Where to stay when you leave.
6/26/2008 at 9:00 AM
Tags: Killer View, Maui Hotels, Condo Hotels
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
It just goes to prove that there's no such thing as too many palm trees, when you stare long and hard at this killer view from the Lahaina Shores Beach Resort in Maui. Because we could stare at this from within our cubicle for hours and hours.
Lahaina Shores is actually a condo-rental place with full resort-style services and amenities including daily maid service, a concierge and internet access (at a price), plus you can use the barbecues poolside to grill up a feast. Rates start at $147 per night for mountain view suites but if you want to look over the palm trees and the sea (we certainly do) then you'll have to pay from $193 a night.
[Photo: tgrt]
by amandak
6/16/2008 at 2:23 PM
Tags: Napa Valley Hotels, Hotel Construction, Condo Hotels, Westin Hotels
A lobby rendering of the Westin Verasa.
The city of Napa has been pushing hard for a major face lift the last few years and so far so good.
The food and arts institution Copia, was recently coupled with Oxbow market, turning it into a foodie's paradise. Obviously this is having a positive effect if Starwood is opening a condo-hotel just down the street on September 18th called Westin Verasa.
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Related Stories:
Where The Winos Pass Out in Napa
by DanielR
4/08/2008 at 1:30 PM
Tags: Condo Hotels, Donald Trump, Viva Vegas
[Photo: Jen Leo]
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today on the bust of some condo hotels in America.
You know about "condo-tels"--where individuals buy condo units inside a hotel and rent them out to hotel guests for a profit, that is when they aren't using the condo themselves. It seems like a great situation. You have a vacation home and when you aren't there, you get to rent it out without the hassle of posting ads or interviewing potential renters.
Except when the economy starts to go south and people scale back their vacation budgets, you might be left in a lurch. Also, the hotels' owners might take more of cut of the room profit than you would like.
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Related Stories:
Condo-Hotel Buyers See Investments Sour [WSJ]
by juliana
3/29/2007 at 12:08 PM
Tags: Nicky Hilton, Nicky O, Robert Falor, Condo Hotels
"Falor went bankrupt, what a loser! Cross him off my Blackberry!"
Nicky Hilton's disastrous Nicky O hotel plan has forced her developer Robert Falor and his Falor Companies to file for bankruptcy.
Oaktree lenders are suing Falor's Company for $36 million for failing to a) finish Nicky O and for b) failing to get celebs like Scott Storch or Pharrell Williams, or another "celebrity reasonably satisfactory to the Mezzanine Lender" to buy condos in the building.
So now that Oaktree's pulled out of the deal, Falor can't afford to renovate the property into a hotel-condo, regardless of Nicky O's presence. He's filing for bankrupty and plans to just make a regular old hotel sans condos. Key word: plans which is highly unlikely. He's probably hoping for someone to swoop in and buy it off of him. Maybe Clooney?
Either way, Nicky O got all sorts of media attention last fall* with Nicky making the usual press rounds. But it has turned out to be an embarrassment for everyone involved and Nicky hasn't even publicly commented on the destruction she left behind.
Perhaps the only person coming out on top is Mark Zilbert, who was initially assigned to sell the condo units of the proposed Nicky O South Beach.
But he found they weren't enamored by the idea of hotel ownership, no matter whose name was on the front door. "We were selling 300-square-foot hotel rooms," Zilbert said. "Celebrity clients are not interested in condo-hotels at all."
Zilbert will never sell condo-hotels to celebrities in this town again! By his own accord of course. Meanwhile, another hotel broker Guy Trusty (whatta name!) says Falor has given the hotel-model a bad name, thanks to Nicky O and some of his other failed condo-hotel ventures in South Florida.
All the while, Nicky Hilton's dating David Katzenberg and she and her tampon are hitting the Hollywood club scene nightly. Just another day in Hollywood folks!
*We wanna know---why hasn't People Magazine run an article on this yet since they were so gung-ho about Nicky's announcement last summer? Are they afraid they won't have exclusive rights to Paris' "How I Deal with Genital Herpes" story?
Related Stories:
· Would-be 'Nicky O' hotels file for bankruptcy [Miami Herald]
· The Rise and Fall of Nicky O South Beach [HotelChatter]
by juliana
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