"Death Ray" at Swank Hot Spot the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas

Photo Courtesy: KRISTIN DONALDSON / LAS VEGAS SUN.......Too Hot to Handle? I was stunned when watching the NBC nightly news to learn that the design of the new chic Las Vegas Vdara Hotel had an anomaly in its building design.  It seems the sun's reflection is deflected by the parabolic curve of the facade of the building and creates an intense hot spot near the pool.

The Vdara Hotel 

"The refraction moves across the pool deck over a period of 90 minutes," company spokesman Gordon Absher told Reuters. "It's never in the same place from day to day or week to week because the sun is changing its elevation in the sky."MGM Resorts, which owns the property, has sought to correct the problem by installing a high-tech solar film over each of the 3,000 glass panes covering the south facade of the Vdarato scatter the rays. But the concentrated sunlight remains hot enough at certain times, in certain spots, to melt plastic and singe hair, said William Pintas, 49, a Chicago lawyer and Vdara condo owner who first encountered the effect earlier after a dip in the pool. When his head started burning, he thought it was from chemicals in the pool."So I just laid down in the chair, and that's when my back and the back of my legs started burning, and I ran under a nearby umbrella. And I'm under the umbrella and there is no shading from the light or heat," he recounted. "It was the strangest thing."Pintas said he could even smell his hair starting to burn. Astonished and angry, he alerted hotel staff, then called the local newspaper to draw attention to the problem. Absher said MGM Resorts is "now looking into further mitigation procedures," including more umbrellas, additional foliage or shade structures. Courtesy Reuters

Photo courtesy: Outtraveler.com

By the way, this is a very gay-friendly hotel and that makes the  MGM Mirage Vdara Hotel  a very very C O O L  property......

"We are excited to welcome the LGBT community with a high-energy, upscale pool party unlike anything in Las Vegas," said Mary Giuliano, General Manager for Vdara Hotel & Spa. "With our designer architecture, personal service and unique location, Vdara is quickly becoming a hot destination for the sophisticated LGBT traveler."

LIVING LIKE MOVIE STARS: HEARST CASTLE

John and I were the lucky guests of a good friend of ours who is quite the philanthropist. She  recently gave a  generous donation to Planned Parenthood , which resulted in a private tour of Hearst Castle  followed by a swim in the Neptune Pool and Roman Pool at the Castle! 

Hearst Castle is part fantasy, part folly.  Its fanciful towers dance up a hillside above San Simeon--a palace perched on a most unlikely site. www.hearstcastle.org Its eccentric and energetic founder and creator, William Randolph Hearst, was a powerful businessman and  icon of the early 20th century. 

Photo Credit: Claire Turner

Hearst's taste for art was developed on a trip to the Louvre in the 1870's as a child, where he asked his wealthy mom, Phoebe, if she would buy the museum for him!  That was the beginning of a lifetime of collecting art and creating venues for his ever-expanding collection.  From the sublime to the bizarre, the collection amassed and stored at Hearst Castle is truly impressive.

It seems  implausible that someone as prolific a collector and builder could actually do any other work in their lifetime, but the Hearst media empire was one of the largest of the media conglomerates of the 20th century, spanning film to newspapers.

Hearst castle, the 100,000 square foot self-sustaining city that was erected in the 1920s on this hilltop,  was a favorite camping spot of the Hearst family when WR was a child.  Hearst contracted with the amazing Julia Morgan, a muse and architect of great accomplishment, to create the magnificent folly at San Simeon he called his "ranch." 

Today, Hearst Castle happens to be the most visited state park in the California State Park system, but the stories that one could imagine occurring on that hillside in the 1920s and 1930s with every luminary from Winston Churchill to Louis B Mayer, from Mary Pickford to Errol Flynn, must have been magic!  It seems that through actress,  Marion Davies,' longterm relationship with both  WR Hearst and "the bottle," spirits were limited to 2 cocktails per day during ones stay at the "ranch."  Like most things in Hearst's life, everything was tightly controlled.

Our swim was followed by a private dinner for 6 poolside in the Roman Baths.  To have access to the seldom-visited areas of the Castle where no tours go, and to access  archives filled with volumes of  original plans, notes and artifacts that filled this museum of a home, was a treat.

Our tour was guided by the director and curator of the collection. We were shown the archive vault where all of the correspondence and architectural drawings between Julia Morgan and Mr. Hearst are safely stored. It was fascinating to witness the "intellectual affair" these two were having over the design and construction of Hearst Castle.

Photo: Claire Turner      John's jumping into the Roman Pool from the beautiful dive platform was an experience.  But, the best part of the day was to share it with friends and to have the house all to ourselves, just we six, taking  a step back in time.  Here we were, living like movie stars! Thank you Cyndee!

Philippe Starck-French Designer Introduces Sustainable Energy to his Genius Branding

I have always viewed French designer Philippe Starck as being one of the most progressive designers and certainly most well known in the world for the new style of design.  His famous designs range from interiors of Hotels private residences including the apartment of former French President, Francois Mitterrand. He is a savvy designer of furnishings and products such as the  Ghost Chair, and everyday household items for example the spider-like juicy salif fruit juicer. His products and furnishings are often stylized, streamlined and organic in their look and are also constructed using unusual combination of materials such as glass and stone, plastic and aluminum, plush fabric and chrome More recently I am glad to see that Starck has approached the concept of sustainable design with his inventive and creative eye with his design for a wind turbine.  Starck has taken his designs to a new level with his new line of Micro
Wind
Turbines unveiled in downtown Milan in January.  The "Revolutionair"
turbines, produced out of Italian power generator company Pramac, are
designed for domestic use by homeowners.  Another functional, yet
aesthetically effective household product, resembling a sculpture to add
flair to your garden or rooftop.

One of Starck's Hotel designs is The Mama Shelter, in the
heart of Paris in the Saint Blaise historic district. It offers an eclectic and electric ambiance thanks to its friendly, warm
and casual common areas.  The website states it be "rebel character and city life at a country pace."

Relax in eclectic and electric ambiance at the Chic-Chic bar and lounge,
a French brasserie or the cozy romantic terrace.

 Cozy rooms look out over the district.

One of his most recent designs is the Mi Ming armchair, sure to become a
classic. made of polycarbonate and available in re, black, white or
silver at Avant Gallery.

Hotel Fasano, is
another chic hotel designed by him in Rio de Janeiro is designed of wood, marble and
glass and features furnishings from the 50's and 60's.

If wind turbines, armchairs and hotels don't grab you then check out this mega yacht "A", designed for billionaire Andrey Melnicheno . Reminiscent of a submarine warship on the exterior.

photo courtesy Design Bloom

Stunning and elegant on the interior.

photos courtesy Live Yachting

Or if you just need something as basic as a juicer,  the everyday
household item, Alessi juicer,
has even found its way into the Moma
Gallery in New York. The list of his genius
branding goes on and on to include shoes for Puma and even
toothbrushes.

Caimeiju: "Selecting a Beautiful Residence" an "American Residence"

Closing the Gap for Chinese Interested in American Real Estate ...

Caimeiju is Simplified Chinese for "Selecting a beautiful residence" or "Selecting an American residence". I came across Caimeiju.com recently while in Hong Kong. I was looking through LP Luxury Properties Magazine (Asia's leading luxury property magazine)  to see how  top of the market properties are presented in a glossy format in the extensive luxury market in China.

I came across a brief article about a southern California entrepreneur, Jeff Toth, who launched Caimeiju.com a division of Language Media Agency Inc.,  a global marketing firm. I contacted Jeff  immediately to further understand what the agency was doing to promote California real estate to Chinese investors and how to they were able to overcome the language and cultural barrier. Within 48 hours, Jeff had answered my questions by simple method of example. Caimeiju had taken a 4.2 minute film we recently completed featuring our 1478 East Mountain Drive property in Montecito and had their team of Chinese Social Media Experts upload it to YouKu, the Chinese version of YouTube. Unfortuneately, YouTube and Vimeo are both blocked in China as are most western blog sites. Caimeiju is helping to solve this problem for us. Go Caimeiju go!

   

Above is our short film of the East Mountain Drive Property, posted on You Tube.

Click to compare YouKu to the YouTube video below. Click here 视频.

Realizing that I was referred to him by reading LP Luxury Properties Magazine and also that Gregg and I were in Hong Kong, Jeff recommended to us  that we meet with the advertising and marketing director, Michelle Dagenais at LP Luxury Properties while in Hong Kong. Jeff made the introduction and we met Ms. Dagenais at Cafe Causette at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel conveniently where we were staying The result of that meeting will be an editorial feature on the East Mountain Drive Property in the July issue of LP Luxury Properties Magazine as well as likely advertising commitments from our side. The magazine focuses only on properties that are for sale and only very high end, top of the market luxury properties. This property is listed with Sotheyby's International Realty for $28.5 Million US. SuzannePerkins.com  

Additionally, the Caimeiju Team posted a photo blog about the property on  Caimeiju.com as well as on Sounfun, Sohu.com, Sina mini blog, and Renren. All of these sites are accessible from mainland China and multiplying our exposure. 

http://blog.soufun.com/27088163/9949566/articledetail.htm

http://blog.soufun.com/27088163/9949599/articledetail.htm

Jeff demonstrated to us how the Caimieju team was able to immediately present our marketing collateral (expensive marketing collateral) to a  new market, previously untapped because of the language and cultural barrier. The relevance is simple, the Chinese are buying property in America because it is a great value to them now, however the Chinese investor goes about it differently, shall we say more empirically. Caimeiju.com is a portal to present Californian properties, American properties in a format that is more useful to the Chinese and in their language presented in a more culturally relevant manner.  

The Best Sofa Design in the World!

When we designed the Family Room / Media Room / Theater at the East Mountain House in Montecito we selected a sectional sofa called "Dr. Pitt" from Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams in Los Angeles. We selected the sofa for it's comfort and versatility as well as it's unique design and configuration.  It can be purchased with various sized pieces like any sectional, but this one could be set up like a square with three sides and open in the center. Into the center you can push the ottomans, making it a "filled in square. Sounds crazy, but you can jump in that thing like a huge play pen for adults and stay there all day watching playoff games or movies or both in the case of this Media Room / Theater. We designed this room  with 2 professional 65" Panasonic LCD screens.

During the playoffs last week we were having fun with our godson and realized if we pushed out the two smallest ottoman pieces and left the two large ottomans to closed the "pitt" we could create a play pen for our young Ravens Fan. Naturally we threw in a few safe cooking utensils to make sure the young one was getting balanced and well rounded weekend football. He was BUMMED about the Ravens but not nearly as much as his dad.

More cooking lessons at half time...

Tallest Building In The World Opens Today: The Burj Dubai

The New Tallest Building in the world opens today The Burj Dubai. Here's a link to today's Wall Street Journal Article about the tower. 

I think it is interesting to compare these two charts the one above uses the former World Trade Center in Manhattan in lieu of the Sears Tower in Chicago. Also, the bottom illustration uses Canary Wharf in London.

Holiday Gift Idea: The Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of the Southwest

Two wonderful books by Joan Tapper with Photographs by Nik Wheeler.  If you love travel, design and great photography these books are a visual travel adventure and make great coffee table books!  

The Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of the Southwest at Amazon

"From pueblos to Victorian storefronts to ski resorts: a vision of the southwest that evokes both America's frontier heritage and the expansive vistas of its future" Nik Wheeler's photo essays include Route 66, Native American Culture, The Southwest and the Movies. From Thames & Hudson.

The Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of California at Amazon

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Homeward from Hawaii not exactly Luxury Travel

Image Credit Plan 59  Check out this site for great quality and inexpensive prints to decorate fun spaces with.

Also check out Dark Roasted Blend for "Weird and Wonderful Things".

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Hawaiiana and Vintage Hawaiian Art

Vintage Hawaiian Art is one of our favorite things to source here in Honolulu when decorating our Honolulu period era properties in a traditional Hawaiiana Style. Here is a link to a site that has an amazing amount of Hawaiian "stuff" or 'Hawaiiana' as it is known by in. This site has inexpensive and reproduction goods mostly, but it is a fantastic gift source, or can give you decorating ideas from a Kid's Room to a 1960's style Basement Rec Room...to get you through the cold winter days. Of course we like the real stuff, vintage and authentic but it is much harder to find in good condition. This link to Hawaiian Days will give you huge inventory to choose from, ranging from prints to furniture and lamps.   Plus its a great idea site if you don't know what's available.  Its all here. We'll be doing an "Art"  post on each of these Hawaiian artists later.  

John Kelly

Eugene Savage

Gill

Frank Macintosh

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