Creature Comforts

By FRANK GIBNEY JR.

The next time you're in Chicago on business, stay at the Claridge and do lunch at the Swan, on the hotel's third floor. There are no distractions behind the shoji screen, just the soothing rhythm of a waterfall. There's no food either. But hey, who ever said lunch had to be about food? The Swan is a massage retreat at this quiet downtown establishment, and like the guest rooms and cozy lobby, it's part of what gives the Claridge the je ne sais quoi that manager Michael Wathen calls "a point of view." The point, he says, is to take a load off, take the edge off business and feel at home among friends--as opposed to jostling a bunch of other suits in a convention center-size lobby littered with bad art. Says Wathen: "We're the anti-Hyatt."

The Claridge is among the swelling ranks of small, upscale American hotels with fine art on all floors and an attitude to match. From Los Angeles to Boston, New York to New Orleans, these are places that offer attentive, discreet service, and lots of it. Their mission is to out-boutique the boutiques and, by the way, allow you to get a little work done. Call them the "biztique" hotels. Also call them expensive.

The small luxury hotels are not necessarily new, and even if they are, the management would rather you thought they had been around forever. XV Beacon in Boston, for example, opened for New Year's 2000, yet because it is nestled among the cobblestones and brick Federal architecture of Beacon Hill, it would never occur to you before entering that each of its bathrooms sports a flat-screen Bloomberg News display. The 61-room hotel's only exterior signature is its gold nameplate: xv beacon. By contrast, the Soniat House in New Orleans is draped in its history: it was created from adjoining Creole town houses that date back to the early 19th century. Houston's Colombe d'Or began in 1923 as the Prairie-style mansion of Humble Oil founder W.W. Fondren. Like Soniat House, it exudes Old World elegance--and offers Internet access.

Do not mistake these gems for the headline-grabbing, designer showcases for the stars (do the Paramount and the Mondrian ring any bells?). These luxury hotels don't want you to know who stays there. The Lowell, for instance, is an elegant 17-story building adjacent to Revlon billionaire Ronald Perelman's mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Although the Lowell caters to members of the same crowd you might find around the pool at the Mondrian, it is the behind-the-scenes movers and shakers who retire to the understated salons of the Lowell. "Our guests are from the worlds of film, fashion, finance and publishing," says sales-and-marketing director Lynne Davis. "They stay here because it feels like a home away from home." Translation: it has great security. So does XV Beacon, where you need a coded key card to work the elevator.

Hotels in this league offer all the accoutrements of the trendoleums, if not more. New York City's Bryant Park will boast a 70-seat screening room when it opens in May. San Francisco's Lambourne ups the ante on health by putting an exercise machine--a treadmill, bike or StairMaster--in every suite. (Work up a sweat, and try one of the algae shakes from room service.) The Lowell's "gym suite" has one of two bedrooms given over to a complete exercise center, including a balance bar.

What really distinguishes the biztiques, though, is the attention they lavish on guests. Doormen remember your name, and desk managers keep a record of which rooms you've stayed in and note the Champagne you prefer. Peter McKillop, director of corporate communications for J.P. Morgan in Asia, was enthralled when he heard that the hotel operator at the Lowell had intercepted an unwanted early wake-up by graciously asking a caller in Tokyo whether she realized it was 4:30 a.m. in New York City. XV Beacon supplied an interior decorator for a guest's new home in Boston. And in addition to room service from Wolfgang Puck, the Hotel Oceana in Santa Monica, Calif., offers a triweekly jump on the day with a 6 a.m. "run" with hotel general manager Seth Horowitz.

That kind of service is possible because there can't be many guests to start with. The Oceana has only 63 suites, the Colombe d'Or just 15. "Our guests are people, not numbers," says Kevin Blackbeard, director of sales and marketing at the Oceana. Avatar Kramer, broadcast producer for the San Francisco ad agency Publicis & Hal Riney, always stays there when in L.A., and uses his suite for production meetings. "It's ironic that in a more closed environment than a lot of hotels, you feel a lot more privacy," says Kramer.

Not surprisingly, guests tend to stay a while. Not long after it opened this year, Boston's XV Beacon happily set aside more than a floor of suites for visiting members of a royal family from the Middle East--for six weeks. Red Adams, chairman of Oil & Gas Rental Services in Morgan City, La., stays at the Colombe d'Or on average 18 times a year. The staff is accustomed to providing Adams with ties, socks and whatever else he has neglected to pack himself. "I feel like it's my own home," says Adams.

Does all this solicitude come at a price? You bet. (And many of the patrons at these hotels hope you won't be able to afford them.) Rates are not beyond the reach of most top-executive expense accounts, but don't look for bargains. Biztique hotels in boomtowns like New York and Boston won't even look at you for much less than $400 a night. And XV Beacon's most expensive suite is $1,500. Yet suites at the Hotel Oceana start at a mere $325 a night, and rooms at the Soniat House can be had for as low as $195. But book early, particularly if you have in mind some Midwestern elegance and a lunchtime massage at the Claridge's Swan. Here are some more details on a selection of standouts:

Wired in Boston

XV Beacon is a 61-room hotel built by Boston developer Paul Roiff. It aims at the young digerati who jet between high-tech start-ups on both coasts. Rooms have three phone lines, high-speed Internet access, 330-thread-count Italian sheets and lots of mahogany. "There isn't a square of vinyl in the entire hotel," boasts general manager William Sander. Recent guests include film director Wes Craven, Viacom potentate Sumner Redstone and sundry chairmen of American and European banks. Rates start at $395 a night.

New York, New York

Once an apartment hotel, the Lowell, says recent guest McKillop, "is a haven of Old World civility in an otherwise binary world of tacky marble palaces designed for fashion spreads, not guests." Besides phone and fax lines and surround-sound systems, its 68 rooms and suites boast 33 working fireplaces and 10 terraces. The cozy Art Deco lobby is almost always presided over by chief concierge Mario, who has worked in 13 countries and speaks six languages--something always appreciated by his guests, mainly European CEOs, entertainment executives and world-renowned artists (who often do not register under their own names). Rates start at $395.

Oceanas Apart

There are lots of hotels with pools in Los Angeles, but not many great ones overlooking the beach. Media and entertainment execs with business in Hollywood and Century City say coming back to Santa Monica's Oceana makes the morning drive inland bearable. The all-suite hotel is designed to resemble a 1940s villa on the Cote d'Azur; the bright lobby is painted with whimsical floor-to-ceiling frescoes inspired by Jean Cocteau. Every suite has a full kitchen. Rates start at $325.

Chicago Swank

The Claridge in Chicago is a 13-story oasis of tranquillity just around the corner from the hopping eateries and watering holes of Rush Street. Built as a men's club in 1923, it has an intimate lobby grounded by Rooftops, a sweeping mural of a neighborhood in Nice, France--one of the hotel's several paintings by Impressionist William Olendorf. Off the lobby is one of the best bars in a bar town: Foreign Affairs, where white marble tables seat 14 in leather Eames chairs. The Swan specializes in traditional massage. Rates start at $145.

Southern Comfort

The Soniat House is tucked into New Orleans' French Quarter, but feels far from the boisterous crowds that roll through the neighborhood's bars at night. Its 33 rooms are appointed with European antiques and Oriental rugs. Freshly baked fluffy biscuits and homemade strawberry preserves with steaming cafe au lait are served for breakfast. Rates start at $195.

Texas Gold

Houston's Colombe d'Or has been around since proprietor Steve Zimmerman, a former trial lawyer, decided he had to get into the hotel business 20 years ago. The new ballroom includes original paneling from the Countess Greffulhe's grand salon in Paris, carved in the 1730s in the rococo style of the period. The hotel's six original suites each include a private dining room, and nine new suites across the street have private gardens. The 2,000-sq.-ft. penthouse features a lavish marble bathroom, original art and antiques. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen got engaged while staying at the hotel several years ago. Rates start at $195.

--With reporting by Matt Baron/Chicago, Jyl Benson/New Orleans, Deborah Edler Brown/Los Angeles, Deborah Fowler/Houston, Laird Harrison/San Francisco and Valerie Marchant/New York

With reporting by Matt Baron/Chicago; Jyl Benson/New Orleans; Deborah Edler Brown/Los Angeles; Deborah Fowler/Houston; Laird Harrison/San Francisco and Valerie Marchant/New York