Over the last 40 years, Colin Cowie has designed and planned some of the most renowned luxury events worldwide, from Oprah’s white-tie Legends Ball in Santa Barbara to the grand opening of the Atlantis Bahamas to the royal wedding of the current Emir of Qatar. So, when it comes time to host his own holiday party at his sleek monochromatic penthouse overlooking Biscayne Bay, the man can quite literally do it with his hands full—balancing a flute of Krug in his left and serving caviar to guests with his right.
Cowie’s home keeps its minimalism all year long, with a black, white, and green color scheme firmly in place. For the festivities, though, Cowie has injected lush, tropical shades of green with subtle golden accents for a modern take on the traditional Christmas decor.
Velvet-sage tablecloths, hand-tied chartreuse ribbons, and soaring centerpieces of monstera leaves and cymbidium orchids set the scene. In one corner, a Christmas tree glimmers beside floor-to-ceiling bayfront windows, adorned with ornaments and bows in layered textures and tones—all within Cowie’s disciplined color palette.
“Great style comes from ruthless editing,” Cowie declares. “I’m very contemporary and like to do one thing and a lot of it, that way you can make a very impactful statement.”
Unsurprisingly, Cowie curates an impressive collection of color-coded china, silver, glassware, and table linens, all housed in three custom-built, floor-to-ceiling cabinets. “I’d rather buy a set of dishes and share them with my friends,” he explains. “It’s the wardrobe for entertaining.”
For someone who’s made a successful career planning events for wealthy and celebrated clients, Cowie is frank in his belief that anyone can entertain at the holidays. It’s a misconception, he says, that hosting takes too much time, costs too much money, or is far too complicated to execute. “If you plan really well, you can host effortlessly and elegantly,” he adds, “that’s how I can have 20 people over and do this all by myself.”
Cowie has always been a natural host. He credits this to his upbringing with his parents and three older siblings in Zambia, in Central Africa. In fact, from a young age, Cowie couldn’t resist rearranging the furniture or decorating the place settings at the dinner table. “There weren’t many restaurants or hotels, so we always entertained in our home,” he recalls. “Having people over and entertaining is something I’ve been doing my whole life.”
After moving to Los Angeles in 1985 to pursue a career in event design and entertaining, Cowie steadily built a Rolodex of high-profile clients—most notably Hugh Hefner, after being tapped to design the Playboy publisher’s 1989 wedding to Kimberley Conrad—and orchestrated some of the West Coast’s most talked-about parties from that time. His clients include A-listers such as Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Seacrest, and Kim Kardashian.
Colin Cowie Lifestyle—which now has outposts in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Florence, Italy—was launched in 1992. After relocating to New York in the late ’90s, Cowie became a fixture in the media, hosting Everyday Elegance with Colin Cowie on the Discovery Channel for five seasons and making regular appearances on Oprah, Today, and Ellen.
Cowie also created signature product lines on the Home Shopping Network, including collections designed specifically for holiday entertaining. “Winter wonderland, traditional, contemporary—I have done Christmas every which way possible,” he says with a laugh, recalling how the holiday production circuit once began as early as March. “By the time we got to Christmas, I was so over Christmas, I couldn’t look at another gold ornament!”
These days, though, the holidays have taken on new meaning for Cowie. No longer producing Christmas in March, he now finds joy in celebrating the season at home—this time, on his own terms, and with his husband, Danny Peuscovich, a commodities trader who hails from Argentina.
In 2020, right before the world shut down for the pandemic, Cowie and Peuscovich exchanged vows in an epic, 10-day-long destination wedding in South Africa produced by Cowie himself. That same year, they left New York and purchased the penthouse apartment overlooking Biscayne Bay sight unseen.
For nearly six years, Cowie and Peuscovich have called Miami home. In that time, they have hosted formal dinner parties, Art Basel soirees, Sunday brunches, and impromptu cocktails for friends.
But the holidays have always held a special place for Cowie. Growing up, his mother would bake her famous sausage rolls—a tradition he has continued since moving to the United States 40 years ago. This year, he served the bite-size delicacies on a Christofle silver tray engraved with the vows from his and Peuscovich’s wedding.
“They’re a Christmas staple for us and people can’t get enough of them,” Cowie says of the family recipe. “They’re the only thing I make from scratch. And I actually made them a week before, put them in the freezer, and then they went from the freezer to the oven to the table.”
Cowie wants to dispel the notion that a host can’t throw an unforgettable party without hiring a professional—or sacrificing their sanity. For his own holiday menu, Cowie deliberately keeps things simple, opting for a decadent spread of high-quality dishes that require minimal prep: canapés and Golden Goat’s buttery imperial osetra caviar paired with the brand’s more versatile kaluga variety (a favorite among Michelin-starred chefs), salmon smoked three ways (vodka dill, bourbon pepper, and pastrami), and colossal chilled prawns.
To honor his husband’s Argentine heritage, Cowie added a picada with cured cold meats, cheeses, olives, figs, and grapes. For dessert, he artfully arranged berries to resemble standing fir trees and served iced cookies by Sweet Guilt by Angelica inside translucent ornaments.
“Today’s savvy entertainer is not someone who chops, slices, peels, and makes everything from scratch,” Cowie asserts. “Today’s savvy entertainer is a resourceful entertainer.” If he’s short on flowers or greenery, Cowie admits he’s been known to resort to a bit of “night farming,” in which he scours the neighborhood for a few sprigs and branches, which he then zhuzhes up with paint or glitter.
To keep hosts from feeling overwhelmed, Cowie recommends creating a clear timeline and tackling as many tasks as possible ahead of the event. Holiday decor, the Christmas tree, a festive playlist, and gift wrapping can all be handled a week in advance, he advises. Food and drink should arrive no later than two days before, and the table can be set the day prior. “Throwing a party you can enjoy too is the goal,” he says. “It’s all about pre-planning and doing everything you can before.”
That’s not to say that Cowie advocates cutting corners. For him, entertaining is an art—one that engages all five senses and goes far beyond what’s being served. “It’s the fragrant candle that you smell as you walk through the front door, the music that is playing, the amount of starch in your cocktail napkin,” he says. “When we entertain, we want to address what we smell, touch, taste, see, and hear.”
There’s no need to scour social media to find an Instagram-worthy tablescape or follow a specific influencer’s take on whether a traditional or contemporary theme is trending this season, Cowie adds. Instead, he encourages hosts to start with their own imagination.
“When you’re lying in bed at night or early in the morning, start to conjure in your mind what you want your holiday theme to look like,” he says. “As with everything in design, you have to dream, and it costs nothing to dream.”
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