This week Playboy announced its top poolside bars and our very own 39 Degrees made the Top 10. (web link). I agree, the scene is noteworthy, but lets take a minute to analyze what it is that 39 Degrees offers the readers of Playboy magazine. (In case you were wondering, Playboy targets the “sophisticated pervert.”)
Continue Reading Add comment June 24th, 2007
Every man, Jack, has his price. What about half a billion bucks? The O’Kells have had enough of the trouble dished up by Arnold Bagdikian, our narrator and the man engaged by the test-tube O’Kell heirs in the name of justice. The evil Bruckman, the Bag Man’s old nemesis, serves up the settlement offer, but our hero is still holding out for $1 billion. And who can blame him? The O’Kells think money is everything, but Baggie knows better, man, when it comes to Jack.
Continue Reading Add comment May 1st, 2007
CARMEL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA—The key, you see, is to take your foot off the break as you head downhill into the abyss and to trust absolutely the worlds of Justin Demayeo when he says: “You feel that?”
Yeah, I felt it all right—a deep-throated Gremlin of a sound that more or less defines the Land Rover Driving Experience here at the luxe Quail Lodge Resort and Golf Club. We—the fiancée, me, and Justin—have more than 100 acres to play around in before we hit the outer limits of the Quail Lodge, one of three such off-road Land Rover extravaganzas.
Continue Reading Add comment April 28th, 2007
ASPEN, COLORADO (February 20, 2007) – The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) recognized the Aspen Chamber Resort Association and Promo Communications with three Silver Awards and three Bronze Awards for public relations and advertising excellence at the 17th annual Adrian Awards. The awards ceremony was held on January 29, 2007 at the New York Marriott Marquis and was attended by more than 800 hospitality, travel and tourism public relations and marketing executives.
Continue Reading Add comment February 20th, 2007
Start with the impossible incongruity of the J-Bar at the Hotel Jerome.
Nice place, Hotel Jerome--right? A beautiful hotel by any measure. Vintage but with a nice modern spin on customer service. Bellhops won't even let you open your own door. Spic and span.
Now the J-Bar, as in "J" for Jerome. A legendary locals watering home and arguably the most famous/infamous locals bar in any mountain town. Stories of John Wayne drunk. Stories of Hunter Thompson high. Stories of Gary Cooper sober. Stories of Owen Wilson trying to pick up the cute waitress from South Africa and being turned down flat.
Continue Reading Add comment January 14th, 2007
The West has finally won out.
How else to explain what I was feeling as I looked out the tenth floor window of the JW Marriott Denver at Cherry Creek, with the carpet of the Rocky Mountains stretched out along the horizon like a sentinel. In the days and weeks just past, I had returned to my past--to New York, Boston, and Vermont--I had gone East, my friends, and found that there was nothing left back there for me.
Continue Reading 2 comments October 29th, 2006
I don't care if you are Red or Blue. I don't give a flying flip if you are Republican or Democrat. I could care less if you are a Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, etc, etc. Why can't we just all agree that we have a very real opportunity here to tap into the scientific options on the table. Via science, we have the opportunity to turn the tide on incurable diseases.
Continue Reading 3 comments October 27th, 2006
With sales of fractional real estate growing like topsy in Aspen and sundry luxurious locations, the Ritz-Carlton Club announced Thursday the concept is being extended once again into additional locations, including a third skiing property—to go with Aspen Highlands and Bachelor Gulch at Beaver Creek—at the Northstar at Lake Tahoe resort in California.
Continue Reading Add comment July 14th, 2006
The problem, from Christian Jagodzinski’s perspective, is that you can’t get the service of a 5-star hotel when you rent a house. It’s that simple, and he has a simple solution: build a network of vacation rental properties that come stuffed to the gills with superior hotel service that is anything but star-crossed.
So far his company, Villazzo, has 14 properties, including rentals in Aspen. The idea is to have ten villas each in luxurious locations like St. Tropez and Aspen. Jagodzinski hopes to never again face a situation where he had to go out and buy his own espresso machine, rather than have one up and running in a rental when he got there.
Continue Reading 1 comment June 30th, 2006
Fractional real estate properties were not invented in Aspen, but both the St. Regis and the Ritz-Carlton chains have used the city to prove out the concept that has taken the local real estate market by storm. They like they idea so much they are spreading it across the country to take full advantage of the fractional frenzy.
Continue Reading Add comment June 9th, 2006
