How To Journey The Property Universe With out A Passport

“What matters most is finding places where design, history and contemporary living intersect in meaningful ways,” says Billy Nash. Like this ultra-modern villa in Spain.

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Be trustworthy, you’ve achieved it. We all have. As an ideal trip is coming to an in depth, you look again on how idyllic the whole lot’s been. Weather, meals, wine, waiters. You wish to bottle the sensation you get from journey. You go the native actual property company, pause in entrance of the window and surprise, “What would it be like to stay? To actually live here among the history, the architecture, the neighbors? Be one of the neighbors…”

These are the ideas that occupy Billy Nash a lot of the time. The host and creator of Passport Properties, the docuseries that took him and his crew throughout Europe, the U.Ok. and North Africa final yr, is on a mission to doc that feeling and translate it onto the display screen.

“I wanted to create something cinematic that captured that emotion,” says Nash, “using exceptional residences as entry points into destinations and revealing the stories, traditions, perspectives and the communities that live there. It’s truly non-scripted and authentic. People and culture is what’s beyond the walls of a home.”

The conventional trulli houses of Puglia require conventional abilities. “There are only a handful of masons in the world who can restore them.”

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Exactly the type of vibe that chimed with Blue Ant Media, the Toronto-based distributor that makes a speciality of unscripted, factual and documentary programming in additional than 200 territories worldwide. A becoming associate for Nash and his manufacturing firm, who, as I reported final yr, borrow a leaf from the Anthony Bourdain playbook, albeit a extra polished model. Part travelogue, half life-style journal, half trade intel. Yes, actual property is the main focus, nevertheless it’s additionally a jumping-off level for wider tales about tradition, delicacies, historical past, geography. The issues that flip places into neighborhoods.

“People and culture is what’s beyond the walls of a home.”

Over 9 one-hour episodes, Passport Properties touches down at places in Croatia, France, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, the U.Ok. and the U.S. Nash meets craftspeople, cooks and restaurateurs, winemakers, farmers, artists, historians, raconteurs—and some actual property brokers to assist get by means of the doorways of some really exceptional properties. A château in Provence owned by former NBA star Tony Parker. A 14th-century fortress in Sardinia. A standard trullo in Puglia. The household house of the Mona Lisa in Tuscany.

In Provence, some banter earlier than the rosé tasting.

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Any explicit highlights? “I’m gonna say Croatia, it was very special,” Nash confesses with the responsible air of a guardian requested to declare a favourite little one. “It was so interesting to meet some of the locals—they’re so welcoming—and see how proud they are of their country and how it’s come back from the war in the ’90s. We visited an olive grove where young trees were growing out of these black stumps—olive trees that had been cut down during the war. I said to the guy who makes the olive oil, ‘The olive trees never forgot you, the roots in the ground never forgot. They waited for you and came back.’”

Nash seems genuinely moved as he relives the expertise. And genuinely inquisitive about all the opposite human tales he’s picked up throughout filming. In London, it was dropping in on the celebrated society photographer Richard Young to tease some anecdotes out of the veteran snapper. In Sardinia, it was heading to the mountain city of Pattada, the place cooks from around the globe “can wait up to a year or even two years to get a handmade knife from this family, who to me were like celebrities.”

In London, photographer Richard Young spins a yarn in his eponymous Kensington gallery.

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There’s one other strand to Nash’s storytelling mission past digging into native tradition and assembly native characters. As Season 1 went into manufacturing, he was eager to distance Passport Properties from what he described because the manufactured drama of actual property ‘reality’ tv. “It’s not real,” he avers. A former non-public banker turned luxurious actual property agent in South Florida, Nash has transacted offers value lots of of thousands and thousands and understands intimately what ultra-wealthy shoppers reply to. The soap-opera-style gloss of the Selling Sunset period is a glance that’s not in tune with the occasions.

“The global real estate and luxury travel industries have evolved over the past five years from indulgence to authenticity. Today it’s about access and meaningful experiences.”

What’s emerged throughout filming is how a marked trend among wealthy travelers seeking authentic experiences is enjoying out amongst prosperous, globally cellular people and households. “[These people] are enjoying lifestyles across continents rather than anchoring themselves to a single base,” he says, with flexibility, connectivity and entry to tradition turning into key issues when renting or shopping for property. It’s a shift that Nash believes is influencing “everything from architectural design to how properties are acquired and experienced. Through Passport Properties, we are effectively documenting this evolution in real time.”

“Some of the most memorable properties I’ve encountered are deeply rooted in their surroundings,” says Passport Properties host Billy Nash. “They reflect a sense of place and personal narrative that goes far beyond aesthetics.”

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Executive producer Kipp Lassetter (CEO of RBN Rewards, the true property loyalty-program equal of airline miles) sees a parallel with the best way actual property wraps into journey and life-style experiences. “The global real estate and luxury travel industries have evolved over the past five years from indulgence to authenticity. Today it’s about access and meaningful experiences. That philosophy sits at the heart of Passport Properties.”

Clearly the philosophy and its display screen manifestation resonate. The sequence has been licensed to air this summer season on Canal+ in Poland on prime time Saturday nights, Dreamia in Portugal and TV3 Latvia within the Baltics, with greater than 50 networks and streamers throughout Europe, APAC and the U.S. actively reviewing.

And Season 2? “Asia. First stop, Japan,” says Nash. “When we first talked about the show a year and a half ago, I already had a vision about walking the Nakasendo Samurai Trail. That’s going to happen.”

Check the show website for updates on how you can watch Passport Properties.

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Billy Nash is a top-performing agent with The Keyes Company, a member of Forbes Global Properties, the invitation-only community of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the unique actual property associate of Forbes.

Author’s disclosure: One of the primary guidelines of journalism is to by no means insert your self into the story. But once I met Billy Nash in London final yr to report on this challenge in pre-production, he requested about the place I reside. And was intrigued sufficient by my solutions to get again in contact and organize to come back see the place for himself. I can affirm he’s authentically unscripted.