomats and their families and extended families, and the like. According to President and CEO Christian Jagodzinski, those who also use Villazzo VillaHotel services are large families, or smaller families who plan multi-family reunions.

The Villazzo VillaHotel are large villas, with multiple bedrooms, ususally also with game rooms, workout facilities, pools, home theatre rooms, with boutique hotel staffs to serve the needs of each Villa guest. The VillaHotel staff includes a resort manager, personal butler, a bellboy, chefs and servers, bartenders, child care specialists and masseuses. None of the staff actually sleeps at the property; so guests have complete privacy.

Two years ago, I stayed at one of the smaller Villazzo VillaHotels in Florida and found it an exceptional experience. The food prepared by the chef was great, the peace of the villas was outstanding, and the limo driver was always ready to take me wherever I needed to go. It was on par and often above the best destination clubs and private residences clubs I have ever sampled.

Miami and Saint Tropez, are two high end destinations where Villazzo VillaHotels can be experienced, and recently Aspen, Colorado has been added to the list. Last month, Villazzo opened three new Villazzo VillaHotels, as well as an office to serve clients and their needs in a personal, high-touch way. There are three new VillaHotels, listed below. More images of the three VillaHotels are on page two of this post.

The first is VillaHotel Natasha, pictured above.

Located just 10 minutes from Aspen, the 11,000 square foot VillaHotel Natasha offers a private luxury ski resort, in a mountain contemporary style. It is a 5 bedroom, 8 bathroom lodge-inspired Aspen luxury villa, featuring a large heated deck on the second level accessible to all of the bedrooms and looks out onto the 4.5 acres of private land. Inside, VillaHotel Natasha offers large living and dining areas with vaulted ceilings, roaring fireplaces, and panoramic windows, as well as a home theatre, billiard room, gourmet kitchen and wine cellar. There is also a heated indoor pool and elevator to all floors. VillaHotel Natasha sleeps 12. Pricing ranges from $10,200 to $19,700 per night, depending on season.

Great design is intelligence made visible, but great travel design must take this idea to the next level -- it can't just look pretty, it has to combine functionality, strength, and ease of use. Those of us who travel do NOT have time for things that don't work, aren't strong, and don't make our lives easier while on the road.

For seven years, the Travel + Leisure Design Awards have rewarded companies, products, hotels, innovators, and innovations of every type with recognition and gratitude in making the travelers lives better and their travel expereience more memorable. In addition, an overall Design Champion is named.

"The 2011 Design Awards underscore and celebrate the significant impact that good design has on travel," said Nancy Novogrod, Editor-In Chief of Travel + Leisure. "Our judges are not T+L Editors. The jurors look for exceptional function, unqiue statement and inventive reinterpretation."

The panel of jurors include:

David Childs, chairman emeritus, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill
Paulette Cole, CEO and creative director, ABC Carpet & Home
Fred Dust, partner, IDEO
Norma Kamali, fashion designer
Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group
Nadja Swarovski, creative director, Swarovski Crystal
Henry Urbach, curator of architecture and design, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
T+L's Consulting Design Editor Chee Pearlman was the jury moderator.

Winners of these seventh annual awards represent the best new examples of design in a range of categories from hotels and transportation to luggage and travel fashion. They will be honored at the New World Center in Miami on February 23rd.

Below is a list of the Travel + Leisure Design Award winners:

Best Large Hotel: The Yas Hotel (see above) in Abu Dhabi,UAE, is set half on land and half on water, overlooking the Yas Marina & Yacht Club and positioned on the Yas Marina Circuit, which plays host to the annual Formula 1™ Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Certain people viewing at this image, and the ones on the next page would find them to be definitions of dreams as yet unrealized -- finally getting away from it all in an ultimate mental and physical fitness challenge. And, for those people, Abercrombie & Kent has good news: five new extreme adventures have been launched last week.

Extreme Adventures is a very popular component of Abercrombie & Kent, and it is NOT for everybody. On their website, the verbiage defines the extreme adventurer:

Extreme Adventures are for the travelers ready to meet a different kind of challenge. No matter what goals we attain in our lives and careers, nature remains the ultimate benchmark of what we can achieve. An Extreme Adventure reveals exactly who you are, demanding the most of your physical, psychological and perhaps even spiritual selves.

Face the challenge of freezing temperatures, soaring altitudes, pounding G forces and barren deserts. Venture to places that test your ability to persevere; push your body to the limit in the harshest conditions and with the most demanding activities. Savor the rewards that only come from experiencing nature at its most extreme.

Since launching Extreme Adventures, Abercrombie & Kent has seen great interest from solo travelers, especially on personal challenge experiences like climbing Mount Olympus or crossing Iceland's glaciers. While many people travel solo because they don't have a partner who shares their idea of adventure – others simply prefer the freedom of leaving their everyday lives to embark on an adventure far, far away with an expert local guide. Adventure travel appears to be a good fit for solo travelers, as the adventure itself promotes a kind of camaraderie, based on encouragement in sharing a once in a lifetime experience.

"With one in four of our Extreme Adventures clients traveling solo, we've designed as many of our programs as possible to be solo-friendly, with a single-supplement of 15% or less," explains Abercrombie & Kent president Scott Wiseman. "We've discovered that this not only appeals to solo travelers, but also to groups traveling together who prefer the privacy of their own rooms or tents."

In addition, to help prepare for an Extreme Adventure, A&K recommends Fit for Trips, a service which provides customized fitness programs that simulate the same stresses and forces on the traveler's body that they will experience during the expedition. This prepares the body to handle the unique challenges of a specific itinerary for an ultimately more successful and rewarding experience.

Below are descriptions of the five new solo-friendly Extreme Adventures for 2011:

"I call it the opium experience," Stefano Pilati, Creative Director of Yves Saint Laurent, and of the Yves Saint Laurent's boutique retail space design. Opium is the name of the amber/reddish lacquer of the ceilings and wall panels. It is, serendipitously, also the name of the French brand's legendary perfume.

Las Vegas has two YSL Boutiques, but the one at City Center is the first to be designed in the Stefano Pilati style. Only two other YSL stores in the US feature this design at present. Historically, the store design was unveiled back in 2008 at the beginning of Paris Fashion Week. It was Pilati's hope that the design would become iconic enough to be recognizable without any logo.

"I wanted to do something that was timeless," Pilati said in an interview back then, " where the design had to go beyond my era at Saint Laurent: it had to be contemporary, with a strong, identfiable identity."

My colleague, Deidre Woollard, wrote in Luxist about opening of The St. Regis Lhasa Tibet in November, 2010. It is now receiving significant attention for its original architectural design that merges traditional Tibetan elements with signature St. Regis amenities into a luxury hotel literally on top of the world.

At 12,000 feet above sea level, it is one of the highest luxury hotels in the world, with unimpeded views of the Himalayas and Lhasa Valley. The resort was designed from the ground up with sustainable features including solar panels, locally-sourced produce and herbs for the resort's three signature restaurants, as well as an underground water recycling system.

The eight-acre-resort complex is inspired by the nearby world-famous Sera Monastery, built in 1419, a place of great architectural and spiritual significance to this region. The Sera Monastery developed over the centuries as a place of scholarly learning, and trained hundreds of scholars, many of whom have attained fame in the Buddhist nations. There are still nunneries and hermitages on the property, and is still home to famous Tibetan Monk debates about Buddhist sacred texts.

"The Sera Monastery is beautiful, dramatic and lively, and very much what I wanted to capture about Tibetan culture," said Jean-Michel Gathy, Principal Designer of Denniston International Architects, and the architect, interior and hardscape designer for the St. Regis Lhasa. "And, while the monastery is an immense place," he continues, " I appreciated how they have created many intimate spaces and courtyards. It was an excellent model for introducing the St Regis brand to this region."

Similar to the natural beauty of the surrounding Himalayas, the resort is surrounded on all sides by high pale gray walls made from stone, and landscaped with poplar and willow trees. The buildings have exteriors of stone with dark shale/tile pagoda-style roofs, an homage to the ancient Buddhist culture that surrounds the resort. There are three main complexes with buildings that house 150 guest rooms, 12 villas and suites, and a Presidential Suite. In addition, the resort features The Decanter Wine Bar and The Iridium Spa.

Millennials are defined as those born in the 1980s -- between 42 and 50 million (USA Today stats) who came of age with the new century, now between 18 and 28, and have also come of age truly wired, far more so than Boomers ( now reaching retirement age) or Gen Xers, ages 30-45. Millennials have grown up linked by BlackBerries, Androids, IPhones, computers, IPods, and video games. This is the generation of Wii, Facebook, Twitter, free downloads, access to just about everything. How do luxury brands engage these mindsets?

Thankfully, Augmented Reality, is proving to be a major force in this engagement. It is a process already in existence that combines two diverse dynamics: the perception of personal exclusivity and, a multi-dimensional, sensory experience. Augmented Reality, or AR, is a method for using a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input, like sound or graphics. It presents unique opportunities in terms of virtual fashion shows, digital flagship stores, 3D advertising campaigns, augmented reality Iphone applications, iPad magazines, Facebook live-streams and Twitter-based customer service. These are just a few examples of the long list of digital innovations that luxury brands have pioneered in 2010. And the field is growing. According to figures from ABI Research, the market for augmented reality (AR) in the US alone is expected to hit $350m in 2014, up from about $6m in 2008, or, around 50 times more from 2008 to 2014.

Augmented Reality is taking digital marketing strategies to a more sensory, immediate, attuned level -- perfect for Millenials, and others on either side of the generational divide. AR enables consumers to virtually try on jewelry, watches, clothing and handbags. The technology requires object recognition and computerization on the PCs, Macs or mobile devices as well as 3D renderings to superimpose images on the real world. What this process does is allow greater interactivity in the selling/buying process, creating an emotional connection between product needs and consumer desires. As a prime example, Tissot Reality: through its website Tissot lets users print and cut out a paper strip in order to try on virtual watches. Tissot showcased the application with an interactive Selfridges, London window display. This reportedly resulted in increasing in-store sales at Selfridges by 85%, while the YouTube views of the campaign have surpassed 70,000. See below, with the Tissot wrist watch AR video:

Next Great Place residences at Capella Pedregal, Cabo San Lucas

Tom Filippini has both a significant background and pedigree in the high end travel industry, and is a substantial traveler himself. Filippini has visited roughly 50 countries and nearly every state in the US. And, this passion led Filippini to become one of the co-founders of Exclusive Resorts, the world's largest destination club, where he served as Executive Vice President, generating over $750 million in new membership sales. Filippini and fellow Exclusive Resorts alum Erik Mitisek have since left their positions with ER, and have launched Next Great Place, an online travel planning company that streamlines the process of planning and booking unique, complex vacations.

The Next Great Place process begins with travelers submitting a vacation request, detailing information such as destination desired, number of guests, and budget. Next Great Place subsequently submits the request to a vetted group of vendors in the desired destinations. Over the next 48 hours, those suppliers create customized travel proposals that are returned to the traveler who chooses the proposal they like the most, locking in the proposed rates.

"Our vision is to improve the lives of travelers by facilitating their enjoyment of more frequent and better vacations with family and friends," Filippini told Luxist, "Our online travel network will match travelers seeking custom experiences to pre-screened travel suppliers, ultimately creating a more efficient and hassle-free way to plan unique vacations." Next Great Place will target family-oriented accommodations including condo-hotel residences and individual villas with each supplier vetted using the company's proprietary 300-point checklist to ensure the highest quality standards in every destination.

The video below shows the back story of exactly how a luxury residence meets the high, detail-oriented standards of Next Great Place. From thread counts to toilet seats, this video shows how exacting these people are!

Usually, even in dark economic times when sales volume for many fractional developments have dropped substantially, there are some steady projects that buck the trend. Last week, good news emerged from Calistoga Ranch, a high end Private Residence Club tucked away in a private canyon in Napa Valley, when it was announced that more sales were closed in 2010 than in the past two years combined. "The stats are great!," said Josh Dempsey, Director of Real Estate, " the purchase price is $475K for a 1/10 interest, our sales volume in 2010 was15 sales at $475K each, equaling $7,125,000 sales total. This is a wonderful sign for Calistoga Ranch, and also for the Private Residence Club industry in general."

I have written about Calistoga Ranch in Luxist early last year, and had noted then its unusual qualities of sanctuary. Some qualities are aesthetic, some practical, but all have to do with the sense of peace derived from being there. I traveled there two years ago, at my own expense, because I had written about Calistoga Ranch before, and wanted to experience the wooded environment, the modular architecture, the Wine Cave, and the Spa -- famous for its mud baths, thermal waters, and peace. And indeed, there were attributes about Calistoga Ranch that I have found nowhere else, so it does not seem surprising that the sales improved, as the economy improved. From my writings about luxury trends in Luxist, high end buyers are attracted by unique properties in elite locations, whose land holds value no matter how the economy turns.

Located in a private canyon on 157 acres just outside the town of Calistoga in Napa Valley, Calistoga Ranch encompasses 48 guest lodges and 23 owner lodges offering overnight accommodations, spa services, and the Lakehouse Restaurant on Lake Lommel. It also features an on-site vineyard and mountain wine cave, where owners and guests can share in the process of winemaking and immerse themselves in the wine culture, so prevalent in the area.

Each guest lodge feels like it is its own camp, modular in design, made from clusters of spaces centering around an outdoor living area and fireplace, just like a campsite. In addition, there are many 100 year old Heritage Oak trees integrated into the terraces and porches of the Lodges, as they are built around the trees. The architect, Scott Lee, designed and placed the over 200 living structures -- the residences, lodges, and other buildings, at Calistoga Ranch -- around the trees so as not to disturb the eco-system already in place..

I have been following this renovation process of the Hamilton Grand (see above) for over a year now, and have written articles for Luxist on the process and progress of this unique renovation project.

Just yesterday more news: Kohler Co. announced the official development plans for Hamilton Grand, one of golf's most historic buildings. Located adjacent to the 255 year old Royal & Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews, Scotland, Hamilton Grand overlooks the 18th Green of the Old Course, The West Sands Beach and the Bay of St. Andrews. When finished, Hamilton Grand will become the fourth historic property restored and renovated by Kohler Co.

Last year, Kohler Co., through its subsidiary, The Old Course Limited, purchased Hamilton Grand, In conjunction with the Kingdom of Fife, the county where St. Andrews is located. Kohler Co. then held a two-day public consultation, where it welcomed St. Andrews citizens to learn more about the plans and to provide feedback for restoring the building. The meetings were met with significant interest and support, providing meaningful discourse between developer and community.
Together, new plans were conceptualized and created.

Looking for a unique gift for the holidays or an early purchase for Valentine's Day 2011? Look no further than Shanghai Tang, the luxury Chinese which is offering pocket-sized, pump-action refillable atomizers in coordinating leather pouches for men and women.

Shanghai Tang collaborated with Travalo, the innovative producer of pocket-sized, pump-action refillable atomizers, to create one with a patented PumpFill valve that refills in seconds. The atomizer, which provides up to 50 sprays, can be refilled in seconds from any pump-spray fragrance bottle. The pressure regulator within ensures no leaks making it extremely convenient to carry in your handbag or pocket. Each Shanghai Tang Travalo set includes two capsule
atomizers, encased in a skillfully embossed leather pouch elegant enough for all occasions.

The Shanghai Tang Dragon Travalo Set for men (seen above) comes with a black leather case embossed with a dragon---a traditional symbol of power, strength and good luck. A dragon is also engraved on the black and gun-metal capsule atomizers which are filled with Shanghai Tang's signature Mandarin Tea fragrance for him.

Jamee Gregory's newly released book, New York Parties: Private Views (Rizzoli New York, 2010) takes the reader on a spectacular journey to affairs hosted by the entertaining expert's closest friends, which include some of New York's leading arbiters of style from the worlds of fashion, design, food, society and philanthropy. The 208-page book is filled with 300 spectacular color photographs taken by Eric Striffler and ably provides a wealth of information for anyone wanting to host their own glamorous affair.

"I've been very lucky in New York to have such terrific and interesting friends," the elegant and statuesque Gregory told Luxist at the book party thrown in her honor by Jay McLaughlin at his J. McLaughlin boutique on Madison Avenue in New York on December 8. "It seemed to me that they put so much of themselves into the entertaining, that every party was like a theatrical performance and they were the producer."

Anyone who was fortunate enough to spend twenty minutes relaxing in the modernistic sleeping capsule in Veuve Clicquot's "Once Upon a Dream" exhibit at DesignMiami this past week, was probably not the same afterward. Indeed, the innovative sleep capsule was created by famed designer Mathieu Lehanneur who studied the research of noted sleep specialists in order to design a space that evokes resynchronization through touch, sight, smell and sound.

The Once Upon a Dream sleep capsule was commissioned by the renowned champagne house (the Luxist Awards' Readers Choice Winner for Best Champagne) in anticipation of the upcoming re-opening of the Hôtel du Marc in Reims, France. Hôtel du Marc (see image below) is the private mansion where Veuve Clicquot hosts as many as 3,000 overnight guests who travel from around the world to visit its headquarters where it makes its famous champagne.

Not only is the one-of-a-kind sleep capsule striking in design, but it also serves a higher purpose: for every twenty minutes spent sleeping inside it, one hour of jet lag is erased. If one hour is spent inside the capsule, the side effects related to three hours of jet lag disappear.

Well, Happy Holidays! It could be me or you or a deserving friend, walking along that beach, looking toward one of the Quintess Villas at La Samanna, built on that cliff. The family would be either outside, sailing or swimming, or inside, relaxing, or fixing dinner, or lunch or breakfast. This is just one part of a Quintess vacation that turns memory to legacy.

I have written about Quintess, Leading Residences Of The World (LRW) before on Luxist: once about the mission and vision behind this high end Destination Club, others about it's inclusion of The Tour Club and DUO by Quintess, two other clubs that have been created under Quintess aegis, this year.

Quintess,LRW is one of two ultra high end. non-equity destination clubs in existence, and, according to Ben Addoms, Founding Member and CMO, it has been a good year. October was the best sales month in over two years, and Christmas is coming! "There are over 600 members now in Quintess, LRW, The Tour Club and the newest, DUO by Quintess. Not surprisingly, in the last quarter of the year, we receive requests for memberships to be used as holiday gifts, for family members, and business associates.. The Quintess LRW, and DUO by Quintess memberships are holiday gifts that keeps on giving, certainly."

Those gifts that keep on giving are usually not cheap, and a membership in Quintess certainly isn't. From 10 to 60 days of vacation, pricing levels range from $140,000 to $525,000 membership deposit, (but 75% is returned at resignation.) But, as with those gifts also, the members receives a type of travel that becomes needed, and unforgettable.

• The choice of any home and destination in the complete portfolio of over 80 luxury homes,on average priced at 4M in 40+ destinations around the world.
• Travel with comprehensive travel planning with on-site Destination Hosts and a personal member relations manager who gets to know you and your family's travel needs.
• Extended family use that allows the member to send the entire family, plus their friends, on their own club vacations, because of the ability to reserve and use 2 residences in the same destination.

Our friends at AOL Small Business are reporting that Sir Richard Branson has applied his well-known ingenuity to the publishing world. Yesterday, Branson launched Project, the world's first digital magazine of its kind designed exclusively for Apple's iPad (watch a video interview with Branson here).

Branson, the founder and chairman of Virgin Group and a member of the AOL Small Business Board of Directors, officially introduced Project at New York's Crosby Street Hotel.

2010 has been a big year for Cisco, a major supplier of voice and unified communications systems for business, Cisco recently introduced Cisco ūmi ( pronouced you-me) Telepresence, a consumer product now available to demo and purchase in all BestBuy/ Magnolia Home Theater stores across the country.

For those of us who have used various other video chat formats to keep in contact with our families, we know the problems involved. Sometimes the connection is lost, or family members have odd coloration, or sometimes they are deeply blurred. These things cause enormous frustration, instead of happiness at seeing and communicating with children and grandchildren who live far away.

But Cisco ūmi Telepresence is the first product of its kind that helps with these problems, as it connects to an existing HD television and a broadband internet connection, to create a virtual, high touch-immersive video experience. Telepresence umi is the consumer component of a network of business collaboration techonolgies Cisco has introduced throughout 2009-2010. Their Telepresence for business has been enormously successful, as it enhances all aspects of high definition business video conferencing. It was an understandable next step, then, for Cisco to create a more intimate kind of video conferencing and human interaction: no CEOs or CFOs, but rather with families, children, and grandchildren. A similar technology, a different demographic.

The Cisco ūmi Telepresence system includes an HD camera, a console and a remote, and can automatically adjust to lighting conditions and room sizes. Once Cisco ūmi is connected to an HD television and a wired or wireless broadband connection, a remote control provides access to an on-screen user interface, through which users can make ūmi calls, access video messages, manage contacts, and customize their profile and settings. Users can also record their own ūmi videos, which they can share on Facebook™, on YouTube™, or via email. Users can even keep in touch with people who don't have ūmi by placing and receiving video calls from any computer with a webcam and Google video chat.

"Cisco is bringing people together, driving new video experiences that change the way we communicate, connect, and enjoy entertainment – in the home, at work, and on the go," said John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco. "Cisco ūmi will bring the unique Telepresence experience into living rooms and change the way we are able to be together with family and friends. We envision a future where technologies like this will play a role in connecting consumers with businesses to enable the delivery of new services, ranging from education, to health care, to financial services – to the home."