Private Luxury Without The Gawky Lobby: City Club Hotel, NYC

From the profound founders of CustomerEvangelist.com, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba: Hotelier Jeff Klein, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal on the efforts of some boutique hotels (like the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel) in Los Angeles to create buzz by creating celebrity-driven pool parties that usually shut out paying hotel guests from using basic hotel amenities. He said, “I don’t believe in buzz…”

“Word of mouth is the buzz I want, but not by creating a fake scene. Consumers will be fooled by that for a couple months, but eventually you need to deliver good service, good food and good beds — and you just can’t mask it with ridiculousness.”

His uber upscale City Club Hotel in Manhattan is not a boutique hotel. It’s not a night club, either. He’d rather call it a small, private luxury hotel. Whatever he calls it, it features a small unpretentious lobby that prevents guests from posing and gawking. It also has spacious 65 rooms decorated in a club style, featuring a combination of cork floors, taupe furnishings and chocolate marble-and-chrome bathrooms.

Room Rates: $275 deluxe/queen; $325 deluxe/king; $1200 grand duplex suite.
Address: 55 W. 44th St., between Fifth and Sixth Aves., New York, NY 10036
Phone: 212-921-5500
Web: City Club Hotel.