Super cute video for Ruschmeyer’s, a summer camp-styled lodge we need to check out this summer… brought to us by the talented folks at King and Grove. On the property is a dreamy restaurant that serves up razor clams and other seafood delights paired with “biodynamic, sustainable, and organic wines”. Up the road is the equally adorable Surf Lodge by the same crew… Love the lanyard keychains. Arts & Crafts anyone?
Wake up in Fez and go downstairs to tell the riad host that we’re headed to Tangier a day early. She tells me we have to pay for the duration of the stay because they “turned down other potential guests.” I look around at the half-empty riad and she reads my mind. (I forget haggling is a sport even in the most sophisticated of settings here) We agree on 1/3 of the unpaid night after some good natured back-and-forth…
We’re getting dangerously close to our budget limit now that we’re hitting the tail end of our trip. Think about how to cut back. Decide all food must go. Shopping and cocktails should be fine.
As I was shopping for Christmas gifts this weekend, I realized that Halle, my youngest, didn’t have a proper copy of Madeline. I loved Madeline as a little girl, when Paris was still – literally and figuratively – a world away. So I picked up a copy. Interestingly, the author and illustrator, Ludwig Bemelmans, was the man that my favorite bar in my favorite New York hotel was named after. (How I never made this connection is beyond me, as apparently everyone on the planet was hip to this.) In any case, it makes me love Bemelmans Bar and the Carlyle even more. Get the whole story
Quite possibly the most beautiful room in new York City, Café Pierre (or the Rotunda) at The Pierre hotel is a perfectly executed exercise in lavishness. The trompe l’oeil murals created by American artist Edward Melcarth play backdrop to the most fabulous afternoon tea this side of the Thames. Have some Earl Gray with a lover under the dome and discuss the 253-room hotel’s luscious history (including tales of founder Charles Pierre and original financiers Otto H. Kahn, Edward F. Hutton, and Walter P. Chrysler,) its infamous bankruptcy in 1932, and eventual purchase by oilman J. Paul Getty for $2.5 million in 1938.
If the top of the building looks familiar its because it was modeled by archtects Schultze and Weaver (The Breakers Palm Springs, The Waldorf-Astoria, The Sherry-Netherland) after Mansart’s Royal Chapel at Versailles. Permanent residents in the few apartments have included Elizabeth Taylor, Viacom entertainment company chairman Sumner Redstone, Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, and the late designer Yves Saint-Laurent.
In 2005 The Pierre was acquired by Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, an India-based global chain of fine luxury hotels and resorts, yet it still retains its forever charm. I spent the night of my birthday there right after the purchase so I can attest to it.
Quite possibly one of the most brilliant placemakers of our time, Anoushka Hempel is my idol. The former British 60′s actress-turned-hotelier and designer has created four absolutely unparalleled hotels (including my favorite hotel ever – Blake’s in South Kensington, London) and a slew of restaurants and retail stores (including Louis Vuitton in Paris and Van Cleef & Arpels in Brazil, Goa, Istanbul, and Las Vegas.) Her style is impeccable and untouchable in my opinion. She has this God-given way of creating the most magical environments that are so lavish and fantastical, intoxicatingly decadent, and yet unbelievably cozy and warm. Everything she touches turns into 24-carat gold. She has even designed clothes for Princess Diana and Princess Margaret. I want to swim in her head.
Oh, did I mention she was a Bond girl? Sigh…
Last year on our first trip to Paris together Matt and I stayed in the spectacular Hotel Ritz on the Place Vêndome. Everything about the Ritz is incredible – from the spectacular suites named after the likes of Coco Chanel, Chopin, and Marcel Proust, to the Bar Hemingway where you can sip cocktails in the same room as James Joyce and Jean-Paul Sartre once did, to the perfectly rose-infued body lotion in the bathrooms (which I stole from the maid’s trolley), to the insignia emblazoned shoehorns and ashtrays (which Matt stole from our room.)
With more impressive footnotes and expensive chintz than you can poke a stick at, the Ritz is still NOT my favorite place in the world. In fact, I could not get out of there fast enough to make it over to 18 Rue Royale, where a simple mint green can become a lifelong obsession.
Ladurée, the legendary Parisian tea salon is more than a magnificent French pastry shop. Ladurée is to macaroons what what Philip Treacy is to hats, what Mary Quant was to color, what the Taj Majal is to mausoleums. I’m not exaggerating. For weeks I tried unsuccessfully to paint our bedroom the same color as Ladurée’s lovely little napkins, but I ruined Matt’s shorts and we ended up with a room better suited to Beth Israel’s ER ward. It’s white now. LADURÉE. Go there.
Pam Bristow is a twelve-year veteran of the Design, Fashion, and Communications industries. She has developed and executed creative solutions for both domestic and international brands in a diverse range of lifestyle categories. Her custom strategies include Concept Development & Ideation, Creative Direction, Interior and Environmental Design, Communications Strategies, Custom Publishing Projects, Strategic Collaborations, and Special Event Design.
A master “placemaker”, Pam has been creating and curating unforgettable, concept-driven environments and “jewel box” experiences for clients in the fashion, lifestyle, art, retail, and hospitality industries for over a decade.
Pam has a personal affinity for both emerging and established creative talent and has a proven history of success in the delicate marriage of art and commerce. Her area of expertise is in the creation of unique, culturally attuned, and highly tailored communications products that resonate with global tastemakers.
