Vanessa Noel Hotel

Nantucket’s first chic boutique hotel set old-guard tongues wagging when it opened in 2002. Vanessa Noel, the Manhattan-based owner of a women’s shoe shop (which still occupies a ground-floor space in the hotel), quickly cleared every trace of grandmotherly fustiness from the 1847 building and furnished the eight tiny guest rooms with fresh, white-on-white décor: Frette linens, silk taffeta window shades, Philippe Starck sisal carpets, and sleek marble bathrooms stocked with Bulgari toiletries. (Not surprisingly, the hotel immediately became the must-stay spot for kitten-heeled weekenders.) In 2006, Noel upped the ante again, this time opening the island’s first eco-friendly lodgings, the Hotel Green, in an adjacent historic house. The nine rooms here, outfitted with recycled-material furnishings and organic cotton and hemp linens, prove that environmental consciousness and style aren’t mutually exclusive.

Tip: If you have little ones in tow, this isn’t the place for you—the hotel is simply too tiny to be child-friendly.

Room to Book: In the Vanessa Noel Hotel, units 1 and 8 have the most elbow room; in the Hotel Green, the single two-bedroom suite is the only spacious option.