New York City remains home base for 23 Layers, but the agency’s newest projects reach well past the five boroughs. Between a retreat launching in the Tuscan countryside and an industry summit built from the ground up in Brooklyn, founder Jessica Boskoff is expanding what a company known as one of the city’s corporate event planners NYC clients rely on can actually offer.
La Retreat: An Escape Rooted in Italian Culture
La Retreat is described as an immersive experience held in hand-picked villas across Tuscany. The retreat is built for travel lovers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone drawn to connection, beauty, and intentional living, with organizers noting it is designed for guests who want to experience the region “not as tourists, but as locals.” Programming draws on the Italian concept of “il dolce far niente,” or the sweetness of doing nothing, with days built around pasta-making in a centuries-old kitchen, golden-hour tastings, and storytelling with local authors.
La Retreat marks a shift for an agency built on corporate clients like Google, Spotify, and Glossier. Rather than producing someone else’s brand event, 23 Layers is building its own hospitality brand from scratch, one rooted in slow travel rather than boardroom energy. It is a signal that the skills behind a well-run product launch, from logistics to guest experience design, translate directly into a very different kind of gathering.
The Assembly Workshop Summit: Built By Planners, For Planners
Back in Brooklyn, 23 Layers has spent the past year building The Assembly Workshop into its own summit. Held at Shell’s Loft, the event brings together industry speakers Boskoff describes as friends and longtime collaborators, many of whom she has worked alongside for more than a decade. The summit includes structured content and workshops, plus industry speed dating, food, and design-forward touches consistent with the agency’s aesthetic.
Unlike a typical client project, this summit exists to serve the event planning community itself. Attendee spots are limited by design, keeping the gathering intimate rather than a mass conference. For a company already known among corporate event planners NYC businesses hire for client work, building an internal-facing summit shows an interest in shaping the profession, not just working within it.
Two Different Projects, One Underlying Idea
La Retreat and The Assembly Workshop Summit sit at opposite ends of the map, one in the Italian countryside and one in Brooklyn, but both stem from the same instinct: identify a gap and build the experience that fills it. Both appear to be founder-led ventures, created because Boskoff and her team saw an opportunity to apply their production expertise somewhere new.
For businesses that associate 23 Layers primarily with polished brand activations in Manhattan, these projects broaden the picture. The agency’s core strength, turning a concept into a fully realized guest experience, does not stop at city limits or client rosters. Whether the destination is a villa in Tuscany or a loft in Brooklyn, the same standard of design and execution applies.
