Hip Hotels

The past year has been bountiful for the discerningly hip among us. Chic, upscale boutique lodging has proliferated through downtown Minneapolis like gold foil–wrapped artisanal chocolates. Complementing Ralph Burnet’s 2006 Chambers “art hotel,” 2008 brought Hotel Ivy, W Minneapolis–The Foshay, and, in a more modest price range but similar vibe, Aloft Minneapolis.

Hip or cool is a core sensibility at each venue. Details matter. Tone, if not everything, is significant. Each venue markets hip in a slightly different way, but the essential pitch is to a knowing crowd, people of varying ages but young enough at heart to appreciate something different and sophisticated enough to appreciate velvet services done right.

In a previous life I spent more nights than I care to remember at The Plaza and various Four Seasons, Bel Ages, Mondrians, et cetera, in L.A. and Beverly Hills. The trappings of au courant décor and wittily penned guest manuals are one thing. Truly knowing and solicitous service, of the caliber of Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton, is an altogether different task to pull off. It’s something any number of local hotels has historically claimed to offer but few delivered on.

My lovely wife and I are regular folks at our core, so I was surprised to be chosen to sample and assess the vibe and creature comforts of these four hip hotels. Truth be told, the Mrs. is fully conversant in 600-thread counts, demineralized glass, and basil-coconut–litchi nut reductions. But me? My idea of the perfect idyll is a sleeping bag on a flat rock next to enough runoff that I can make coffee in the morning. No one has accused me of being hip since the last time I snagged a Country Joe and the Fish eight-track.

But far be it for me to turn down a public service mission. Armed with an appropriate expense account, we set off to test our “high game” and affect a little cool with those for whom the fashionable life is a skin they don’t slough off in the backyard. Here is our report.

ALOFT MINNEAPOLIS
In hotel parlance, Aloft, on Washington Avenue in the Guthrie Theater district, is what is known as midpriced lodging. Like all of the hotels we sampled, Aloft is self-conscious about being anti-“big box,” the pejorative description for your average 30-story Hilton or Marriott.

Unlike its cool siblings, Aloft eschews the first-impression embrace of a parking valet, doorman, uniformed Swiss guard/curbside aromatherapist . . . so we toted our own bags in to the desk. In a small kiosk just up from a sunken lounge area we met Scott, who exuded a comfortable balance of efficiency and informality as he processed our card, explained how to get into the (heated) underground parking, pointed out the kitchen amenities in re:fuel, the serve-yourself “dining area” behind him, and sent us on our way.

From disembarking in the parking lot to flopped out on the bed was a brisk nine minutes. Very good. Some guests might like being fussed over and tutored on how to operate a thermostat. We prefer to officially cease the hassles of traveling ASAP with a long, private supine exhalation.

Dominated by a king bed, our room itself was, shall we say, modestly proportioned, but again, efficient, with the translucent glass-walled shower stall we came to believe is now de rigueur for all “small box” hip hotels. The work area was acceptably large, with free Wi-Fi, thank you very much, and a first for us: a universal black box for putting anything using electrons—Wii, iPod, personal videos . . . uh, oh . . . or PowerPoint up on the room’s flat-screen TV.

An art deco bedside clock provided an analog counterbalance. It was a homey touch. Like something your Swedish grandmother might have left you. Although we didn’t use it, the in-room safe big enough to swallow a laptop also struck us as a good idea.

Judging by the clientele checking in with us and those we saw the next morning in the re:fuel “kitchen” and Wxyz bar lounge, the typical Aloft customer is 35, Mac–toting, Bluetooth–enabled, and genetically synched with Aloft’s high quality serve-yourself espresso machine. (An endless supply of frothed milk. Damn, I want one of those.)

While I did experience a moment of self-consciousness parading in my Speedo from the pool area toilet to the hot tub (a sight that had to have been a buzzkill for the cocktail crowd on the other side of two walls of glass), the soak was easily accessible, clean, and spot-on relaxing.

The basic vibe of the place—and this I think is key to Aloft’s hipness factor—is what could be described as “Stockholm airport techno-modern.” Without the slightest hint of jet fuel, Aloft’s bright red-orange-yellow accent color scheme and neon-tinted public areas suggest a Nordically sleek and efficient oasis from the worldly jostle and bustle.

W MINNEAPOLIS
W Minneapolis–The Foshay received as gaudy a launch as a company can buy when it opened last summer. By the size of the crowd still filling The Living Room, its plush and cosseted ground-floor bar adjacent to Manny’s Steakhouse, the allure is wearing well, even at a time when an unsuspecting reveler might cough up blood at paying $23 for a glass of single-malt scotch. Word has already gotten around about where to hang to look like you belong—the four high-backed love seats ringing the gas fire pit.

And that’s before you stop at Prohibition, W’s 27th floor redoubt for what I took to be the Twin Cities’ yachting class’s off-season retreat. Remarkably lean, etched, lifted, and pulled, the Prohibition crowd, tucked into clubby nooks around the central elevator bank, made careful study of every new arrival circling for a seat. Besides immaculate grooming, a discreet logo of The Carlyle Group on a cuff-link or collar would send the proper tribal signal.

You sense the place has aspirations to be Minn-eapolis’s central social gathering point—or living room, if you will—at least for a subset of Manny’s Bludgeon of Beef crowd. In caricature form these would be the four 30-something guys, two in a black Range Rover and two right behind them in a white Escalade, who flipped keys to the W valets. Wearing only open-collared shirts, sport coats, crisp designer jeans, and cowboy boots or sockless loafers, they strode through the snowfall to a baronial dinner at the upscale steakhouse. (All of them and nine of their golfing buddies from the Yellowstone Club could survive a week on one slice of Manny’s cheesecake, which can be ordered from the W Living Room, delivered by hand cart with pneumatic lift.)

Nothing about the Foshay restoration is second-rate. From every angle on every floor the implicit message is, “The original designers never imagined the place would look this good.” It is, however, not a large building in terms of square footage per floor. Our room layout (car to room time was 13 minutes, by the way), again with a king bed, 20 stories up, was an efficient use of space, complete with a handsome frosted glass shower stall (but no tub) and a view from the “facilities” overlooking the giant TCF clock. Room sizes here vary immensely, due to the building’s ever-narrowing floor plates.

As at Aloft, Mrs. Lambert was not happy that the room offered no space to sit—in a comfortable chair—and read. Enjoying a novel in the swivel chair at the desk area is a little too, well, officey.

Also, the W may be pushing its play on all things “W” a bit further than a discerning, sophisticated clientele might tolerate. At some point after the fourth or fifth “What is your wish?” greeting from the hotel operator (my “wish” was an HD channel for a football game, which I never found) and various in-room tsotchkes toying with “whatever,” “wonderlust,” “whenever,” and so on, I was ready to scream, “Where in the world is that wily wacky wabbit?” I mean, weally.

HOTEL IVY
The Ivy, attached to a luxury condo project of the same name one block from the Minneapolis Convention Center on the south edge of downtown, was the first reminder of what “full-service” feels like.

It was 22 minutes from parking valet to that sublime supine moment. A bit longer than I’d ordinarily prefer, but mitigated by a chat with the bellman, Ignatius, an engaging and I daresay sophisticated Liberian émigré, the sort of guy you’ll read about in The New York Times 20 years from now when he’s returned home and been elected prime minister. The rest of the Ivy staff was just as bright and attentive, if not quite as compelling.

We found the room, which was larger than those at Aloft and W, masculine in its mix of umbers, golds, and black varnished wood. If that was a complaint it was lost on me. Both of us were delighted with the invite- the-relatives-sized bathroom, the only one at the four hotels we visited to have a shower stall and tub (deep-soaking variety, no less). Mrs. Lambert had no complaint about the exceedingly comfortable chaise upon which she was soon swaddled in a robe and engrossed in one of her potboilers.

The Ivy heavily promotes its spa. Water, via every imaginable delivery system, is essential to its full experience. Nodding during a tour of the candlelit personal massage rooms/loges, the fully equipped gym, and an entire wall of Ivy-specific emollients (every shampoo, body lotion, bar of soap, and set of complimentary slippers appear to come with the Ivy’s proprietary lavender-grapefruit-tangerine fragrance), I zeroed in on the steam/sauna/whirlpool facilities (free to hotel guests). This way to bliss!

Ninety minutes later—post soak, steam, sauna, and steam redux—I returned to the room and a wife who had discovered House of Saddam on HBO. It was remarked that I looked rather like the Wednesday lunch special at Red Lobster.

Perhaps because it was a Thursday, the austere bar at Porter & Frye was, like the spa, virtually empty. A couple businessmen were chatting up the female bartender, who was being a very good sport laughing at their corny double-entendres.

Situated on the edge of downtown and cultivating a discreet vibe, it seems unlikely the Ivy will compete with the W’s Living Room for that beating-heart-ozzzzf-the-city vibe, but tired and tense conventioneers will love it. One of the staff (not Ignatius) whispered to my wife that two bona fide celebrities were in the building the night we were there, singer Diahann Carroll and exercise comedian Richard Simmons. Sadly, we crossed paths with neither, or I would have had Simmons autograph my jowls.

CHAMBERS
While our tour wasn’t a contest (not exactly, anyway), Chambers pretty well crushed the competition.

I had been through a half dozen times before for drinks up in the Red, White and F***ing Blue Bar and down in the lobby, but I had never laid eyes on one of Chambers’ rooms. Ours was big enough to fit both W’s and Aloft’s rooms, with space left over for the Ivy’s über-bathroom. With its heated floors, stunning subway tile, and demineralized glass, Chambers’ bath was nearly sublime, large enough to park a small car but sadly without a tub, deep-soaking or otherwise. But since the room came with another half-bath, a 12-foot workspace, its own original art, obligatory flat screens (one in the bath—can’t miss a minute of The Biggest Loser, you know), a full-sized couch, coffee table, armchair, and the best collection of adjustable lamps I’ve ever seen in a hotel room, we agreed to let the bath thing go.

Enough has been written about Ralph Burnet’s impressive art collection that it seems pointless to go into it again except to say that the net effect is more one of impish whimsy than eat-your-cauliflower “big A” art. For example, the projected silhouette in the lobby bar of two rats copulating kind of sneaks up on you as an artistic statement. Likewise the four black plastic garbage bags piled against a hall doorway. It was only on the third pass that it finally struck me: “Hey, wait a minute, they wouldn’t stack garbage in a place like this.” Ditto the Art-o-mat vending machine next to the très subtle front desk. (It looks like a ’60s cigarette machine, but $5 and a pull gets you bona fide original art.)

The Chambers’ already famous Gorilla Bar, in the nicely outfitted courtyard between the two refurbished original buildings, is a destination for anyone you’re showing around town. It’s most unique in winter, when you can order drinks from the Ice Bar and pretend you’re Nordic deities impervious to two-degree weather as you sip Cuba Libres.

The in-room television service not only offers a selection of excellent recent art films (I finally saw Man on Wire), but a channel of nothing but art videos. I’m embarrassed to say how long I sat in a Zenlike stupor transfixed by a nearly static neo-Warholian video of a fat guy in hip waders contemplating some kind of industrial pool.

We couldn’t decide what impressed us more: the food (chicken-coconut soup doesn’t sound like anything special, until it rests upon your tongue), the absolute quiet of the room (no Bluetoother in the hallway chatting with Deiter in Frankfurt), or the bed (“like buttah,” said my better half, a world-class sleepy who pronounced it “the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in,” and I concurred).

Or was it the service that seduced us? As I say, some people love fawning. They may need it on an existential level. Not us so much. I don’t care how helpful you want to be, tread lightly on my personal space. What I’m looking for is nothing more complicated than a friendly disposition and a prompt response if and when I actually want something. Chambers gets that right. It’s almost like the staff is saying, “Hey, we’re all cool here. Shout if you need anything.” We felt like adults, not poseur royalty.