Origins & Literary LegacyIn 1869, Villa Soleil was built by Hippolyte de Villemessant, founder of Le Figaro, as a haven for writers seeking peace and inspiration. By 1870, it opened, Napoleon III–style, as a retreat for figures like Jules Verne and Anatole France. By 1889, under Italian hotelier Antoine Sella, it became the Grand HôtelContinue reading “A History of Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc”
Category Archives: Aesthetics
Grey Gardens House Tour
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Grey Gardens documentary (released September 27, 1975), we return to one of America’s most mythologized houses — not in ruin, but in radiant renewal. Immortalized by Albert and David Maysles, the storied halls of Grey Gardens once echoed with the eccentric lives of Big and Little Edie Beale, relativesContinue reading “Grey Gardens House Tour”
Grey Gardens at 50: The Eccentric American Dream
Today marks fifty years since the premiere of Grey Gardens on September 27, 1975 — the Maysles brothers’ documentary that unveiled the eccentric, crumbling world of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little Edie.” Half a century later, the film remains as haunting and magnetic as ever: a portrait of decline and resilience that hasContinue reading “Grey Gardens at 50: The Eccentric American Dream”
Scott & Zelda: Legacy, Love, and the Geography of a Jazz Age
Few couples loom as mythically over the 20th century as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. They were beautiful, brilliant, and reckless — the gilded children of the Jazz Age, as dazzling as the parties they haunted, and as doomed as the decade they defined. To speak of them is to speak of literature, glamour, andContinue reading “Scott & Zelda: Legacy, Love, and the Geography of a Jazz Age”
Villa Borghese: Rome’s Most Cultivated Escape
There are few places in Rome where history, art, and nature fuse with such elegance as the Villa Borghese and its surrounding park. More than a green lung in the heart of the city, this is a cultivated landscape — a place where cardinals once entertained, where artists found inspiration, and where today, Romans andContinue reading “Villa Borghese: Rome’s Most Cultivated Escape”
Claudia Cardinale: A Life in Light and Shadow
Claudia Cardinale, indomitable star of Italian and European cinema, has died at the age of 87. Born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale in 1938 in La Goulette, Tunisia, to Sicilian immigrants, she rose from modest beginnings to become one of the defining faces of post-war film, grace and grit entwined. Her death marks the closing ofContinue reading “Claudia Cardinale: A Life in Light and Shadow”
Bridget Riley: The Discipline of Vision
As an art student in the UK in the 1990s, Bridget Riley stood as the grande dame of abstraction to me. She has now spent six decades bending perception into form — distilling line, color, and rhythm until they transcend into something more elemental: pure visual sensation. Born in 1931 in Norwood, London, Riley emergedContinue reading “Bridget Riley: The Discipline of Vision”
Monthly Pick: Pulp & Suede — Britpop Elders, Future Tense
Two 1990s powerhouses return with records that feel resolutely now. I am currently listening to both on repeat. Maybe because I came of age in the 1990s, but more so because they are that good. Pulp’s More is the first studio album in 24 years — Jarvis Cocker’s wry surveillance of middle age set toContinue reading “Monthly Pick: Pulp & Suede — Britpop Elders, Future Tense”
Ginori 1735: Porcelain as Poetry, From Florence to the World
Few brands embody the continuum of history and modernity as gracefully as Ginori 1735. Born in the hills outside Florence nearly three centuries ago, the porcelain house has transformed from Enlightenment-era experiment to contemporary design icon. Today, under the creative orbit of Gucci’s Alessandro Michele and now emerging in dialogue with the worlds of art,Continue reading “Ginori 1735: Porcelain as Poetry, From Florence to the World”
Palm Springs: A Desert Oasis of Glamour, Design, and Reinvention
Palm Springs is more than a desert escape; it is a cultural phenomenon. A place where Hollywood glamour collided with avant-garde architecture, where Sinatra and Monroe lounged beside turquoise pools, and where mid-century modernism found its spiritual home. Today, with its celebrated Modernism Week and thriving creative community, Palm Springs continues to reinvent itself —Continue reading “Palm Springs: A Desert Oasis of Glamour, Design, and Reinvention”
My World of Interiors 