In continuing our Hotel WiFi Week here at HotelChatter we decided to ask some of the hotel groups that made our Best Hotel WiFi list just why they have decided to offer complimentary internet for their guests.
Here at HotelChatter we like to follow the lives--both professional and personal--of some of the world's most well-known hoteliers. So we just decided to list some of the hoteliers that we cover the most for your edification. In doing so, we realized there needs to be some more female hoteliers! If you know of a hotelier that's not on our list, send his (or hopefully her) name our way.
After making a mint at Starwood Hotels--including creating the W brand--Barry Sternlicht could've happily rode off into the hotel developer sunset, free from the prying eyes of people like us. But somehow, he decided to get back into the hotel game: He's got three hotel brands in the works.
The biggest deal in our mind is the "1" brand, scheduled to debut in Seattle in 2009. The aim is to make the hotel LEED certified as a green building, as is the plan with other "1" hotels in the future. Other properties are in the works for New York and DC.
The NYC project, the New York Times reports:
[Will] be called the "1" Hotel and Residences at Bryant Park, it will have dedicated hotel rooms through the 18th floor and residential units on the 19th through 31st floors. It is expected to open in the first half of 2010, and is being designed by Morris Adjmi.
But the brand won't focus on residential/hotel hybrids:
Mr. Sternlicht's third "1" hotel, in Washington at 22nd and M Streets, N.W., is in partnership with the local Perseus Realty Group. The hotel, which will have 180 rooms and no residential component, is expected to break ground in mid-2008 and open in 2010. More will follow in Scottsdale, Ariz.; Mammoth Lakes, Calif; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The first international "1" hotel will be in Paris.
Beyond all the hype around this brand, we'll also have to keep an eye on Sternlicht's other hotels: He's also at work on Baccarat Hotels and Resorts and Crillon, both of which could open soon.
For Love or Money is perhaps the ultimate Movie Set Hotel of all-time.
Michael J. Fox stars as Doug Ireland, a concierge at a snooty luxury Manhattan hotel. Having no wealth of his own, he aspires to one day open his very own hotel. He even has an old and abandoned hotel picked out on Roosevelt Island.
The only problem is he needs to find an investor willing to put up the $3 million needed for the renovations.
Luckily or not so luckily, he finds an interested listener in financier Christian Hanover. And since this movie is about 14 years old, we don't really care if you've never seen it or not so we are going to spoil the plot for you.
A tipster named Charlie from the U.K. let us know that a TV actress named Bobbi Phillips is supposedly the woman responsible for bringing celebs to her hidden hotel in Mal Pais, Costa Rica.
Her hotel, Casa Chameleon (named after her most successful TV series) was recognized by Conde Nast in 2006 as one of the Best Hotels in the World.
There are TripAdvisor reviews on the place which are all glowing reviews--some suspiciously so like this one, "Let me just say as soon as I walked in our villa tears of joy just filled my eyes."
But Charlie is having no luck booking one of the four bungalows. He couldn't even find it on one of his recent trips to the area. But he did get some scoop on how celebs get brought in there.
Thanks to Hotel Chatter and Jaunted contributing editor PBB, we've been enlightened to this weird site I can has cheezburger.
At first, it looks extremely unfunny. It's basically pictures of weird cats (and other animals) playing with objects with misspelled -on-purpose captions on the pictures.
But at PBB's insistence we kept checking it out and now, it's one of those strange things where we can't NOT laugh at these so-called Lolcatz.
Yesterday a curious tipster asked us if it was really true that Manhattan hotelier Gregory Peck was kicked off the Cooper Square hotel project, saying there was a rumor going around that Peck would handle "money and PR stuff."
Today, we learn our tipster answered their own question. They write in:
Peck is totally out of the Cooper Square Hotel project. [Mark] Moss might have worded it like Peck isn't with us anymore. I don't know if he used the word "fired" but definitely said Peck is gone.
Ok, now that that's squared away anybody interested in buying Peckmoss.com?
The last time we checked in on the Cooper Square Hotel project, Gawker reported that Gregory Peck (yes, the hotelier, not the actor) had been removed from the venture.
But a tipster who lives next door to the site has heard differently:
I live right next door to the site. Myself and my neighbors were extremely happy to hear this since we see first hand how much Peck and Moss are stepping all over their neighbors and neighborhood with this project. (We have a protest movement going so to speak with our own newsgroup about it, clandestine flyers, public meetings, etc). Anyway someone at my building got word that that wasn't true. That Peck has only been assigned to handle money matters and Peck will do all the PR stuff. (This was heard by someone in the community board 3).
Anyways, I was just wondering if you are sure what you have heard is still true.
Well, we can tell you one thing--the PeckMoss website is still pretty dead. Other than that, we're a little unsure of what could be happening here. Peck Moss was fired from designing the hotel but will handle money and PR? That just sounds odd.
Anyways, we'll be looking into this but send us your tips or comment below.
In continuing our Hotel WiFi Week here at HotelChatter we decided to ask some of the hotel groups that made our Best Hotel WiFi list just why they have decided to offer complimentary internet for their guests. 
Here at HotelChatter we like to follow the lives--both professional and personal--of some of the world's most well-known hoteliers. So we just decided to list some of the hoteliers that we cover the most for your edification. In doing so, we realized there needs to be some more female hoteliers! If you know of a hotelier that's not on our list, 
