The Royal Suite—which has been occupied by boldfaced names including Emperor Akihito (he had a piano

For the unfathomably rich and the internationally famous, hotel suites are safe havens, cloistered precincts where the powerful have affairs without consequence, exiled princes los angeles escorts bbbj hide out, divas are coddled, and rock-and-roll stars swing from chandeliers.
I have had the pleasure of working with Q C on a number of hotels They bring a wealth of knowledge, ideas, adaptability, vision and creativity to the table. los angeles escorts bbbj Dawn Walzak, Senior Vice President, Tishman Hotel Corporation
Believe it or not, luxury hotels can t build suites fast enough to keep up with skyrocketing demand. As a growing international elite takes the lid off luxury, Christian L. Wright checks los angeles escorts bbbj into eight extraordinary rooms for a taste of the really good life—and to find out just how much comfort a cool 18,000 a night can buy
Let them stay in suites! The bad, the beautiful, and the boldfaced—from Thomas Mann to Lady Gaga—have found refuge and resplendence in the royal suites at Vienna's Imperial, where we staged this bacchanal.
For the unfathomably rich and the internationally famous, hotel suites are safe havens, cloistered precincts where the powerful have affairs without consequence, exiled princes hide out, divas are coddled, and rock-and-roll stars swing from chandeliers. The very word suite suggests privilege and conjures up images of cocktails in sunken los angeles escorts bbbj living rooms, small mountains of hatboxes, and glamorous los angeles escorts bbbj love affairs. (As Sophia ­Loren los angeles escorts bbbj once said, you can tell how much a man loves you by the hotel suite he books.) For the rest of us, though, they re just a mystery on a floor our key cards won t allow us to access, a set of bolted double doors through which we ll never enter and onto which we project our fantasies.
And there are a lot more of those doors being bolted these days: While much of the world digs for pennies in its change purse, there s a growing market for hotel suites, driven both by the fortunate few who are impervious to economic downturns and to the swelling ranks of multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires around the world. These are no junior suites, mind you, which often offer little more than a few extra millimeters of space and a club chair. There are relatively few luxury suites available, and there are ever more wealthy people looking for them, says Sean Hennessey, los angeles escorts bbbj CEO of the consulting los angeles escorts bbbj group Lodging Advisors, in New York. To meet the increased demand, los angeles escorts bbbj existing hotels are blowing out walls to rejigger floor plans, and new luxury hotels are devoting los angeles escorts bbbj more and more square feet to one-, two-, and three-bedroom suites in their blueprints, industry analysts say.
At the same time, hotels at the highest end of the spectrum are trying los angeles escorts bbbj to outdo one another with bells, whistles, and over-the-top design. Not just a little more space and a higher thread-count, Hennessey says, but something you just can t get anywhere else. Say, 10,000 square feet of elbow room, including a basketball los angeles escorts bbbj court (the Hardwood Suite at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas), a full-size pool and a grand piano (the Presidential Suite at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles), or perhaps a wine cellar and bulletproof glass (the Penthouse Suite at the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome). These game-changing pads carry price tags to match their outsize ambitions: 45,000 a night is not a typo—it s the actual rate for less than 24 hours in a maharaja s former residence, which is now the Presidential Suite at Jaipur los angeles escorts bbbj s Raj Palace Hotel.
Purely in the interest of the public s right to know, I spent the night in eight of these inner sanctums from New York to Abu Dhabi. (Full disclosure: Cond Nast Traveler reporters usually travel unannounced, but the only way we could report this story—which took me halfway around the world in the style of kings and movie stars—was to let the hotels in on our secret and accept upgrades from the standard rooms we d paid for. Any concern los angeles escorts bbbj we would typically have about preferential treatment was not an issue: It comes standard with these rooms.)
Step into a suite and you step into a world with different expectations and different rules than the one most of us inhabit. I felt it as soon as I set foot in the foyer of the Prince of Wales Suite at Vienna s Hotel Bristol, with its inlaid marble floor and twinkling crystal chandelier, and proceeded to walk from room to room to room (eight in all), taking in the many gilded details of the Old World: the windowed bathroom, redolent of Bulgari, with taps made of gold; the stately, dark-wood dining room that was installed—complete with a fireplace and lustrous oil portraits—for los angeles escorts bbbj the prince in advance of his second visit. Down a hallway was another splendid entrance to the suite and a shiny marble powder room; a walk-in closet and a little fitness room with a sauna; and then, a study, with a manly desk on which sat a quill, and smoky mirrored panels on one side, heavily curtained windows on the other. Goodness, I thought, if this place is fit for a prince, who wants to be king? (Edward had similar thoughts, of course. . . .) These rooms come with a measure of entitlement much as others come with extra towels. Just ask Barbra Streisand: When she stayed here and discovered that the bed was too high for her little los angeles escorts bbbj dog to leap up onto, the hotel had a tiny set of stairs built for the pooch.
But that s typical of the sort of service these suites offer. Many hotels provide butlers, but not many of them show up in white gloves, los angeles escorts bbbj as mine did, to present me with personalized stationery: In case you want to write a letter, as Christian, my blond-haired, blue-eyed footman in the Royal Suite at Vienna s Hotel Imperial explained. Christian even dutifully ironed my morning paper to spare my fair hands the ink.
The Royal Suite—which has been occupied by boldfaced names including Emperor Akihito (he had a piano installed for the empress, who stayed in an adjoining room) to the Rolling Stones—is regal and feminine, like a dream of Old Europe, complete los angeles escorts bbbj with a white writing desk in a corner of the sprawling bedroom. How many marriage proposals were politely declined from atop its blotter? los angeles escorts bbbj I wondered, as my head sank into a pile of pillows under a throne of a headboard. Rarely have I felt more ladylike.
For top hotels, a glorious suite—laden with either history or state-of-the-art equipment—can los angeles escorts bbbj be like a tiara that rarely gets worn but casts a glow on the rest of the rooms. On the other hand, some companies have the ­ultra-posh hotel rooms as a bauble to offer the high roller, the very famous, or the odd head of state—who might not pay a dime out of his own pocket (except tips, of course, which do add up).
And so they can reflect different tastes and, indeed, cultures. Consider two extraordinary suites in the burgeoning city of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The modern four-bedroom Royal Etihad Suite at the new Jumeirah at Etihad Towers takes up the entire sixtieth floor. los angeles escorts bbbj The sweeping views over the gulf of this little oil kingdom will make your nose bleed and set you back 18,000 a night. This estate-in-the-sky is appointed with 74 different types of marble and such furnishings as would make Scarface himself blush—crushed silver velvet on the seat of a white-lacquered armchair, for example. The suite is divided los angeles escorts bbbj into a dark side and a bright side (essentially male and female) and has special suede-lined trays in the dressing rooms for laying out diamond chokers as well as elaborate flower arrangements, like a vase of yellow calla lilies the size of a compact car. Stealthy los angeles escorts bbbj staff come and go through a muffled door in the pantry: It s funny how quickly you adapt to attendants, and they to you. From the moment I arrived, my staff—from driver to butler—were solicitous and respectful, and entirely male. Once I—a Western woman traveling los angeles escorts bbbj on my own—had settled in, Amanda, a young lady from China, took over all duties, from changing currency to pulling los angeles escorts bbbj out my chair at breakfast the next morning in the Executive Club Lounge (exclusive to suite guests and decorated with original Matisse and Picasso los angeles escorts bbbj drawings).
Contrast this with the Palace Suites at the Emirates Palace, the state-owned urban resort across from the Jumeirah at Etihad Towers. The vast property is capped by a grand central los angeles escorts bbbj dome, under which are several floors los angeles escorts bbbj of suites, the most opulent of them reserved for kings and presidents. Here, the swipe of a golden plastic coin opened the door to a princess s quarters in a life-size dollhouse—with beige marble columns; fixtures in matte gold; fabrics los angeles escorts bbbj in muted creams, blues, and yellows; and lots of ottomans. It is lovely los angeles escorts bbbj in the same way designer shoe salons in the world s fancy department stores are. And here was Muktar, my soft-spoken Indian butler, apprentice in tow (learning to do things such as open a bottle of wine, which it appeared he had never done before). Muktar said he was proud to have served the likes of Shakira and Coldplay and that he was forbidden to speak to George Bush the Younger, who would come and go via private elevator. But we saw him a lot, said Muktar, beaming.
Staff at New York s Waldorf-Astoria saw him a lot, too, when he was in office. The hotel s presidential suite, on the thirty-fifth floor of the property s Waldorf Towers wing, is the only one where every American president since Herbert Hoover has spent the night. Decorated in Georgian style, los angeles escorts bbbj the interior los angeles escorts bbbj is reminiscent of the Oval Office. Its palette of creams and golds and blues is inspired by the presidential seal—which I found on plates los angeles escorts bbbj in the dining room s breakfront and etched into glass on the sconces in the living room.
Spending the night here felt like I was staying in a miniature wing of the Smithsonian. Between the fireplace los angeles escorts bbbj and Eisenhower s desk is the small wooden los angeles escorts bbbj rocking chair given as a gift by John F. Kennedy. In the bedroom—surprisingly los angeles escorts bbbj modest in size (about the size of a standard motel room) and somber in decor—you can draft a speech at General MacArthur s desk, which dates back to the years when he lived at the Waldorf with his wife. I was