Editor’s Letter: The Travel Issue 2025

Whenever I visit a new place, I look for a house museum. In fact, I’ve planned entire trips around them. Whether it’s the home of a renowned figure or a piece of regional history enshrined in the built environment, a preserved and exhibited historic home always tells a story about the hopes, fears, ideals, ambitions, and context of the people who once lived there in a way that only experiencing their space can. Many on the Dwell staff share my enthusiasm, so in our annual travel issue, we decided to pay homage to some of our favorite house museums around the world.

We have a Donald Judd doubleheader, with both New York City and Marfa, Texas, represented. Two regular Dwell contributors offer up a tranquil ceramist’s home in Kyoto and Lina Bo Bardi’s luminous São Paulo masterpiece, respectively. I write about Eileen Gray’s E1027—I’ll confess, it might be the most inspiring house I’ve ever visited—as well as the life’s work of Dennis Severs, a townhouse packed with a semihoarder accumulation of enchanting objects haunted by a fictional family in London. We also head to Queens, New York, to visit Louis and Lucille Armstrong’s house, where, despite his fame, the beatified musician remained modestly embedded in his neighborhood. All of these deserve to be on your next itinerary.

We also went to contemporary houses with very different relationships to traveling. For example, a family keeps a connection with the Dominican Republic by repurposing a prefab structure—made of beautiful hardwood components—as a beach house. We checked on the owners of some famous on-screen homes about how they cope with the streams of fans making pilgrimages to their houses. It turns out that living in a famous house gets mixed reviews. Did I mention Phish? I’m not really a jam band person—please don’t quiz me—but the house in the Vermont woods where bassist Mike Gordon takes a break from touring could not have been built for anyone else. (With all apologies to our friends at Architectural Digest, this is basically our version of a celebrity home tour.)

Meanwhile, photographer Matt Dutile went to Mongolia to capture the architecture of the modern ger, a type of home designed to migrate seasonally with its residents as they lead their livestock to the best grazing grounds throughout the year. The portable building style has existed for thousands of years, but it has also proved adaptable to contemporary life. As Nergui Araldiipurev told Dutile: "We respect the culture and tradition of this nomadic lifestyle, and this is why we continue to live in a ger."

Even if your home won’t travel with you, wherever you go next, I hope this issue inspires you to step into someone else’s story.

Top photo by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies, courtesy Dennis Severs’s House

—

Head back to the July/August 2025 issue homepage