![]() ![]() These earthly paradises inevitably fade when the protective party cocoon is cracked, whether by petty crime or altered political conditions-or when the pied pipers who created them move on. Clearly there is still much room for improvement.Ībove : A man takes in the view in Capri, August 1974. The city is now trying to reinvent itself as a luxury resort, despite ongoing reports of crime gangs and beaches perfumed with sewage. But its magical allure vanished with the hordes that began arriving in the '80s. Paul Getty, Gloria Guinness, Howard Hughes, and a bevy of Hollywood stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, Errol Flynn, Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, and Brigitte Bardot. ![]() Acapulco flourished as a jetset resort in the late 1950s and '60s with the presence of J. Not every similar society hub has been so fortunate. An enthusiastic champion of the resort, Lauren also redesigned parts of property in the spirit of the original. The fortunes of the "cottage colony" devised by Pringle 60 years ago have been greatly revived by the presence of Ralph Lauren, who hosts the Sugar Cane Ball there every winter. Today, Round Hill, after falling out of fashion for several decades, has regained much of its appeal. After three days of delivering breakfast, lunch, and dinner-and acrobatics not listed on the menu-the affable Jamaican was too exhausted to comply any further. One morning he found a young waiter in floods of tears, saying, in the local patois, "I so shamed." The handsome youth explained that a wealthy American widow had been demanding vigorous sex with room service. Some dutiful employees took this mandate overly to heart. Hoping to win the loyalty of his sophisticated clientele, he told his Jamaican staff that satisfying the whims of Round Hill's guests should be their first priority. Pringle was determined to provide world class hotel service. Oscar Hammerstein, Viscount and Viscountess Rothermere, and the madcap Guinness heiress Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. As one might expect, many early residents were friends of Coward's, including Bill and Babe Paley, Mr. With Coward as his first shareholder, Pringle was able to persuade famous American and European socialites and luminaries from the theater and movies to build their own villas at Round Hill and to invest in the hotel. "He said, 'Dear boy, if you'll just shut up I'll buy one of your damned cottages,' " Pringle told me. ![]() While pitching his idea for what became Round Hill, the robustly heterosexual Pringle felt Coward's hand on his knee. Seizing the opportunity, Pringle regaled Coward with his plans to create a new kind of resort: a colony of cottages with an exclusive hotel on a former sugar plantation near Montego Bay, set on a 100-acre peninsula along the Caribbean.Ībove: One of Slim Aarons's favorite subjects, Bianca Volpato. He was an ambitious, fresh-faced 26-year-old in the early 1950s when he happened to be seated next to Noël Coward on an airplane to New York. Bart's, Lyford Cay, and Acapulco, and not others? Colin Tennant, the Scottish aristocrat and pioneer who transformed the formerly mosquito-infested Caribbean island of Mustique in the '60s into a playground for the likes of Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Princess Margaret and her young lover, had an uncanny instinct for assembling some of the vital ingredients: a frisson of exclusivity, a gorgeous setting, the prospect of abundant sunshine, attentive service at luxe or haute bohemian hotels and restaurants, a congenial place to socialize with attractive people, a challenging journey requiring persistence or private aviation, and a charming pied piper (or pipers) who possesses an impressive array of wealthy and influential friends and an indomitable will to succeed.Ī jaunt through the history of these exotic gathering places of European royals, legendary families, and bachelors and the starlets who love them reveals that no matter how spectacular the setting, the optimal confluence of pied pipers is crucial. How does a far-flung European resort or a tiny Caribbean island become a high society hub? Why Sardinia, Capri, St.-Tropez, Positano, St. ![]() But the allure of jetset destinations, an evolving legacy of that era, continues to captivate the imagination. THE JETSET, a phrase coined in the late 1950s to describe the first wave of privileged souls with the requisite funds and inclination to scamper around the globe to attend fashionable gatherings, lost its cachet in the late '70s, when air travel became more affordable and the hoi polloi took to the skies. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |