You don’t have to be a high roller to travel to Vegas in style. Here, tips for playing your cards right—and saving a bundle—in Sin City.
9 A.M.
I’ve arrived on a Thursday for the low midweek rates at the Luxor (3900 Las Vegas Blvd. S.; 888/777-0188 or 702/262-4000; www.luxor.com), a gigantic glass pyramid with a gaudy Egyptian theme (miles of fake gold and limestone, sphinxes over 100 feet tall). (Read More…)
With a mix of chic hotels, creative chefs, and stylish boutiques, Healdsburg, California, has emerged as a cosmopolitan hub that still pays homage to its rural Sonoma roots.
SLEEP Healdsburg’s transformation began in 2001 with the opening of the Hotel Healdsburg (25 Matheson St.; 800/889-7188 or 707/431-2800; www.hotelhealdsburg.com; doubles from $325, including breakfast), co-owned by chef Charlie Palmer. The 55-room hotel is done up in an earthy palette inspired by its surrounding landscape: olive- and leaf-green walls, pecan-wood plank floors, and teak headboards that crown the downiest bed you’ll ever sleep on. (Read More…)
OCCUPATION Artists
HOME BASE New York City
SHOWSTOPPER Oldenburg and van Bruggen, who have lived, worked, and traveled together for the last 29 years, have been shuttling back and forth to L.A. in order to create their 65-foot-high, unfurling aluminum and stainless-steel Collar and Bow for the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall (Read More…)
“When I have limited time in Rome, I try to see works of art that are meant to be seen, and exist, only here”
OCCUPATION Gallery owner
HOME BASE New York
ROMAN HOLIDAY Marks, who represents 25 international artists at his namesake Chelsea gallery, frequently travels abroad for art fairs and studio visits. He recently attended a show of new work by British painter (and old friend) Gary Hume in Hannover, Germany. Afterward, the two decamped for a weekend in Rome. (Read More…)
“I would love to be based in Iraq. It’s one of the most important stories in the world right now. I’d go back in a heartbeat.”
OCCUPATION Host of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°
HOME BASE New York City
EYEWITNESS Cooper headed to Iraq to report on the United States’ handover of sovereignty. He visited five cities in two weeks, devoting as much live airtime as he could to stories of the Iraqi people. (Read More…)
Mies van der Rohe’s love-it-or-hate-it celebration of Modernism endures as a cautionary tale on the merits of glass houses.
The Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, is revered as one of the world’s most important Modernist icons. But architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s masterpiece—the glass-walled embodiment of his dictum Less is more—provoked scathing criticism upon its completion in 1951. Edith Farnsworth, the wealthy Chicago physician who had commissioned the house, declared the transparent structure unlivable and filed suit against Mies. She lost the case—she had, after all, approved the plans—and grudgingly spent weekends in her glass box for the better part of two decades. (Read More…)