Beyond green: Hotel floor goes hypoallergenic

But with their Pure rooms, the hotel has taken sensitivity to another level - the 11th level to be precise. The 23 rooms on the hotel's top floor constitute the first hypoallergenic floor in Boston hostelry.

"It's a continuation of the green program we've been working on," said Elaine Strunk, the hotel's director of green, "but there's been a need for something like this for a while. A lot of people suffer from allergies or asthma, especially in Boston, and no one's really catered to them like this before."

The first hint of a difference comes fresh off the hotel's elevator, when a slight, pleasant scent presents itself, emanating from tea tree oil cartridges placed in each room's air ducts. The oil, distilled from the leaves of the Australian melaleuca tree, is said to have antibiotic and antifungal properties and is considered hypoallergenic.

But the changes are more than scent deep. All the rooms have undergone a seven-step treatment provided by Pure Solutions NA of Cheektowaga, N.Y. That process has two chief aims, according to Pure Solutions CEO Brian Brault: to get each room to a high state of cleanliness, and then to keep them there.

In the first phase, the mechanical parts of the rooms' air-handling system are cleaned and disinfected, and a treatment is applied to prevent moisture buildup. The rooms are then sanitized and sealed for a several-hour "shock" treatment of concentrated ozone, Brault says, which kills bacteria.

For the second phase, a bacteriostatic agent is applied to all the rooms' soft surfaces, which helps repel bacteria over time. "It's kind of like a land mine, it will only kill you if you touch it," Brault said.

The bedding, meanwhile, is encased in tightly knit microfiber to separate sleepers from dust mites. And the air is continually circulated through a freestanding filtration device that the FDA considers medical-grade.

Tedd Saunders, co-owner of the hotel and president of EcoLogical Solutions, which advises hotels on green initiatives, said that the filters are powerful enough that if a guest opens a window, the room will return to its relatively pollutant-free state soon after it is closed, and that housekeepers turn the filters on high while they are preparing the rooms.

The Lenox is one of about a half-dozen hotels in Greater Boston that offer the Pure service, including the Seaport Hotel and the Marriott Long Wharf, but is the only one to devote a floor to it. Ten of the 120 rooms at the Residence Inn Boston Andover have been given the treatment, which general manager Marisa Cerasuolo, said is "about right for a hotel our size." The Lenox has 214 rooms altogether.

Brault said Pure Solutions charges $2,400 per room, which includes two years of follow-up. He said that in the five years the company has operated, a conservative estimate would be that 200,000 guests-nights have been spent in a Pure room.

"I'm not surprised it's catching on. Literally tens of millions of American travelers have allergies, asthma, or chemical sensitivities," said Glenn Hasek, editor and publisher of Greenlodgingnews.com, a trade publication. Hasek added that he knows of only one other company offering a similar service.

By choosing the 11th floor for the service, Lenox managers placed the Pure rooms away from the noise pollution of the street below, though all Lenox windows have double-glazing to muffle outside influences. The Lenox charges a $25 premium for the rooms, which have been available about a month.

Will the market bear the premium? "For some it's a luxury," Saunders conceded, "but for others, it's a necessity if they have chemical sensitivities."