For her part, Berke turned her back on a tried-and-true formula, that a lobby is solely for seeing and being seen. "Lord, my father worked in hotels," the architect says. "So I know what kind of wasted space that is." She gutted the main building and reconfigured it into a series of spaces that unfold with origami-like precision, each feeding into the next, angles transforming into curves, passages fragmenting into staircases, solid walls into sheets of glass. It's an organic progression that she calls "one of the big ideas here: style and sexiness moving forward, instead of the old glamour of sitting in a lobby and looking chic." You go up a flight of stairs to the glass-walled entrance, past a bubbling fountain, through sitting areas where you can tap away on your wireless laptop (the whole compound is equipped with Wi-Fi), past the J-Bar, then down broad, shallow steps to Fiamma Trattoria. A curved dining terrace shaded by a swooping steel-and-acrylic awning swans into Civic Center Mall, Scottsdale's Piazza San Marco, a place of public gatherings and outdoor concerts, populated by lively children and local flaneurs.
In contrast to the high-energy public spaces, the bedrooms are sensual and serene, what Berke calls "places for great sex." Stephen Brockman, one of the associates in her office, pulled together interiors that vaguely recall the sixties without falling into the trap of retro indulgence. The décor is a collage of strong details, quietly stated: a combed plaster wall, a minimalist desk of steel and wood, carpeting carved in a wood-grain pattern, a sleek platform bed with soft backlighting. Some doors stretch to the ceiling, giving the boxy rooms—largely unaltered from their original dimensions—a generous sense of scale. The walls are bare; photographs and paintings have been banned. "Most hotel-room art is throwaway," Berke says, "so why even try?" Strategic shots of color, however, more than compensate: a splash of chartreuse here, a hot-pink lacquer wall there, polychrome mosaic tiles in the showers.
Beyond the surface delights, Hanson has equipped the James with roguish accents that lend the rooms a sort of Rat Pack cool. Flirty, bum-skimming striped cotton bathrobes hang in the closets, martini glasses are at the ready, and every room has at least one 42-inch plasma screen and a CD player. Ice buckets are etched with the word chill; the main pool is winsomely referred to as the Play Pool. At times, this studied frivolity can become wearying—there's something frat-house comical in racy bedroom freebies like discreetly packaged condoms and wall-sized magnetic message boards stocked with wink-wink words. But, as Hanson says, "That's the punch line: Did I have fun here?" Which might explain why the James intends to show pay-per-view XXX-rated movies in the near future—straight and gay, Hanson adds, in an effort to be scrupulously fair. It's another departure from the hotel-industry norm that is sure to get as much flack as praise.
Most important, the James doesn't take itself too seriously. At the J-Bar in the lobby of the main building, the staff beams all-American smiles, and drink orders are met with a hearty "Yes, sir!" The latest house music is piped in at easy-listening decibels, and deep, inviting chairs are pulled so convivially close to one another that you can't help but be part of an extended group of celebrants. Imagine an intimate club, only with better lighting and cheery service that doesn't get ruffled even when a tray of dishes goes crashing to the floor. When that happened one busy Saturday night at Fiamma Trattoria, Hanson was quick to see whether the waiter was okay; he then advised a colleague to tell the young man to slow down and relax. "No matter how fast the orders are coming, it's not a race," he said in a tone of paternal common sense that belied all the stories you hear about hot-tempered restaurateurs and browbeaten waitstaff. "Everybody makes mistakes," Hanson added later. "He's a good kid, and he's learning. Hey, we all are."
Hanson himself certainly seems to have been a quick student. "At the end of the day, are the other rooms in town a little bigger?" he says. "Possibly. But I have a swimming pool that kicks anybody's ass. I want people to say, 'Why am I wasting six hundred dollars a night when I can stay in a hotel that's ten times cooler for much less?'"
James Hotel, 7353 E. Indian School Rd., Scottsdale; 866/505-2637 or 480/308-1100; www.jameshotels.com; doubles from $100.
MITCHELL OWENS writes for the New York Times and Elle Decor.
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