HTSI editor’s letter: where to spend it this autumn

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

I have a particular affinity for visiting ski destinations out of season: this year I have been to famous resorts in the Dolomites, Telluride and Taos, New Mexico – all without witnessing a whisper of any powder on any mountain. I also went to Aspen, which stars on the cover of this HTSI autumn travel special. 

I found Aspen especially surprising, mostly because I hadn’t realised how entwined the town’s heritage is with the Bauhaus movement. The Austrian architect, artist, sculptor, photographer and interior designer Herbert Bayer arrived there in 1946, and was instrumental both in preserving some of the city’s lesser appreciated public buildings as well as creating a new language of architecture in his adopted town. His most significant contribution is the Aspen Institute campus, which today anchors a wide visual arts programme, a summer music festival and multiple site-specific outdoor installations.

Among its buildings, The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies stages exhibitions dedicated to honouring Bayer’s legacy. When I visited in July, there was a show celebrating the centenary of Bauhaus typography, a subject which, if you work in any creative field involving typeface, should be a subject of devotional worship. But I was even more charmed by the discovery next door of the Aspen Center for Physics, conceived in 1961 by scientists George Stranahan and Michael Cohen to be a unique research centre where theoretical physicists might gather in the summer. It has subsequently been described as “heaven for scientists”. The discovery of an outdoor classroom replete with a blackboard scrawled over with theoretical equations was among the most magical things I’ve ever stumbled upon. 

Bauhaus typography should be a subject of devotional worship

But Aspen is all about the discoveries, whether it’s the insanely pretty view that greets you on arrival of Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Reserve, or the roast chicken platter served at the Meat & Cheese Farm Shop, or simply the humongous properties packed into the city’s tiny picket fence-lined avenues. Writer Josh Hickey followed my tracks in Aspen, arriving to cover the annual art festival and report on the town’s ongoing primacy as an all-year-round destination. If for no other reason, I would go back just to experience the wonder that is Carl’s Pharmacy, a drugstore first founded in 1965 that now sells everything from bear spray to hard liquor.

Louis Cheslaw’s guide to the best UK cottages to rent answers the perennial question of where to find the “really good ones”. His selection is a rigorous edit of nine establishments as recommended by fashion insiders, shared – albeit reluctantly – with you, dear reader. My dream cottage sits next to the sea, is adjacent to some decent cliff walks, recalls a fairy cabin and is rich in ancient and authentic details. A wood-burning stove and roll-top bath are also optimal.

David Coggins takes on the most gruelling assignment in this week’s issue, eating his way around Alsace. The French region on the plain of the river Rhine is famed for its pretzels, sausages and choucroute garnie. David manfully undertook his labours without complaint, stuffing himself and sampling the area’s many beverages along with photographer Torvioll Jashari. One can only hope they carried a multipack of Alka-Seltzer to manage the incipient indigestion.

Alsace creeps into more than one story this week. It’s also the birthplace of Gdańsk-based yacht builder Francis Lapp, a former electrician who founded his Sunreef yachts company in Poland in 2000. Most of his competitors looked on in bemusement when he first unveiled his catamarans at the annual boat show in Monaco. Not so today: Sunreef now employs 2,600 employees and brings in revenues of €200mn. 

Alsace is also one of the great terroirs recommended by Enrico Bernardo – once crowned “the world’s best sommelier” – in his Wine & Travel series published by Assouline. As Alice Lascelles discovers, Bernardo believes it “possesses a strong identity and a distinctive gastronomy that pairs beautifully with the local wines”. I need no further persuasion. Hold the Weisswurst, lads… I’m on my way. 

@jellison22