is tasked with creating an exclusive bungalow and penthouse suite, which could be a hit with the sports teams and athletes, celebrities and others who consider South Beach their playground. Kravitz's seven-year-old firm Kravitz Design Inc. SLS hotel's popular Bazaar restaurant with a growing national reputationKatsuya Uechi, the sushi chef behind the company's growing Katsuya restaurant chain. He already assembled a list of heavy hitters for the first SLS, who are also involved in the South Beach location:Starck, who helped create the boutique hotel concept in the mid 1980s with Ian SchragerJosé Andrés, the chef behind the L.A. The inclusion of Kravitz in the South Beach hotel's look gives us an idea of the vibe that Nazarian likes to create at his hotels. Nazarian plans to open a third at some point in Las Vegas on the site of the just-shuttered Sahara. The Miami location will mark the second SLS when it opens next March, following the SLS hotel that opened during the recession at the L.A.-Beverly Hills border. (I'll tell you more about his hotel ambitions when I return from vacation next week.) SLS is the brainchild of Sam Nazarian, who started as an Los Angeles nightclub operator but with his company "sbe" has been shaking up L.A.'s restaurant and hotel scene. Rocker Lenny Kravitz joins famed hotel designer Philippe Starck to develop a vision for the much-awaited SLS hotel in Miami's South Beach at 17th and Collins Avenue. RELATED: Parking ups the ante at NYC hotel So if you're headed to Philadelphia sometime, click here and see what you can get.
You get reduced rates on a two-night stay, a teddy bear, and - more to the point - free parking. P.S.: Just heard from the Philadelphia tourist board and was told of a "Philly Overnight Hotel Package" that involves more than two dozen properties - including the Sofitel. What's the highest per-night parking rate you've seen? New York, where space also is at a premium, is famed for skyscraper-high parking rates: Hotel Check-In's Barbara De Lollis found $50 parking (plus a $10 surcharge for SUVs) at the Gansevoort Park Avenue in NYC. Is it just me, or does this seem high? My colleague Laura Bly paid $44 at the Westin Copley Place in Boston July 3, which partially negated the joy she felt getting a $144 Hotwire rate over the July Fourth holiday weekend. Parking in Philly in notoriously tight, and the hotel charges $41 a night. It's not applicable for existing reservations.
and 8 p.m., ask for reservations and say "Vive Le Sofitel" to get the rate, which is far below the $165 and up nightly you might normally pay. 4 in popularity on TripAdvisor.Īll you have to do is call 21 between 8 a.m. Yes, it's not cheap, but this is a luxury brand (the one where former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was staying in Manhattan when he made headlines, but that's another story).
9, you have the chance to get a room at the luxury hotel for two nights for a total of $222, plus state and local taxes. So if you're heading to Philly between now and Sept. The Sofitel Philadelphia, right downtown, is marking its French heritage and the occasion with a room promotion that's bookable only today. Today is Bastille Day, when French celebrate their independence from royalty. Does that say that housekeepers know many people love to take toiletries home?So let's take a survey to see how readers feel. It's interesting that many times when I leave an especially large tip for the housekeeper, she will leave me extra toiletries when there already are enough. And some would argue that if you get two bars of soap in the room and only use one, you can take the other home. Probably nobody would say it's a sin to pack up partly-used bars of fabulous soap, because they can't be used for the next guest. It's not as clean-cut as hotel robes, which are clearly not meant to be taken without paying. Is it "stealing" to take home hotel soap? Some would say the toiletries placed in the room are yours to use or to hoard. Or it simply may be "mere access to a great product that's hard to get." RELATED: What happens to used hotel soap?
Now why would people who could buy and sell most of us 10 times over stash those little rectangles and orbs of scented soap into their Louis Vuitton cases instead of just ordering it at home?īecause, writer Vanessa Friedman theorizes, the HSS (Hotel Soap Syndrome) hits guests who think "I deserve it" since they are "paying through the nose to be cosseted." Or there's wanting to take away as much of the pampering experience as possible - and "toiletries are the portable answer," she writes. Not just any old bar, but the name brands found in the sinks and baths of luxury lodgings, such as Acqua di Parma, Bulgari, Hermes and L'Occitane. According to the August issue of Town & Country magazine, which covers the comings, goings and doings of the rich or wannabe affluent, it's soap.