“We were absolutely thrilled to win the Best of Show award at the ADDYs,” said Gregory Patrick, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of DreamMaker. “We wanted this site to give potential clients a taste of the DreamMaker experience – a ‘magic carpet ride’ for the senses.”

In designing the DreamMaker site, IMMIX Productions created a surreal exploration of experiential travel that required over 1000 pictures, 80 sound tracks and 70 graphic animation pages. Meticulous attention to the details of every element of the DreamMaker site exemplifies the philosophy of DreamMaker.

“The DreamMaker doesn’t just give you a vacation,” said Patrick. “He handcrafts a story for you, and designs an experience beyond your imagination. We wanted to infuse this into each page of the website. Every page is unique and over-the-top — just like a DreamMaker experience. A lot of love went into this site and it truly represents who we are and what we do.”

- # # # -

Notes to Editors

About DreamMaker

Gregory Lee Patrick, founder the Chief Creative Officer of DreamMaker, is the first person in the world to bring art to travel. Over the past two decades, he’s perfected his approach of focusing on the “experience” of travel not the destination. He is an “experience designer” in the truest sense of the word. Headquartered in Houston, he operates on nearly every continent and counts the world’s elite among his valued clientele.

Contact: Tiffany Leone, DreamMaker and Gregory Patrick Worldwide
tl@dreammaker.com or 800-949-3732

Arriving at Luttrelstown, I was met by Julia, clad in a ball gown so elegant I initially took her for an asylum seeker from the Georgian night. She ushered me into the drawing room where a flunkey magicked my trademark cocktail, an amalgam of six parts Tanqueray’s gin, one part Noilly Prat, slice of lime, the whole sans ice but as cold as possible. At this point enter, stage left, the Queen of The Netherlands’ butler, no kidding, who proceeded forthwith to straighten my collar. Down in the castle kitchens a chef, flown in from Atlanta, GA, was crafting a six-course feast. I was left for a while to my own devices and for company resorted to twanging a guitar that lay on the sofa. Eventually another person entered the room. He shook my hand, saying “ Hi, I’m Rich” which, I’m afraid, caused me to crack up. I didn’t think he was skint.

It became clear that Trevor White of The Dubliner and I had been invited to pontificate on the food, something we both do rather well, though we say it ourselves. We took it in turn to play Good Cop/Bad Cop for the diversion of guests. The Three Tenors also entertained between courses.

“What’s all this got to do with wine?” I hear you say. Okay, here’s what we consumed: 2001 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘les caillerets’; 2001 Bâtard-Montrachet, Grand Cru, Dom JN Gagnard; 2001 St Joseph, Cuvée de Papy; 1997 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. The ensemble was presented by Stuart Smith of Berry Brothers, the man with a theatrically sonorous voice, a baritone version of Hattie Jacques. Stuart also taught us how to pass the port in the traditional fashion, demonstrating with a Quinta Do Noval 40 year old Tawny – “expensive mouthwash” and with a 1963 vintage Warre bottled for Berry Brothers, rare as unicorn’s toenails and still gorgeous after all these years. Greg and the Greifelds certainly made a few of my dreams come true that night.

Finally, I know I’ve raved about Savennières Domaine de Closel Clos du Papillon before but I managed to locate a few bottles of the 1997 vintage at a supermarket in Co Monaghan en route to the wonderful Nuremore. The ‘97, a gold medal winner in Paris, was honeyed, elegant, complex, with nuts, nutmeg, cinnamon all sorts of Christmassy things going on as well as spring flowers on the nose. The finish was bone dry. A substantial mouthfeel, altogether brilliant wine making and refreshingly different and distinctive. I love this style, this wine. It cost e19.19 and was worth every damn cent.

Posted in Wine & Drink. Ireland

A client’s pre-set notions about destination mean nothing to Patrick. He wants to know who you are. What are your passions? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to happen to your body? What do you want to have impact your mind? The destination is irrelevant. Patrick wants to know how to touch your soul.

Born in Las Vegas in 1963, Patrick was inspired early on by the showmanship of legendary entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. The family moved to England where he attended an elite boarding school and was assimilated into British culture in the old tradition. He was also exposed to other cultures during trips throughout Europe. He left school and started his first business at the age of 15. Too young to drive, Patrick’s father drove him from location to location to get contracts for his sales business. Eventually, Patrick set off on his own and landed in Houston.

Whether it’s designing the ultimate family reunion at an Irish castle for the CEO of Nasdaq, or giving the first Americans ever the privilege of a cultural exchange with the descendants of Shaka Zulu in South Africa, each experience is firmly imprinted with Patrick’s magic. Patrick’s “designs” have included dinners with prime ministers and European royalty, arranging an all night party with Sting and his band, coordinating a backstage meeting with Bono from U2 and even staging an actual robbery at gunpoint in front of Bloomingdale’s in New York. A particularly memorable project was a time travel fantasy to the year 1274 where clients were immersed in a simulation of life and the realities of the various socio-economic levels that existed during that time.

Click Here to listen to audio interview

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Italian countryside is the vacation destination of choice for high-flying hedge fund managers who are willing to pay $2,000 to $4,000 per person a day to just chill out, said a travel adviser for the wealthy.

Although managers of hedge funds, the private investment pools for the wealthy, are known for lavish spending and often extravagant tastes, they prefer vacations where they are not fussed over, said Gregory Patrick, who arranges about 35 vacations a year for wealthy clients.

“They like the private estates,” Patrick told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Boston on Monday, referring to managers, investors and analysts, who often log hundreds of hours on jets to meet with clients and attend conferences.

For the most part, people who work in the $1.9 trillion hedge fund industry and often earn millions of dollars themselves prefer Tuscany and other areas of the Italian countryside to the Caribbean, where many industry conferences are held, said Patrick.

“When they finally take a week or 10 days vacation, they want to get away and get back to basics. They want the quiet of it all, and Tuscany has been very popular,” said Patrick, chief executive of Houston, Texas-based Dreammaker International.

“They don’t want the hotel or the cruise,” he said.

Private aircraft are a preferred mode of transport and many of his clients eschew conventions, he added.

“‘Let’s do it, let it ride and anything goes’,” he said, quoting what he often hears hedge fund managers tell him when planning vacations.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss, editing by Jason Szep/Jeffrey Benkoe)

(Story contains descriptions that some readers may find objectionable.)

BOSTON (Reuters) - When you have huge sums of money to spend, merely staying at a Ritz-Carlton is far from enough.

Top hedge fund managers and chief executives instead prefer to hire someone like Gregory Patrick to create a holiday experience at a private villa that they will never forget — and money is no object. You want five of the world’s best chefs flown in? It will happen. Butlers? No problem.

One American investor, who was on such a trip to Italy, was whisked away by chartered jet for the evening to Vienna with a group of friends to a Sting concert, and after the show, they partied all night with the band.

His wife went on a shopping trip with Italian entrepreneur Laura Gucci, and he and his friends raced a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and several Porsches from Florence to Portofino.

The couple were part of a new generation of wealthy tourists. They want luxurious accommodations and tip-top service but they want something much more — an experience.

Patrick, founder of travel firm DreamMaker International, creates unusual vacation experiences for the rich for a living.

So what is it that the ultra wealthy want when they travel? They may not know it, but often they are looking for experiences they can tell their friends about, Patrick told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Boston.

“They are fixated on the story — there’s a lust for the ability to tell their friends what they did,” Patrick said.

They may want adventure, be it skydiving, bungee jumping, or surfing.

“You have to take them out of their element. They want something to take their minds out of the marketplace,” Patrick said.

Having personal staff is key, too. A client visited Spain with friends, and Patrick arranged for several butlers to staff the home at which they were staying. The client and a friend went jogging one afternoon, and when they returned, a butler was at the end of the driveway with a decanter of cold water and glasses on a tray.

“If they had had to go to the kitchen themselves to get the water, it would not have been nearly the same experience,” Patrick said.

Sometimes the experience is staged. A couple was dining at a restaurant in Rome. The woman dropped her napkin underneath the table, and took an unusually long amount of time to surface. The man at the table seemed inordinately happy during and after the experience.

Sitting next to the couple were a group of Patrick’s clients, who saw the whole pas de deux unfold, and couldn’t stop talking about it for the rest of the trip. They didn’t know that the couple were actors and that Patrick had arranged the whole scenario.

“What they perceived to be happening, wasn’t really happening. There’s no limit to what I’ll do to make someone happy, so long as it’s legal,” Patrick said.

One thing the ultra-wealthy do not want when they travel is to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. Riding on a cruise ship is “out of the question,” Patrick said.

“They’d rather have a red hot poker shoved in their eye.”

All that uniqueness costs money. The experiences typically cost between $2,000 and $4,000 a day per person, but demand is so strong that Patrick is looking at growing rapidly over the next few years to annual revenues of $40 million from $3 million to $5 million currently.

He intends to rent villas in places like Tuscany for longer periods and to hire butlers, chefs and other personal staff on a monthly wage rather than a daily rate. That will allow him to reduce costs and also offer similar experiences to a number of clients.

That may make the experience less unusual, but if the service is good enough, clients may not care, Patrick said.

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by Dan Wilchins, editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

We had just finished the starter, a truffle cappuccino, when Bob decided to share the story of his blazer with 27 members of the Greifeld family. And me.

I was there at the request of a man called Gregory Patrick. He called me that afternoon, to ask if I’d like to join the Greifelds.

“We’ve got the best chef in America,” said Gregory. “And we’d like you to judge the meal.”

“Why?”

“Well, we just thought it would be fun to have a food critic at the dinner.”

“That sounds nice, Gregory, but I’ve got plans.”

“You don’t understand. Mr Greifeld wants you to come.”

Gregory started to talk money, and in a few minutes I was so excited that I forgot to cancel my squash game.

So Bob has this blazer. “I’ve had it for 30 years,” he told the crowd at Luttrellstown. “And I’m no happier now than I was then.”

Then Bob started to talk about WB Yeats, the virtue of simplicity and what it meant to be in Ireland, “the land of leprechauns and folklore”.

Bob is the president of Nasdaq, one of the biggest stock markets anywhere. He doesn’t get much time for holidays and this year wanted to do something special. So he hired Gregory Patrick from Tours of Enchantment in Houston, Texas.

The budget for the week was $ 500,000. That included the hire of two food critics, a wine expert from Berry Brothers & Rudd, a medieval theme village with 30 archers and comely maidens, three tenors, the Dutch Royal Family’s butler, four PhD students from Trinity College and a busker called Garry, who Gregory ‘met’ on Grafton Street last Monday.

At the end of night at Luttrellstown I was asked for my professional opinion.

“To be honest,” I said, “I think that food is often irrelevant and this is a perfect example of that.”

“Oh yeah?” said the man beside me. “Well, look at this place. It’s beautiful, right? You’re all having fun with your family. But will you remember what you had to eat in ten years’ time?”

He paused for a moment. “You know, I agree. Back home, we’ve got 400 restaurants, and every time . . .” I didn’t catch the rest of the sentence.

Humbled, embarrassed or both, I silently wondered what it’s like to be that rich. After a minute I realised that the man beside me was tapping me with a packet of sweets. “Starburst?”

The following morning, Bob and his family got up at 4.30am to fly to Edinburgh. For the day. They were playing golf at St Andrew’s and going for tea on the Royal Yacht Britannia.

How do you think they got to Edinburgh? Private jet? No. Ryanair.

“If you can dream it,” says Gregory Patrick, “I can make it happen.”

Trevor White is the publisher of the ‘Dubliner’ magazine

Trevor White

Copyright 2004 Financial Times Information
All Rights Reserved
Global News Wire - Europe Intelligence Wire
Copyright 2004 The Sunday Independent

How’s this for Super Bowl superiority? A $ 548,000 gridiron package that loads more experiences into seven days and seven nights than even Scheherazade could have imagined.

Houston-based Tours of Enchantment holds the key to the package that debuts on e-Bay early this week. The 12-person suite on the 35-yard line at Reliant Stadium on game day and entree to the hot Maxim party seem incidental to the luxuries. They’re dubbing it the “Ultimate Super Bowl XXXVIII Experience.”

This lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous adventure begins with travel to Houston and around the state on a private jet, a comfy Falcon 900. Accommodations in a 12,000-square-foot, multimillion-dollar swankienda in River Oaks. Private butler at your disposal. Daily massage treatments in the home. Personal shopping with the Gucci family. A “Taste of Texas” dining experience that travels the state. A gambling jaunt to Biloxi. Two celebrity golf tournaments. Local transport in a limo and a Rolls-Royce. And on and on.

Gregory Patrick, Tours of Enchantment prez, and crew have been working around the clock in recent weeks on less-extravagant Super Bowl packages. But this luxury baby has required months and months of preparation.

Members of B2K, the recently disbanded teen band, have expressed an interest. But no contracts as yet for this rock star Super Bowl experience.

Career moves?

Hold onto your jogging shoes. We hear on the street that there is a grass-roots movement to draft Truett Latimer, retired president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as new Parks and Recreation Department director. Not that Roksan Okan-Vick, in the job for 18 months, is anticipating a pink slip. It’s all up to new Mayor Bill White, and we’re not sure that that wind has blown his way before today.

Further fancy political footwork is expected by colorful Jordy Tollett, president of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the man in city service through several administrations. Detractors are placing bets on how soon he is shown the door.

More Americans in Paris

Gracie and Bob Cavnar, Mission Resources CEO, just bounced back from two weeks in Paris where they revisited his 50th birthday with a moonlight cruise on the Seine. The original Paris bash, scheduled for last April, was canceled due to the Iraq invasion.

On board for dinner - Eileen and George Hricik, Phyllis Childress and Tony Abyad and Gracie’s son Justin Hamilton.

Traveling with the Cavnars - their two toy French poodles, Max and Mimi. Gracie was compiling photos and copy for her book, which has the working title American Poodles in Paris. Yelp.

The pooches were photographed at the Louvre, Louis Vuitton and elsewhere.

Medical salute

Dr. Herb Fred, professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center, celebrated his anointment as one of the nation’s outstanding medical professors in Tony’s wine cellar Saturday night. He was named to the elite list by the American College of Physicians.

Joining Herb and his wife, Judy, were physicians instrumental in the doctor’s career from around the country. Houstonians on hand included Nancy and Dr. James Willerson, Drs. David and Janet Graham, and Susan and Dr. Major Bradshaw.

Pre-Stellar play

Stellar Awards gospel stars shown Friday at a reception honoring Yolanda Adams and hosted by City Councilman Michael Berry and his wife, Nandy. More than 800 guests filled the Hobby Center foyer, including former astronaut Bernard Harris, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore, Carl Davis, and Mayor Bill White and wife Andrea.

Guests were treated to an impromptu concert by Kirk Franklin, Donnie McClurkin, Vickie Winans, V. Michael McKay, Dottie Peoples and Tonex.

Copyright 2004 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company

It was not your mother’s charity gala. But no one really expected Saturday night’s Deacons of Deadwood Harley Make-a-Wish Ball to be too typical.

Sure, there were the traditional silent auction, live auction and goodie bag components. But there was also an abundance of cleavage, tattoos (both permanent and play), black leather and skullcaps. And then there were the motorcycles.

A gang of 50 or so Deacons, biker babes and friends, most arriving on Harleys, started the party early at Sam’s Boat on Richmond. At 7:30 sharp, they mounted their road monsters, gunned their roaring, grumbling engines and headed to Rockefeller Hall for the real deal. Motorcycle police, their sirens screaming, escorted the parade.

Despite their tough looks and tattoos, these veterans of Sturgis walk a straight and narrow path during the week. Sam Allen, a securities lawyer with Porter & Hedges, was the benefit honcho. Among his leather-clad cronies were Sam Douglass, president of Equus; Al Arfsten, CEO of Dome Energy Partners; Jeff Roberts of Mercedes-Benz; and Ben Thompson, president of Sunland Engineering.

You get the picture. Bad-boy fantasies fulfilled in off hours by guys of enviable net worth. On this night, they were living the fantasy while raising $ 50,000 net for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Novelist Judith McNaught, a celebrity guest, was a bit out of her element in the biker crowd. “I arrived (at Sam’s Boat) in a Bentley, and I’m leaving on a Harley,” she said. “Actually, it’s my first time on a motorbike.”

McNaught was lured to the benefit by her financial adviser Steve Lamb, first vice president with Merrill Lynch and a Deacon of Deadwood. A session with McNaught and an intro to her publisher was one of the auction items.

The crowd filled Rockefeller’s, where the timeline was much like any other fund-raiser, though the visuals were obviously not. Brian Black and his band performed. Guests grazed along heavily laden buffet tables. The bar drinks flowed.

Among the 350 crowding the club were Paula Douglass, Rusty Drake, Lynnie Mattison, Carla Thompson, Steve Sloat, Preston Douglass, and Gregory Patrick of Tours of Enchantment, provider of the single live-auction item - a super Super Bowl package.

“We have only one live-auction deal,” explained benefit veteran and biker Randy Hale.”We don’t want to ruin the party.”

Impossible.

Copyright 2003 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company

“Sounds like you need a vacation,” Microsoft mogul Bill Gates says as he hands you a signed blank check. “It’s on me. The sky’s the limit.”

Dream on, you say? Why not? Gregory Patrick, founder of Tours of Enchantment, a luxury travel-consulting firm based in Houston, spends his time dreaming up vacations for those who can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. So imagine for a moment that a billionaire actually did offer to fund your fantasy getaway. What would you do? Go to Club Med? Ride the Orient Express?

“Boring,” Patrick responds. The self-defined “experience designer” insists on creativity, combining his clients’ personality, history, likes and dislikes with an extraordinary level of service — personal butlers, chauffeurs and chefs come standard — to conjure up escapes that only begin with the destination.

Here, Patrick has helped concoct five distinct diversions. Decide which one most appeals to you, then see the box at the bottom of page 9 to discover what a psychologist says your pick reveals about your personality.

1. Whether you’re into photography or gaming, target South Africa to track the “big five” game animals — lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo — on a safari by jeep, canoe or train. Go native by participating in an authentic tribal ceremony led by the prince of the Zulu tribe, a direct descendent of Shaka Zulu. Then, after dinner with three Nobel Peace Prize winners — Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk and Desmond Tutu, all area natives — retire to one of Johannesburg’s five-star hotels or a fully modernized treetop bungalow.

2.”Time-travel” to an estate near London, where you’ll awake one morning as an English noble and, dressed in custom-made period costume, get swept up in a 1775 murder mystery. Another day brings 1815 and the Battle of Waterloo, re-enacted by more than 300 soldiers as you observe from a hot-air balloon. Last stop is 1907, at the peak of the British Empire, and dinner with actors portraying era icons. All that, and there’s still plenty of time to shop London’s finest boutiques or get whisked off to Scotland to play 18 holes at St. Andrew’s.

3. Want a true New York experience? Be careful what you wish for. Amid a whirlwind week of five-star restaurants and Broadway shows will come a few quintessential Manhattan moments. When your limo pulls up to Bloomingdale’s, for example, a masked mugger dives in to rob the driver. And at a Saturday afternoon Yankees game, the two Brooklyn natives you’ve just befriended generously order hot dogs, pretzels and beer for your entire row … then sneak out and stick you with the bill. It’s all covered, of course; you’re asked only to expect the unexpected.

4. See firsthand how the other half lives when you book a stay at a millionaire’s tropical home. Nestle into Necker Island, owned by Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson and appropriately located in the British Virgin Islands. His 74-acre atoll boasts a Balinese-style villa with huge balconied bedrooms, a swimming pool, hot tubs and tennis courts. Spend your days baking on the beach, or take to the sea on a private yacht to swim or fish the warm waters. Later, while enjoying the sunset over a gourmet meal, savor a sudden shower of thousands of rose petals, dropped from above by plane.

5. Make the crowd go wild when you take on your favorite pro athlete or sports team in front of 500 screaming spectators, all hired to chant your name. A hockey fan and a team of friends might fly by private jet to British Columbia to face the Vancouver Canucks in a full-out, three-period game. Hit the showers afterward, then rehash your most victorious moments over dinner with the team. You’ll return home with autographed pictures and bedecked in an official, personalized jersey.
________________________________________
Now — which trip most appealed to you? If you chose …

1. “You’re looking for a thrill — touching the shark,” says psychologist and personality expert Samuel Karson, Ph.D. Safari-goers typically are young risk-takers, individuals who are active, adventurous, bold, outgoing and impulsive rather than restrained or rule-bound. “Risk-takers tend to be carefree and not to see danger signals.”

2. “Time travelers” are intellectuals or history buffs, those who seek adventure through learning and sharing ideas, Karson says: “They have literary and even professorial interests. They spend a lot of time with books; they aren’t typically extroverts.”

3. “This would appeal to someone who likes to be entertained,” Karson says. New York-goers aren’t shy or retiring, but they do like the comforts of big-city life and are constantly on the go. “Thrill, thrill, thrill,” he says. “This is for a passive adventurer. Your participation is relatively limited.”

4. “This trip sounds romantic. It might attract a younger crowd, but certainly the young at heart,” Karson says. Romantics tend not to be tough, practical or realistic; instead, they’re more sensitive and interested in aesthetic beauty. “This is someone who likes to be pampered,” Karson says.

5. “A competition would attract someone who is very imaginative, fanciful and easily seduced from practical judgment,” Karson says. It also might appeal to people who crave fame and don’t mind achieving recognition based on others’ accomplishments. “This is the escapist’s dream.”