Beyond Luxury

BREATHTAKING BENEFITS OF TRAVELING IN STYLE

Luxury is fabulously cheap if you are extravagant. Spend a million taking a week at Lajitas, the 25,000acre Texan resort ranch, and they will chuck in a private Stay in one of the two penthouse suites at the Hotel Martinez, in Cannestrust me, the one with the mature olive tree flown in by helicopter has the best view of the Croisette — and a drop-top Porsche or Mercedes is yours to re-create that To Catch a Thief chic on the Cote d'Azur.

The rich are different; they don't have to pay for anything. The most flamboyant current example of this maxim is Steve Wynn's villas at Wynn Las Vegas. They're beyond price, because there is no price for these spacious extravaganzas, with private pool and NASA-like technology, right off the golf course. They're for the high rollers. You have to be invited. And I thought Wynn had reached the ultimate with his Italianate mini-palazzi at Bellagio, with Renaissance garden, indoor-outdoor fireplace, east wing, west wing, gym, his-and-her bathrooms, 24/7 hairdressing salon, and constant drip-feed of caviar.

Check into the Palladio Suite at the Hotel Cipriani, in Venice, and they give you a private motorboat and driver. It's so Nicole— swishing across the lagoon to the Venice Film Festival on the Lido, or out to a lazy lunch on Torcello, at Locanda Cipriani. "Always divine," wrote Peggy Guggenheim in the guest book in 1949, and it still is; the spirit of Ernest Hemingway, who wrote much of Across the River and into the Trees there, exists remarkably peacefully with the presence of Joan Collins. Replete with vitello tonnato, you can cut a swath back to the Palladio's private dock.

To receive is better than to give. One might have thought that one's cup was full just sitting on the loggia of the Villa San Michele, in Florence, drinking honeyed wine while looking out on the Duomo. But no, San Michele longs to whisk you to a secret apothecary in Tuscany to have your own scent made. Entirely their treat. Take any suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills and they will press a 400-series Lexus upon you. Be their guest—and just so you get the picture, your pillowcases will have been monogrammed with your initials before you check in. The Ritz-Carlton hotels play the dog card: arrive with your best friend and R-C gives you an embroidered dog bed that could accommodate a sleepover by King Kong. The Balmoral, in Edinburgh, provides canine guests with squeaky sheepskin dog toys in the shape of bones—believe me, this means more to besotted owners than motorcars or yachts. And then there's Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan, who had hardly walked through the door of Le Sirenuse, in Positano, before they were offered a classic Riva boat for a trip to Capri, picnicking, lazing, swimming, whatever. It's the price of fame to have largesse thrust upon you. Think Oscar goody bags.

But I can't stop thinking, Where will it all end? I know we've only just begun, but I bet Gerard Depardieu and Carole Bouquet never use the topless Porsche when they go to the penthouse at the Martinez; I bet guests at Lajitas often give their handmade gold and silver bracelets to the maid: the rich are great at re-gifting. However, regardless of the fact that Lexuses may remain unused at the Peninsula because all Academy Award nominees have a driver, I bet the coffee will be a winner. Have breakfast at the Peninsula, and if you're desperate for that Starbucks fix, a darling waiter will pop across the street for a decaffeinated skinny latte. Private jets aside, it's still the little things that matter.

VICTORIA MATHER