As is the way of frequent travellers, I'm afraid I have developed a discriminating taste in hotels.  I can tell you the edible items on the Hilton room service menu.  I know that all Marriotts have pools and the Book of Mormon.  Most Westins have a Kinko's in the lobby and plugs right near the desk.  And let's not forget the Hyatt Gold Passport floor with free coffee in the morning.  Yes, I'm sadly far too aware of all these little distinctions.

When I stay in New York, however, I generally do not stay in one of the chains mentioned above.  We try to find corporate discounts in expensive cities, and big chains don't give you discounts as much as small chains do. For two years, I have stayed at a Regal hotel right near the UN.  This has provided lots of fun in the form of diplomats -- you frequently ride elevators with large guys wearing sunglasses and earpieces.  Sometimes, when someone controversial stays there, you find the street blocked off by the police and everyone eyes your briefcase suspiciously.  I've stayed there so many times that all the staff knows my name, and for a while I had an ally in room service who would bring me omelettes at 11pm.  This was therefore good fun and a nice place to hang your hat.

Recently, my firm switched to a new hotel, the first of a new chain of hotels owned by Starwood (Westin, Sheraton, etc.).  The chain is called W. That's right, just the letter.  If you need to know more, this is not the place for you.  They plan to open W Hotels in a dozen major US cities over the next year or two, and I urge you to try one out the next time you travel.  Here's why:

The W Hotel chain is obviously built for those people who have money to spend on hotels, either for business or pleasure, and who find that the Waldorf is just too stuffy and the Plaza too dirty.  These are folks looking for a hotel room that wouldn't be out of place in a South End apartment.  People who value 200 count sheets and down pillows.  People who insist on only the trendiest of drinks.  These are W people.

The hotel has little signage -- you could walk right by and think it an office building.  There is a small square sign on a pillar that just says "W".  The next pillar down has a sign for their extremely trendy bar, "Whiskey Blue".  Generally, in the evening there is a long line of thin beautiful people in black waiting outside, shivering in their miniskirts and Zegna suits, waiting to be allowed entry to the bar.  Threading through the crowd to enter the hotel, especially if you are neither thin, beautiful, or dressed in black, can be a challenge.  They tend to give me a look of mixed shock ("What is she doing cutting in line?") and pity ("Poor style-less thing").  I am not a W person, evidently.

On entering the hotel, you find that you have no idea where to check in. There is a juice bar, a coffee bar, a bar bar, lots of groupings of odd chairs around odder tables surrounded by terribly innovative drapings and curvy wooden walls, but a complete lack of signage.  To the left of this large, decorator showroom space, there is a curvy blond wood desk sort of thing with some very well-dressed people behind it.  Forge on and check in.

There are no doormen or bellmen in this hotel, but you may note some male model types dressed all in black with little "W" pins on their tight V-neck sweaters.  These men are happy to hold your Vuitton bag for you as you look ornamental in the non-lobby, but as far as I can tell hailing cabs or transporting plain old Samsonites are both tasks beneath their notice.  The desk staff are similarly rarefied in their concerns -- they will deign to check you in, but they feel obliged to do it poorly, harking back to the days when women would burn dinner to emphasize their lack of familiarity with the kitchen.

The elevators are similarly modest, but after some searching you may find them tucked behind the organic-food restaurant "Heartbeat".  Each elevator is marvelously beautiful in brushed steel and parquet wood floors, with little squares of carpet, each with the name of a type of weather woven in. I thought they changed the carpet to match the day's weather, but one day I used both "Sunny" and "Rainy", and it was actually rather cold and cloudy outside.  Perhaps the elevators each have a mood?  Do you suppose one has "Depressed" on its floor, tired of going up and down and never getting anywhere?  Do they have a new-age elevator acupressurist on call?

The rooms are rather small, but have such a distinct style that you really don't notice.  The nice thing about modern minimal design is that it does fit well in tiny spaces.  The bathrooms are completely new, with fixtures far nicer than I would pay for in my home.  Gorgeous lavabo sinks with porcelain handles, heavy chrome hooks for the towels, a rainfall showerhead, etc.  Even the glasses in the room are special -- no short chunky glass for these patrons, the hotel provides 4 large cobalt blue tumblers.  The minibar includes packets of banana chips and trail mix (only $5 each), as well as bottled Tazo tea.  There's a VCR, a CD player, and the TV has on-command video including a remote keyboard for Web surfing.  Good heavens.  When the hotel room is nicer than your guest room, you know that you need to seriously re-evaluate your personal design principles.  I'm in deep trouble, as I don't even have any personal design principles.

Finally, we come to the bed.  This is truly the masterwork of the entire place -- you could make the lobby a Motel 6 nightmare, change the organic health food of Heartbeat into a Wollensky and Smith cow-fest, but the bed would keep me coming back every week.  They put a featherbed on top of the mattress, cover it with 200 count cotton sheets, use large down pillows covered in similarly nice cotton, and top the whole thing with another featherbed.  It's like sleeping in a big cloud, with a good support mattress underneath.  Rarely have I stayed in a hotel where just sitting on the bed after a long day could make me feel better.  Getting up in the morning is a true test of willpower.

To sum the whole place up, I have found the quintessential W Hotel item. The topsheet on the confection of a bed is printed around the border.  I suppose this is the mission statement of the hotel, or perhaps a quiz for first-time visitors:
"Laugh with gaiety
Listen with understanding
Walk with confidence
Run with conviction
Dance with abandon
Sing with spirit
Sleep with angels
Love with compassion
Dream with lucidity
Give with grace
Teach with patience
Praise with open heart".

All this and a world-class spa.  Don't you want to take a weekend off, come to New York, and treat yourself to an aromatherapy loofah rub before enjoying a 800-calorie organic vegetable meal and sinking to sleep in a down-covered bed?  Can't you see yourself lounging in Whiskey Blue, mingling with the rich and famous while you sip a Sapphire and Tonic from a hand-painted art glass tumbler?  Don't you long to wend your way through news cameras and black-clad non-bellman on your way to Fifth Avenue and MOMA?

Yeah, me neither.  But it's a kick!