Stephanie Holcombe

There are hotels you visit, and then there are hotels you return to for generations.

Badrutt’s Palace in St. Moritz is one of those places for me. The setting is extraordinary and the history unmistakable — but what keeps people coming back isn’t the view or the address. It’s the people. There are team members who have become part of the fabric of the place; Josef, the Resident Manager, is one of them. You don’t simply recognize him — you feel recognized by him.

I see that same philosophy carried beautifully across the Dorchester Collection, but in a completely different way — a collection of legendary hotels across multiple cities that never feel interchangeable.

The Dorchester in London feels unmistakably London. Hôtel Plaza Athénée feels unmistakably Paris. And The Lana captures a distinctly modern expression of Dubai—an elegant, quietly confident presence in a city where standing apart is no small feat. Each has its own traditions, personality, and sense of place, yet all share that same commitment to deeply personal service and an almost effortless feeling of being cared for.

The building may create the setting. The people make the place. A beautiful hotel can be replicated; a genuine sense of belonging cannot. That, to me, is quiet luxury — not what is being advertised, but what is being remembered.

So when I recommend a property, that’s what I’m really looking for: will they feel known, feel cared for, and want to come back? Because that is how a beautiful hotel becomes a legendary one.

Some of the most luxurious things we can give one another don’t cost anything at all.

One tradition I’ve created with my own children is to give each of them an experience that is completely their own — not the same trip with a different name, but something designed around who they are.

For my youngest son, that meant Montana and Paws Up: a cabin, a fire, tracking prints in the snow, and sledding with Iditarod dogs. For my daughter, horseback riding in Wyoming and a girls’ weekend in West Palm Beach, revisiting places from my own childhood. For my middle son, London and Paris built around a Chelsea match — history, and touring the city in a Mini Cooper. None would have been right for the others. And that’s the point.

We sometimes confuse luxury with giving people more. But the most meaningful luxury is often being known well enough that someone creates something specifically for you. Years from now, I doubt my children will remember every present — but they’ll remember that I knew exactly what would make them light up.

The most thoughtful travel is the same. Sometimes luxury is simply the feeling of, “They really know me.”

One of my favorite design principles comes from Coco Chanel: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” I think about it constantly when I design travel, corporate experiences, and retreats.

The instinct, especially in luxury, is to keep adding — another restaurant, another excursion, another beautiful thing to see. But sometimes the most sophisticated choice is to take something away. Leave an afternoon open. Don’t schedule the dinner right after the thing everyone has been looking forward to.

Give people room to notice the view from their terrace, to linger over a long coffee, or to do nothing at all. The best itineraries have rhythm; they know when to build anticipation and when to step back. If everything is a highlight, nothing is.

Some of the most interesting choices go the other direction entirely — off the grid, phone away, something beautifully analog. There is a certain luxury in having nowhere else you need to be.