America’s Cup Comes to Bermuda June 2017

We’ve all been there before. You pack your matches in a nice dry plastic Ziploc bag, only to tip the canoe or spill the canteen and realize that even plastic bags can get damp. You reach for those matches that night to start a fire and the wet stick falls to pieces in your hand. That’s why I was excited to try Stormproof Matches, which the company states work when wet. So I bought a kit, kept the matches outdoors all last week in Boston where it pretty much rained every day. Then took out one of the long matchsticks and lit it easily. The flame also lasts a good ten seconds, about the time it takes me to light my 20-year-old Coleman Burner. The kit comes with a waterproof case and three strikers and can be purchased on Amazon for about $6.
Fans of the ultra-sybaritic Aman brand will be happy to know about its latest undertaking, the refurbishment of the iconic Crown Building overlooking Central Park in Manhattan. Set to debut in 2020, the property will feature 83 guest rooms and 20 residences in the circa-1921 Beaux-Arts building, once the original home of the Museum of Modern Art. This will be Aman’s third hotel in the US and only the second in a major city, after Tokyo. Located on 5th Avenue and 57th Street, Aman New York will feature an Aman Spa that will span 22,000 square feet on the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors and include an 80-foot indoor swimming pool surrounded by daybeds. The wraparound Garden Terrace, located on the 10th floor, will offer guests a panoramic view of Central Park, a restaurant, and a cigar bar. The hotel also plans to open a piano bar in the Sky Lobby, Wine Library for tastings and events, and a subterranean Jazz Club.
A mere 20 miles west of the Vegas Strip, desert hikers can strike pay dirt at Red Rock Canyon. This is the edge of the Mojave, where red and yellow sandstone cliffs stretch 7,000 feet into the Nevada sky and Joshua trees scatter across the desert floor. Many of the better day hikes branch out from the 13-mile loop road maintained by the Bureau of Land Management. The 4-mile round-trip Pine Creek Canyon Trail carves into the cliffs through a narrow canyon lined with ponderosa pines. The strenuous 14-mile round-trip Summit Trail begins in a typical desert plant community and ascends through canyons harboring willows and sycamores. Wildlife in Red Rock is as abundant and varied as the plant life. Coyotes, kit foxes, and bobcats all live in the canyon.
I just sat down for lunch with Dan Donohue, General Manager at the Lenox Hotel and asked him how the Lenox Hotel earned the number one ranking of all hotels in Boston on TripAdvisor. I always believed these rankings, especially as hotels inch their way to the top, are totally random. But he disagrees. He told me there’s a simple reason the Lenox is the number one hotel in the city–service. When he first took the job at the Lenox, he visited many of the lobbies of other hotels in the city. He sat and watched and realized that hotel employees wouldn’t even say hi to each other, let alone give a gracious nod to their guests. Not at the Lenox. His workers always go up to guests to ask them how their day is going. But what I really like about the Lenox is there’s no extra charge for that water in the mini-bar. There’s no extra charge for Wi-Fi. Guests aren’t nickled and dimed to death. “If a child wants a candy bar,” says Donohue, “we’ll find him one.” I visited two hotels this summer, Wequassett on Cape Cod and The Athenaeum in London, where everything in the mini-bar is free except for that bottle of Moet Chandon and other alcohol. There’s a certain degree of respect between hotel and guest when you’re not charged silly fees for beverages and Wi-Fi. On the other hand, nothing pisses off your guest more than charging them for these basic services after they already paid a decent amount for a night’s stay.
While some Greek isles like Rhodes, Mykonos, and Santorini can be overrun with tourists in the summer months, there are those isles like Folegandros and Tilos that seem to be a coveted secret among knowing Scandinavian travelers. Moments after you arrive at the main square in Folegandros, you realize that this is the authentic Greece. People dine on wooden tables under a string of electric light bulbs. Men with mustaches out of a 1880s barbershop photo grill souvlaki on an open grill. Older men drink coffee at a small café. All is framed by whitewashed buildings and churches. Tilos is an island where the locals, still unaccustomed to tourists, greet you as if you lived there your whole life. A place where one picks fresh figs off the tree and finds deserted medieval castles that request no admission fee.
This past Saturday on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, the circa-1913 Capawock Theater reopened for the first time in years. Soon to reopen in less than a month is the historic Strand Theater in Edgartown. The person to thank for this monumental effort is Mark Snider, founding director of the newly formed Martha’s Vineyard Theater Foundation. He recently persuaded singer Carly Simon to join his board and help finish raising the $1 million needed for renovations.