On Newsstands Now
The New 800-Horsepower American Roadster
August 2008
American Ideal
Ezra Dyer
The American automotive landscape is littered with the broken dreams of aspiring carmakers. As the joke goes, the best way to make a small fortune in the car industry is to start with a large one. Even among those entrepreneurs who survive step...
Birds Nests
Michelle Seaton
Like most aviation consultants, James Wakeford tells lots of stories about things that have gone wrong. He recalls a certain yacht crew that never properly flushed the onboard helicopter’s engines of corrosive salt water during three months at sea,...
Birds Nests: Top Choppers
Michelle Seaton
There are many excellent helicopters that operate successfully from the decks of yachts. Yet there are a select few models that experts recommend over all others, in part because the companies that make them have long histories of working with ship...
Romanesque Revival
Samantha Brooks
Long known as a summer retreat, the South of France hasprovided an ideal setting for some of Europe’s most prominent individualsto indulge their wildest fantasies. Ernesta Stern, for example, was a rather unusual member of an influential European...
The Best of Burgundy
Brett Anderson
Each November, an extraordinary event takes place in the town of Beaune, France. This event—an auction—has deep roots in the region; it benefits the Hospices de Beaune, a charitable foundation established in 1443 by Chancellor Nicolas Rolin of...
Robb Design Portfolio: Mineral Riches
Jill Newman
You never know what’s inside a geode until you crack it open," says jewelry designer Kimberly McDonald (www.kimberlymcdonald.com; available at Bergdorf Goodman, 212.753.7300). "Each rock is so distinctive; some sparkle, some bubble, and some appear...
Robb Design Portfolio: Snake Charmer
Gregory Anderson
1964 Shelby Cobra 289The Shelby Cobra is one of the most copied cars of all time; each year, enthusiasts produce Cobra knockoffs in quantities greater than the 998 original autos that American racer Carroll Shelby built between 1962 and 1967....
Journeys: Cruise Control
Laurie Kahle
The turquoise flashes of a blue morpho’s wings appear like a beacon as the butterfly darts and weaves in front of our skiff on the narrow, black-water Yanallpa River in northeastern Peru. Microscopic scales on the top of the insect’s wings, which can...
One Last Thing...
Sheila Gibson Stoodley
The Item. This ship chess set is both functional and decorative: The chess pieces, which are about an inch tall and resemble sailors, can be displayed on the deck, and the pieces and the board—all made of ivory from the frozen remains of woolly...
FrontRunners: From the Robb Cellar
The Editors
During their search for a property in Bordeaux, California vintner Jess Jackson and his business partner, French vigneron Pierre Seillan, were particularly impressed with Saint-Émilion’s Château Lassègue. The estate’s roughly 83 acres of vineyards...
FrontRunners: Golden Opportunities
The Editors
Manhattan jeweler Stephen Russell (212.570.6900, www.stephenrussell.com), known for its exceptional period pieces, has moved a few doors down Madison Avenue into a boutique at the corner of 76th Street. The new venue, which includes a private salon...
FrontRunners: Savoir Fair
The Editors
From September 11 to 21, dealers in art, antiques, furniture, and jewelry will display their wares in Paris at the XXIV Biennale des Antiquaires (www.bdafrance.eu), the oldest of the international art and antiques fairs. This 24th edition of the...
FrontRunners: Select Smoke
The Editors
Rocky Patel’s original Edge cigar series had an appealing simplicity. The cigars were sold in rough-hewn cedar boxes, they had no bands, and they contained earthy Central American tobaccos. The company recently softened the edges of the Rocky Patel...
FrontRunners: The Write Track
The Editors
Writing instruments might be able to combat swords, but this one embraces the trident. The pen, created by Omas for Maserati and aptly named the Omas for Maserati (www.omas.com), is made of sterling silver and decorated with references to the...
FrontRunners: Fully Focused
The Editors
The new Hasselblad H3DII-39MS (www.hasselbladusa.com) is about as far as you can get from a point-and-shoot camera. The digital single-lens-reflex camera (about $44,000) features a 39-megapixel image resolution—more than twice that of most high-end...
FrontRunners: Market Trend
The Editors
The name of BLT Market (www.bltmarket.com) is less a description of the Manhattan venue than a reference to its obsession with seasonal ingredients. But the restaurant, which opened in the summer of 2007 at the Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park,...
FrontRunners: Big Swinger
The Editors
Zenith’s Zero-G Tourbillon (www.zenith-watches.com) is a fantastically complex mechanical construction, but whether it is an actual tourbillon is open to debate. Like a tourbillon, the Zero-G nullifies the effect of gravity on its regulating organ....
FrontRunners: Tides Turned
The Editors
When Islands Records founder Chris Blackwell purchased a 1930s-era Art Deco hotel on Miami’s Collins Avenue in 1997, he had the building reconfigured so that it housed only 45 rooms and suites instead of its original 115. After the hotel changed...
FrontRunners: The Ferrari California
The Editors
The Ferrari California (www.ferrari usa.com) will not debut officially until October, at the Paris Motor Show, but prospective buyers can add their names now to the soon-to-be-overcrowded waiting list for the company’s first-ever convertible...
Watches: Maritime Marriage
Laurie Kahle
Within minutes of meeting at the Cannes International Boat Show in September 2006, executives from Swiss watch manufacturer Parmigiani Fleurier and Italian yacht builder Pershing felt an affinity that quickly bloomed into a partnership.
Dressed in...
Autos: Royal Treatment
Paul Meyers
Forty years ago, former racecar driver Carroll Shelby caught wind that General Motors was just weeks away from unveiling a King of the Road edition of the Chevrolet Corvette. "The brochures were already printed," recalls Shelby, whose Cobra competed...
Boating: Mahogany Dreams
Michael Verdon
At the Crosby Yacht Yard on Cape Cod, Mass., berthed not far from John F. Kennedy’s wooden sloop, Victura, lies a Windsor Craft 36, an expertly crafted mahogany yacht with a classic Down East hull shape. The joinery throughout the boat is virtually...
Spirits: Back in Black
Richard Carleton Hacker
In the game of high-priced whiskies, as in that of high-stakes poker, four of a kind always beats three. Bowmore trumps an earlier winning hand with this summer’s introduction of the long-anticipated Black Bowmore 42-year-old single-malt Scotch...
Wardrobe: Three Easy Pieces
William Kissel
When d’Avenza relaunched its illustrious label this year after more than a decade’s absence from U.S. stores, the upscale Italian suitmaker did so with just three jacket styles: the British Warm, the Forte, and the Easy Chic. Given that d’Avenza was...
Golf: Kidd's Club
Mike Nolan
David McLay Kidd waves his hand toward the beach just beyond the dunes that border the 16th hole at Scotland’s Machrihanish Dunes. "When I was a child we would come down here in the summer, and I would run on that beach and hide in those dunes," says...
Travel: Flight of Fancy
Jack Smith
Shortly after takeoff, on a demonstration flight for travel agents and a handful of writers, the passenger cabin filled with a customary sound of first-class travel: the voices of flight attendants proffering hors d’oeuvres and cocktails as they...
Sport: High-Wire Action
Karen Berger
Our group of a dozen hikers huddles in a circle, shoulders hunched, hands clutching our backpack straps. Loose pebbles scatter on the ground around our feet, and Gore-Tex jackets flatten as the blades of our helicopter accelerate. At our guide...
Collectibles: Passing the Torch
Lara Loewenstein
Craig Perlow, a collector and dealer of Olympic memorabilia, stores his entire collection in his two-bedroom townhouse in Norcross, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. His sellable inventory is in the basement, while his pins and badges are in boxes and...
Antiques: Spin Doctor
Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Jalal Aro places a wax cylinder onto one of the record players in his Paris shop and invites his guest to listen. The music, a violin solo, sounds clear—surprisingly so, considering that the cylinder was made in 1912 and that the player is a...
Home: Going to the Mattresses
William Kissel
Two years ago, Hästens, the Swedish bedding company known for blue-checkered mattresses filled with horsehair, successfully introduced Vividus, the world’s first $50,000 mattress. Since then, bed makers have been tossing and turning over ways to...
Contributors: Thrill Machines
The Editors
As he researched this month’s cover story on the Iconic GTR ("American Ideal," page 74), automotive writer Ezra Dyer encountered a few bumps in the road. The 800 hp concept car, which recalls classic roadsters of the 1950s and ’60s, had been damaged...
From the Editors: Remembering Mr. Mondavi
Brett Anderson
The word icon is often used but seldom is it meaningful. Few people transcend the particulars of their individual identities to embody something much greater than themselves. In the course of my career, I have met my share of prominent and impressive...