There are two things he likes best: to travel and to be pampered. Travel journalist Ivo Weyel knows better than anyone else where to book a suite. MASTERS takes you to places where adventure, comfort and history come together.Text: Ivo Weyel
Online editors: Noa Verseveldt
Adventure is something from when you were young. Backpack, two pairs of underpants (alternately), peeled-off guidebook (albeit without an outlined itinerary), budgeted train ticket and even more budgeted budget and then just see where the wind blows you. And then you get older. And richer. And more spoiled. Then adventures become less and less adventurous, because comfort has crept into your life, and comfort is the death of any adventure. Sleeping on the beach under the bare sky is suddenly no longer an option, backpacks have become too heavy (and too small for what you need, because alternate underpants are out of the question) and not knowing your destination is no longer in your vocabulary. And then you get older and the midlife crisis creeps in and you still want to go on another adventure, one more time, just to see if you haven't lost your touch and to prove that you are still fit as a fiddle. So then you go camping in Antarctica, the South Pole, yes, in a tent, just like then, far from civilization, just you and the barren outside world full of ice and cold and hardship. The word deprivation alone is all you long for, far away from the underfloor heating in your bathroom, your Porsche, your business, your ever-flowing iPhones (plural). Enter the savvy travel companies that cater to your target market. Who have realized that your target market is not only nature-oriented adventurous again (or pretending to be), but also rich. White Desert is one such smart company that will fly you to a tent in the South Pole for a week for a negligible $53,000 per person. Excluding sleeping mask, an essential accessory because it stays light 24 hours there and the tent is semi-translucent (tip: on sale at Ritzparisboutique.com, in cashmere, for 580 euros). The gin and tonic served as an aperitif in the dining tent is cooled by 10,000-year-old ice, and the sleeping tents have heating and running water. That $53,000 is an entry-level price, by the way, for the least luxurious adventure. For $250,000 p.p., you'll be in the real deal, landing in a private jet from Cape Town on the Antarctic ice plain and there you can hike and crawl through ice tunnels and abseil off ice cliffs and cruise around on spiked bikes and windsurf and bond with penguins or just read a book in front of your tent with some ten-thousand-year-old gin and tonic in hand. In case you are a little less successful in life and all this falls hors budget (loser!), for 17,500 euros you can go a little closer, in Scotland, where from April 25 to 29 you can compete in the Highland Kings Race, a race through the Highlands with overnight stays in unheated (well, logical, right, for that price?) tents, but again with meals prepared by a Michelin award-winning chef and daily calf massages. Don't think the target market for this kind of luxurious adventure is small: a similar Rat Race Run Britannia from West Cornwall to North Scotland is already full for the next few years. There won't be room until 2024.
Great new book out about London's renowned Savoy Hotel, The secret life of the Savoy by Olivia Williams. Indeed, the history of this hotel is quite extraordinary, once built as an annex for the theater that its founder built (so theater-goers could stay overnight at a time when road traffic and public transportation were arduous), it grew into a luxurious stopping place for the rich and famous. Exciting things happened during the war (notably by Churchill), quite a few celebrities died, and the daughter who inherited the hotel from her father had no use for it at first but manifested herself as a frantic operator and entrepreneur, and when she died she was one of the richest women in England. The hotel's short driveway is the only stretch of street in the entire country to be driven on the right (because otherwise cars wouldn't come out exactly in front of the entrance), a right for which the founder sought (and received) special dispensation from the Crown. What is also special is that founder Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844- 1901) was at the cradle, in the theater field, of such famous names as Gilbert and Sullivan, Laurence Olivier, Noël Coward, in short, the fine fleur. George Gershwin debuted there with his famous Rhapsody in Blue and Monet stayed there for months and painted dozens of paintings. It is now owned by an Arab prince, who spent three years totally remodeling it into what it is today. Completely new is the Royal Suite, yours for 17,500 euros a night, a vehicle decorated by Gucci, which is very appropriate since founder Guccio Gucci worked as a luggage carrier at the Savoy around 1890 and then saw that rich folks had shabby suitcases and so got the idea to start producing his own chic suitcases. Anyone who goes to stay there must be a huge friend of the brand, because you can't find a pillow, candle, slipper, bathrobe, towel, plate or wine glass without the Gucci label. All (and there are many) televisions are programmed to Gucci fashion shows upon entry and in the bathroom, of course, purely Gucci items. Butler and use of the house Roll- Royce are included in the price, by the way. Breakfast is not.
Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the south of France is already not badly endowed with art (Galerie Maeght has been world-famous for decades, not to mention restaurant La Colombe d'Or), but now there is a new local player, a Belgian indeed, Hubert Bonnet, collector of art, houses and design. He collects it all so fanatically that he can't put it all away in his homes (just counting: Dominican Republic, Panarea, Verbier, Geneva, Knokke, London, so that's seven with his Brussels home), not even in his first private museum, his Fondation CAB in Brussels (since 2012). So then a second CAB opened in said artists' village in southern France just a yawn (as the Belgians say so nicely as the equivalent of our stone's throw) from Galerie Maeght. Bonnet's money comes from the family business he grew up with, steel giant Forges de Clabecq (sounds much nicer that Tata Ijmuiden, doesn't it?). He spends that generously. That his two CABs will never become profitable he takes for granted. Tant pis. The art he collects is mainly modern, minimalist and conceptual (Judd, LeWitt, Flavin, Kuri et al.) and they just need space, hence the houses (Bonnet deals in multiples) on the grounds. You can also spend the night there, as there are four "hotel rooms," starting at a mere 250 euros. Straightforwardly spectacular is the Demountable House by the famous designer/architect Jean Prouvé from 1944 that stands here and can also be stayed in for 750 euros. All the furniture is by Prouvé as well, so you're staying in a real work of gesamtkunstwerk. Also check out his own house site Bibihome.net. On there are all his private homes, some more beautiful than others, not only from the standpoint of peeking in on the neighbors, but you can go there, because Bonnet does spend money like water, he also wants to earn something back so they are all available for rent for a vacation or whatever. And the nice thing about Bonnet is that he has taste. At least hardly any furniture without a proper name (Mies van der Rohe, Prouvé, Le Corbusier, Bauhaus, etc.). Staff can be booked in on demand.Photography Fondation CAB - Antoine LippensOrder the new MASTERS MAGAZINE now!
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