David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones, son of Princess Margaret and Earl Snowdon and better known as Viscount Linley, is that rare bird – a Royal who works for a living. Having set up in trade some years ago as a bespoke furniture maker he has now branched out into all sorts of clever little cabinets, humidors and other handsome geegaws executed with first-rate craftsmanship and an admirable elegant restraint. Of course being a blue blooded English gentleman he knows a thing or two about proper recreational requirements, as evidenced by one of his latest creations, the Linley Shooting Companion case in the fine portable bar tradition.
This essential bit of kit for any sporting gent who does not aim to go without the requisites of spirits and smokes for the duration of the hunt is priced at about $5,600. It is constructed of oiled walnut with saddle leather handles and an inlaid engravable, hallmarked sterling silver plaque. The case contains two lead crystal decanters with sterling silver plaques laid onto square rosewood stoppers, a cigar cutter and a walnut box to hold eight Corona No. 5’s. A removable walnut rack walnut holds eight pewter tumblers, numbered 1 to 8 to reference shooting pegs. Throw it in the back of the Range Rover and Bob’s your uncle.
© Copyright 2010 Duncan Quinn. All Rights Reserved.
The new Rock Bar at the Ayana Resort & Spa in Bali puts a bit of much-needed adventure back into cocktailing. Accessed via an inclinator that traverses the face of a dramatic craggy seaside cliff, the Rock Bar is a potent cocktail in itself of engineering, architecture and mixology. Towering 46 feet above the crashing waves, it was designed by Yasuhiro Koichi of Japan’s Design Studio SPIN and offers uninterrupted, 360-degree views from every single vantage point. Talk about “on the rocks”. We expect to see Daniel Craig fueling up there in the next Bond film.
Designed to ensure maximum seclusion for every guest, the Ayana’s 78 free-standing, cliff-top Bali luxury villas are set in traditional Balinese compounds with private pools surrounded by tropical gardens. If for some reason the Rock Bar isn’t your cup of tea – vertigo, perhaps – check out one of the resort’s other three watering holes, the C-Bar, Martini Club and Damar Terrace. We like a place with plenty of options for boozing, and those Bali sunsets are pretty intoxicating in their own right.
In 1904 the great Stanford White built what was then known as a “casino,” essentially a gentleman’s retreat and sporting pavilion, for John Jacob Astor IV on the grounds of his Rhinebeck, NY mansion, Ferncliff. The 15,000-sq.-ft. Beaux-Arts style casino, with its indoor clay tennis court topped with a glass ceiling and a white marble pool surrounded by arches and Corinthian columns, is all that is left of Astor’s estate today, the mansion having been razed in the early 1940s. Of the estate’s 2,800 acres, only 50 remain, perched on a promontory overlooking the Hudson River.
Over the years the Ferncliff Casino, which also had squash courts, a bowling alley and shooting range, housed a convent and nursing home before falling into disrepair. It seemed destined to disappear like so many other Gilded Age jewels until the current owner commissioned White’s grandson Sam to restore it to its former grandeur as a private residence. Now known as Astor Courts, the mansion has just been listed for sale at $12 million. With the swimming pool and tennis court intact, it’s the ultimate gentleman’s estate, a reminder of the days when men were men and mansions had playhouses like this.
At the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, Aston Martin and storied Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre unveiled their latest collaboration, the AMVOX2 Transponder Rapide, a timepiece that doubles as a remote control of sorts for the famed UK marque’s first four-door sportscar. Available as an option for Rapide purchasers, the watch locks and unlocks the car and turns on the headlights via pressure applied to various parts of the crystal. Unfortunately that’s all it does; personally we feel the Transponder ought to not only fire up the Rapide’s V12 as well but perform some 007-style tricks like firing smoke bombs and making martinis - especially since the damn thing costs over 30 grand.
Perhaps if you’re buying a $250,000 car it’s worth being able to unlock it by pressing on your wrist clock, but this isn’t exactly Q Branch worthy. The Rapide is perfectly satisfying in and of itself as Aston’s engineers have retained their trademark killer looks as well as performance; it can do 0 - 62 mph in 5.3 seconds. The watch qua watch isn’t too bad either (though we’ve seen better) – satin-brushed 18-carat rose gold base, lugs and crown with a pivoting brushed titanium case, black grille motif dial and rhodium-plated, luminescent black metallic numerals, with the Aston Martin wing emblem at 6 o’clock – just about when you’ll be ready to kill for that martini.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show Bentley just unveiled its new flagship sedan, the Mulsanne, named for the legendary straightaway at Le Mans. Echoing the Bentley S -Type of the 1950s, the car features a bold frontal design dominated by the traditional Bentley matrix grille and highly prominent, classic round inner headlamps with chrome surrounds, flanked by two, smaller outboard lamp clusters. While paying homage to past Bentley greats, the brief for the new Mulsanne’s design and engineering teams was to create a Bentley that represents the pinnacle of British luxury motoring.
The new Mulsanne is meant to be a thoroughly modern flagship that captures the essence of the Bentley marque - elegant yet distinctly sporting in character, delivering effortless performance while within its sumptuous cabin, advanced technology discretely has sex with handcrafted luxury, so to speak. Very, very expensive sex. The Mulsanne, however, was designed and engineered at Crewe from the ground-up, and it comes in 114 different paint colours in a range that includes everything from unusual heritage hues to special satin and pearlescent finishes and duo-tone combinations. Worth every ha’penny, in other words.
Recent upgrades at the Molori Safari Lodge in South Africa’s 185,000-acre Madikwe Game Reserve have made it a must-see for any adventurous fellow who likes a little luxury with his wildlife. 50 minutes by air from Johannesburg on the border with Botswana, the Lodge’s five bungalows boast spacious wooden decks, private infinity pools and floor-to-ceiling fully retractable glass walls. Privacy is the watchword here. A staff of 44, including chef Willie Malherbe who prepares local specialties like oxtail stew and pan-roasted springbok, look after a maximum of 14 guests in full safari style.
The Lodge’s butler unpacks your cases, presses your safari suit, provides a selection of Aqua di Parma toiletries and stocks each suite with an assortment of homemade cured meats and dried fruit. Up at the main lodge a well-stocked library also features a great selection of whisky, brandy and cigars, while the wine cellar is of course stocked with the finest South African vintages. There’s also one of the largest private telescopes in southern Africa as well as a holistic indoor-outdoor spa. Resident guide Greg Lederle, a former professional big game hunter, leads custom wildlife excursions by day or night, when a whole other host of creatures comes out.
Later this month storied UK Range Rover tuner Overfinch will unveil the Holland & Holland Range Rover, a bespoke sporting juggernaut limited to only 100 examples billed as the most luxurious Range Rover ever made. Expected to be priced at around $300,000, it’s also one of the world’s most expensive SUVs. The vehicle is both a reinterpretation of the Range Rover icon (based on the 2010 supercharged 503 hp V8) and the embodiment of Holland & Holland’s unique sporting heritage. It’s nothing short of the “ultimate all purpose, all season luxury supercar” for the discerning few. The theme here, stemming from Overfinch’s Country Pursuits concept car, is a quintessentially English take on opulence - which in this case means plenty of drinking and shooting.
While the exterior styling is relatively subtle, inside the Holland & Holland Range Rover reveals its true colors – not to mention acres of wood and leather. Saddle-stitched hides are offset by a 32 piece, hand-carved woodwork set available in a selection of finishes. The rear console includes an integrated refrigerator, capable of chilling two full size champagne bottles, along with storage space for two flutes. The plummiest bit however is a beautiful hand-crafted bespoke gun cabinet within the luggage compartment, with multiple drawers capable of holding up to eight crystal champagne flutes and whisky tumblers, as well as two cased guns, cartridges and all the trimmings. The guns of course should be handmade by Holland & Holland, established in London in 1835, who hold two Royal Warrants.
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Here for your viewing pleasure: video from the DQ Summer Appellation Rally we previewed the other day. You’ll want to crank the sound up for the beautiful purr of those engines.
It was quite a sight: 30,000 well-turned out spectators thronging the famed Guards Polo Club in Windsor to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Cartier International Polo and one of the world’s most coveted sporting trophies. Inside the VIPs-only Cartier enclosure, Prince Charles, an avid polo player himself, presided over the 600 chosen to sample chef Anton Mossiman’s clubby cuisine washed down with jeroboams of champagne.
Prince Chuck was of course rooting for jolly old England, but to no avail as the Brits lost to Argentina 12 - 5. After the actual event the marquee was turned over to club kings Chinawhite who transformed it into an after-party DJ’d by Jade Jagger which drew the inevitable cries of “Chavs!” from the older toffs, who promptly beetled off holding their (toffee) noses.
A cluster of models, Anna Friel fairly popping out of her dress, the ubiquitous Jay Kay and an obviously on-the-make Leo DiCaprio altered the atmosphere from the plummy heights of the Prince and debonair Cartier director Arnaud Bamberger’s court-holding earlier in the day. When all’s said and done however it was well worth celebrating the luxury house’s commitment to an insanely expensive but incredibly stylish pastime which could easily have gotten the bespoke boot in such dicey economic climes.
