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April 17, 2017

Georgia is a bold and elegant font that is highly readable, even on smaller screens.

TECHNOLOGY

Georgia is a bold and elegant font that is highly readable, even on smaller screens.

TECHNOLOGY

Is you house enough safe? We do not think so

TECHNOLOGY

#Artificial intelligence

#HongKong

#Robots

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Less than an hour from London in the Berkshire countryside, you’ll find Cliveden House, an immaculate 350-year-old estate with all the trappings you’d expect from a five-star Relais & Châteaux hotel. The grounds are perfectly manicured; the rooms furnished with rare antiques and original works of art. But don’t be fooled by the crisp, freshly-pressed linens—Cliveden House is rife with dirty laundry.

You’d certainly never know it just by looking around. Over 376 acres surround the Italianate mansion with perched views of the River Thames. Inside the property’s restaurant (which is helmed by Michelin-starred chef André Garrett) you'll notice couples toasting an anniversary over roasted squab and Paris Brest. Arrive on the right day, and you'll spot lingering petals from a ceremony that finished the day before (it's so sought after as a wedding venue that it can take years to book.) The hotel, it seems, is tailor-made for romance—a tradition deeply rooted in scandal that dates back centuries.

You can throw a bunch of locks on your house and cover every square inch with cameras, but when the shit hits the fan and a horde of zombies (or other cannibalistic creatures) find you, all of this helps for precisely nothing.

Cliveden House was first conceived by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who had commissioned the property as a monument to his mistress Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, in the late 17th century. They were both married at the time, but the Duke fell passionately for Anna Maria. He imagined Cliveden House as his private eden, away from his wife, where they could love with abandon, hunt its sprawling countryside, and entertain guests.

The only problem? Buckingham’s lack of discretion. When word of the affair got out, Anna Maria’s husband, Lord Shrewsberry, challenged Buckingham to a duel. Shrewsberry lost. Pierced through the breast, he ultimately died months later.

Buckingham may have won the spoils, but he eventually fell from the king's good graces, and was required by law to separate from the Countess before he even set Cliveden's first brick.

Despite having lost his muse, Buckingham chose to continue construction on the house anyway. It was still unfinished when he died amongst strangers in 1687. Following Buckingham's death, the property remained empty for a nearly a decade before being purchased by another British aristocrat.

Cliveden was never in short supply of tragic tales. Eventually, it became the country residence of Fredrick, Prince of Wales (King George II’s son and presumed heir.) Fredrick would never be king; catching a fever in 1751, he died weeks later, leaving the throne to King George III, his brother. The fallen prince’s early death was subject to royal rumor: Some accounts suggested he died from an unhealed wound after being struck with a cricket ball years earlier at Cliveden.

Over half a century later in 1795, as if cursed, the main house burned almost entirely to the ground. And then, 50 years after being rebuilt, it burned down a second time. From the flames, the estate flickered for centuries, rebuilt once again over the course of a decade. Cliveden maintained steady but simple notoriety—Queen Victoria would travel by boat from Windsor Castle and take tea at there often; William Gladstone, who served as Britain’s Prime Minister with four separate terms, was a beloved guest before and after his political rise.

But Cliveden truly flourished in 1893 at the hands of William Waldorf Astor, America's richest man at the time. Upon buying the property, William restored a sense of magnificence to the estate, adding prim gardens and mazes, speckling the estate with sculptures and fountains. He bought the 18th century dining room of the late Madame de Pompadour—a mistress to Louis XV—from her Parisian chateau, and installed the gilded panels and chairs back at Cliveden. Taking the registry to the next level, Cliveden was later William’s wedding gift to his son and daughter-in-law, Waldorf and Nancy, who modernized the mansion and, throughout the First and Second World Wars, established hospitals on the estate.