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Banff Springs Golf Club- Banff, AB
Banff Springs Golf Club is without a doubt one of the most beautiful courses in the world. Opened in 1911 as a nine hole track designed by Bill Thompson, an apprentice of Old Tom Morris at St. Andrews, it was expanded by Donald Ross in 1924 to eighteen holes. Just a few years later, with a virtually unlimited budget from Canadian Pacific Railway, Stanley Thompson redesigned the course, which boasted of being the most expensive ever built when it opened in 1928. Although the original clubhouse is now a German restaurant, and a few holes have been reordered, today’s course is still essentially Thompson’s design. A somewhat short, difficult track,…
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Fairmont Banff Springs- Banff, AB
Some hotels are so fabulous, they are destinations in themselves. Unique properties with outstanding architecture and character, that you would happily travel to the ends of the earth to explore. Fairmont Banff Springs is one of these properties; fortunately, it is also located in one of the most beautiful parks on the planet, which provides even more incentive to book a stay. Banff Springs is a product of the golden age of railroad travel, one of several luxury hotels constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway across the Rocky and Selkirk Mountains to increase ridership numbers on western routes. Hopeful to draw European tourists to Canada, CPR’s general manager William Cornelius…
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St. Augustine Architecture Gallery
For years I heard talk about the legendary beauty of St. Augustine, Florida. Established by the Spanish in 1565, then later inhabited by filthy rich oil tycoons, rumor held it was a historic town filled with fabulous architecture. I admit I was never quite convinced, certain its charm was exaggerated. It was not. It is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. From the 17th century Castillo de San Marcos, to the grand hotels designed by Carrère and Hastings, it is an absolute architectural dream.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site- Hyde Park, NY
Hyde Park is synonymous with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was where he was born, lived, campaigned, addressed the nation, and was buried. Never far from his mother’s watchful eye, it is where he brought his bride, Eleanor, and where he built his presidential library. Springwood, the president’s former home, is truly a remarkable estate; it is a one stop shop for architecture fans, politicos, and history junkies. Located on a bluff along the Hudson, the land originally was part of a 1697 land grant from the Crown to a group of New York businessmen. Divided into nine riverfront plots, what would become Springwood was granted to William Creed. Passing through…
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Vanderbilt Mansion- Hyde Park, NY
There were a lot of Vanderbilts, and they were all wildly wealthy. They all had several amazing homes, each grander than the last, and certainly built to be grander than other Vanderbilt mansions, of which there were over forty. In Hyde Park, Frederick Vanderbilt built a Neoclassical Beaux Art beauty, which perfectly showcases the excesses of the Gilded Age, and what is possible when money is no object. Just to give a brief overview, the patriarch of the family was Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, a self made millionaire who built a shipping and railroad empire in the early 19th century. He had 13 children, but left almost his entire fortune, $100…
