Senior Editor:
Juliana Shallcross
Full Masthead
Publisher:
SFO*MEDIA
In continuing our running tab on hotel carpets (yes, we are that geeky here), we present you with this photo taken at the Sofitel LA by Air Christophe. And we're thinking maybe this carpet is not so fugly? What do you think? Let us know in comments below.
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by juliana
We came across these photos of Rihanna walking into her hotel yesterday -- and thanks to our supersharp eye (and embarrassingly high levels of hotel-geekiness), we think we know what hotel this is: The Sofitel LA.
Click the jump for the Rihanna pic to compare -- and let us know if you agree. Hmmm, wonder which suite she's staying in...eh eh eh?
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by Jenna
The Hills! A new season! Lauren, Heidi, Spencer, Audrina and Whitney are b-a-c-k and we couldn't be happier that our Monday evening guilty-pleasure has returned to us -- and we may have even felt so guilty that we DVRed CNN's entire coverage of the DNC to, er, alleviate some of the shame.
Natch, we get all excited whenever the gang hits up a Los Angeles hotel. You know, what Sex and the City did for NYC establishments, The Hills can do for LA hotspots. In our minds, at least. Anyone want to go halfsies on launching a The Hills bus tour for superfans? No?
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The man that we just happen to share an apartment with pulled out an interesting article in his recent issue of Men's Journal that he thought we might like.
It turns out that whenever the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles opens (September/December?), it will have special rooms that are equipped with in-room fitness gear.
These exercise suites will come with "built-in weighted cables and pulleys."
The DeZeen blog has a snippet from the press release on the rooms after the jump.
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SLS Hotel in LA will not open until September 30th , according to its website which means the hotel is actually only missing its (second) predicted opening date of August 1 by about two months. Still, we're not so convinced this new date will hold either. There is a LOT of work that needs to be done on the hotel.
The luxury travel blog, The Informed Traveler actually had a date listed last week for the soft-opening as August 19th so we assume this new date is a recent thing. But when it does soft-open:
With this soft opening date, insiders tell us that the guest room floors will be available, along with the Guest Lobby and a few of the restaurants (not all five outlets). The pool, ballroom and other facilities will open later in the fall.
Further complicating matters is that the official opening is apparently, December 1, 2008. Oy.
However, a positive sign that the hotel is close to opening? SLS has hired a general manager, Philip Dailey, who comes from Shangri-La Hotels in Asia.
Can you help us determine when SLS will actually be open to book a room? Let us know.
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Another drive-by...hotel snapshot.
The last we heard on the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, the hotel would be opening July 15.
But now according to the hotel's website, the opening will actually happen on August 1. Judging from this picture sent into us by a tipster, we're not even sure that date will stand. Indeed, we have personally driven by this location and wondered how it could possibly make its opening date.
Since it seems like we will be waiting for at least a few more months, the website has put up some more renderings of the hotel, included the funky lobby we wrote about in April. Also, you can see the building's planned new exterior, its pool area and cafe. And lest we forget, the fur bedspreads.
Thanks PO!
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A tipster let us know that the International Herald Tribune had a round up of things from the Milan Furniture Fair and this rendering of Philippe Starck's lobby for the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles was one of them.
From IHT:
The plans for a new luxury hotel, the SLS at Beverly Hills, are to be unveiled during the Salone. The hotel is to be designed by the ageing enfant terrible of French design, Philippe Starck, with furniture and fittings made by Cassina, a subsidiary of the Poltrona Frau Group. It is to be managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts with a shop run by the New York design impresario Murray Moss.
We are kinda liking this. There are those chandeliers we had seen before on the hotel's website and in promo materials (sans monkeys) and Starck has a thing for chairs so titanium/silver-dipped (?) bar chairs are not surprising.
We just hope those white curtain things can partition off your seating section. Not like we would have anything to hide when sitting in a hotel lobby but it would be cool to be like "this is my section." You know, like the cafeteria in high school.
But we are curious: are those antlers on the back wall?
Hate or Love it? Dish it out in comments below.
2 Comments - Add Yours by juliana
In our Annual WiFi Reports, luxury chains are usually the worst offenders. They charge extremely high rates (minimum $400 a night) and then they ding you again for internet access. And that's not even for WiFi in most cases. Usually it's the dreaded old ethernet connection.
Anyways, it's getting clear and clearer that frequent guests won't put up with this much longer. Tim Dunn (oh how we wish it was a "g" instead of a "d") writes to us about a recent experience at the Four Seasons Los Angeles:
Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles has the nerve to charge you $10 for in-room wireless internet access, when their rates alone run from $795-$2100 per night, how very MOTEL 6 of them.
One would not expect to pay for towels by the pool, shampoo in the shower, or nightly turndown service, but you turn around and they rob you for a small and very unnecessary fee.
Does this need to be added to (FS owners) Bill Gates and Price Alewaad's bottom line, I think not.
Speaking of Bill Gates, we wonder: Would he stay at a hotel that didn't have free wireless? Ok, maybe that's not the right question considering he's one of the richest men on the planet.
However, we think that if you are the type to pay $795 a night for a hotel in the middle of Los Angeles, you probably wouldn't flinch at another $10 rolled into the room rate. So why doesn't Four Seasons et. al. just roll it in? Why make us go through unnecessary steps?
Have any hotel WiFi experiences that you want to vent about? Email us your gripes.
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