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Boutique Hotels Designer digs for road warriors by Guy Babineau
Be careful. In the rarified Wallpaperesque air of NYC’s Paramount hotel lobby your airkiss could evaporate long before it has a chance to reach the cheek it’s intended for. A Shrager Hotel, as in Ian Shrager of Studio 54 fame, the Paramount features a retro Art Nouveau look designed by Phillipe Starck. Starck is a darling of the international design world. When he’s not designing off-beat furniture or engineering cutting-edge fashion accessories, he does hotels. That is, he recreates them, tailoring every detail to reflect the expectations and aspirations of today’s design- savvy albeit work-weary road warrior. His redesign of The Delano in South Beach is even more nosebleedy, the picture-perfect place to stay when you’re in the mood to invite supermodels over for fat-free lattes on the lanai. The Paramount and Delano are good examples of the high-trend end in boutique hotels. Boutique hotels have taken off in recent years as a preferred alternative to chains, especially for business travelers who frequently visit the same place over and over again. They continue to grow in popularity, enjoying on average an 85% occupancy rate, about 6% higher than other hotels. The sleek, pop postmodernism of Shrager Hotels and their ilk is a lot of fun and has a certain cachet. But like they said in the sixties, that’s not everyone’s bag, man. The good news is that you don’t have to be on intimate terms with Prada’s collection-of-the-moment to stay at a boutique hotel because they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes suitable for a range of tastes and budgets. For example, not too far from the Paramount you can sip Manhattans with the ghost of writer, wit and raconteur Dorothy Parker at the famous Algonquin. Once a hangout for the raillery and ripostes of the New Yorker’s Round Table crones, the hotel was recently refurbished to recapture the period’s elan. A bit further uptown, The Benjamin, built in 1927, has been renovated in period style to cater to business executives. In terms of style and service, boutique hotels cut a wide swathe, but they do share some common attributes. For argument’s sake, a boutique hotel has an average of 90 rooms. It can be smaller or larger, but the cut-off point is 250 rooms. Quality cuisine is often a feature. Service is, or should be, exemplary. Guests are made to feel especially welcome and there are a number of special touches available to them, from complimentary cocktail hours to video libraries. That’s why they’re appreciated by the business traveler who spends a lot of time away from home; the ambiance is personable. Many have small conference rooms for business meetings, but they do not have convention facilities. Some offer data ports, in-room fax machines and off-lobby business center. You have to snoop around to find a boutique hotel that caters to your business requirements. From an aesthetic standpoint, they fall into three categories. Some, like The Benjamin and Algonquin, have been renovated to recapture their original glory. Others are older properties that have been retrofitted with contemporary design sass, like The Delano. Then there are boutique hotels created out of buildings that originally served another purpose. A good example of this is the Union Bank in Edmonton. “It’s great,” says Elizabeth Cordeau, a thirty- something marketing and communications consultant in Calgary who travels extensively on business. “They’ve got fourteen rooms, each one unique, in what used to be a bank. And it’s less expensive than the large downtown chains.” Cordeau hits on a big bonus of the boutique boom. Cost is an enormous attraction. Across the board, centrally located boutique hotels tend to be easier on the expense account than their chain counterparts. Another factor key to their attraction among business travelers is that they are one-of-a-kind, or at least they’re supposed to be. When you ’ve unpacked your toothbrush in one to many generic hotel rooms, this is big news. Boutiques aren’t just personable, they’ve got personality. “Boutique hotels have basically become a brand,” Steve Pinetti says from his cellphone in New Orleans, where he is opening a new hotel. Pinetti is with the Kimpton Group of Hotels. He is also the President of Boutique Lodging International, which operates boutiqelodging.com, a useful Web directory of boutique hotels around the world. The Kimpton Group was at the vanguard of boutique hotels. In the 1980s they started them up in major cities, centrally located, coupled with first-rate restaurants. “At boutiquelodging.com we try to give people information that enables them to choose a hotel particular to their needs and tastes,” says Pinetti. “All of the member hotels have to have at least a Mobil 3-star rating. (Mobil is a standard rating system in the hospitality industry.) And what we stress most is excellent service.” As with most things in life , boutique hotels can’t possibly please all the people all of the time. It pays to cherry pick. “I like the Paramount for fun but not for business,” mentions Cordeau. “The rooms are too small to spread out your work. It’s good for a holiday but for work purposes I’d go elsewhere.” Phil Savath is a Vancouver film and TV producer and screenwriter who travels a great deal. He too has found that different boutique hotels appeal to him for different reasons. “I love the bar at The Sorrento in Seattle but a place there called the Vintage Park has better rooms. In San Francisco, there’s a great place called The Boheme but it’s hard to find the entrance from the street and there’s nowhere to park.” It looks like boutique hotels are here to stay. To find one that’s right for you, take the time to do some research. Once you’ve found one(s) you like, you’ll probably be a repeat guest.
Originally published in the National Post © Guy Babineau 2003-2004
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