Clift Hotel has been adopted into the same family as New York's Morgan, Royalton, Paramount, Hudson; Miami's Delano; Los Angeles' Mondrian; and London's St. Martins Lane and Sanderson. You cannot comprehend what it is to be a "jet setter" without having been in at least two of these highly stylized hotels crafted from gutting and renovating existing buildings. Of course that would be two on different coasts.

In the Redwood Room on ground zero of this boutique hotel, adjacent to legend-in-its-own-time Asia de Cuba, you have the best explanation of all this pomp and circumstance. Though Schrager is usually extolled for his daredevil designs, he's gone for a chicly subdued look here that relies on featuring an extremely attractive crowd. - Jean Wang