Ames Hotel

Occupying the Romanesque former headquarters of the Ames farm-tool company, the 113-room downtown property is the very chic result of a collaboration between David Rockwell and the Morgans Hotel Group—the New York-based founding fathers, so to speak, of the boutique hotel. Rockwell is known as an ultra-modern designer, but he’s had some fun with history here: the bedside lighting riffs on whale-oil lamps of yore, and mirrors facing the elevators make use of an old theater trick to conjure the spooky illusion of a chandelier. Mistral’s Seth Greenberg and Mark Goldberg are behind The Woodward, the hotel’s restaurant accented with Victorian curios; the modern-tavern serves up small plates—like cheesy mushroom toast and short-rib pot roast with parsnip and carrot—that you can really sink your teeth into.