It’s close to midnight, and I’m wandering around a world-class museum I have almost entirely to myself when I stop to admire a David Hockney painting on the walls. The Jennifer Bartlett not far away echoes, perfectly, a real boat on a real beach through the windows. Round another corner, 100 neon signs in rainbow colors—“Try and Live,” “Live and Live”—flash injunctions from Bruce Nauman. The Rauschenberg and Basquiat and George Segal are so close, they feel like neighbors, or private possessions.
Then I walk up again to the second floor, pull out my special key for opening a secret door, and, stepping out into the night, push a button. A private “monorail” clanks down to carry me for five minutes up to near the top of a mountain, where I’m staying in one of six rooms gathered around a long, illuminated Tadao Ando reflecting pool.
