If These Could Talk

Special Advertising Feature I F T H E S E WALLS COULD TALK One-of-a-kind hotels o er travelers deeper connections to a locality’s history and importance. At rst glance, you might not think much of the desk on the second oor of New York City’s Algonquin Hotel. It sits openly in the foyer, with no special plaque announcing its provenance. But it was here that Dorothy Parker, the esteemed wit, writer and founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, set to work during the hotel’s heyday as the nexus of New York’s creative class. Hotel LeVeque, e Algonquin has hosted everyone from William Faulkner to Columbus, Ohio Douglas Fairbanks and was central to the founding of the modern New York media scene. e hotel is dense with details that serve e building’s terra cotta façade was lovingly restored. Original to foster an indelible sense of place, connecting its guests to the bronze and copper windows — some found in the tower’s basement — building’s — and the city’s — past and present in a way that goes were returned to their proper places. And the hotel, which opened in beyond what you could experience in a museum. at quality is shared 2017, was out tted with an array of Columbus-centric products, such as by a number of Autograph Collection properties. soaps, shampoos and lip balms made by the city’s new crop of artisans. “Our lobby has not changed much since it opened,” says Nicholas “Columbus has a very strong commitment to locale,” says Geri Sciammarella, the Algonquin’s historian. “ e exterior of the hotel is Lombard, the hotel’s general manager. “We have what’s called the historically protected right now, but every owner has also maintained Columbus Idea Foundry, and it houses the world’s largest maker the integrity of the interior of the lobby. From the columns to the ceiling space, where dozens of artisans come together to ply their craft. We molding to the Edwardian-style oak wood paneling, this is very much wanted to include as many local craftsmen through our products and indicative of what the hotel looked like when the Round Table was here. experiences as possible.” ese partnerships are visible in everything A lot of places try to replicate that, but we still have it.” from the hotel’s tabletop candles (a signature lavender and bergamot is grounding in local history isn’t limited to the lobby. Key cards mix created for the hotel) to the sta ’s deco-in uenced uniforms, distributed to guests come complete with a choice Dorothy Parker which were fashioned by a local designer. quote. e hotel’s lovingly restored Blue Bar serves up Prohibition-era Outside the U.S., Costa Rica’s El Mangroove hotel proves that a sense cocktails, including the famous whiskey-based drink that bears the of place can come from the natural world as much as anything man-made. Algonquin’s name. A friendly house cat even roams its corridors freely, Surrounded by a mangrove ecosystem, the hotel’s design blurs the line a hotel tradition dating back to the 1920s. between indoors and out, drawing in the lush greenery and crystalline “When you walk in, you get that feeling of getting transported to a waters of its setting on the Gulf of Papagayo. To preserve what’s at its di erent era,” Sciammarella says. “One of the most important things doorstep, El Mangroove has adopted measures to preserve water and we want guests to realize is that this is not just a hotel where writers repurpose trees cut down during construction as furniture, receiving the and actors stayed, but also an institution that lends itself to creativity.” highest sustainability ranking from the Costa Rican Tourism Board. A little over 500 miles west of New York City, Columbus, Ohio’s “In the 1970s, the Gulf of Papagayo was identi ed as an area of Hotel LeVeque stands as another monument to a city’s past and greater tourism potential for its natural scenery, biodiversity and vast present. LeVeque Tower, the art deco skyscraper where the hotel is tropical dry forest,” says José Monge, the hotel’s corporate director housed, was once the fth-tallest building in the country and served of operations. “So El Mangroove is culturally and environmentally as a landmark for aviators such as Amelia Earhart and Charles speci c, but also deeply connected to the place our guests come to Lindbergh. But it sat mostly vacant for decades — until 2012, when experience.” For him, it’s this commitment to the locale that makes an extensive restoration began that mirrored its city’s emergence as a El Mangroove special — and gives its guests an experience they won’t midwestern beacon of craftsmanship and entrepreneurialism. nd elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal news organization was not involved in the creation of this content..

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