For a while, Mr Owens and his wife Ms Michèle Lamy, both devoted sun-worshipers, were content to stay for long stretches at the Lido’s Excelsior Hotel, mingling with both the well-heeled holidaymakers and the glamorous ghosts of the cafe society who animate the place. “Nijinsky used to dance on this beach,” Mr Owens says, over lunch on the Excelsior terrace. “Diaghilev died in this hotel. I mean, for everybody in the 1920s and 1930s, the periods that I was most interested in, this was the most legendary spot on the planet. And it still has that allure and that history. But not only that, the water is very placid here, I like that. I like the whole cabana/hotel vibe. I like having to get around on boats, and I like that the Olympics of the art world, the Biennale, is five minutes away.” The scale of the village here, and the neighbourliness of the natives, recall his hometown of Porterville, California, he says. “And I love that the Lido is so quiet. There can be a little tinge of melancholy to this place, which I love, too. There aren’t distractions – there aren't night clubs and drugs and pretty people – so that keeps me in a safe space.”

In 2014, while their Paris home was in the midst of renovations, Mr Owens felt like it was time to make his residence in Venice safer still, and a little more permanent. After flirting with a lease on the copper-topped dome suite of the Excelsior, he opted for a penthouse apartment with wide wraparound terraces in a condominium building a few blocks away. To Ms Lamy’s dismay, Mr Owens tore up the 1970s turquoise tile floor to lay down sheets of travertine marble – wall-to-wall marble, floor-to-ceiling marble – save for the walls in the gym which are floor-to-ceiling mirror. The resulting aesthetic Ms Lamy teasingly called “Superman’s castle,” allowing for references to both Mr Christopher Reeve and Mr Friedrich Nietzsche. The 1930s Italian Futurist busts of Mr Benito Mussolini, by Thayaht and Mr Renato Bertelli, are, too, not entirely to her liking.