The Fall 2020 issue of duPont Registry Tampa Bay is here! Hard copies are due to be showing up in fine mailboxes near you any day now, but meanwhile, enjoy the digital edition — and my intro to the issue, below.

The little house pictured above doubles as a box. It’s one of two I own by the Cape Cod artist Adam Peck, and it’s evocative of one of my favorite views in the world: the row of cottages you see as you crest the hill leading from Truro to Provincetown. My husband and I bought the first of our “house box sculptures” in 2010, and two years later, when we married on a P-town rooftop, I gave him another one, forming a pair. As it happened, his wedding gift to me was also a kind of box — a salt cellar, a traditional sign of welcome and sharing. 

Our gifts to each other represented two notions of home: as shelter, a place to get away from the outside world, and as invitation, a place where you can welcome the world in. Normally, a home can be both. But this year, of course, is not normal. We’re being asked to stay sheltered, and we’re being discouraged from inviting anyone inside. 

So this year’s edition of dRTB’s Home Design Issue comes at an opportune time. 

We give you ideas for spiffing up your own shelter: Strobel Design Build’s Mark Z talks about designing for the future; Cindy Stovall writes about home-based fitness and health; Tracey Serebin finds wine cellars morphing into party rooms; Catherine S. Mitseas champions the craft of custom-made furniture; Style Editor Michelle Cappelli Gordon’s got the goods on keeping yourself stylish while sheltered in place. And we invite you into other people’s living spaces, like the fabulous interiors of Rob Bowen, a spectacular penthouse at Bliss, and the up-to-date elegance of homes built by Steve Rogai. 

But we gotta get out sometime, as long we play it safe. I found plenty of distance and good food at the St. Pete Pier. As Cindy Cockburn tells us, the proprietors of The Breakers in Palm Beach are ultra-careful. And Eric Snider introduces us to a new addition to Beach Drive, a deluxe cigar and wine bar. 

Road trips are fine, too — especially in a Lamborghini Urus, test-driven by auto columnist Howard Walker (who also explores the latest perc for luxury car-owners: car condos). And if you’re going to be away from home for a long while, consider the services of Spouses Watching Houses. 

There’s no A&E Calendar this time around. But Cindy Stovall updates us on the reopening of St. Pete’s Museum of Fine Arts, and Megan Padilla previews SarasotaMOD Weekend, mecca for architecture aficionados. And I was happy to hear that theaters are finding new ways to bring us live performance, from digital series to drive-ins to shows on the Tampa Riverwalk. 

I only hope theaters will soon be able to invite us back into their homes, where scenic designers conjure up not just beautiful living rooms but whole imaginary worlds.