Miami's beautiful Gansevoort South hotel is the latest hotel in trouble. The Miami Herald is reporting that Credit Suisse has announced a January 28 auction for the ownership stake that was once used to obtain $89 million mezzanine loan on the hotel. Developers William and Michael Achenbaum got their financing at the top of South Florida's real estate bubble, hoping to make a fortune on condo units. But sales were sluggish for the condos in the residential tower and the Achenbaums decided not to convert some of the hotel rooms into condo-hotel units. Because of the real estate downturn the developers were forced to rely on hotel revenue to pay back their debt at a time when tourism has been experiencing some of its worst numbers ever.

The 334-room oceanfront hotel hasn't been empty. The enviable location and sharp design have attracted a lot of attention. It has been used as a backdrop in the Bravo reality show Miami Social and was reportedly a hot spot during the recent Art Basel Miami Beach show. The hotel remains open and busy as the winter season begins.

The Miami Herald article says that the Achenbaums hope to find a way to buy back the loan at the auction and retain ownership. The $89 million loan was backed by the Achenbaum ownership stake not the Gansevoort property itself so the auction is not a traditional foreclosure proceeding. The hotel also has a separate $314 million mortgage. Any winner in the auction would also have to take on that mortgage.

Before it was the Gansevoort South, the building was the Roney Palace and the adjoining Roney condo complex. That project went through bankruptcy in 2004 and Chicago developer Joseph Chetrit paid about $150 million for the property months after the Chapter 11 filing, eventually selling his company's interest to the Achenbaums after a failed joint venture between the two groups.

If Jared Paul Stern's $2 Million Scotch Whisky Gift Experience (with Glenfiddich) was a little too rich for your blood, an $85,000 experience with The Dalmore might be just right for you.

We've covered various Dalmore bottles with prices as high as $58,000 over the years, as well as a tasting led by the colorful third generation Master Distiller Richard Paterson (above). With the once-in-a-lifetime Dalmore Experience package, you can combine all that -- taste the best bottles, spend a day with Richard and even get your hands on a custom-blended bottle of The Whisky Dalmore.

The $85,000 price tag gets you first class transportation (including airfare) to the Scottish Highlands, a city and country tour, four nights in a five-star hotel, a private barrel tasting of resting casks, a day of falconry with Richard Paterson, and a bespoke bottle of scotch whisky hand-created for you by Richard himself -- after he gets to know you, you personality and your preferences. The bottle will arrive in a handmade case a few weeks after you return to real life.

This extravagant package is so exclusive, it's only available for those in-the-know. Comment below and indicate your interest if would like to be contacted by a representative (or contact Annie.Scott-at-weblogsinc.com), and the Luxist team will pass along your information. You're welcome.

When you think of Abercrombie & Kent, you may think of tours and safaris. Did you know that they also have villas?

Well, they do. A&K owns and operates villas all over the world, including in France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy. The villas vary in size and style, but all bring that old world A&K glamor to the table, as well as the A&K expertise -- they can arrange excursions for you like balloon rides, wine tastings, cooking classes and more.

Two new properties have recently opened in Italy, La Fornace (Tuscany, above) and La Castellina (Chianti).

La Fornace, scenically located near Arezzo and Cortona, has a heated swimming pool with a view of the countryside, a pizza oven, a gym and spa, grand stone fireplaces, bikes, a volleyball court and a soccer field. Does that just about cover your whole family? There are 5 en-suite bedrooms (sleeps 10) with satellite TVs, two kitchens, a game room, a cinema, a piano and central heating and air conditioning. Get a few friends together and rent it for $11,744 to $16,224 per week (high season).

Alternatively, La Castellina has six bedrooms (sleeps 10 +1) and lies in the heart of a small wine-producing estate. There's a large swimming pool, table tennis, badminton, WiFi, a bread oven and the sitting room is a rustic-chic converted hay barn. It's available for $9,744 to $14,432 per week (high season) -- and you can have A&K arrange a personal chef for you, transportation to nearby vineyards, whatever you'd like.

Visit akvillas.com to see galleries and floorplans of their villas worldwide (and to book -- be sure to invite us if you have an extra bed!).

It's not the world's best time for luxury hotels in destinations associated with swank -- the economy combined with the AIG effect ensures that. But in Arizona, where the desert is made to grow lush green golf courses and support sparkling swimming pools, hope does seem to spring eternal. And so, in a state that's littered with poor hotel financial news, a new luxury resort is set to open on December 18th: Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain. It's in Marana, near Tucson, which seems to be a city whose luxury properties seem to have taken less of a beating of late than the other parts of the Copper State.

I had the chance to tour the property a few weeks ago, and it is pretty impressive. The design is meant to take cues from the dramatic saguaro-studded surroundings, while simultaneously nodding to/updating the Ritz Carlton's traditional concept of luxury.

Now, it's not exactly convenient to downtown Tucson -- the property is about 20 miles north of town -- but you're meant to spend time at the resort, given the Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, hiking and biking trails through the resort's 850 acres, among other attractions and distractions which include something called "cattle penning" and stargazing in the clear skies at night.

The resort's 250 guest rooms weren't quite ready when I visited, but the restaurant, called CORE, was near complete and chef Joel Harrington (who seems he'd be just as comfortable competing in a skateboarding championship or rocking out on a stage as he obviously is in the kitchen ) took a break from supervising the delivery of kitchen equipment to chat about his culinary agenda. His plans include blending his own culinary biography with local ingredients and flavors. For instance, chipotle-spiked sweet potato bisque, duck confit, onion marmalade, makes use of local chipotle chili, and is finished with maple syrup procured at a Vermont sugar house close to Harrington's hometown. A salad made from local field greens will include roasted candy-stripe beets, as well as goat cheese from Black Mesa Ranch in Snowflake, Arizona. Another dish uses desert meat staples: barbecued quail, pulled rabbit/tepary bean ragout, served with mustard creme fraiche and a Tabasco gastrique. (Quail and rabbit also figured into the chef's Vermont childhood.) The dessert options are many, but will include the wares of local fave gelato purveyor Frost.

There are a number of seating options in the restaurant, but my bet is that the counter-side seats that look right into the kitchen will be a hot ticket -- it's going to be quite a show.

Beyond food, there's a full-service spa on property. Its 17,000 square feet seem to have been designed intelligently, with a lot of thought given to the flow a guest will take from arrival, through treatment, to relaxation at the spa's dedicated pool (pictured above, with views of boulders carved with ancient petroglyphs) and eventually to what I imagine will be a regretful exit. And if all goes well, as Ritz Carlton's gotta really hope -- plans for many happy returns.

For our final installment on the eye-popping holiday offerings from that glossy chronicle of the filthy rich Robb Report - following the matching custom private jet and megayacht set costing $500 million and more - we have a bespoke basket of goodies from famed French luxury goods house Hermès. Starting at $215,000 depending on what exactly the recipient chooses to indulge in, the gift includes: a custom eight-piece luggage set handcrafted by a single Hermès craftsman in Paris from their incredible range of luxurious, exotic leathers (above) including crocodile, alligator, ostrich and lizard, dyed in any of 300 shades; consultation with a specialist from Hermès to create a bespoke suit, topcoat, shoes, and leather and knit accessories, all of which will be made to the recipient's specifications; and a private tour of the Hermès leather atelier in Paris for the recipient and a guest. Some luggage items, like the portable alligator skin bar trunk the firm once made for Sammy Davis Jr., may take up to a year to complete.

Gift cards are popular this time of year and luxury hotel chain Four Seasons is taking an active role in selling their cards and doing some good at the same time. For every Four Seasons Gift Card sold between December 1 and December 10, 2009, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is committed to donating the cost of one "bedkit" to Canada-based charity Sleeping Children Around the World. The not-for-profit organization was founded on the belief that it is the basic right of every child to have a comfortable night's sleep. It delivers bedkits that included treated mosquito nets for those in areas prone to malaria, along with fundamental necessities such as a mat, sheets, blankets, clothing and more. In 2009, Sleeping Children Around the World delivered its one millionth bedkit.

Four Seasons Gift Cards are available online in any denomination ranging from US $100 to US $5,000 and can be used at any Four Seasons resort worldwide. You can contact Four Seasons hotels and resorts worldwide to order gift cards in any amount up to $100,000.

To raise interest in the campaign Four Seasons has given us ten gift cards to give away over ten days. Leave a comment on this post and at the end of the day one winner will be chosen to win a $100 gift card.
Some other important details:
* To enter, leave a confirmed comment below.
* The comment must be left and confirmed on December 10, 2009 at 5:00PM Eastern Time.
* You may only enter once.
* One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
* One winner will receive a Four Seasons gift card valued at $100.
* Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.

See complete contest rules here.

This contest is closed. Thank you for your participation.

Only 450 people have ever been to space, but if Sir Richard Branson has his way, that number will climb - and quickly.

On Monday at dusk in the Mojave Desert, Branson unveiled his latest baby, Spaceship2, pictured at right, the second in his fleet of intergalactic shuttles. SS2 was designed to take thousands of private astronauts into space after test programming and all required U.S. government licensing and regulatory approvals have been completed, which, could could take quite some time.

"This is truly a momentous day," said Branson. "The team has created not only a world first but also a work of art."

What if you could go on vacation, and get a tan so profound they would name a shade of 'golden' in your honor -- in the middle of winter, no less -- and skip the part with skin damage and wrinkles? If you're interested, Pueblo Bonito in Los Cabos, Mexico will address the vacation part, and their Thermage spa treatments will attend to your skin.

Thermage -- or radiothermoplasty for you Gray's Anatomy types -- delivers radiofrequency waves to the collagen-producing level of the skin. Collagen, remember, is the stuff that Angelina Jolie has made famous and her synthetically-inclined colleagues have made infamous. The non-invasive procedure's radio waves are meant to make the skin's natural collagen contract and tighten, as well as spur the production of new collagen and its remarkable ability to fill and plump. Voila, wrinkles are no more.

Pueblo Bonito has partnered with the Raquel Sarfati Medical Spa to offer the treatments at all four Pueblo's locations, but only be for a limited time: from December 15, 2009 to January 9, 2010, at Pueblo's award-winning Sunset Beach Spa. They'll even give you a free consultation so you can find out if thermage is the ace you want up your sleeve. Even so, thermage isn't exactly inexpensive, but you didn't expect the phrase "supple bronze goddess" to be, did you?

If nothing else, there's still that mesmerizing tan in the middle of winter for you to work on. You'll get no help with that, but we're sure you and the peninsular sun can work something out between yourselves.

Gift cards are popular this time of year and luxury hotel chain Four Seasons is taking an active role in selling their cards and doing some good at the same time. For every Four Seasons Gift Card sold between December 1 and December 10, 2009, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is committed to donating the cost of one "bedkit" to Canada-based charity Sleeping Children Around the World. The not-for-profit organization was founded on the belief that it is the basic right of every child to have a comfortable night's sleep. It delivers bedkits that included treated mosquito nets for those in areas prone to malaria, along with fundamental necessities such as a mat, sheets, blankets, clothing and more. In 2009, Sleeping Children Around the World delivered its one millionth bedkit.

Four Seasons Gift Cards are available online in any denomination ranging from US $100 to US $5,000 and can be used at any Four Seasons resort worldwide. You can contact Four Seasons hotels and resorts worldwide to order gift cards in any amount up to $100,000.

To raise interest in the campaign Four Seasons has given us ten gift cards to give away over ten days. Leave a comment on this post and at the end of the day one winner will be chosen to win a $100 gift card.
Some other important details:
* To enter, leave a confirmed comment below.
* The comment must be left and confirmed on December 9, 2009 at 5:00PM Eastern Time.
* You may only enter once.
* One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
* One winner will receive a Four Seasons gift card valued at $100.
* Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.

See complete contest rules here.

This contest is now closed. Thank your for your participation. Please take part in the Day 10 contest.

Remember Bruce Wayne's apartment in the "The Dark Knight?" The hotel which served as Wayne's fictional ultra-modern lair was sold this week for millions less than the debt owed on it. Hotel 71 in Chicago was picked up for $37 million in an all-cash deal. According to the Wall Street Journal the seller was a special servicer holding around $68 million of debt, put into place after the hotel's July 2008 foreclosure. The hotel was originally put on the market last January in hopes of garnering a $100 million offer.

Hotel 71 was to be a condo-hotel but as Maura Webber Sadovi of the WSJ points out, that business model is one that didn't work out for many developments. The new owners, Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, plan to operate Hotel 71 as a traditional hotel. The hotel remains open and is offering a New Year's Extravaganza starting at $249.

The end-of-the-year hotel deals are pouring in offering plenty of opportunities for great getaways. Destination Hotels & Resorts' is offering a year-end escape package with rates starting at $99 per night at many of their hotels. The rates are valid through Dec. 30, 2009. The hotel locations include winter ski destinations, oceanside retreats, urban hotels and desert getaways. Guests can book the $99 rate at properties such as the Vail Cascade in Colorado, Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, The Inverness Hotel in Denver or Snowmass, Colorado's Stonebridge Inn. Additional rates begin at $119 per night for warm weather spots like Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa in California, Tempe Mission Palms in Arizona or Wild Dunes in South Carolina. The $119 rate also is available at winter retreats including Inn and Spa at Loretto in Santa Fe, Resort at Squaw Creek in California and Sunriver in Oregon. Additional values may be found at collection properties in world-class locations such as Maui, Telluride, Vail and Stowe for $159 per night. To book your trip head to http://www.destinationhotels.com/2009 which has a map where you easily see the rates and locations available.

Destination Hotels & Resorts is the seventh largest independent hospitality management company in the country with more than 30 luxury and upscale hotels including southern California's Terranea Resort which opened in 2009. Destination operates properties in key metropolitan areas and resort markets including Washington, D.C., Denver, San Diego, Santa Fe, Aspen, Palm Springs, Houston and Lake Tahoe.

Admit it, the biathlon has always fascinated you: skiing, spandex, and guns -- what's not to make a heart flutter? Vancouver, Canada isn't so bad either. With the Winter Olympics headed that way in sixty days you can add Granville Street and massive natural beauty to that fetching, dual-sport combination -- if only you had a place to stay...

Enter Evolution Whistler, a mountain home development just over a year old in the away-from-it-all Whistler Creekside. Evolution houses seventy residences from 590 sq. ft. up to 1,630 sq. ft., with 1 bed/ba units at the low end and 3 bed/ba units at the high. Some of them will be available during the Olympics, so when you're not slopeside at the ski jump or hoisting a nostalgic Jamaican flag at the bobsled, you can enjoy Evolution's own exercise facilities, outdoor sauna and hot tubs, or the eucalyptus steam room.

And if you decide you just can't get enough of Evolution or Vancouver, you can take a quarter ownership in one of Evolution's offerings -- there are 280 on offer -- with serious discounts from last year's The-Gods-Must-Be-Crazy prices. What better way could there be to remember the city where you jilted the biathlon and fell in love with the luge? (Don't worry, you will...)

Gift cards are popular this time of year and luxury hotel chain Four Seasons is taking an active role in selling their cards and doing some good at the same time. For every Four Seasons Gift Card sold between December 1 and December 10, 2009, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is committed to donating the cost of one "bedkit" to Canada-based charity Sleeping Children Around the World. The not-for-profit organization was founded on the belief that it is the basic right of every child to have a comfortable night's sleep. It delivers bedkits that included treated mosquito nets for those in areas prone to malaria, along with fundamental necessities such as a mat, sheets, blankets, clothing and more. In 2009, Sleeping Children Around the World delivered its one millionth bedkit.

Four Seasons Gift Cards are available online in any denomination ranging from US $100 to US $5,000 and can be used at any Four Seasons resort worldwide. You can contact Four Seasons hotels and resorts worldwide to order gift cards in any amount up to $100,000.
To raise interest in the campaign Four Seasons has given us ten gift cards to give away over ten days. Leave a comment on this post and at the end of the day one winner will be chosen to win a $100 Four Seasons gift card.

Some other important details:
* To enter, leave a confirmed comment below.
* The comment must be left and confirmed on December 8, 2009 at 5:00PM Eastern Time.
* You may only enter once.
* One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
* One winner will receive a Four Seasons gift card valued at $100.
* Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.

See complete contest rules here.

This contest is now closed. Thank you for your participation. Please join the Day Nine contest.

The Beau-Rivage Palace has just what you need to heal your soul from all that holiday stress (and eating and drinking). The palace, adjacent to Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps (see above) on ten acres of private, wanderable gardens, has a new restaurant featuring France's only female chef with three Michelin stars, as well as two other restaurants, two bars with sweeping terraces, and the Cinq Mondes Spa, where they will fix you up for 2010.

The three-night Boost Your Immune System Package, available through March 19, 2010, starts at approximately $1,437.00 (based on double occupancy) and includes:

• Accommodations in a lake-view room
• One-hour session with a personal trainer
• Welcome glass of freshly squeezed Vitamin C-rich orange juice
• Daily buffet breakfast with a wide selection of freshly squeezed juices, fresh fruits and vegetables and home-made yogurts (among other options)
• Special antioxidant-rich lunch or dinner at Café Beau-Rivage
• Daily in-room vegetable and fruit basket, freshly squeezed juices and a selection of herbal teas
• 50 minute body massage at the Cinq Mondes Spa
• 20 minute facial massage at the Cinq Mondes Spa
• Free access to the Cinq Mondes Spa, fitness room and tennis courts

Now that's a getaway. Wait till you see the rooms.