They want big houses — several of them — with ornate exteriors, situated on golf courses, designed by golf professionals. Sound like a typical wealthy American home buyer?

Nope. It’s their affluent counterparts in China, who are plowing their rapidly accumulating wealth into Western-style mansions. “We assumed they would want houses with an Eastern influence,” says Dave Jenkins, a community design director, at Sater Companies, a small Florida firm, which recently started designing luxury homes in China. “We were wrong.”

Hired by a Chinese developer of a large luxury community South of Shanghai, Sater Companies has designed a handful of “villas” with a Mediterranean influence. These houses, which will cost up to $1.5 million, typically include sleeping quarters for a live-in maid, a main kitchen, and a separate “work kitchen,’’ situated away from the main living area because the cooking tends to be smoky.

Rendering courtesy of Sater Design Collection, Inc.

Mr. Jenkins says the new development will include hotels, golf courses and homes for about 20,000 people, stretching over 10 square miles, when it’s completed. “It’s like Vegas, Monte Carlo and Taos, all rolled into one,” he says.

Many U.S. real estate companies have shied away from the Chinese market because of legal entanglements and government restrictions on foreign developers. But when considering that prices of luxury homes in China rose 13.5% in 2007, according to Chinese government statistics, U.S. builders may find China too tempting to pass up, if business at home stays slow.
Article by: Michael Corkery – Wall Street Journal

Tired of the same old, boring luxury hotels and resorts? Well you love what is under development.  I’ve listed the Top 10 futuristic, luxury hotels and what a list it is. Amazing architecture, ambiance and decor. Sit back and make your vacation plans for the ultimate in luxury hotels. And now …. the Top 10 !

10. The Apeiron Island Hotel

Designer: Sybarite
Status: Concept
Estimated project cost: $500million

The ‘Apeiron’ island hotel is a seven star resort with a total floor area of 200,000m². It is 185-m high and boasts of over 350 luxury apartment suites. The hi-tech futuristic hotel screams of luxury and comfort with its own private lagoon, beaches, restaurants, cinemas, retail shopping, art gallery, spas and conference facilities. It’s out of the world design is magnetic enough to deliver a spell-bounded experience to visitors.

9. Foldable Hotel Pods

Designer: M3 Architects, London
Estimated project cost: $72 to $104 million

The foldable and fully transportable pods are for those traveling geeks who find it hard to shun all the amenities of their luxurious life. You can move the pods to exotic locations around the world and the amazing concept abodes will come with ‘Active’ walls and floors where guests can focus images of their choice and a disposable unit to care of all waste.

8. The Hotel Burj al-Arab

Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Designer: Tom Wright (WS Atkins PLC), Khuan Chew
Status: Complete
Estimated project cost: $650 million
Cost per person: $1,000 to over $28,000 per night, $75 to have a glimpse from inside

Considered, unofficially, the world’s first and only 7-star hotel, the Burj al-Arab is a truly the most luxurious hotel imaginable and hence we couldn’t help including it in this list of futuristic hotels, which also perhaps triggered architects around the world to look beyond the fence.

The tallest, 321-metres (1,053 ft), hotel, designed as a sail of a dhow, is constructed on an artificial island 280-metres (919 ft) out from Jumeirah beach. The hotel boasts of the world’s tallest atrium, which is 180-meters (590 feet) tall.

The suspended helipad on the top adds to the grandeur of the hotel. The lavish interior skillfully mingles the best of design ethics from both the east and the west. The 8,000 square meters of 22-carat gold leaf and 24,000 square meters of 30 different types of marbles give the hotel an enigmatic touch.

The 28 double-story floors of the hotel accommodate 202 luxury suites with prices ranging from $1,000 to over $28,000 per night (for the Royal Suite). The hotel also features 8 restaurants, including bars and lounges, latest business, conferencing, fitness and recreational facilities. Carved in the midst of white beaches and the blue waters of the Arabian Gulf, the Burj Al Arab is a dream come true.

7. Waterworld

Location: Songjiang, China
Designer: Atkin’s Architecture Group
Status: Concept

This spectacular design by Atkin’s Architecture Group deservedly won the first prize award last year in an international design competition. The 400-bed resort hotel features underwater public areas, guest rooms, cafes, and restaurants. The major attraction is the extreme sporting facilities including a luxurious swimming pool, rock climbing and bungee jumping.

What more to say, the pictures are screaming BLISS. (Photo Credit: TheCoolHunter)

6. The Poseidon Undersea Resort

Location: Fiji, The Poseidon Mystery Island
Designer: Bruce Jones
Status: Under construction, will be completed by September 2008
Estimated project cost: $105 million
Cost per person: $15,000 per week

Our pursuit of unique spaces now goes straight 1,200-square feet under the sea in the lap of Poseidon undersea resort. The world’s first underwater resort will be ready by the end of next year with breathtaking coral reefs where you can literally immerse yourself.

Surrounded by 5,000-acre lagoon, the Bruce Jones’ Poseidon Mystery Island offers luxurious 550 square feet large suites.

Not only this, the Poseidon Resorts website says, “the first 1,000 guests will have their names permanently inscribed on two monuments one on the island, and one on the floor of the lagoon.” Now, that’s incredible!

Tourists can indulge in submarine piloting, deep reef excursions, scuba diving, sea track on the sea floor, water sports, para-sailing, cave exploration, and much more.

5. The Hydropolis: A self-acclaimed 10-Star Underwater Hotel

Location: Dubai
Designer: Joachim Hauser, Crescent Hydropolis Resorts
Estimated project cost: $500-million

The Hydropolis Undersea Resort, especially designed keeping in mind that we’re around 60% water, endeavors to deliver the serene beauty of the ocean in its true colors. The one of its kind resort will encompass a whopping 1.1-million-square-foot of area offering shopping mall, ballroom, island villas, restaurant, high-tech cinema and surprisingly, a missile-defense system for your security 60-feet underwater.

Tourists can enjoy their stay in 220 theme suites within the submarine leisure complex. It is one of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world, covering an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London’s Hyde Park.

The resort is designed with a petal-like retracting roof to organize open-sky events.

Around 150 firms are involved in the project, which is expected to complete this year if all technical, land, and financial challenges are met, but it’s delayed as per the latest reports. Following the line and determined of the success of the Hydropolis, Crescent-Hydropolis is now planning a chain of underwater hotels around the world.

4. The Lunatic Hotel: Hotel on the Moon

Designer: Hans-Jurgen Rombaut, Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (WATG)
Status: Blueprint ready, will take real shape by 2050

Orbiting in space seems more thrilling but Moon brings in a nostalgic aura. Perhaps, the Lunatic Hotel concept will serve it all with spectacular views sprinkled with joys of low gravity and an alien feeling. Designer Hans-Jurgen Rombaut of the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture in the Netherlands is quite optimistic to complete the dream project by 2050.

The ‘sensation engine’, as the designer calls it, will allow tourists to indulge in low-gravity games with the help of two 160-meters high slanting towers. The towers will be equipped with teardrop-shaped ‘habitation capsules’ which will serve as spaceship like suits for tourists.

The 50-cms thick hull made of Moon rock and layers holding water will protect inhabitants from the harsh lunar environment including extreme temperatures and lethal cosmic rays and solar particles. If the whole concept comes out successful, we can expect a real lunar village too. (Photo Credit: NASA)

3. Aeroscraft: The flying luxury hotel of tomorrow

Designer: Igor Pasternak (Worldwide Aeros Corporation), Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (WATG)
Status: Prototype under development

The ‘Aeroscraft’ is a gigantic 400-ton blimp designed to carry passengers in its spacious luxury cosmos onboard. The flying hotel with an area equal to two football fields hangs in air with 14 million cubic feet of helium, huge electric and hydrogen fuel cell powered propellers and six turbofan jet engines. The hotel can accommodate 250 passengers driving them at a speed of 174 miles per hour up to 6, 000 miles.

Flying 8,000 feet above in the air, the 165×244×647 feet airship will provide tourists hi-tech amenities including casino, restaurants and staterooms.

Designer Igor Pasternak has also plans to float a cargo-carrying version too once the project takes off. (Photo Credit: WATG)

2. Galactic Suite

Designer: Xavier Claramunt of ADD+ARQUITECTURA
Status: On hold, prototype is ready

Designer Xavier Claramunt has tried to imbibe things especially to whet a adventurer’s dream with the Galactic Suite which will have around 22 rooms, measuring 7X4 meters, free of straight lines or angles and huge windows. It is termed as the first global project of its kind, next to Robert Bigelow’s space hotel. Different capsules will act as bars, restaurants, reception, and more.

The prototype is still waiting for investors to shell out their fortunes to make this project a reality.

1. Commercial Space Station Skywalker: The inflatable space hotel

Designer: Bigelow Aerospace, Las Vegas
Location: 515-kms above Earth
Status: The human space complex will be accessible by 2015
Estimated project cost: $500 million
Cost per person: $1 million a night

Certainly, we’ll have to stop this constant to and fro journey and make space our permanent base. And to make this a reality, the assembling of ‘CSS Skywalker’ kicked off with the launch of ‘Genesis I’ from Russia mid last year. Solar cells will power the inhabitable complex made of various sections that will inflate to take their real form in space. The sections or rooms of the CSS will allow rockets to dock. In future, the modules will be used as basis for space yachts and moon cruisers.

With a volume of 1,500.00 m3 and mass of 100,000 kg, the CSS Skywalker will have a maximum diameter of 30.00 m (98.00 ft).

The concept is a big challenge while it tests inflatable technology and fights to survive in hazardous conditions. Hope it’s made to face the wrath of the meteorites, though the hull of each module is made of three protective layers with an outer 18-inch-thick shield made of alternating woven graphite composite and foam to protect against orbital debris. (Photo Credit: CNet)

Watch List: The Diamond Ring Hotel

Location: Abu Dhabi

The Diamond Ring hotel is just a concept right now, but looks to be an amazing resort.  We’ll keep you updated as new information about this hotel becomes available.

Affluent consumers will ride out the economic downturn on a bed of luxury linens, surrounded by colors and fabrics that soothe the senses.

That’s the prediction of local textile designer Barbara Beckmann, who displayed some of her recent creations last week at the San Francisco Design Center’s Winter Market.

Rather than buying new homes, the trend will be to upgrade current property. “Those who can stay in the real estate market will lean toward luxury” when they redecorate, Beckmann said.

“Designers I worked with years ago are coming back to me to update the projects we worked on together,” she said. “People are coming back to luxury more and more. We’re going to see more hand-done work because people can appreciate what isn’t made in China.”

Beckmann MooreYaki Studio, where its founder spoke, carries “the top 1 percent of what’s available in the industry,” said interior designer Kristina Moore Yaki, the studio’s principal. “And in hand-painted fabrics, Barbara sets the standard.”

The studio’s clients include the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Claremont Resort in Oakland and the royal palace in Dubai. “Gold and silver are becoming very important again,” Beckmann said. “They create the look of luxury. We’re going to see this market coming back.”

Carolyn Ray, another Beckmann MooreYaki manufacturer, also features metallics in her fabrics. Many of her wall coverings and textiles have floral patterns, while others feature strong geometric shapes.

Asian motifs abound in Beckmann’s fabrics and in those of Charlotte Forish, also at Beckmann MooreYaki. Forish’s company, Chez Charlotte of San Rafael, offers textiles that are hand-screened on silk dupioni, linen and moleskin.

Soft jewel tones, especially blue, are popular in a number of textile lines. Beckmann’s jewelry was the inspiration for her collection featuring shades of quartz, amber, topaz, citrine, jade and two blues: aquamarine and sapphire.

For clients in the hospitality industry, Beckmann’s designs can be printed on solution-dyed acrylic. The durable fabric can be washed in cold water and is suitable for outdoor as well as indoor use, she said.

Another trend in high-end design is the customization of fabric. “A good fabric is like a great accessory,” Beckmann said. “Fabric makes the room.”

Well-ensconced in that marketing niche is Shoshana Enosh, whose company, Micana, hand-dyes its yarn before weaving it – on human-operated, wooden looms – into luxury textiles.

“The art of dyeing is an art with a bit of science,” she said, recalling how she learned the craft. “We practiced in an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub for a year before we got it right.”

Now her company can custom-match colors to clients’ specifications. Enosh’s focus at last week’s market was on custom chenille patterns. “It’s as soft as a baby’s bottom,” she said of a chenille throw she passed around to a studio full of admirers. “There’s absolutely nothing softer than this.”

At Holland & Sherry’s custom embroidery presentation, “Haute Couture for the Home,” Nicholas Chambeyron, formerly of Dior, described his transition from apparel to home fashions.

“We started with border designs, then moved to all-over designs, and finally to the finished product,” he said. “We use a lot of computer processes, machine processes, but all the details are worked by hand” at a factory in Germany.

In creating its textiles, the company can copy architectural details from a room and put them into embroidery or appliques. “I’m trying to make things very refined and elegant,” Chambeyron said. “There is no puckering of the fabric where it’s embroidered.”

Holland & Sherry makes its own chenille, and its line includes chenille-on-linen designs. The company also embroiders on leather, and uses leather as an applique on other fabrics.

“Most of the designs are not very traditional or old-fashioned,” Chambeyron said as he displayed a number of geometric patterns, some with a Far Eastern influence.

One design featured rectangular cutouts on a mostly solid background. When sunlight shone through the openings in the cloth, the design evoked the many windows of a city skyline. Another design looked to the past. Embroidered on a light-colored background, it featured farm motifs: a flower, a rooster and a child feeding a dog.

Article written by Jennifer Williams – San Francisco Chronicle

What a CEO drives often reflects the type of person he or she really is.  Take conservative Warren Buffett for example.  He’s worth about $42 billion, but for years he drove a silver 2001 Lincoln Town Car with Nebraska license plates, titled: THRIFTY.

CEO’s obviously have high profile positions and what they drive likely communicates a lot about the person. A recent survey of 3,000 people, found that only about 10% did not know what vehicle their chief drove.

“Of all the products in the world, cars are the most reliable representation of an individual’s personality,” says Golden Gate University psychology chair Kit Yarrow.  Full article

As 2007 winds down, we can reflect on the challenges we endured – teetering economy, soaring gas prices, crashing real estate market, and unrest around the world. But KWE Group believes luxury travel markets will continue to expand, while consumers of high-end products will hone their tastes ever more pointedly. The urge for self expression will spread, while a new ethical and environmental consciousness will take a firmer hold. These are among the many forces that will help dictate luxury tourism trends and lifestyle trends in 2008.

Luxury travel markets will continue to expand, while consumers of high-end products will hone their tastes ever more pointedly. The urge for self expression will spread, while a new ethical and environmental consciousness will take a firmer hold. These are among the many forces that will help dictate luxury tourism trends and lifestyle trends in 2008.

1. Traditional demographics won’t define luxury consumers. Buying behavior, geography, interests and connoisseurship will become the new definition of wealth, particularly in emerging markets where luxury status will be displayed outwardly via symbols: luxury goods and labels such as Louis Vuitton handbags or Chanel cuffs, ubiquitous among their peers.

Mature affluents are gravitating to “stealth wealth.” They seek luxury travel products that express personal interests and style, and those which require connoisseurship. They prize uniqueness and limited-edition luxe: originals, one-of-a-kind objects, which are expensive and highly collectible. Think men’s shirts with the monograms inside the sleeves, bespoke Hermes and non-branded, one-of-a-kind hotels that reflect the owner’s exquisite taste, selectivity and demanding standards. To know and appreciate these products, one must savor subtle details and be in the loop.

2. Relationships with family and friends take center stage. Accelerating since 9/11 and fueled by a backlash against 24/7 work schedules and dehumanizing technology, a tourism trend that is growing at a faster rate than all other sectors is family travel. A recent survey of American Express travel agents revealed a significant rise in luxury travel among families; 82% wanted high-end hotels with kids programs and 56% were traveling with nannies. Parents, grandparents and friends are looking to travel as a way to reunite, and to celebrate life’s landmark events. Business trips with the whole family will become as common as tag-along spouses, while high-end business hotels and resorts will get on board with family travel trends, rolling out the red carpet with special suites and villas.

3. Creativity checks in. As Thomas Friedman writes in “The World is Flat,” we are living in the Talent Age. Companies will need to innovate to set themselves apart by finding new solutions and alliances to tap into fresh talent. The right side of the brain will trump the left as creativity and design sell. Look to more companies to follow the lead of Richemont, a Swiss luxury goods conglomerate (Cartier, Montblanc, Dunhill and others), which established The Creative Academy, its own international Master of Arts in Design school, an alliance that bears creative fruits.

4. Concierges are king. A lack of time and information overload for the affluent to sort through, and they will pay experts to create lives they desire. As a lifestyle trend, personal concierges are all the rage. They’re curators for sourcing flowers, a home or even friends, even helping clients define their own tastes and style.

In retail, it’s “curated consumption” – stores offering the finest designs, already individually selected by the proprietor for buyers of electronics, fashion, furniture, etc. There’s an online model – www.couturelab.com– a brilliant webzine that promises to be the template for other luxury products. Luxury travel brands will be expected to go beyond providing just luxury service and hospitality in their hotel, cruise ship or airline. They will be pressed to offer quality, inside-track information and time-saving services, such as Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class Wing – a fast track security channel to get passengers from limo to lounge in ten minutes or less.

5. Altruism and social responsibility are a big lifestyle trend. Differing from the cause-related marketing of the 90s, today’s wealthy want to believe their consumption is helping to save the planet or has an altruistic motive behind it. In a recent HSBC luxury goods report, a graphic of American psychologist Abraham Maslow detailed an emotional needs hierarchy. The top, being linked to a higher cause. He said: “The future of luxury will be about imparting real meaning into a product.” The product itself must be sustainable and show a genuine sensitivity to community. The operative words here, as succinctly put by London’s Future Laboratory, are the three “T”s: truth, transparency and trust. A good example of the future’s responsible luxury, courtesy of Jeffrey Miller, consultant and columnist for Luxury Briefing: a Gucci Green Car.

6. Health, well-being and looking good continue to move up in financial priorities. The New York Times recently documented the lives and beauty budgets of three women in different parts of the country. One, a real estate agent from Los Angeles, admitted she regularly spent several thousand dollars monthly just for “maintenance,” just to “be in the game.” Lifestyle trends such as this fueled the spa and medical tourism boom in 2007. Spas are going well beyond the dedicated spa outlet or the home spa, and branching out into mobile spas, “macho” spas for men, and even pets. We are seeing the advent of medical real estate, where entire communities are in the works, such as Cooper Life at Craig Ranch in Texas. Monthly fees provide luxuries, including annual physical examinations and doctor house calls. Five star hotels are increasingly offering medi-healthy packages in alliance with neighboring medical facilities. Next? The buzzword will be “age management” programs to help the rich look and feel young.

7. Saving time is the greatest luxury among travel trends. Any service that achieves this will be a big winner (as evidenced by the number of jet sales and private jet charter companies serving time-starved travelers. Major airports are becoming luxury travel/shopping destinations, targeting power spenders on layovers. Aside from the bevy of high-end watches and handbags, Heathrow’s Terminal 5, set to open in March 2008, will have a two-story Harrod’s department store, stocking only luxury brands. Additionally, numerous companies are springing up to train armies of professional household and estate managers (butlers, maids, personal chefs, wine stewards, etc.). There’s even a new real estate development in Umbria that offers farmhouses with onsite architect, contractors, artisans and maintenance staff, so the owner can move in with just a suitcase. Lenovo just introduced its ThinkPad Reserved Edition ($4999) that comes with supple leather case and in-person assistance on call, guaranteed within four hours.

8. Big money follows culture and is big news. From Miami’s burgeoning Art Basel to the celeb-filled Sundance Film Festival, publicity seekers should take note of the international coverage that cultural events are receiving. Art tie-ins also make good financial sense: Sotheby’s introduced a co-branded World Elite MasterCard, giving cardholders VIP access to cultural events and receptions, even guided tours of newly excavated, private areas of Angkor Wat. More and more hotels are realizing that art attracts a certain art-savvy clientele, who are happy to spend freely on suites, spa treatments and fine wines. We will continue to see hotels become houses of culture, with in-house museums, curators, artists as interior designers, and stepped up marketing efforts that embrace culture. We will see more luxury retail and commercial spaces being treated as curatorial, artistic projects, such as Ferragamo’s flagship in New York: a boutique, corporate office and museum under one roof. Seen, too, are online sites such as Artipolis, a private members club for individuals who meet on- and off-line to share their passion for the arts.

9. The affluent are sated with product and look to unique experiences. Luxury travel is being redefined as experiences as consumers are inundated with products. Today’s well-traveled affluents want new, exciting experiences; to be intrigued, entertained and enlightened. They will spend top dollar to be first, or reach the most remote, exotic places. Witness how quickly suborbital flights and space travel took off. Taking advantage of lifestyle trends, marketers need to think big by turning any product into a life-enhancing experience. This can mean asking how visitors could have interactive experiences instead of passively visiting the Forum in Rome or the pyramids of Teotihuacán. When selling multi-million-dollar condos, marketers must go beyond touting professional style kitchens, but throw in a dinner party cooked by a personal chef when the buyer receives the keys, or a personal training session in a state-of-the-art triathlete fitness center. A travel trend that rates highly is acquiring knowledge and expressing one’s creative side. Hotels, resorts and destination management companies are going well beyond cooking classes to offer everything from videography to tea ceremonies and instruction in the visual arts; even gallantry at Paris’ Belle Ecole.

10. Space, space and more space is luxury. I recall what contemporary music composer John Cage said: the greatest luxuries are time and space. Especially when it comes to first class travel, airlines are vying to outdo rivals in offering the world’s largest airplane bed. Witness Singapore Airlines’ new private suites with double beds that sleep two. It will mean over-sizing hotel guest rooms and ship cabins, not just plush interior furnishings and amenities. Top hotel suites will get larger and pricier, appealing to the super wealthy accustomed to homes of 10,000 sq.ft. or more.

The Luxury Institute conducted a recent poll and the result showed Tiffany & Co was the most popular top made-to-order company.  Over 90% of the wealthy people polled said they would recommend Tiffany products to others.

Lexus and Rolex also were popular choices.  Home furnishing was the top category, followed by jewelry, homes, men’s dress shirts, and men’s suits. Full article

The merchandise is eye-popping, the prices astronomical and the clientele, not exactly old money. Millionaires are being created like no other time in history.

Now a growing number of self-made millionaires are changing the face of the luxury market, demanding the kind of lavish lifestyle that used to be reserved for royals. Full article