Forget ‘boutique’ hotels – the world’s coolest stays want to tell you a story

“You can’t be both local and everywhere… at a certain point, your aesthetic or brand becomes cringy”

A Ruth Bader Ginsburg portrait made from 20,000 hand-painted tampons at the Hotel Zena in Washington D.C. Photo: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post

JD Shadel
© Washington Post

A new niche of high-end hotels makes a big promise.

Unlike your run-of-the-mill boutique hotel, these properties aren’t only about cool decor and on-site bars and restaurants. Through grander concepts and designs, they claim to immerse guests in a story or social movement, or even transport them to another time period.