UNITED STATES:FORGET CAMP David, Chequers and Versailles. The next time George Bush, Gordon Brown or Nicolas Sarkozy need a bolthole in which to recharge their batteries, they might find themselves lured to a new retreat on the shores of Lake Las Vegas, a privately owned lake in Nevada.
Donna Vassar, part of the Vassar education dynasty, has launched plans to build a $300 million private getaway for stressed-out presidents and prime ministers who want to "reconnect with their unique purpose in life".
The Universitas Leadership Sanctuary is intended as part monastery and part conference centre, where the most powerful men and women on the planet can get away from it all.
Ms Vassar intends to recreate a monastic existence, which means entourages of press officers, policy advisers and secretaries will be banned. There will even be a garden to provide food for the sanctuary tables, raising the prospect of future world leaders tilling the soil together while ruminating on the direction of the latest round of world trade talks.
"Together we will create an individual journey leading to the highest place within, enabling leaders to reconnect with their unique purpose in life. They emerge - renewed, with clarity and reflecting true transformation."
It is not the first attempt to bring world leaders together in a different environment to the conference halls and meeting rooms of the UN, Davos and Camp David.
In late 2006 President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan opened the Pyramid of Peace in Astana, his capital. The 77-metre building, designed by Norman Foster, includes a 1,500-seat opera house.