Some places are simply where something happens. Others become part of what happened.
At Proxima, we are interested in the second kind.
Technically, a residency could take place almost anywhere. There are lovely hotels, excellent conference centers and luxurious resorts all over the world. Many of them could give us beautiful rooms, wonderful meals and somewhere to gather.
But that isn't quite enough.
For Proxima, the place has to do more than accommodate the experience. It has to become part of it.
The Right Place Changes the Pace
Think about the difference between a conversation across a conference table and one that happens beside a fire after dinner.
Or the way a meal can somehow stretch another hour when the view is spectacular and nobody particularly wants to leave the table.
Or the conversation that begins during a walk and goes somewhere neither person expected.
Place changes our pace. It influences how people gather, how long they linger and, perhaps most importantly, how quickly formality begins to disappear.
That matters at Proxima because so much of what we are trying to create cannot be rushed. Getting to know someone takes time. So does asking a better second question. So does reaching the point where the planned conversation gives way to the interesting one.
The right place helps all of that happen naturally.
Beautiful Isn't Enough
We are going to choose beautiful places. That probably goes without saying.
But luxury by itself is not the standard.
A property can be spectacular and still be completely wrong for a Proxima residency. The question is not simply, Is this an extraordinary hotel? The more important question is, Will this place help create an extraordinary experience?
Those are very different things.
A Proxima setting should be distinctive, but not distracting. Comfortable, but not anonymous. Private enough to create intimacy and open enough to invite people to spend time together.
Sometimes that might mean a long table where everyone ends up staying after dinner. Somewhere else it might be a terrace overlooking the mountains, a dock on a quiet lake, a library, a walking trail, or a fire everyone naturally gathers around at the end of the day.
We aren't looking for a particular architectural style or a particular kind of resort.
We are looking for places that make people want to stay awhile.
No Two Residencies Should Look Exactly Alike
One Proxima residency might unfold at a lodge beside a lake. Another could take place in a chalet deep in the mountains. Someday it might be a vineyard estate, a remote coastline, a remarkable house in the forest or some extraordinary corner of the world we haven't discovered yet.
That is part of the fun.
There is no reason a residency built around a chef should feel exactly like one created around an author. An artist may thrive somewhere that would make no sense for an entrepreneur. January might call for snow outside the windows and a fire inside; July might belong beside the water.
The place should fit the people, the subject and the experience we are trying to create.
What matters is that it contributes something. A sense of mood. A little separation from ordinary life. The feeling, even temporarily, that you have stepped into another world.
Leave Room for What Wasn't Planned
Every Proxima residency will have a program. There will be things we came together specifically to do, learn and experience.
But we never want the schedule to become more important than the residency itself.
Because some of the moments people remember most may happen between the things we planned.
Coffee in the morning with someone you had admired from a distance. A conversation that continues long after dinner should have ended. An unexpected hour spent walking with someone who sees the world very differently from you. A story that gets told simply because everyone happens to be together and nobody is in a hurry.
You cannot put those moments on an itinerary.
You can, however, choose a place that gives them room to happen.
That may be one of the most important things we ask of a Proxima venue.
A Place Can Become a Memory
Years later, we rarely remember a trip as a list of scheduled activities.
We remember the morning air. The sound of the water outside the window. Snow falling beyond the glass. The light across the mountains at dinner. The path we walked every afternoon.
And inevitably, those places become intertwined with the people who were there.
That is why setting matters so much to us.
The venue is not simply the backdrop for a Proxima residency. If we choose it well, it becomes part of the story - part of what people remember when the week is over and part of what they still talk about years later.
We are not looking for places to hold residencies.
We are looking for places that become part of them.