In the Roaring ’20s — a decade of prosperity as the U.S. bounced back from World War I — anyone who was anyone knew about the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. Constructed in 1916 and converted into a hotel in 1920, it was a premier...
Seventy-seven years is a long time betweenconcept and reality. Yet it took that long for one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s visions to make it from the drawing board to its ultimate foundation. In 1924, when the iconic architect was 56 years old, he was commissioned to...
Quietly, softly, humbly. The beloved kiawe tree at Halekulani resort in Honolulu, Hawaii, toppled over on August 21, 2016. The culprit? There was none: no vandalism, no hurricane, no unusual weather. Sometime in the middle of the night, the 133-year-old patriarch simply fell. The towering...
What museum can you spend the night in? And what building is more than a century old, yet brand-new? Those riddles find delightfully inviting answers at the 21c Museum Hotels. In an engagingly original combination of culture and hospitality, the boutique hotel collection may be reinventing...
In the early 1980s, what others saw as a pile of rocks, developer Rusty Lyon envisioned as a world-class destination. He snapped up 13,000 acres filled with boulders and cacti in the High Sonoran Desert foothills of Arizona. Then, he tapped architect Bob Bacon to...
Best known as the setting for the long-loved film “Pretty Woman,” the iconic Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, is a history-rich landmark. In January 1928, Beverly Hills was home to 18,000 residents, including movie stars Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Rudolph Valentino, and the...
A couple years ago, I fell asleep in a hotel room painted with sky blue walls and puffy clouds with faces on them; a little girl in ceremonial dress sat cross-legged, and a city on a hilltop rose in the distance. Above me, the ceiling...
Years ago, I was lured to Walla Walla, Washington, by its emerging national profile as a worthy wine region. It was a fine day trekking through vineyards with visionary producers and tasting mostly reds at L’Ecole No. 41, Pepper Bridge Winery, Seven Hills Winery, Dunham...
Observing its 10th anniversary in 2019, the Allison Inn & Spa, an 85-room destination resort in Newberg, Oregon, just southwest of Portland, displays 500-plus original works by more than 100 Oregonian artists, featuring paintings in many styles, photography, ceramics, fiber art, and sculpture. The LEED...
American aristocracy stayed at Castle Hot Springs first: the Vanderbilts, Pews, Rockefellers, and then the Wrigleys. Former President Teddy Roosevelt stayed here before dedicating the nearby reclamation dam that was named for him. His cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also visited. A future president, John F....