A Taste To Start
Travel is not reward for working. It’s education for living.
Reservation Calendar
The events worth preparing for
Tastemaker’s Note → Just a reminder that intentional moments require about six weeks more lead time than most people give them. Silverstone and Goodwood stack into one of the great motorsport weekends on the calendar. The Open at Royal Birkdale is the most atmospheric major in golf. Sun Valley is where the deals get done while everyone pretends to hike. Salzburg runs six weeks and rewards the guests who build around it. The Hamptons ends the way it always does — on horseback, in late August, with the summer suddenly almost over.
Letter From The Tastemaker
The time I planned the most exceptional meeting, it was outside of the four-walled boardroom. Spanning three generations and two continents, fourteen people who shared a last name and not much else, until that week…
We were perched on the edge of a cliff.
A private estate on a volcanic island, two acres of whitewashed stone suspended a thousand feet above the Aegean. Can you imagine that?
Five suites, each with its own terrace and plunge pool.
An infinity pool that spilled toward the caldera below. And at night, the volcano simply glowed on the horizon.
Something shifted that week that eighteen months of family dinners had failed to move. A family that shared a last name found, slowly and without agenda, a shared language.
The retreat, done right, is one of the most powerful tools available to a family, a team, or a business.
It starts with a single honest question: what needs to happen between these people that cannot happen any other way? where does the purpose lie?
Answer that first. Then choose a place worthy of the answer.
The right property holds its guests. It removes friction, offers genuine privacy, and balances communal space with room to be alone. It knows the difference between service and intrusion (also the basic principles of customer experience).
Then comes the part most planners overlook: the small things.
→ A note in each room written specifically for that person.
→ A photo from twenty years ago, framed and waiting on a nightstand.
→ A gift that says I thought about you before you arrived.
→ A surprise excursion that nobody saw coming and everyone will talk about for years.
These touches are the emotional punctuation of the experience. They tell your guests that this was built for them, personalized with care.
You see, retreats take many forms. Sometimes, it’s a multigenerational family finding its shared language.
As for others? A founding team asking whether they're building the right thing, or a leadership group that hasn't thought (really thought) in months. And increasingly, family offices are using the retreat format for governance: succession, values alignment, the transfer of wealth and responsibility across generations. Something a bit more lasting and human than a board meeting, in my professional opinion.
I explored this with Mahir Eyvazov, a family office strategist recently in our collaborative piece, “Retreats As A Catalyst for Visionary Legacy: How Family Offices Use Curated Experiences to Shape Strategy, Alignment, and Continuity” — and the conclusion was simple: families treat it as an investment. Everything from the place to the smallest details is handled with care.
Trend Forecast
What’s Shaping The World
Tastemaker’s note: Retreats are a growth story with the numbers to prove it. The market is compounding into the hundreds of billions, companies are budgeting for off-sites like never before, and the ROI (both clinical and financial) is finally being measured.
Lifestyle + Experiential Assets
Zeus + Dione: Mythology, Woven by Hand
This Athens-born house is rebuilding entire villages' worth of craft, one collection at a time. Zeus & Dione is named after the goddess of love, beauty and eternal youth, with collections recognizable for clean lines and geometry inspired by the motifs and patterns found in ancient architecture. But the real story is behind the seams: the brand works to support craftsmanship in Greek villages and cities — the silk weavers of Soufli, the embroiderers of Metsovo and Argos, and the silversmiths of Athens.
Why I’m intrigued with this product & experience:
▪ It's fashion with a preservation mission baked in. Every piece is tied to a specific endangered craft and a specific village — buying is a purchase in keeping that trade alive.
▪ The founders' pivot is the brand's best marketing. A finance-to-fashion origin story signals this was built with commercial discipline which shows in the fact that it's mostly sold abroad, not propped up by tourist foot traffic.
▪ It scales from accessible to investment-piece. Unlike the handbag houses, there's room to start small (a scarf, a silver piece) and build toward a statement piece without a five-figure entry point.
▪ It's recognizable without being branded loudly. The mythology-meets-architecture motif reads as quietly Greek rather than logo-driven, the opposite of fast luxury.
(or hit REPLY, and let us source something special for you)
Some like it simple, while others like it served on a silver platter.
Whatever the request, delivering with ease is our specialty.
P.S. Like my style (and taste)? Work with me.
