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Pacific Northwest Hotels Get Top Marks From The NYT For Eco-Consciousness

October 18, 2010 at 12:55 PM | by | Comments (0)

The Oxford Hotel in Bend, Oregon

This weekend, the New York Times' travel section went west in search of eco-friendly hotels. Not surprisingly, the Pacific Northwest was fertile ground and three hotels in the region got the thumbs up from the Gray Lady.

Here's how they impressed the paper with their green credentials:

Everything at The Oxford Hotel in Bend, Oregon--aside from that fireplace--is powered by Columbia River Gorge wind farms and hydro dams, thanks to renewable energy credits through Pacific Power’s Blue Sky program. Tick. Mattresses in the guest rooms are all-natural--they contain no polyester--and are bought local. Rooms are cleaned with a nontoxic solution made from electrolyzed salt and water. Tick, tick.

The hotel will be getting even more marks next summer when its rooftop garden debuts and starts providing the hotel kitchen with herbs and other hyper-local ingredients.

Meanwhile, Portland's Heathman Hotel has added eco-friendly touches during a series of remodeling over the past two years. Those rococo-patterned couches in the tea court? Made from rubber tree sap and soy-based foam. Tick. And when the hotel's bathrooms were re-done, recycled tiles and fixtures were used in addition to sustainably grown teak. Double points!

The third hotel singled out by the NYT was the Gaia Shasta Hotel in Anderson, California, and it has serious eco ethics. It relies on solar collection tubes to flood the building with natural sunlight and its grounds were landscaped with drought-resistant vegetation. (Next year they'll even pull out the drip irrigation.)

Gaia's laundry system recaptures 80 percent of the wash water for reuse--but don't worry, that water is sterilized. Using an eco-friendly ozone sterilization machine, of course!

Plenty of hotels are going green but these are some of the most unique eco-conscious initiatives we've heard of.

Know of others? Spread the eco-love and let us know all about your favorite green hotels in comments below.

[Photo: Denis Point / The New York Times ]

Hotels mentioned in this story

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