From sheets to scents, 'boutique' hotel is all about hip style
With two leaf blowers adding their cacophony and fumes to the roar of nearby Route 128 one recent morning, tranquility wasn't the first word that came to mind in the front parking lot of the new Hotel Indigo in Newton Lower Falls.
But in the lobby, meditative music played softly, adding to the atmosphere created by the muted earth tones in the fashion-forward furnishings and in the uniforms of the employees at the reception desk. Something else was in the air, too, but it took some help from hotel president David Shamoian to pinpoint.
"Oh, that's vanilla and grapefruit," he said, inhaling deeply through his nose. "We have a full-time aromatherapy machine. People experience different senses when they come into the hotel and we wanted to address everything, including their sense of smell."
Welcome to the Indigo, the first "boutique" concept hotel in Boston's suburbs.
For decades, the hotel industry along the Route 128 belt has been dominated by inter national players such as Marriott and Ramada, which woo business travelers by placing functionality before style, offering amenities like cheap suites, kitchenettes, minibars, and laundry rooms.
The Indigo was designed instead to emulate small, high fashion, urban hotels such as Fifteen Beacon in Boston and Hudson in New York City.
There are feng-shui principals incorporated in design decisions, designer furnishings in the rooms, and even free designer spring-water bottles on the bedside tables.
But will a boutique hotel work in the suburbs? Pioneered by hotelier-visionaries like Ian Schrager in the 1980s, the concept is normally built on selling well-heeled urban hipsters on uber-stylish (if cramped) digs strategically placed near all the culture, cuisine, consumerism, and nightlife that great American cities have to offer.
But if Indigo patrons are thinking about going anywhere without a car, they'll need to buy a Charlie Card, because virtually the only amenity within walking distance is the MBTA's Riverside Station. The former tenant of the building at 399 Grove St. was a decidedly unhip Holiday Inn.
"I think that's the only thing that they are really going to have to overcome; the fact that this building was a Holiday Inn basically forever and that is how the locals remember it," said Michael Szathmary, a local developer of upscale gourmet food markets who recently checked out the Indigo over coffee with a colleague.
Szathmary, however, also said he is impressed with the Indigo's stylish yet low-key atmosphere and devotion to its design concept.
While striving to seem unique, the Indigo actually is the new boutique brand of a major chain,
But there is competition en route. Starwood Hotels, which operates the Westin, Sheraton, and W chains, has its own suburban boutique, aloft (complete with stylish lowercase "a"), with a Lexington location to begin taking reservations this fall, and an independent, NYLO, is about to open its second hotel in Warwick, R.I.
In order to consistently fill its 191 rooms, the local Hotel Indigo is trying to cobble together several different market segments.
In the first group, said codeveloper Paul Ferreira of Newton, are style-conscious business travelers. The office market stretching from Waltham to Needham covers more area than Cambridge or Tampa, he noted. "When they start comparing their choices in the marketplace, we think they'll find we have a better mousetrap."
Another target group, he said, will be style-conscious travelers who might otherwise stay in Boston but are intimidated by the traffic or the price associated with staying at a chic hotel downtown. Rates at the Indigo will vary by season and demand, but generally are expected to be $200 to $250 - about half of what downtown Boston's boutique hotels charge.
Conscious that there isn't much to do around the hotel, Ferreira said, the developers hope to turn the Indigo into a destination unto itself, even for nearby residents. The hotel serves
And then there's the market niche of parents, like Barbara Berkeley, who want a different experience when they travel from out of town to tour local colleges with their children (and who might be returning for visits and for graduations).
Berkeley and her daughter, Jennifer, who live in Austin, Texas, said they had stayed at a Marriott near Philadelphia's airport for a tour of Villanova University before arriving in Newton to check out Boston College.
Jennifer Berkeley said she preferred the Marriott. "Those were great beds," the 17-year-old said. Her mother opted for Indigo, saying the hotel's dark hardwood floors and fashion-forward furnishings made her think of upscale home-design magazines.
Overall, Shamoian said, the Indigo's design theme is based on the mathematical concept of phi, also known as the Divine Proportion or the Golden Mean, which was incorporated into as much of the hotel as possible, including the proportions of the art hanging on the walls, its logo (a nautilus shell), and even smaller details.
The hotel also coordinates the aromatherapy scents in the lobby with the crystal candy bowl at the reception desk; the peppermint scent and York Peppermint Patties of February gave way to the springlike pairing of grapefruit-vanilla and Sunkist Fruit Gems being deployed this month, he said.
In fact, there is so much going on that even the hotel's advocates sometimes have trouble keeping it all straight. During a recent tour, a public relations representative called attention to the mathematically symmetrical design of a king-size headboard, which was made of three sections of dark wood adorned with three wall lamps.
Asked the significance of the number three in relation to the overall design concept, Shamoian replied: "Um, I think that's just a coincidence."
