Skip Navigation

Boutique Hotels

Author: Kathy Chin Leong
July 2007

Features

Boutique Hotels Offer All the Comforts of Home,  If Only You Lived That Well

Last summer, Chris Ryman, chief operating officer of Booth Creek Ski Holdings herded his staff in for a retreat at the Cedar House Sport Hotel in Truckee, Calif. Fifteen human resources team members encircled the boardroom table, firing off ideas. And some seemed to be bobbing. Yes, bobbing. Well, wouldn’t you be if you were perched atop an exercise ball?


Early that morning, Ryman requested 15 fitness balls so they could sit on them instead of chairs, says Cedar House owner Patty Baird. “We had two hours to find out where we could buy some, bring them back and inflate them.”  Today, the red and blue bouncy spheres are ready for Ryman when he returns with his entourage. “We got lucky. We found a sports store in Reno that opened at 8 a.m., so one of the guys drove 40 minutes to get there right when it opened. By 9:15 we had them inflated and ready to go. It was wild,” says a relieved, but pleased Baird. “It looked quite festive in there.”


Boutique hotels like 40-room Cedar House are pumping up the customer service, for these experts are tops in fine tuning group requests with nimble feet. At the same time, they are unafraid to strike out and experiment with new services to see what sticks. Guests, meanwhile, find the romantic boutiques irresistible. They often sport a theme or historic angle and pulsate with energy. These architectural gems typically offers fewer than 300 rooms and have become the stage to strut interior design independence.


Additionally, there’s often a story connected with each one. The white-marble, pillared Hotel Monaco in Washington, D.C. was the original general post office built in 1839; it remains the 10th oldest building in the United States. And in Mendocino, Calif., the 64-room Little River Inn has remained in the Hervilla family for six generations.


And here’s another interesting factoid: San Francisco-based Joie de Vivre Hotels will size up a property and pluck a theme based on popular magazines and tailor the motif according to that magazine’s target audience, says Jill Plemons, regional director of sales. The San Francisco Hotel Vitale, for instance, is the intersection of Dwell meets Real Simple. Furnishings tout a simple and clean aesthetic with restful colors.


Usually owned by a single proprietor or group, boutiques strive to be unique. Owners will smatter their personalities and philosophies across amenities, interiors, exteriors and services to set them apart from the gaggle of predictable chain hotels. Boutique collections include brand names such as Joie de Vivre, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Preferred Boutique, Ian Schrager’s Morgans Hotel Group, Kor Hotel Group and Personality Hotels. The market is now starting to migrate toward the terms “designer hotels” or “lifestyle hotels.”    


Larkspur Hospitality—with boutiques as well as extended-stay business hotels in both Northern and Southern California and in the Pacific Northwest—takes a direct interest in its guests’ total well-being. It’s a mindset reflective of the wellness-centered culture of the company’s home base in Marin County. Larkspur’s FeatherBorne Beds and Healthy Start breakfasts are part of their program, which also includes complimentary use of their on-site fitness rooms and all-natural bath products. Also, something unique these days, Larkspur properties come with a library of good books as well as DVDs and the in-room DVD players to enjoy them with.


Marketers use “comfort,” “home away from home” and “personalized” to define the boutique stay. Nighttime goodies such as eye pads, lavender pillow sachets or a comforting quote on a card hopefully touch a chord that turns guests into friends. Kimpton’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, Steve Pinetti, is quick to point out that boutique does not necessarily mean small, but rather a sense of experience and “emotional connection.”


Experienced hoteliers are prepared for the most unusual requests. In San Francisco, the Huntington Hotel’s head concierge, Cynthia Reid, says her most off-the-wall request came from a Scottish/English group that wanted an authentic Robert Burns’ Scottish dinner. According to Reid, she had to rent kilts, hire a bagpiper and locate a chef who could prepare the traditional “haggis” meal that involves cooking a sheep heart and liver and other parts inside the sheep’s stomach.

 
MEETING PROS: THUMBS UP 

Today, many meeting planners are sold on the benefits of a boutique property, such as personalized service, unique meeting spaces, location and unusual activities. And when you do have a small group, you can purchase the entire property and enjoy having the hotel’s staff cater to your every need without distraction. It’s also fun for the attendees. Recently U.S. Oncology, Houston, did so at the CopperWynd Resort and Club, a 32-room boutique set in Fountain Hills, Ariz. Says Michelle Rodriguez, senior executive assistant, “It was fabulous. They were very accommodating in every way. We liked having the intimacy of a small place, and we had all of their attention. Who wouldn’t like that?”


Meeting planner Carol Gillick, from Micro Semi, Scottsdale, says that she welcomes a small property compared to a large convention center because distances are close. From parking lot to front door, guests usually don’t have to walk far. “When you are in Arizona and temperatures are over 100 degrees, every step counts,” she says.


According to Santa Clara, Calif. meeting planner Velma Chen, “Promoting a boutique hotel with its unique charm, setting and upgraded services spells win, win, win. Many of their guidelines are not set in stone, and a good negotiator can probably swing more concessions in return for future business than with a larger more established business hotel.” 


Event planners such as Janet Rudolph, owner of Murder on the Menu/Team Building Unlimited, Berkeley, says that boutique hotels and her type of business work in successful partnership. Since boutiques espouse being different, Rudolph says that these properties lend themselves to very personal and out-of-the-box events. “It is so much more intimate and fun to work at these venues.”


But choose carefully. Not all boutique hotels are tops in service. Susan Howe, a meeting coordinator from Ontario, Canada, was mortified when she had a group stay in a boutique hotel in Dallas. “The service was atrocious; I would never stay there again.” Her lesson learned was that no matter what the property, whether mega-story hotel chain or tiny B&B, service all comes down to who is running the show and who is on duty at the time of your stay.  
 

PERSONALIZED SERVICE 

Howe had an excellent experience, however, at the Hotel Valencia, in San Jose, Calif.  Coordinating a day-long event for bartender training, she says the hotel staff came through unfettered even when 130 people showed up for the event when they had originally expected 100. “They brought out tables and set up everything and added more dishes to the buffet line seamlessly,” says Howe, who has organized meetings in 26 states. “A lot of times chain hotels cannot do that. They have a phenomenal staff at the Valencia, and no one is left hanging in the wind. If they cannot resolve the situation, they will also ask someone else on staff who can. They always come through. I would give them a 9.9 out of 10.”  


Being flexible is part of the business. When office administrator Monica Corral of Vast Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif., took executives to Bernardus Lodge Hotel, Carmel Valley, service and food excellence were her top raves. When some participants couldn’t get cell coverage on their phones, the hotel brought in cell phones that worked. And when Corral felt like the lunch setup was not in the most appropriate room, the Bernardus staff quickly came up with an alternative. “Other places would have told me it couldn’t be done, but they always had an option when we needed changes.”


Offering excellent service from the pre-sales to post-sale is what meeting planners also pay attention to. And those touches make a difference. Pat Kennedy, senior HR coordinator at Driscoll Strawberry Associates in Watsonville, Calif., says that when she asked for a bid at the Joie de Vivre’s Hotel Los Gatos, the staff was friendly and helped assemble a quote for an overnight group retreat. A competing hotel told her to add the numbers up herself. “When they told me to figure it out myself, I realized that the Hotel Los Gatos would be the place for us.”


Besides making your life easier, enhancing your attendees’ experience is easy at the new 159-room Ivy Hotel in San Diego; there’s a personal butler on each floor just to look after guests’ needs.
 

GREEN FACTOR

Boutique hotels are discovering that to play in the big leagues, they have to meet certain environmentally friendly standards. “Large companies are choosing meeting places on the basis of being a green property,” says Lindsey Ueberroth, managing director of Preferred Boutique, Newport Beach. Preferred Boutique manages and markets a global collection of luxury boutique hotels that must pass the muster of rigorous standards while maintaining their unique style and independence. Each hotel must pass a 1,600-point inspection annually.


“Many of our hotels have implemented green standards such as recycling, buying environmentally friendly cleaning products and bedding. We are proud of that, and we make it known,” she stresses. Boutique hotels, because of their manageable size, are easier to shift into green gear than larger chains, she adds.


Its new hotel, Solage Calistoga in Napa wine country, recently announced that it has chosen the eco-friendly route by purchasing furniture with natural materials and nontoxic varnishes. The hotel is also tapping its geothermal springs for radiant energy to heat its spa rooms and soaking pools.


Kimpton EarthCare is a multistep initiative that, in addition to the more typical request that guests forgo daily changes of linens or that properties practice recycling, stipulates that all rooms are cleaned with environmentally friendly cleaning products and all complimentary lobby coffee is organic.


With design inspiration from many ski trips to Europe, owners Jeff and Patty Baird wanted to make their first hotel venture, Cedar House Sport Hotel, a green property from its inception. And the modern building with 42 rooms is artfully anchored with steel beams, minimalist furnishings and solar tinted windows. The landscaping is purposely sloped so that runoff rain will water the grounds. The beds are European-style, with one down comforter per person, and they feature mite-proof pillow cases and refillable soap dispensers in the shower areas.


Cedar House’s group guests include executives and strategic planners for the new Lake Tahoe Ritz-Carlton property due to open in 2008. In fact, the hotel hosts many executive teams from the nearby large hotels. “They wind up picking our brains about going green and talk to my husband about construction,” says Baird, the hotel general manager and owner.

 

LOCATION 

When you’ve got to pull people away from their families for an overnight stay, choosing a great location is imperative. Many boutiques can be found near charming coves or flowering hillsides or rugged mountaintops, which minimizes any staff whining.   


When senior human resources coordinator Pat Kennedy took 20 people to the Beach House Hotel in Half Moon Bay, Calif. for a team-building trip, she was pleased to find an intimate lodge right on the ocean. Although there were two other groups on-site, she says the staff focused attention on their needs, from setting up the bonfire to bringing out the s’mores and blankets. “It was very comfortable and informal,” says Kennedy. “We didn’t want the formality of a large hotel.”


Farther south along the California coast, The Cliffs Resort is directly on Shell Beach, where the sounds of the surf just outside their 12 different meeting rooms provide built-in calming that enhances strategic thinking. In the warmer months, you can hold your event on their 6,750-square-foot poolside terrace or on the oceanfront lawn, which can be tented in for another 5,600 sq. ft.


Scenic spots are soothing, and many a smart meeting planner will choose garden getaways. In Woodinville, Wash., the five acres of flower gardens at the chic and rustic Willows Lodge set a tranquil tone. But six full-service meeting spaces, a golf course and a challenging ropes course stir up those competitive juices when needed. 


Also on the San Juan Islands in Washington is the Friday Harbor House. It has a new meeting space called the San Juan

Room, which boasts living-room comfort in a 1,070-square-foot area. It opens out into a small garden.
Others with idyllic venues include Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain, Paradise Valley, Ariz. This spot boasts the largest infinity pool in the state. Set on 53 acres, Sanctuary’s lawns and terraces give way to pink sunsets against a hilly backdrop.


In Wyoming, the Snake River Lodge & Spa practically sits at the doorstep of the Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park is a short drive away. With views of the mountains and a slew of opportunities for fishing, dog-sledding, skiing, mountain biking and horseback riding, the elegant lodge is the abode for nature aficionados. 


Outdoor lovers will eat up adventure at the new Sidney Pier Hotel, Vancouver Island, B.C. Opened in May, the waterfront 55-room hotel offers ocean and mountain experiences. Guests are steps away from kayaking, whale watching and sailing.
Or, the alluring location might just be right downtown. The Hotel Teatro, for example, is located across the street from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Accordingly, the hotel's rooms are adorned with costumes and photographs from past theatricals.

 

ONLY HERE

In places deemed unsuitable for high-rise hotels, the independents have the edge. Many blend so perfectly into the landscape they are like fine diamonds placed into a jeweler’s setting. Consider this: The Lodge at Koele is only one of two hotels on the entire island of Lana’i. Only 3,000 residents live on this private island with two hotels, the Four Seasons Lana’i at Manele Bay on the beachfront and the smaller 102-room Four Seasons Lodge at Koele up in the hills. Lanai has 1,600 acres of gardens, pine trees and mountain ranges. 


You can take a 20-minute flight to get to Lanai or a 45-minute ferry from Maui. The island is only 13 by 18 miles in area and has only 30 miles of paved road. “It’s reminiscent of the old Hawaii,” says Brad Packer, public relations manager of The Lodge. “There  are no stop lights or chain restaurants or chain stores and no fast food.”


When it comes to planning meetings, organizers such as Susan Howe say that a great location is always the number one priority. “If you want to get 100 people to fly to a location, it better be a place that has great attributes.”


Folks operating the new Solage Hotel, a Preferred Boutiques property, are betting that its location in the heart of Napa Valley will be a hit among meeting planners. Groups have already booked this 89-room hotel, which opened last month. According to Ueberroth, the property’s ambience is billed as “Napa barn meets San Francisco loft.” The Solage boasts a chic urban atmosphere, with sleek furnishings with lots of white and apple greens. “The  boardroom is high-tech, and you get an entire contemporary feel,” she adds.


SLEEPING ROOMS

When you’ve got a meeting on your hands where you want to impress top brass, having luxury guest rooms is vital. And, stresses Ueberroth, one of the major trends in boutique hotels is offering guests the feeling of having a home away from home. For that reason, many are expanding their suites, adding high-end kitchens and even building cottages, so people can bring their families without sacrificing the comforts of home.


At boutique properties, decorators can explode with imagination. The historic Swans Hotel in Victoria, B.C. features hanging flower baskets on the exterior, but on the inside, the property boasts two-story, loft-like suites with full kitchens, original artworks and high ceilings trussed with beams.


And in Greenough, Mont., The Resort at Paws Up features spacious suites and lodge homes with as many as four bedrooms. Not a dainty boutique hotel, this property also offers guests the tent experience, but a glamorous one with a camping butler and deluxe rooms set up in a canvas community. Each tent comes with bedside table lamps, custom bedding, exquisite furnishings and a flat-screen TV. The resort calls the Paws Up camping option “glamping.” Both experiences are phenomenal, says Ueberroth.



MEETING SPACES

These days, boutique hotels are bumping up meeting spaces to the next level in design and sophistication. While you can work inside a box with drab gray walls, these properties are raising the boardroom bar, merging character with ambience.
The Clift Hotel in San Francisco, part of the Morgans Hotel Group, is a slick city destination. Its three modern meeting rooms on the mezzanine level come with white velvet curtains and etched Venetian mirrors. All you need is a runway for a New York fashion show.


At the Clift, the business lounge is more than a spartan room with a few computers and printers. Instead, it is more like the high-tech living room of your dreams. The 24-hour business center is furnished with a comfortable sofa set so you can enjoy reading at your leisure.


The Hermosa Inn, Scottsdale, Ariz. relies on historic ambience to wow groups. With handsome southwest décor and antiques throughout, groups can meet in the library that meanders out to a flowered terrace or the underground wine cellar during hot days in Arizona.


“When you are in one of our boutique hotels,” notes Pinetti of the Kimpton Group, “you aren’t in just another meeting room. You may be in a library of the original Post Office building, which adds real charm and character to the meeting environment.”
At Kimpton’s FireSky Resort & Spa, Scottsdale, Ariz., meetings can be held in any of the 13 designated meeting rooms. All are distinctive, with various types of furnishing and artwork. Patsy Rivera, executive assistant at Schaller Anderson, a healthcare management firm in Phoenix, recalls, “One meeting room had a lot of Southwestern flavor and atmosphere to it. The connecting patio made it easy for people to take a phone call if they needed  to.” 


Wooing meeting planners across the country, these properties are in the throes of expanding their business services and working hard to snag accounts away from the “big boys.” The Cedar House recently purchased a vacant retail store next door and intends to build a second boardroom as a creativity space with sectional sofas, a giant plasma TV monitor, lots of room for pacing and thinking. It will also open up a participatory kitchen for team-building.


San Francisco’s trendy Hotel Diva, a Personality Hotel, will be completing a brand new boardroom this summer and has hired San Francisco architect Ollie Lundberg to make it dramatic and provocative. The space features a black and sepia color scheme and two walls sculpted in a wave pattern. On the drawing board is a custom onyx buffet lit from below that will cast a golden hue over the room.


Hotel Diva in San Francisco has already completed a series of five business center lounges, each crafted under the auspices of the city’s keenest artists and designers. Each lounge that seats two to four comes with a theme and contemporary feel. The DLX Lounge, for one, is the collaborative result of skateboard star Pete Colpitts and designer Lisa Compagno. The room comes with its own snack machines and skateboards flanking the walls.


The Napa Valley’s Harvest Inn, from the Joie de Vivre collection, recently erected a separate meeting room with its own kitchen, restrooms and patio space with 20 new hotel rooms nearby, so groups can conveniently block out the rooms with meeting space and feel as if they have their own boutique within a boutique.


ACTIVITIES

If you need memorable team activities, boutique properties are delivering experiences difficult to replicate in other settings.
At the new Elk Mountain Resort set in southwestern Colorado, you can morph into the next unstoppable Terminator. Enroll for a class in executive cane fighting or test your gun reflex skills in the Scenario House, a 3-D automated scenario with reactive targets at the exclusive Valhalla Shooting Club. This is the same place where Navy SEALS and Green Berets train for active duty, and members include General Norman Schwarzkopf and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Developer Thomas Forman, who created  both the Elk Mountain and Valhalla, is a former martial artist with wrestling titles to his name.


If perfecting your bull’s-eye aim doesn’t appeal to you, there’s also horseback riding, guided hiking, a zip line, a ropes course, mountain biking and rafting nearby. Nonathletic types can indulge in a spa treatment before dinner or explore their artistic side by signing up for a painting or pottery class.


At the family-owned Little River Inn, guests can participate in making their own dinner with the restaurant chef, according to group sales manager Joan Russell. They can also watch a chef demo, learn about the ingredients or even go shopping with the chef for a different type of gourmet experience.


Although Little River Inn is happy to suggest activities, groups can also bring in their own team-building consultants. One group, she notes, built their own tricycles on the beach blindfolded.


And on the private Hawaiian island of Lanai, you can get your group to rent 4x4 Jeeps and drive off-road for a day of adventure. According to Packer of  The Lodge at Koele, you can hire a guide or drive off on your own on the many dirt roads around the island. “It’s perfectly safe and our chefs can set up a picnic on the beach for you.”


Other fun treats at the Lanai lodge include clay pigeon shooting and golf. The property also operates its own horse stables so groups can go riding.


“People are looking for something more remote,” says Packer. “We have incentive groups who come here, and the whole idea is to get away and do something entirely different and have a private experience.”


In Calistoga, Calif., at the posh 46-room Calistoga Ranch, groups or individuals can sign up for a plethora of action items already offered on the tree-filled acreage. A partial activities schedule at the Auberge Resorts property looks like this: combination bike and horseback ride, floral walk, wine-glass charm making, pottery tour of Calistoga, wine tour, cooking demonstration at the local culinary institute, journaling and photography walk. 


With so many distinct experiences to choose from, meeting professionals should match their type of event with the boutique property that fits. Need a great location? Near or far? Want fancy amenities? Memorable rooms? Supportive team activities? All of the above?  Choices are endless.


“I really like boutique hotels,” says Kennedy of Driscoll. “I’ve looked at standard hotels, and boutiques make a world of difference. Going to a boutique is like going out to a special occasion. They make you feel special.” 

 

RESOURCES

BOUTIQUE COLLECTIONS

INDEPENDENTS

 

Kimpton Hotels: “be inspired” is not just a company line

Christine Lawson and Steve Pinetti of Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
Groucho glasses, wax lips, hula hoops—not the things you’d expect at a bonafide strategy session—but these are essential props to the Signature Meetings packages available at any of the 42 Kimpton boutique hotels around the United States. And one thing’s for sure: No participant will forget hula hooping around the boardroom or nibbling on Lucky Charms instead of mixed nuts.


One of the taglines behind the collection of Kimpton Hotels is “Imagine the Possibilities. Be inspired, laugh and feel good.” Highlighting that mantra are four distinct Signature Meetings packages with themes such as: wellness, fun, earth care and discovery.


The brainchild of Christine Lawson, vice president of sales, Signature Meetings was hatched out of the Kimpton nest last March. “We have a unique culture and brand,” says Lawson. “We needed something that was unique from a meetings perspective.”


Each package comes with five elements designed to spur creativity. Hence, meeting planners can get everyone to feel like a kid again with the Fun Worship theme. Participants choose their favorite tunes from surf music to rock and roll or whatever suits the group’s mood. They receive Nerf balls, Magic 8 balls, wax lips and the Groucho glasses. Also included is a “breakfast of champions” with Pop-Tarts, Lucky Charms and other cereals. Board games along with nostalgic mac-and-cheese, hamburgers and hot dogs or pizza add to the day’s off-the-wall meeting.  


Planners can also select from an à la carte menu of creative meeting items, notes Lawson. “People are telling us that this is a great idea. The excitement is growing.”


While your participants may groan at attending yet another gab session, they won’t at a Signature Meeting, guarantees Lawson. “These meetings erase the doldrums that tend to creep up, and keep people focused. Meeting planners will be thanked for taking the time to be more creative.”


Innovation in today’s business environment is refreshing, and groups are eager to participate in colorful settings. “People are tired of the typical gray-walled meeting,” says Lawson. “Customers are not afraid of having theme stimuli in a room. It brings out their creativity, and they are more productive.”


Being productive and creative epitomizes the Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants philosophy. Headquartered in San Francisco, the hotel collection was started with a few properties in 1981 by investor Bill Kimpton (who has since passed away). To get the company going, Kimpton called up friends such as Paul Newman and Barbara Walters to become investors.


Kimpton’s philosophy was to create a friendly atmosphere for weary travelers by incorporating personal and whimsical touches. Today’s happy kaleidoscope of amenities include complimentary chair massages, pet goldfish, a yoga basket in every room and even “tall rooms” featuring nine-foot-long beds and extra-high showerheads.


The Kimpton brand was the first boutique hotel to feature pet-friendly services with welcome snacks, chew toys, dog walkers and kitty litter boxes—even pet massages. It was the first in the industry to start a complimentary wine hour and to begin a hotel wine club so customers would be able to enjoy the wines after they went home.


“Bill put a guest-house mentality into every property,” says Steve Pinetti, senior vice president of sales, who worked with Kimpton at the company’s inception. “He liked the idea that at traditional B&Bs, the owners get to know the guests and have meals together. At the beginning, he would work the wine hour every night.”


What Kimpton also pioneered was the notion of opening a chef-driven restaurant on every property. These restaurants would not be mere add-ons to the hotel, but so fantastic they would draw the locals and their friends and become the neighborhood favorite. “Traditionally in the hotel business, hotel restaurants have been awful,” says Pinetti. “You make money on the rooms and lose money on the food and beverage. We’ve figured out how to make a profit on both ends. We hire rising chefs, and the restaurant is their platform to showcase a fine-dining experience.” Kimpton restaurants such as the Fifth Floor Restaurant, listed by Gourmet as one of the “World’s Best Hotel Dining Rooms,” and  Scalas in San Francisco, Tulio in Seattle and Pazzo in Portland often play to packed houses.


Today with 42 hotels and 43 restaurants under the Kimpton umbrella, success is skyrocketing. Approximately nine hotels and seven restaurants are under construction, and Pinetti anticipates these will open within 12 to 16 months. He adds that nine hotels and eight restaurants will be under development through 2009. From 2006 to 2009, the hotel group will experience a 50-percent growth curve. Properties are strategically located in urban, high-end suburban or resort areas.


Kimpton properties run the gamut. According to Pinetti, properties are typically under 400 rooms and over 125. Many of them often feature contemporary, but not trendy furnishings. Each hotel has a personality, and designers take into consideration the location and history of each site. The waterfront Argonaut Hotel, formerly a warehouse in Fisherman’s Wharf, has a high-end cruise line feel with portholes and deck chairs.


Kimpton hotels can be built anew from the ground up. Other properties include remodeled and redesigned older hotels such as the FireSky Resort & Spa (the former Caleo) in Scottsdale, Ariz. Then there are the restored historic buildings that are turned into Kimpton properties such as the original U.S. Post Office that is now Hotel Monaco in Washington, D.C. “The federal government asked us to come in and to work our magic,” says Pinetti.


According to Pinetti, from a meeting planner’s perspective, the Kimpton brand offers intimate, personalized service that large hotels would have a hard time imitating. “You can have a meeting for 75 people in my Hotel Monaco in San Francisco and that would be the only meeting at the hotel. But in Marriott and the Fairmont, there could be nine meetings of the same size going on at the same time. What happens in a Kimpton is that you are not competition for the attention of the staff.” 


With attention to service and warmth, Bill Kimpton’s vision of a high-end hotel with a guest-house mentality seems to be working. Says Pinetti, “When guests check out, and the cab driver asks how was the hotel, I want them to say, ‘That was a great hotel; they took great care of me.’ It won’t be about any one thing, but the culminated effect that being there felt great.”

Personality Hotels' Hotel Diva, San Francisco Personality Hotels' Hotel Diva, San Francisco