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From the Editor CHRISTIAN SCHWALBACH A private villa stay is the best way to escape at the moment, offering ample, beautiful space far removed from the madding crowd. But splendid isolation isn’t the only thing that makes a villa stay worthwhile. There are all sorts of details that matter: the food, of course, but also the activities. How flexible are they? How capable are the guides and instructors? And then there’s the in-house staff. Are they intrusive or discreet? These are things that separate the great from the good – and that’s not only true of villas but of hotels as well. Many of the world’s best hotels have had decades to perfect their approach to hospitality, and increasingly, they are turning this expertise toward managing stays at privately owned accomodations, harmoniously merging the charismatic, personalised interior design envisioned by the owner with the attentive, fully bespoke service we’ve come to expect of the world’s leading hotels. In one of this issue’s feature stories, “In Search of Solitude” (p74), our correspondent Claire Wrathall takes a look at these hotel-adjacent villas to see just how the hospitality firms are bridging the gap between full privacy and full service. Elsewhere in the issue, we consider our own living spaces, with a special feature (p36) on the latest items, designers and services available to transform our homes into wellness-promoting sanctuaries to rival any farflung hotel or spa, be it a new kitchen concept or an elegant wooden exercise machine. Our homes are serving so many roles these days – workspace, exercise studio, etc – that we might as well make them beautiful as well as functional. Our yachting section will offer, we hope, further inspiration, both for those who love the sea and for those merely curious about world-beating firms like EYOS Expeditions (p48), which offers one-of-a-kind guided trips to some of the globe’s most remote locations – starting with the Mariana Trench, thousands of metres below the sea. Enjoy the pages that follow as well as the daily doses of creativity and wonder we offer on our website, centurion-magazine.com – in times like these, a bit of beauty can boost the spirit. • Stone Black The remarkable Noirblanc marble comes from Antolini, a Verona-based purveyor of fine natural stones. YOUR CODE FOR EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM: RL15CM CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 11
