Quirky hotels
Scores of towns and countries. Hundreds of hotels. Thousands of pillows.
After spending much of my lifetime on the road, the places where I have hung out the “Do Not Disturb” sign have become a blur.
I remember the bad ones. Like Pocono East, where a guy worked all night on his motorcycle – in his room. Or the blissfully beautiful ones, like Amandari in Bali, set against the terraced rice fields.
But mostly I remember the quirky ones. The ones that didn’t just break the mold, but more than likely had no mold in the first place.
Here’s my personal list of the funniest, funkiest and most wonderfully strangest places I’ve visited. Remember – rates can vary wildly by time of year and time of week, so check it out before checking in to these offbeat gems.
Jungle dance: Ariau Amazon Towers, Brazil. This outpost on the Rio Negro outside of Manaus is undoubtedly the oddest hotel I’ve stayed in. Its rooms sit atop stilts that suspend the hotel above the jungle floor. Excursions include piranha fishing.
The most memorable moment was when I decided one morning to hike to the top of a wooden observation tower (the kind the feds would never let you build here) to see the sunrise. I arrived at the top to find that it was apparently the bunkhouse for a half-dozen monkeys, one of whom immediately jumped onto my chest, then wrapped his arms around my face.
Believe it or not, I had been briefed on just such an occasion, so I knew not to pull the sharp-clawed critter off of myself – just wait a minute or so, and it would find something else of interest to do. Sure enough, it jumped off. But that one minute, in the dark, with a monkey on my face, will stay with me a lifetime.
Packages start at two nights for $340 per person. Call (877) 442-7428 or go online to www.ariautowers.com.
Wampum required: Wigwam Motels. There are three surviving Wigwam motels. The one in Cave City, Ky., is thriving. The Holbrook, Ariz., outpost is well-known. But the San Bernardino, Calif., survivor on old Route 66 had turned into a dump with a tacky “do it in a teepee” sign out front.
Four years ago, the Patel family bought the property, renovated it and began attracting car-culture and history buffs looking for an offbeat night away. It’s stuck in a scruffy neighborhood, but the Patels have returned the Wigwam to its rightful place as an American roadside icon.
Rooms from $60 per night. Call (909) 875-3005 or go to www.wigwammotel.com.
Royal rest: Queen Mary, Long Beach, Calif. Long before I took a Cunard liner across the Atlantic, I was familiar with the Queens, from overnight stays on the Queen Mary, permanently ported in Long Beach.
It has struggled over the years, and some of the renovations have turned it into little more than a chain hotel that happens to be aboard a classic ocean liner. But there are still gems among the 365 staterooms (including seven suites).
Ask for one that retains the original art deco flourishes. It’s the closest you’ll get today to experiencing what it was like to “cross the pond” in the days before jet travel.
Rooms from $139 per night. Call (562) 435-3511 or go to www.queenmary.com.
Hawaii, real: Waimea Plantation Cottages, Kauai. As sugar plantations shut down on Kauai, this hotel brought the best of the former workers’ lodgings to a spot next to a black-sand beach amid a grove of coconut trees, refurbished the cottages and rented them by the night. A slice of old Hawaii was saved to be savored by generations that never knew the islands before tourism became the top industry.
Cottages from $155 per night. Call (800) 992-4632 or go to www.waimeaplantationcottages.com.
Hawaii, pretend: Kona Village, Big Island, Hawaii. A Polynesian fantasyland, where huts representing architecture of major Pacific cultures are arrayed around a lagoon and beach on the sunny Kona Coast of the Big Island.
Rates from $625 per night, including three meals for two people. Call (800) 367-5290 or go to www.konavillage.com.
Far, far away: Sourdough cabin, Peace of Selby Wilderness Lodge, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska. The only way to get to this cabin by the lake is a three-hour float plane ride north from Fairbanks. It’s just about the only place to stay in one of the most beautiful and least-visited national parks.
The main lodge is sweet enough, but I liked the old “sourdough cabin” with a large picture window cut into the logs to give a lake view, an ornate Scandinavian-designed outhouse and a wood-fired hot tub.
When we went berry picking, the owner brought along a revolver in her picnic basket. When I asked why, she replied, “Bears like berries, too.”
Several packages, but base rates begin at $500 per person. Call (907) 672-3206 or go to www.alaskawilderness.net.
Cat house: Anderson House, Wabasha, Minn. The town on the Mississippi River is best known as a great place to see eagles. But the Anderson House, the oldest hotel in the state, has an in-room amenity unlike any other: From a set of fancy cages on the ground floor, you can pick a feline companion to stay with you for the night.
I don’t know who was more in danger – my toddler, or the cat.
The current lineup includes Goblin, Morris, Ginger, Arnold and Aloysius. Rooms from $69 per night. Call (651) 565-2500 or go to www.historicandersonhouse.com.
Dog house: Hotel Monaco, Denver. The Kimpton chain has always been funky, fun and pet-friendly. I was especially charmed by Lily Sopris, the Jack Russell terrier who served as the “director of pet relations” at the Hotel Monaco in Denver. Energetic, happy and charming, Lily did a better job of making you feel welcome than many staffers at many hotels I’ve visited around the world.
Lily has retired after six years, handing over the job to a Shih Tzu named Georgie. As a Shih Tzu owner, I have my doubts about the wisdom of the breed switch.
Rooms from $189 per night. Call (800) 990-1303 or go to www.monaco-denver.com.
Feeling your oats: Crowne Plaza Quaker Square, Akron, Ohio. Industrial reuse is all the rage in Europe, where former gasworks and water towers have been turned into hotels. Perhaps the most startling example in the United States is this hotel in Akron fashioned out of 36 former grain elevators, each more than 120 feet tall.
The cylindrical rooms have windows cut through the concrete, but the rough-hewn surface that once held agricultural products remains.
Rooms from $109.50. Call (330) 253-5970 or go to www.quakersquare.com.
Sleep in the stacks: Library Hotel, New York City. Each of the rooms in this hotel near Grand Central Terminal is themed to a category in the Dewey Decimal System. (That’s the one used by librarians to order the stacks.)
In your room are dozens of tomes about that particular subject. Just in case you don’t want to go through several thousand pages of, say, oceanography, there’s a huge library off the lobby with hundreds of titles that will make it hard to leave the hotel to do what you came to New York for: to see the city.
Rooms from $269 per night. Call (877) 793-7323 or go to www.libraryhotel.com.
Out on the edge: Crystal Pier Hotel, San Diego, a Southern California icon since 1927, consists of Cape Cod-style cottages trimmed with nautically themed shutters sitting atop a long pier in the Pacific Beach district of San Diego.
On the north side of the pier, surfers carve the waves. On the south side, families frolic in the surf. And you’re likely to be awakened early by the shouted cadences of Marine recruits jogging en masse down the beach.
Rates from $235. Call (800) 748-5894 or go to www.crystalpier.com.
Off road: Shady Dell, Bisbee, Ariz. Airstream trailers were built to be on the move, but in a lot outside of Bisbee a collection of the shiny mobile bedrooms has come to a standstill.
The Shady Dell offers trailers big and small for a unique, restful night and a chance to experience the heyday of pre-RV road travel. If trailers aren’t your thing, you can spend the night in a landlocked classic Chris Craft boat.
Rooms from $45 per night. Call (520) 432-3567or go to www.theshadydell.com.
Fascists’ fantasy: Villa Feltrinelli, Lake Garda, Italy. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. So it is with this villa beside Lake Garda.
At the end of World War II, it was commandeered by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as his personal quarters (his mistress was installed in a villa a few miles down the lakeshore). Afterward, Villa Feltrinelli was returned to a member of the family – an avowed communist who died trying to blow up a power line in Milan.
Today it’s a luxurious resort run by the former manager of the famed Kahala Hilton near Honolulu.
Rooms from $921 per night. Call 011-39-0365-798-000 or go to www.villafeltrinelli.com.
Warrior chic: Hotel Pershing Hall, Paris. The former World War I headquarters of Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing became the American Legion outpost in the French capital until it was sold a few years ago and turned into a boutique hotel favored by the fashion industry.
Remnants of its military heritage remain. There’s a chunk of a bridge captured at Chateau-Thierry and plaques honoring heroes and the fallen. But the one-time clubhouse of a budding superpower is now home to supermodels.
Rooms from $434 per night. Call 011-33-0-158-36-58-00 or go to www.pershinghall.com.
All wet: Portobello Hotel, London. I came to this hotel in the Notting Hill district simply to get the Round Room that had the “Victorian bathing machine,” a precursor of today’s spa shows.
A deep tub was topped with a series of pipes with nozzles that allowed every inch of the body to get sprayed down. Unfortunately, time and perhaps a lack of precision construction ended up spraying much of the room.
After bathing, you could retire to the room’s circular bed amid Moroccan-style furnishings.
The Round Room rate starts at $571 per night. Call 44-0-20 7727 2777 or go to www.portobello-hotel.co.uk.
Toot-toot: Wyndham Union Station, Nashville, Tenn.: Train stations have become art museums and schools, but few have made the transition to hotels.
Union Station in St. Louis is probably the most famous, but I prefer the Wyndham in Nashville, where the schedule of the trains is displayed behind the lobby desk and freights still rumble (sometimes noisily) by underneath the room windows.
Rooms from $159 per night. Call (615) 726-1001 or go to www.unionstationhotelnashville.com.
Fill ‘er up: Hale Ohia, Big Island, Hawaii. This bed-and-breakfast sits among the lush rain forests around Volcano on the Big Island. But its most interesting unit is Cottage 44, which once served as the property’s water tank.
The circular redwood room inside the former tank is cozy enough, though the metal roof can get a mite noisy during the very frequent rainfall.
Cottage 44 costs $179 per night. Call (800) 455-3803 or go to www.haleohia.com.
R.I.P: Mojave Rock Ranch, the whimsical creation of two artists who embedded the rocks with fragments of colored glass, doll parts, old signs and any other “found” objects. My favorite were the lampshades, made out of shot-up oil cans, the bullet holes sending light beams flashing across the room.
Also, the luxurious, colorful Hotel Pattee in Perry, Iowa, where every room was like a page in a local history book. Finally, my beloved Waikikian-at-the-Beach, the Polynesian playground in Honolulu with the lovely Tahitian Lanai restaurant.
Just the memories remain.