Why don’t you live like De Niro or Monroe at a hotel?
At home with a concierge, a spa, a gym, fancy restaurants, and 24/7 guest services, why not?
PIED À TERRE Chateau Marmont on Sunset Strip, in West Hollywood, California, last year (Valerie Macon for AFP)
Spent the weekend at the Grand Hyatt in BGC. I was on the 45th floor, might as well have been on top of the world. From my altitude, the surrounding buildings seemed dwarfed, and there were picture windows so clear the glass panes seemed nonexistent everywhere I turned that I might as well have been in the clouds.
Yes, I was up in the sky, yet everything I needed from earth down below I could have just by dialing guest services. No sooner had I made one press on the wireless than a guy came up to help me figure out the Illy espresso machine, but while he was at it, he might as well make me coffee. He did. I made a mental note to send him off to fetch me some bath salts in case I found the mood to waste precious time in the tub, but that would have been too Marie Antoinette of me in this century.
Last year, as this still-lurking, still-lingering party-pooper of a virus sent us all home grounded, some enterprising young creative made wise use of his time sheltering in place by renovating his room to look and feel like a hotel suite. He posted everything like a project in progress on social media and each of his posts went viral, spreading like wildfire on the internet feeds.
Who doesn’t want to live in a hotel? Who doesn’t want to extend a grand hotel stay for a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime?
Read more: Manila Bulletin