Past Forward

Alfonso Pérez-Ventana’s Madrid apartment feels surprisingly detached from the city below. Mature trees rise outside the windows, plants spill across a small terrace, and with the doors left open, indoors and outdoors begin to blur. It is an apt setting for the landscape designer, whose work is defined by observation, patience and an instinctive understanding of place. In conversation with Alessandro Laraspata, Pérez-Ventana reflects on the landscapes that shaped his childhood, the lessons he learned at Madrid’s Royal Botanical Garden and why the best things in life are rarely finished.

Camilla Frances spends the day with antique and vintage hunters, Brooke Metcalfe and Sarah Hiscox, whose keen eyes for design and nose for a special find led them to establish Source London in 2021. With their special curation for Cabana Vintage now live exclusively, the pair talk Camilla through their lives, both personal and professional, over one long, inspiring day together.

"Do you believe in signs?" asks South African ceramicist Cara Bauermeister, whose return to clay began with two fragments of buried porcelain unearthed in the garden of her Somerset West home. Emma Becque visits the artist's farmhouse and studio, where a lifelong fascination with craftsmanship, collecting and the natural world has shaped both the interiors and her coveted ceramics.

Much of Lazio is often eclipsed by the grandeur of Rome, but beyond it lies a region of abundant treasures, perhaps none more compelling than Viterbo, just north of the capital. With its utterly unspoiled countryside, cozy trattorias and natural thermal springs, it's a much-loved escape for Romans. Victoria Locke shares an insider's guide.

In Cabana Issue 22, we explored how Minnesota's Batcher Block Opera House holds time differently: how its past doesn’t recede but moves alongside us, shaping the present in gestures both subtle and deeply felt. That story opened a door, and now we peer through to what waits on the other side. From the same terrain comes the Opera House's next iteration. Liz Gardner follows its passage from preservation to possibility.

Stockholm-based travel and design writer Nicole Kavander shares her favorite places in the Swedish capital, where historic streets, contemporary design and easy access to nature sit side by side. From neighborhood cafés and classic Swedish lunches to candlelit jazz bars, galleries and archipelago escapes, Nicole's hyperlocal insider's guide captures a personal side of Stockholm.

American architect Thomas A. Kligerman is celebrated for his classically inspired houses that draw on the architectural traditions of the American Coast. The author of Summer by the Sea, he has long championed a timeless approach to design rooted in craftsmanship, landscape and place. Here, he shares his favourite corners of Rhode Island, from historic inns and antique shops, to coastal gardens and beloved local restaurants.

Over five decades, Jeremy King has transformed London’s restaurant scene, creating glamorous meeting places where royalty, rock stars, artists and politicians mingle with cabbies, footballers and photographers. From Le Caprice and The Ivy to The Wolseley and Simpson’s in the Strand, Sophie Goodwin traces his remarkable career and considers the resilience, instinct and appetite for reinvention behind it.

Built within Bruce W. Carpenter's Sanur compound, this Peranakan-inspired garden library brings together almost five decades of collecting, research and scholarship under one roof. Part archive, part gallery and part workplace, it reflects one man's lifelong engagement with the art, history and material culture of the Indonesian archipelago. Emma Becque takes a tour.

Athens-based travel writer Kate Lough slips into the slower, wilder side of the Greek island of Folegandros while staying at Spina, an off-grid osteria-with-rooms on the island's remote south-western coast.

Behind the unassuming façade of a Victorian house in Buffalo lies an extraordinary world where architecture, art and memory converge. Artist Dennis Maher has transformed The Fargo House into a continually evolving living installation, revealing how forgotten buildings and discarded objects can become vessels for imagination, beauty and renewal. He talks to Daniel Scheffler.

For returning clients, New York and Palm Beach based interior designer David Lucido transformed a modest guest house into a transportive retreat using floral fabrics, painted floors and a palette drawn from sundrenched destinations. He talks to Busola Evans.