The Room - A boutique hotel guide.

There is a version of me that only exists in rooms that aren't mine.

Not because I'm running from something — though sometimes I am — but because a room that isn't mine has no history to negotiate. No laundry pile with an opinion. No mail. Just a bed made by someone else's hands, a bathroom lit like it's expecting me, and an hour where nobody needs anything from me except to enjoy it.

That's the whole religion, really. The Room.

What I'm Actually Looking For

I skip the lobby and go straight for the bathroom, because the bathroom tells you everything — whether a hotel actually loves a body, or just tolerates one passing through. Rainfall. A mirror with no bad angles. A towel with real weight. A tub deep enough to disappear a man for forty-five minutes.

The bedroom matters differently. It's a confession booth. Give me a bed too big for one person, low light that flatters a body at 2am and at 9am, linen that doesn't announce itself. The best rooms don't perform luxury at you — they quietly assume you deserve it.

What Travels With Me

A well-appointed man collects objects the way a well-appointed room collects silence — sparingly. A few things go with me into every one of these rooms.

Stephen Sprouse for Louis Vuitton. The graffiti collaboration is still, decades later, the correct answer to "what does downtown luxury actually look like."

[See it: 1stDibs, LV x Sprouse graffiti pieces]

RIMOWA aluminum luggage. German-engineered, dented on purpose by now, the grooves catching the light in every airport I hate and every hotel I love.

[See it: RIMOWA Original collection]

A root beer GMT-Master. Brown and gold, warm instead of flashy, built to track two time zones because I'm rarely fully in one.

[See it: Rolex GMT-Master II "Root Beer"]

A Louis Vuitton Epi leather wallet. Structured, scratch-resistant, that signature linear grain. The quiet cousin to the Sprouse graffiti — no logo shouting, just good leather doing its job in every one of these rooms.

[See it: LV Epi leather wallets]

New York — The Standard, East Village

Up through the tenement-style entry off Cooper Square, into a tower that has no business being this composed for downtown Manhattan. The Standard, East Village keeps its rooms neutral and calm on purpose, oversized windows doing most of the talking, a little chaos kept just outside the glass where it belongs.

[See it: The Standard East Village, photos]

Palm Springs — Parker Palm Springs & Santiago Resort

Two very different desert moods, both correct. Parker Palm Springs is Jonathan Adler's playground — thirteen acres of bougainvillea, croquet, and interiors that never once apologize for being too much. Santiago Resort is the other end of the spectrum entirely: an adults-only, clothing-optional men's resort in the Tahquitz River Estates, built around the largest pool of any gay resort in Palm Springs and a misted garden that means business. Go to Parker to be seen. Go to Santiago to not be.

[See it: Parker Palm Springs, photos · Santiago Resort, photos]

Los Angeles — Chateau Marmont

Modeled after a French chateau, built into the Hollywood hills, and still the most discreet room in a city that struggles with discretion. Chateau Marmont doesn't do floor-to-ceiling glamour — it does thick walls, private bungalows, and a garden where nobody's watching, which in LA is the actual luxury.

[See it: Chateau Marmont, photos]

Frankfurt — Roomers

Clean lines wearing a trench coat. Roomers Frankfurt Central is dark stone, gold accents, and a design language so composed it borders on seduction — which is more or less all I ask of German hotel design.

[See it: Roomers Frankfurt, photos]

Rotterdam — Mainport

Brutalist by day, filthy velvet by night. Mainport sits right on the Maas with a facade of black panels and glass, rooms with whirlpools and Finnish saunas, and a skyline view that reminds you Rotterdam rebuilt itself into something architecturally fearless.

[See it: Mainport Rotterdam, photos]

Nice — Le Negresco

If you know, you know. Le Negresco has sat on the Promenade des Anglais since 1913, every room decorated differently — Louis XIV in one, "fashion designer with punk-rock tendencies" two doors down — and a lobby chandelier that happens to be Baccarat crystal. The Riviera's original luxury hotel, and still its most theatrical.

[See it: Le Negresco, photos]

Seattle — Hotel Ändra

Scandinavian soul in Belltown. Hotel Ändra plays it cool and Nordic where a lot of Seattle hotels play it safe — a fireplace lobby that actually functions as a living room, and a design language that understands gray skies make for excellent lighting if you stop fighting them.

[See it: Hotel Ändra Seattle, photos]

Portland — The Clyde

My home turf. Built in 1912 in what was once known as the city's "Gay Triangle," this building spent two decades as the Ace Hotel before reclaiming its original name in 2024. The Clyde keeps the claw-foot tubs and the bones intact — industrial-chic, unfussy on purpose, which is the most Portland thing a room can be.

[See it: The Clyde Portland, photos]

Hong Kong — The Upper House

Vertical intimacy, done by André Fu. The Upper House sits above Pacific Place with sweeping harbor views and interiors so restrained they read as confidence rather than minimalism. Small footprint, enormous everything else.

[See it: The Upper House, photos]

Two Airbnbs Worth the Search

Not every great room has a front desk. Look for a converted canal loft in Rotterdam — exposed beams, a freestanding tub angled at the water, the kind of place a design magazine would stage but somebody actually lives in. And in the desert, a private mid-century compound outside Palm Springs — pool, glass walls, zero neighbors — is worth more than any resort fee. Search "design loft" or "architectural" on Airbnb in either city and be patient; the good ones don't stay listed long.

GoldenEye, Jamaica

And then there's the one that isn't boutique so much as scripture. Ian Fleming's old property on Jamaica's north coast, where a spy was invented and the villas still feel like they're keeping a secret. No air conditioning in some of them — on purpose. Louvered windows instead. The Caribbean is supposed to touch you while you sleep.

[See it: GoldenEye Jamaica, photos]

GoldenEye isn't a room you photograph so much as a room that photographs you — nothing between you and the elements except good taste and a well-placed mosquito net.

The Point

The Room isn't a place. It's a standard.

Find one that meets it.

— Daddy Jo