Celebrity Travel

Gossip

Middleburg, Virginia, Has Been Quietly Hosting Old Money Since the Kennedys Rented a Farmhouse There

Middleburg, Virginia, founded in 1787 along a colonial trading route, became the centre of Virginia's hunt country and a discreet weekend retreat for the Kennedys, the Mellons and the Harrimans.

Gossip

Locust Valley Gave Old-Money New York Its Accent, and Its Clubs Still Don't Take Visitors

Locust Valley, the hamlet at the centre of Long Island's Gold Coast, has served as a social hub for old-money New York families since the estate-building boom of the 1890s to 1930s, and its private clubs, including the 1911-founded Piping Rock Club, remain closed to the public.

Gossip

Montecito Has Quietly Hosted Old Money and New Royalty Since the Early 1900s

Montecito, a small unincorporated community folded against the Santa Ynez Mountains next to Santa Barbara, has drawn wealthy Americans as a winter retreat since the early twentieth century and is now widely reported as home to Oprah Winfrey and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Gossip

Saint-Barthélemy Is the Caribbean Rock the Rockefellers Turned Into Old Money's Winter Address

A poor, largely overlooked French Caribbean outpost until the mid-twentieth century, Saint-Barthélemy owes its transformation into one of the world's most exclusive winter addresses to Rémy de Haenen's Eden Rock hotel and the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, who began buying land there from the late 1950s.

Gossip

Toorak Has Been Melbourne's Wealthiest Address Since the Gold Rush Built It

Toorak, a few kilometres from central Melbourne, has been Australia's most consistently affluent suburb since gold rush-era wealth built its first grand estates in the 19th century, and census data still ranks it among the country's highest-income postcodes.

Gossip

Southampton Is the Hamptons Village Old New York Chose Over Newport

Southampton, on New York's Long Island, turned from a farming village into a Gilded Age summer colony after the railroad reached it in 1870, and has kept a reputation as the more understated, old-guard counterpart to Newport ever since.

Gossip

Crans-Montana Has Hosted More Foreign Ministers Than Ski Photographers

Crans-Montana, a sunny plateau resort above Switzerland's Rhône Valley, built its old-money reputation less on paparazzi sightings than on a century of discreet gatherings: a Belle Époque sanatorium history, one of the European Tour's longest-running golf events, and a private diplomatic forum that still meets there.

Gossip

Bar Harbor Is Where the Rockefellers Built Roads Instead of Estates

Bar Harbor, Maine, was one of the Gilded Age’s grandest summer colonies until a 1947 fire ended it; what survived, including John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s car-free carriage roads through Acadia National Park, still shapes the town today.

Gossip

Highclere Castle Has Been the Carnarvon Family’s Seat Since Long Before Downton Abbey

Hampshire’s Highclere Castle has been the Earls of Carnarvon’s family seat since 1679, funded the excavation that found Tutankhamun’s tomb, and became world-famous a second time as the real-life setting for Downton Abbey.

Gossip

Sotogrande Is Where Europe's Polo and Golf Set Has Quietly Wintered Since the 1960s

A private resort town on Spain's Cádiz coast, Sotogrande has drawn European aristocracy and business families since the 1960s for its gated privacy, championship golf and one of the world's most prestigious polo seasons.

Gossip

Royal Deeside Is Where Britain's Monarchy Has Summered Since Queen Victoria

The stretch of the River Dee around Balmoral Castle has been the British royal family's summer retreat since Queen Victoria bought the estate in 1852, and the surrounding valley of shooting estates and Highland games remains one of aristocratic Britain's most enduring fixtures.

Gossip

Rancho Santa Fe Is Where a Railway's Failed Eucalyptus Plan Became Old Money

A San Diego County enclave built by a railway company on a failed timber scheme became, by the 1930s, one of Southern California's most guarded old-money addresses, with a golf history that still draws names today.