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theWit's Library Gets People Talking, More Than Reading
The lobby of theWit buzzes with businessmen chatting, workers scurrying about and people wandering in and out, but head to the second floor of the hotel and you'll find some peace in the library.
But it's not a library per se. Yes, the table in the middle of the room has small stacks of oversized coffee-table books on everything from fashion to architecture to music that you can peruse. (The most popular one among library visitors is Frank Lloyd Wright Complete Works, Vol. 3: 1943-1959.) But it's more about the atmosphere.
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Miami's Epic Encourages Guests to Read With Wine
Plenty of hotels are pushing books onto guests these days, adding in-room libraries, Kindles or Sony eReaders to their list of amenities. We’re quite fond of reading by the fire or the pool at hotels but book club events, which are also on the rise, sound a little, well, earnest. Unless, of course, wine is involved.
Perhaps that’s why Miami’s Epic Hotel was smart enough to combine their ongoing literary series with their daily guest wine-hour program—and special room rates that make hitting the books totally worth it.
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The Crescent Hotel San Francisco Will Open October 21
Here at HotelChatter, we're so jaded about new hotel projects and predicted opening dates which never come to fruition, that we actually forgot about the plans for a Crescent Hotel San Francisco from hotelier Gregory Peck, the man behind Crescent Beverly Hills and the infamous Cooper Square Hotel. But we're very happy to report that the hotel will be opening on October 21 and rooms for that night are open for a very affordable rate of $105 a night.
Located a block north of Union Square, on Stockton and Stutter, this used to be the Allison Hotel, a long-term, SRO hotel that Peck and his partner, Mark Henderson, completely gutted and renovated from top to bottom. But he says that they "consciously maintained" the original architecture of the building which is 100-years-old.
It's a typical look for San Francisco but we've given it a modern twist.
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Booking a Night With a Bunch of Books
We’ve been following the hotel bookshelves trend for awhile now, but we’ve only just stumbled across what may be the pièce de résistance of hotel libraries (and, no, it’s not New York’s Library Hotel.)
Forget hipster-curated lobby and guestroom collections—over in Wales, you can stay in an honest-to-God actual library (and we don’t mean taking a catnap behind the stacks at your local branch).
St Deiniol’s—Britain’s only residential library—was created by book nerd William Ewart Gladstone in the town of Hawarden, in North East Wales. It’s been around since 1898 and looks fittingly Victorian and scholarly-like.
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Books & Board Games at The Bowery
Pick up a book or magazine at New York's Bowery Hotel, and you’ll feel the careful curation of co-owner Sean MacPherson. Surprised? We weren’t.
The master of cool details selects all of the vintage volumes and magazines himself, shopping up a storm at New York’s favorite used-book haunt, The Strand. Unlike other hotels, which rotate their libraries, the Bowery’s collection stays the same, and most of the books stick to a New York theme.
But as is becoming abundantly clear, MacPherson’s real passion is Hollywood. As the New York Times gushed earlier this year, MacPherson has quite the thing for movies like The Shining and A Clockwork Orange (both influences on the Bowery design). And while we’ve heard all about how The Jane’s ballroom references The Royal Tenenbaums, we’ve also learned that the Wes Anderson flick gets some mileage at The Bowery.
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Browsing the Greenwich Hotel's Bookshelves
Wanna read like Bobby De Niro? The hotelier-actor has said that the comfy posh décor of his Greenwich Hotel reflects how he’d like to “do” his own house.
We’d quite like to follow suit, but until our budgets match Bobby’s we’re going to start with what’s on his bookshelves. To replicate that hip Greenwich library feel at home, we secured this shopping list and example of what you’ll find in this luxury hotel where rooms start at $525 a night.
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Basquiat Lives On at the Maritime Hotel
If you’ve stayed at the Maritime Hotel in New York, you probably noticed the blocks of yellow spines on the suite’s bookshelves—full sets of National Geographic magazines. But they’re not just there to look pretty, or because hotelier Eric Goode snagged them on the cheap from some yard sale. Oh no, there’s actually a much more earnest reason behind the reading material.
Goode’s mother was a conservationist and when he was growing up she had every issue of National Geographic ever printed. Goode is also a turtle nut, and has long had a thing for nature. His ’80s nightclub, Area, even had natural history exhibits featuring live bats and sharks.
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Cooper Square Guests Like Their Books 'Arty' (And a Little Sexy, Too)
Hotels have gone gaga for books — but have the guests? We checked in with the Cooper Square Hotel’s librarian (aka head of sales, marketing and special events), Sandra Ardito, to find out.
“It’s been incredible,” Ardito tells us. “We've had some guests that have purchased up to $1,000 worth of books in the library.”
Obviously, there are cheaper places to buy books (without the $245 a night cover charge), but the Coop is doing it all for a good cause. The books are sourced from NYC charity Housing Works (which does work to combat AIDS and homelessness), and proceeds go back to the organization.
For cheapskates, there’s a loaner system: the books are branded with an old-fashioned library stamp, and guests can take books from the library back to their rooms—where there are even more books.
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Bringing Sexy (Books) Back at The Heathman Hotel Portland
Flipping pages in bed isn’t exactly our idea of foreplay, but for solo travelers and super geeks, The Heathman Hotel offers a “Books By Your Bedside” package. Home to one of the country’s few catalogued hotel guest-lending libraries, this package includes accommodations for two, a tour of the hotel’s library, a hardcover edition of a book written by the hotel’s most recent guest author and other goodies.
Authors Anthony Bourdain and David Sedaris both made appearances at the hotel within the past two months. Thomas L. Friedman, a popular environmental writer, as well as Annie Leibowitz, the famed celebrity photographer, were at The Heathman back in April. Michael Pollan graced Portland with his politically-correct presence in January, along with Calvin Trillin.
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Madrid Hotel Makes Good Use of Your Left-Behind Reading Material
It looks like hotels' obsession with books will definitely continue in 2009. The latest is from the Gran Hotel Conde Duque, a hotel in downtown Madrid, which has started a library out of guests’ left-behind books--a collection that has turned out to be so diverse it includes Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and a Spanish translation of the Book of Mormon. (How’s that for some light vacation reading?)
The fact that this hotel is starting an orphaned books club definitely makes up for their lack of stylish room decor. Check out that bedspread and headboard, eee!
Tags: Hotel Amenities / Rosewood Hotels / Mexico Hotels / Hotel Bookshelves / → All Tags
Las Ventanas Introduces "Hot Type" Book Menu
It’s official: The age of the hotel bookworm has dawned. First, we noted the bookshelf craze; then we told you about the Algonquin’s new Kindles. Today, we bring you more exciting news for the bookish types in our midst: Advanced copies of new novels are now available for guests to read at Las Ventanas al Paraíso in Los Cabos, Mexico.
Through an exclusive arrangement between Rosewood Hotels (Las Ventanas’ parent company) and a few of the U.S.’s top publishing houses, the luxury resort’s new Hot Type Menu includes novels that range from six weeks to six months from being released for sale to the general public. Right now, the following nine novels are on-site:
· Angels of Destruction, by Keith Donohue
· Honeymoon in Tehran, by Azadeh Moaveni
· Joker One, by Donovan Campbell
· The King’s Grace, by Anne Easter Smith
· The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer
· The Book of the Unknown, by Jonathon Keats
· A Matter of Justice, by Charles Todd
· Bloodprint, by Kitty Sewell
· The Book of Love, by Kathleen McGowan
Obviously, guests can read to their heart’s content while staying at the resort but are asked not to snatch any hot-off-the-press copies as souvenirs. Las Ventanas has always oozed with exclusivity anyways, so we think this is the perfect twist on the book trend.
[Photo: Las Ventanas]
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Algonquin Forgoes Bookshelf Trend for Kindles
As the bookshelf craze in hotels seems to be blowing up in a big way — with trendy modern hotels ranging from the sleek, spankin' new SLS to the funky Mercer throwing displays of book collections into their lobbies — we think we've seen the future of literature in hotels...and it's at the Algonquin.
Yeah, the hotel that's had its doors open for more than a century actually seems to be a little more ahead of the curve on the books-in-hotels front: they've got Kindles.
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