The Very Best: Hotels

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Best Stop in Richmond
Richmond can make you a little sad, because it is a city that ever lives too much in the past and the cracks are showing in its buildings, economy, and demeanor.  At its endless Civil War sites, the Park guides can mainly tell you that there was once something there, but today you will only find a plaque or two or somewhat crumbling battleworks.  But the heartening place in town and a welcome retreat from a sun that gets relentless is the Jefferson Hotel on West Franklin.  It opened in 1895, and has been  rescued more than once from fire, decay, and the shift in the town’s economic fortunes.  It was created by Lewis Ginter, émigré from  New York, who built it with his third fortune, having lost two along the way.  The town’s botanical garden is also named after him, his niece having ensured after his death that it would be dedicated to fine gardens.  As in more than one fine Southern hotel, the Palm Court once had alligators, but no more.  Still there is plenty of imagination and memories of glory here—wonderful stained glass windows,  the Grand Staircase, and the Grand Ballroom.  We had two most pleasant lunches here—simple but complemented but an extra willing staff.  Even the extraordinarily spacious men’s room near the bar speaks of a town that once had big dreams and occasionally created structures that expressed its ambitions.  The Jefferson. 101 West Franklin Street.  Richmond, Virginia 23220.  Website:  www.jefferson-hotel.com.   Telephone:  (804) 788-8000 and (800) 424-8014.  For more on Richmond and the Jefferson, see our Global Province letter for 23 April 2003, “Richmond, Washington, and Warm Rooms.”

Slightly Mediterranean
We stayed for a couple of nights on this visit.  We had planned on just one stay-over at this statuesque hotel, but were counseled by a Washington friend to retreat back here after our foray into Southern Virginia.  “The best you will do down there is a Super 8 or Motel 6.   Just go back to Richmond.”  And that’s just what we did and were glad of it.  The Jefferson is a national treasure that has survived some loving restoration.  As its sister hotel, Nashville’s The Hermitage, it’s a first-class property and the only place in the city to put up for the night. 

And like The Hermitage, its service suffers from a Mediterranean flavor: it may never happen.  For instance, its reservation software is a bit tangled, so the reservation confirmation one receives may be in electronic gibberish.  Newspapers commonly don’t get delivered.  Food in TJ’s will take quite a while to get to your table; more complex dishes don’t turn out at all well.  The air conditioning may be a little faint in the downstairs lobby.  The concierge is helpful—if not otherwise occupied on the telephone in an extended conversation, but the directions out of town may not be the most direct.  Should you put some ice bricks for your cooler in the hotel freezer, it may take 20 to 30 minutes for the bellboy to find them.  The house staff will forget to set up the rollaway bed, etc. etc. 

Hotel Marlowe
We were very pleasantly surprised by the Hotel Marlowe (www.hotelmarlowe.
com/index.html), a new Kimpton establishment in Cambridge, right by the Museum of Science and just a hop, skip, and a jump from downtown Boston.  Right now it’s as good a hotel as you will find in Boston, even if it is still on its shakedown cruise.  It and its new sister boutique in Boston, the Onyx, are a bit more fun than the usual.  Boston hotels where one finds even the newest inns to be a bit dowdy. Where else could you bring your pet, for instance?  Both also have a young, enthusiastic staff that tries very, very hard, often to good effect, even if it is sometimes lacking in polish or on-the-ground knowledge.  The rooms are ample and comfortable; room service provides food that is generally well-cooked, simple, and wholesome, even if it sometimes comes slowly; the bathroom appointments (Aveda) are actually a little classier than even uppercut hotels stock these days.  We were more than pleased with the views out to the river, better by far than most around.  The room phones are a little tricky—a lot of functions, offbrand, and not quite workable.  Use the corded variety near the TV instead of the cordless.  The TV remote control is also confusing.  On its website and in the lobby, the hotel could use a compendium of solid, useful information—such as a guide to immediate neighborhood restaurants, a map to the T, and a menu of upscale neighborhood shops and other treats, since it is located in an out-of-the-way part of Cambridge.  There’s lots of cosmetic marketing literature around, but not the nitty gritty stuff that eases a traveler’s stay.  Bambara, its restaurant, also has a fun look, and while its menu could use a little bit of work since it is a little overworked, we were quite pleased with a veal and portobello meatloaf, and we liked the cod as well.  Hotel Marlowe.  25 Edwin H. Land Boulevard.  Cambridge, Massachusetts 02141.  617-868-8000.  The national reservations line, which we don’t recommend, is: 1-800-825-7140. 

The Marlowe threatens to put Boston on the hotel map.  Not often admitted, the older, bigger establishments across the Charles are frequently lacking on several counts, and we have frequently said that Boston is really not a hotel town, even with its storied Ritz.  There’s now a surge of new boutique establishments, with more we think to come, that will vastly improve a market that tends to do better at smaller things and flounders a bit when it tries something grand.  We find much the same is true with the restaurants where bigger is usually not better.  One of the better, more innovative cooks in town turned humdrum when he opened a larger place years ago with production line cooking and a much more limited menu.  (4/5/05)

More on Marlowe
There are definitely lesser and better rooms at this new hotel in Cambridge about which we remain enthusiastic.  This time we had a crummy room and felt the downside.  But we also discovered other worthwhile amenities. 

First, for the small room looking into the interior courtyard.  Things get mildly bleak.  The Kimpton Group uses very average hotel designers who do not necessarily make good use of the space at hand.  Even with 3 lamps, the room is poorly lighted, and daylight is kept at bay by a too passionate use of draperies.  The room is cluttered: extra unnecessary pillows that have to be hidden behind a chair at night, and the slew of consumables in the TV/armoire area means there is insufficient space to store clothes.  An unnecessary coffee urn clutters up the desk, making it hard to spread out one’s paperwork.   

Now for the amenities.  We think we have complimented the staff  before: in general they are very, very willing as long as you tell them what to do.  To some degree, they suffer from a lack of direction but will give you fast turnaround with a little urging.  For two mornings in a row, one of our newspapers was not delivered; this has happened before.  But a replacement got up to us within the half hour.  Second, there is an exercise room.  There actually is a small room on the 8th floor, though we were formerly told that the hotel only offered admission to a club in a neighboring building.  It’s open 24 hours so you can still work out when you come in from a late dinner.  The hotel only needs to add chilled bottles of water to get on a par with other boutique hotels.  Third, there is an excellent buffet breakfast in Restaurant Bambara (yes, a rather silly name for a restaurant).  In the morning, particularly if one goes after 9:30 a.m., there is a nicer crowd in the restaurant than you find during the rest of the day.  The eggs, the smoked salmon, and the fruit make for a first-rate repast.  Even though the onion will be finely sliced one day, crudely the next, and the scrambled eggs will come out slightly lumpen one day,  light and truly scrambled the next, this is a meal not to be missed.  The daylight is quite nice, though make sure you get a table out of the sun.  (7/20/05)  For original entry in Best of Class (#359), click here.

The Onyx
Kimpton has opened with a splash in Boston, not only putting the Marlowe in Cambridge, but the Onyx in the Bulfinch Triangle, just off the Financial District in Boston.  In both instances, management has sited its properties with a view to future redevelopment.  The Onyx is a good bet for the business traveler, since it is not yet over-run during the week, despite its bustling week end trade.  It has many of the same virtues as the Hotel Marlowe: it’s a bit of fun and has a very willing staff.  The rooms are a bit snug, and the Kimpton designers did not quite get it right here.  The décor, especially downstairs, is too loud for a small space, and, with the roomsafe unnecessarily packed into the closet, you may find it a bit of a squeeze for your clothes.  That said, it is just a short walk to State Street, and the hardworking, pleasant chap you meet in the elevator may well be an interesting, young entrepreneur. 

Eventually, we predict, Kimpton or another smart hotelier will buy an adjoining companion property (while the prices are still right) and put together a hotel package that is much like the very smart Blake’s in London’s Kensington where all the young advert guys would stay once upon a time.  A small hotel, it knows how to take advantage of its intimacy.  See www.blakeshotels.com.  The very clever actress Anouska Hempel, an Australian, as we remember, put it together.  She’s a gas, so read more about her at www.elegant-lifestyle.com/quest0304.htm. 

The Bulfinch Triangle, where it is located, is named after an immensely important Boston Federalist architect, Charles Bulfinch (see www.encyclopedia.com/html/B/
BulfinchC1.asp), who did the Statehouse and Mass General Hospital and who also was effectively mayor of Boston for 19 years.  This section is undergoing a considerable revival, particularly with the disappearance of the Expressway in the era of the “Big Dig,” and will be integrated into the new Greenway District.  In a way, it is Boston at its best.  Boston’s skyline and tall buildings (full of lawyers, mutual funds, and insurance companies) are mostly not that distinguished, and the city’s charm comes from a less towering era that can be seen here.  It is well to remember that Boston was at its zenith in the colonial era, and that it has been an archive and a sort of creaky knowledge capital ever since.  Another, less distinguished smallish affair called the Bulfinch Hotel has just opened as well in this up and coming area.  Onyx Hotel · 155 Portland Street · Boston, MA 02114 · Fax: 617-557-0005 · Phone: 617-557-9955.  www.onyxhotel.com.  (4/13/05)

Best Small Hotel in Toronto
On a snowy winter evening, with icy winds blasting down from the Arctic Circle, we can’t imagine a cozier nest than the Windsor Arms, a small luxury hotel in Toronto’s Yorkville district.  The pearly grey green rooms with chic black and white photos on the walls are pleasantly serene, but it was the comfy beds with light as a feather duvets and silky Frette sheets that really won us over.  A good sound system, including a CD player, a butler’s cupboard for private room service, and fireplaces in some suites add to the feeling of being in a posh cocoon.

We had a few quibbles:  the room’s complicated lighting system had all sorts of lamps, but not a good one to read by, and the plumbing was slow.  But the large marble bathroom also had a jacuzzi and Darphin toiletries, and the amiable staff is terribly eager to please.  A 90-minute hot stone massage administered in the quietly relaxing spa upstairs left us with just enough strength to tumble back into bed.  If you venture out of your room, the best place to dine is at the lobby bar, although the adjacent private club can be noisy in the evening.  The quietest rooms are on the third floor.

Note:  The Windsor Arms was recently refurbished and, under new ownership, bears no relation to the more rustic, light-hearted inn that occupied the same location for many years.  Contact:  Windsor Arms, 18 St. Thomas Street, Toronto M5S 3E7, Canada.  Telephone:  877-999-2767.  Website: www.windsorarmshotel.com.

Best Breakfast Hotel in San Francisco
Campton Place is very central (just off Union Square), very obliging at breakfast time, and is equipped with a dining room that is very right-sized and quite calming when you are starting the day.  Probably it is just down the hotel ladder a few rungs from the Mandarin, which makes it very good, indeed, and the dining room has a better ambiance than Silks.  Occasionally, the hotel's rooms are a bit too snug, but we understand that they all have been reworked to be more capacious.  Of all the hotels, there is more attention to design details (some quite successful) than in all the other hostelries around town.  We hear the bar and restaurant are to be redone--for the better we hope--even though management may be messing with a good formula.  Campton Place Hotel.  340 Stockton Street, San Francisco, California 94108.  Telephone: 415-781-5555.  Fax: 415-955-5536.  Website:  www.camptonplace.com.

Update: We recently paid another very extensive visit to Campton Place and found it to be as good as ever.  First, hurray for the restaurant, which has finally reached the first rank.  It and the bar outside have undergone a light redesign, but it’s nothing dramatic and the tone has remained reasonably understated.  The banquette at the back has turned slightly more uncomfortable, since the padding pressed up against one’s spine is not quite right.  At night you will want to sit in the booths on the left.  By day, get a position near the windows since the lighting is mildly depressing otherwise.  The service at night is as good as ever, though we did not see the old hands who had a bit more knowledge about the food.  The food in the old days was a little fruity precious (new California chefs trying too hard); things are now more complex and very decorative but very mellow.  It’s all a bit filling, so go empty and don’t plan on visiting too often.  Despite the fact that it’s a better restaurant, it does not seem as crowded—for any meal—which, of course, is a very big plus for the discerning.   

Breakfast is still quite pleasant but with some caveats.  You have to pick your way through the menu and be a little demanding.  For instance, we eat the egg white omelet which will come out a little watery (just pour the waste onto a saucer), and the vegetables, which strangely are not wrapped into the omelet, tend to blandness.  It helps if you ardently spell out what you want in the omelet and caution the staff on the cooking.  Likewise the breads are mixed: a croissant was respectable, but the attempt at an English muffin could even be said to be gluey.  Do try the jams and jellies.  But it’s a quiet place to kick off the day and to carry on civil business conversation. 

The hotel staff is ever willing and the rooms have grown more comfortable over the years.  There are a few trifles that need to be repaired.  The front desk can be dilatory about getting a bellboy to the room or effecting a simple transaction that requires a bit of creativity—in other words, balls do get dropped there.  Nobody polices the front lobby, so an unruly guest can prowl back and forth yapping for a long time on a cell phone, disturbing more temperate guests.  Generally, however, it attracts a genteel clientele.  The flaws probably arise because management is rather invisible.  Room service really ends at 10:30: this is not quite luxury.  But the papers really do make it to your door in the morning, even if they are not on the table in the restaurant which sports too many copies of USA Today and the emasculated San Francisco Chronicle.  The maid will do a fast clean up in a pinch.  It’s quiet in the rooms, and the double seal glass protects one against rather noisy streets.  Unusually we found ice in our room every night—without asking. The towels have a reasonable nap and there are enough at hand.

Best U.S. Hotel
The Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco. The Mandarin soars because of a peculiar accident. A gentleman from Asia talked management into putting its San Francisco hotel in an office tower. Administration and banquet facilities are on the bottom floors, but the rooms are 40 stories up. If you get the right room, you get a 270º view of the Bay Area from your bathtub. Happily, we were the first guests and we keep on going back. Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 222 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104. Tel: 415-276-9888.  Email: reserve-mosfo@mohg.com.  
See web site at http://www.mandarin-oriental.com/sanfrancisco/index.html.

Best North Carolina Triad (and Triangle) Hotel
The O. Henry Hotel is probably the best hotel from the Coastal Plain to the Piedmont of North Carolina.  It's still a secret, incidentally; most denizens of Greensboro and Winston Salem simply don't know about it.  It is the reincarnation of an earlier version torn down in 1979.  It's named for O. Henry, a.k.a. William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), the storyteller who started life here but then made his way to Texas, Ohio, and other parts, finally dying in penury in New York City despite his prolific writing career.  Like O. Henry, the hotel is a gem waiting to be rediscovered by history.

Among its virtues are a staff that tries quite hard, Green Valley Grill (a first-class, pleasant restaurant), unusually large, ample bathrooms, a comfortable lobby, a lovely sun room, and outdoor dining (relatively smog free) outside the Grill.  Both the exercise room and the pool are intimate and fairly quiet, since they are hardly used.  O. Henry Hotel.  624 Green Valley Rd., Greensboro, North Carolina 27429.  1-336-854-2000.

We found an O. Henry volume by our bedside and would recommend the hotel make the writer the centerpiece of more visible promotion.  Here are some O. Henry books available:

• The Best Short Stories of O. Henry (Modern Library)

• The Four Million

• The Gift of the Magi

Gabrielle’s Place—Asheville, North Carolina
Richmond Hill Inn is Asheville’s premier small hotel.  Featured on Zagat’s 2001 list of top small resorts and inns, the imposing green and yellow Queen Anne-style mansion, built in 1889 by Richmond Pearson, a North Carolina congressman and ambassador, has much to recommend it:  a tranquil hilltop site with vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a magnificent garden with waterfalls and formal boxwood beds, and a surprisingly good restaurant.

So let’s dispense with the downside.  Calling for a reservation ten days ahead, we decided to try the O. Henry Room on the second floor of the mansion.  We were dismayed to find a cramped space with somber brown walls and tatty blue carpet, crammed with dark wood furniture, and a bathroom with gurgling plumbing.  The desk clerk had promised a view, but only by pulling the blinds up all the way were we able to  glimpse the mountains.  Next time we’d stay in one of the Croquet Cottages, a charming group of five Victorian-style two-story cottages surrounding an immaculate croquet green.  For antique-lovers, there are the elegant rooms that once belonged to Richmond and Gabrielle Pearson; attractive modern rooms are available in the recently built Garden Pavilion

But you don’t even have to stay at Richmond Hill to enjoy its main attraction:  the over-the-top Victorian gardens created by Southern landscape guru, Chip Callaway. Callaway, who has designed historically accurate gardens for the Roper-Jenrette House in Charleston and for Stratford Hall, Robert E. Lee’s Virginia home, has created a mix of “natural” landscapes and formal beds that irresistibly draw even the most casual onlookers.  Tumbling down the hillside from the main house is a splashing brook with small waterfalls lushly bordered by ferns and sprawling nicotiana, interspersed with native trees and shrubs.  The brook ends at the bottom of the hill in a large waterfall facing the piece de resistance:  a stunning parterre garden whose severely geometric boxwood beds can scarcely contain an explosion of summer blooms.  Billowing waves of pink and white phlox, hydrangeas heavily laden with huge blossoms, and dozens of other old fashioned flowers are anchored by Weeping China Doll rose topiaries and giant cardoons with fluffy purple tufted heads. Lavender wands of verbena bonarensis emerge from clumps of flowering alliuim, spiky sea holly and bright blue balloon flowers.  Towering over this riotous jungle are 10-foot tall hollyhocks, with blooms in luscious shades of apricot and rose. Generously, current owners Marge and Albert Michel have opened the gardens to anyone who wishes to see them.

The other compelling reason to go to Richmond Hill is Gabrielle’s, a modern American restaurant named after Richmond Pearson’s wife.  There are several formal dining rooms, but just as twilight was falling, we gravitated to a table on the more casual enclosed sun porch, with comfy wicker chairs and a ceiling fan turning lazily overhead.  Summer offerings included an impressive tasting menu of fresh, seasonal dishes such as an heirloom tomato gazpacho with avocado sorbet and Carolina shrimp, and roasted Maine lobster with fava beans and saffron butter.  Feeling a bit less ambitious, we zigzagged through the a la carte menu to create our own mini-tasting extravaganza.  Highlights included a very fresh, buttery tuna tartare with cucumber, ginger and cilantro, and a jumbo lump crab cake with piquant remoulade sauce and North Carolina sweet potato fries.  We liked the salad of slow-roasted beets with goat cheese and caramelized bacon in a spritely sherry vinagaigrettte.  The Valrhona chocolate cake with caramel ice cream was predictably dark, rich and impossible to resist.

Contact:  Richmond Hill Inn, 87 Richmond Hill drive, Asheville, North Carolina 28806.  Telephone:  800-545-9238 or 828-252-7313.  Website: www.RichmondHillInn.com.

Going-Away Spices
Richmond Hill Inn, a very classy inn on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina, puts a little present outside your door in the morning, dazzling you with the wonders of nature instead of all the cares of man you would find in any newspaper.  There you will find a small sampling of an herb or spice, along with a card, telling you of its history and many uses.  Our party found lavender on one day, rosemary on another.  Simultaneously this reminds you that this inn has an ambitious kitchen, absolutely smashing gardens (its best feature), and active tilling that provides plants to delight both the eye and palate.  (7/5/06)

New Orleans’ Best Hotel (and a Lot More Besides)
As much as we love New Orleans, and particularly the French quarter, there comes a moment when too many cups of cafe au lait and crowded sidewalks can set our nerves ajangle.  When we can’t look at one more piece of gilt and ormolu French furniture, when we’re no longer mesmerized by the fire-eaters, contortionists and voodoo priestesses in Jackson Square, when we can’t squeeze through one more narrow doorway leading to ... well, that’s when we need some room to breathe.

At junctures like this it is wondrous to ford Canal Street and step into the welcoming lobby of the Windsor Court Hotel, where the doorman miraculously remembers your name, and where your room is so serene and so spacious that you wonder why you ever left it.  On this latest trip, our suite was an airy aerie, with soothing tone-on-tone striped walls and comfy sofas and chairs in elegant grey-green toile with a vague Chinoiserie theme.  Silky Egyptian linens, a gleaming marble bath, and equestrian prints on the wall made for a well-feathered nest, but the defining luxury was the panoramic view from the picture windows in the living room and bedroom.  We could have lingered for hours at the breakfast table, over croissants and cafe au lait, just gazing at the Mississippi and also, in our case, the verdigris turreted rooftops of the neighboring Harrah’s Casino which, quite surprisingly, offered an architecturally interesting vista.

The Windsor Court’s Grill Room has regularly won accolades from publications like Zagat and Travel+Leisure.  Recently, we spent an agreeable hour talking about food with the new executive chef, James Overbaugh, who has been at the helm for about a year.  Classically trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, he previously served as executive chef at the Chateau du Serau in Yosemite Park, where he prepared a different degustation menu every night.  In New Orleans, Mr. Overbaugh now walks a culinary tightrope, balancing local tradition with his own inventive flourishes, dreaming up ways to incorporate luxury ingredients such as foie gras and caviar to gently remind diners that they are at one of the America’s most highly-rated hotel restaurants.  (For an excerpt of our conversation, click here. )

Among the dishes we tasted were Baked Oysters with Horseradish-Parsnip Puree, which appeared to be a fresh take on the more traditional oysters Rockefeller but which Mr. Overbaugh says he’s been making for years.  Plump Louisiana oysters were tucked  between creamy layers of parsnip puree spiked with horseradish and an emerald green spinach puree topped with lemon cream.  It is a dish so warm and satisfying that one would be tempted to call it comfort food were it not so elegantly presented on a bed of rock salt strewn with fennel seeds, star anise and peppercorns. (See recipe.)   We also sampled the Paneed Grouper, the delicately flavored fish breaded and fried whisper light, served in a  gutsy tomato broth over nutty Camargue rice and Creole eggplant, amped up with dollops of a vivid tomato compote and dill aioli.

New Orleans is, of course, the city of pralines, and we were delighted to discover a homemade praline on our pillow each night.  Pastry chef Joy Jessup not only makes the pralines but has also created a seductive variation on this culinary theme for the dessert menu:  Warm Pecan Toffee Cake, just a few bites really, drenched in rich buttery toffee sauce and served with intensely flavored coffee ice cream in a chocolate shell. It’s almost worth the price of plane ticket.

Best Small, Elegant Hotel in Fez—Morocco
To arrive at La Maison Bleue, bleary-eyed after a ten-hour trip from New York, is to feel as though one has stumbled into a seductive Arabian Nights dream.  Outside there is the heat, the exhaust fumes, and the cacophony of Fez.  Inside, there is coolness and serenity.  A massive carved cedar door opens: You enter an intricately tiled, glass-roofed atrium and sink into sumptuous brocade cushions.  As Andalusian music watts from a velvet-curtained alcove and a fountain burbles, you are offered a steaming glass of fragrant mint tea.  You are grateful--and very, very happy.  For more on La Maison Bleue, please click here.  Contact: La Maison Bleue, 2 Place de L'Istiqlal, Batha 30000, Fez, Morocco.  Telephone: 212-55-63-60-52.  Tel/Fax: 212-74-18-43 or 55-74-06-86.  Website: www.maisonbleue.com.

Best Large Luxury Hotel in Fez—Morocco
Built in 1879 by the Grand Vizir to Sultan Moulay Hassan I, the famed Palais Jamais has been favored by discerning travelers since it became a hotel in the 1930s.  The Moorish-style palace and its lovely Andalusian gardens were the setting for Paul Bowles' novel, The Spider's House, which chronicled the fall of the French Protectorate in Fez in the 1950s.  A recent, rather slick renovation by Sofitel, the French hotel chain, has left intact much of the beautiful green and blue zellij, carved plaster and painted beams, although one suspects that the glitzy lobby, populated by American and British tour groups, might be a recent addition.

What we enjoyed: a quiet, late-afternoon meal on the terrace overlooking the tranquil swimming pool.  It's hard to find a light lunch in Fez, so we were pleasantly surprised to discover a menu offering club sandwiches and orange sorbet.  Rose petals floated in a nearby fountain, and beyond we could see the rooftops of the medina.  It was completely tranquil, a world away from the clamor and hustle of Fez.  What we did not enjoy: service that was ineffective.  The management was incapable of engaging a taxi one afternoon, and after waiting 45 minutes we finally walked out of the front door and snagged one that was disgorging passengers in the front of the hotel.  Standard rooms are attractive; the best have small balconies with views of the medina.  Contact: Palais Jamais, Bab Guissa, 30000, Fez, Morocco. Telephone: 212-55-63-43-31.  Fax: 212-55-63-50-96.  Website: www.casanet.net.ma/users/palais.

Best 50th Anniversary Present
Ann gave it to Dr. Ed.  A trip to the Ice Palace, known as the Ice Hotel. He reports: "It is really a tour-de-force, and altogether another world.  The bar is a dead ringer for the Star Wars Bar -- strangely dressed people doing strange things but all having a grand time.  ...  The clientele is very international--Japanese, Swedish, British, and U.S., of course."  There's a knock-off of this in Quebec, if you can't get yourself to Sweden.  See www.icehotel.com.  Make sure you bring home an ice glass "of the purest River Torne ice."  Dr. Ed, incidentally, is Dr. Ed David, former executive director of Bell Labs and one-time Presidential Science Advisor."

The Two Best Hotels in Dallas
The first is ten minutes from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and is a Four Seasons Resort.  On another occasion, we will review it for you, but the bottom line is that it has a spa and athletic facility attached where you can unwind after traveling on America's fast-declining airlines.

Downtown, it's the Hotel Crescent Court, a homegrown product of Rosewood Corporation.  It is conspicuous for its excellent decoration of its public spaces including, on most occasions, an especially fine display of flowers and other accoutremant in the center of the lobby.  There are lots of other nice touches--pretty soaps prettily bound, the right complimentary newspapers at your door in the morning, the only decent barbeque in Dallas within walking distance, etc.

This is a luxury hotel with not-quite luxury service, however.   The bellboy will not stock your room with ice, but hands it off to room service which appears an hour later with a bucket.  On two consecutive evenings, room service does not answer.  When an order is placed with a concierge named "Bill," the order never arrives.  No bags for laundry or cleaning are in the room.   There are nicks and marks on sundry room furniture.  Inappropriately loud music trips through the restaurant--Beau Nash--even in the morning, in a room that already suffers from cavernous acoustics.

Nonetheless, the occasional touches make it the best hotel in the market.  If you arrive early for breakfast and establish a bond with the assistant restaurant manager, good food--even with a complicated special order--arrives at the table rapidly and decorously.  In fact, this one manager was the most professional hotel employee we have met in our innumerable visits to the Crescent over a 10-year period.   The Hotel Crescent Court (www.crescentcourt.com) is located at 400 Crescent Court, Dallas TX 75201.  Telephone: (214) 871-3200.

Ultimate Resorts
We all stay at your average get-aways where the best thing going is the resort itself, with the surroundings, natural and man-made, well worth ignoring.  Amanresorts International (www.amanresorts.com) has gotten it totally right, picking places where you really get away from it all, where the place is wonderful even if there were not a resort, and where the elegant establishment does have some taste and restraint.  While venturers from our family have experienced Amandari in Indonesia, we had never paid attention to Aman until Mr. T. brought it to our attention.  Amanresorts International Pte Ltd. 1 Orchard Spring Lane. #05-01, Tourism Court, Singapore 247729.  Telephone:  65-6883-2555.

The Hermitage—Nashville
The Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville, not to be confused with the hotel of that name in Florence, Tuscany or Andrew Jackson’s estate outside town, is clearly the place to stay in Nashville, which is otherwise replete with downmarket chain hotels.  We hear there’s another attempt to plant a luxury hotel in Union Station on Broadway, but for now the Hermitage is the only game in town.  It’s a mixed affair, as we shall make clear below, but we would return in a moment on our next trip to Nashville. 

The hotel has a wonderful history, as one can discover on its website: 

Commissioned by 250 Nashvillians in 1908, The Hotel Hermitage (named after Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage estate) opened its doors on Saturday, Sept. 17, 1910.  The new hotel, which would change its name in the 1940s, advertised its rooms as “fireproof, noiseproof, and dustproof, $2.00 and up.” 

The Hermitage Hotel really made its mark on political history when Memphis’ own Edward H. (Boss) Crump headquartered his statewide political machine there.  The stalwart politico—known as the Red Snapper of Tennessee politics—launched many Democratic campaigns from the hotel.  For years, the hotel served as the headquarters of the state Democratic Party. 

President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Nashville at the invitation of local Congressman and U.S. Speaker of the House Joseph W. Byrns on Nov. 17, 1934.  According to newspaper reports, the largest crowds in Nashville history lined the downtown streets to get a glimpse of the Roosevelts en route to The Hermitage Hotel.  The First Couple was here to promote the “New Deal” programs, many of which were pushed through Congress with the help of Speaker Byrns. 

But the hotel fell on pretty hard times, along with Nashville, as the 20th century drew to a close.  As late as July 2000, Johnny Apple of The New York Times pleaded for some cosmetic efforts to bring back its sheen: “[T]he magnificent, richly marbled lobby reeked of disinfectant when we checked in, and the dated though spacious guest rooms had dirty windows. ”  In fact, the hotel now has a very good head of housekeeping with whom we recently met in passing: he is hardworking and very much up to the job, and the hotel looks tiptop.  As well, the lobby has been restored and substantial investments made in the rooms, it having been taken in hand as we understand it by the same chap who has turned the Hotel Jefferson in Richmond back into a gem.  There are still paltry facility problems: the air conditioning in the hallways is loud, and, oddly enough, functions better there than in the guestrooms.  The “business center” on the first floor is a joke, amounting to two small closets in which the hotel has tucked two Dell computers.  Now and again one will hear some noise from an upstairs room when in residence, the necessary buffering never having been attended to. 

Some other nice accidents.  This is one of the very few hotels in the country that get the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to your door every morning, and even the Sunday Times is there right on time.  The linens, especially the towels, were quite decent; annoyingly, most upscale hotels provide shoddy, thin, small towels now.  There is a DVD player, which, in fact, is pressed into service often since thunderstorms in the South may cut satellite TV service. 

The Ballantyne Resort
The Ballantyne Resort Hotel and Spa is an almost best.  It’s a fine facility on the outskirts of Charlotte run in a mediocre fashion by Starwood Hotels, a mishmash chain that tries to be high end.  Charlotte hotels are generally a problem, but this is the one to stay in, at least until somebody finally does it right.  The rooms are large enough, with a pleasant view if you get placed on the backside, and a commodious bathroom.  Interestingly, a great deal of the help is attractive and well-spoken, coming from all over the country: Alaska, New York, etc. 

But the services and amenities are subpar and vastly overpriced.  We had a lamb steak, for instance, that had been killed many times: clearly the edibles are not bought right or prepared correctly.  The dining room is an unattractive, windowless box.  The towels in the bathroom are chintzy.  The sauna in the fitness room was non-operative, and the body wash dispenser was empty.  This is not a resort, as we know it, though maybe it would have earned a place in Cleveland Amory’s Last Resorts.  It has sort of a Florida condo feel to it, and it would require a remake by an inspired architectural designer to give it elegance and warmth, and shake off its Donald Trump veneer. 

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