Thank you all.

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

This newsletter has probably been the coolest and most unexpected exercise of 2025 for me and for LOBBY. Writing regularly. Thinking out loud. Sharing things before they’re polished. Letting ideas breathe in public. It became a space of truth and it feels good (and that’s rare).

So thank you to everyone reading this. From the early ones (I see you…). The quiet ones. The paid ones. The ones who just landed here out of curiosity and stayed. Thanks for being part part of the journey.

2025 was not a flashy year for LOBBY. I felt it was a year of adaptation. Of fine-tuning. Of closing loops. Of asking hard questions about why we do this, and how we want to do it next. Less noise. More alignment.

And now, honestly, we’re stepping into what I dreamt of when I started this company.

Opening places with soul.
Giving power back to territory.
Building hospitality from the ground up, not from trend decks.

One thing I didn’t expect though: how strong the pull back to Brittany would be. (Yes I came back to Brittany but we still have our office in Paris too).

Coming back here to operate LOBBY shifted something deep. This is where I opened Swenson almost ten years ago. My first place. My first scar. My first proof that hospitality could be intimate, messy, human, local, and still powerful. I didn’t plan on reopening something here. And yet, the desire came back quietly. Same land, different decade, different clarity. Full circle, but with better tools and fewer illusions.

2026 is bringing big changes.

The LOBBY Members Club is evolving into something simpler and more intentional.

LOBBYLetter+ is now the single entry point into the community. Not an add-on. The core.

Being part of it means access to a curated world of destinations we genuinely believe in, real perks built through relationships (not promo codes), and the LOBBY Shop, where objects and collaborations are always tied to real places and real stories.

It also gives access to full-length video conversations and discussions, uncut, in-depth exchanges with founders, builders, and creatives shaping the hospitality we care about.

And twice a year, it opens the door to our physical gatherings: small groups, strong territories, and time spent on the ground discovering hospitality ecosystems the LOBBY way.

This isn’t a community designed to scale fast.
It’s one designed to stay meaningful.

Two major gatherings in 2026:

• Los Angeles – March: a 4-day immersion into the hospitality ecosystem we admire, with 8 slots only. (the post is already online for paid readers)

• Portugal – June: another territory, another rhythm, another way of thinking places.

Not conferences. Not inspiration porn. Real field trips, the LOBBY way.

The Studio is also evolving.

We’re moving from a team of 6 to 4 people next year. Let’s be clear: this is not a downgrade, not a shutdown, not a panic move. We simply had a payroll that didn’t match our beliefs. And I refuse to take projects we don’t believe in just to feed a machine.

LOBBY is not -a build for others at all costs- company.
I don’t care about being in the latest interior design magazine.
I don’t care about building things for the market.
I care about building the right things, at the right pace, with the right people.
I decided to launch this company, first: to partner with passion, second: to live from that passion.

So yes, we’ll focus on 5 to 6 projects per year only. No more. A strong internal core team, and the right external talents brought in depending on each project. You’ll see it clearly on the website, we built something that reflects this choice, not hides it.
This is a calmer LOBBY. A sharper one. A more honest one.

In that same spirit, we are starting the year with a project we worked on: Land for Land.

This project is probably the clearest expression of what we’re building at LOBBY today. Fewer places. Stronger roots. A real relationship with land, movement, wellness, and territory. Not a collection designed for algorithms, but places shaped around a way of life. Land for Land isn’t about scaling fast or planting flags everywhere. It’s about choosing where it makes sense, working with people who live there, and creating houses that feel earned, not imposed. It fits perfectly with how we want to operate now: slow, intentional, grounded, and deeply local. Less brand noise. More meaning.

And this newsletter sits right at the center of it all.

Thanks for being here.
2026 is going to be about places, territory, and doing fewer things, better.

On continue.

And here is a sneak picture of a little story. For the past nine years, a couple of friends and I have been meeting every Saturday morning for a coffee. Same rhythm. Same need to slow down. Somewhere along the way, it became a ritual. So noticing that, we decided to make it real.

We’re opening a garage version of Autofficina, open every Saturday morning only. For friends, and friends of friends. A simple coffee take-away, a parking lot for our cars, a direct path to the beach. Coffee that comes with a sand break. Nothing more. Nothing to scale. Just a local place built around time, movement, and the people already there.

This is Autofficina, at its most local form.