What are the places you prefer to stay? Best Interior Designers made a carefully curated selection of the best hotels and resorts in North America, including the United States, Canada, and The Caribbean. In fact, this guide mirrors the enduring passion for the accommodations that not only serve as temporary residences but also as gateways to entire destinations. Continue reading to fuel your inspiration for your upcoming travels!
United States, Canada, and The Caribbean
1 Hotel Hanalei Bay – Kauai, Hawaii
Kauai’s 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay has all the ingredients you might want to cook up a truly magical Hawaiian getaway – a swimmable beach right out front, a legendary surf break a short paddle away, a stunning main pool, great onsite bars and restaurants, a cute town nearby for exploring, and easy access to excellent hiking. But what makes this property truly stand out in an archipelago dotted with luxe oceanfront resorts is that it’s also a legitimate wellness destination, with cutting-edge medi-spa offerings as well as serious fitness and mind/body programming. Guest rooms are a study in neutrals – sand-hued walls, reclaimed teak ceilings and furniture with rope and reed accents.
The Arizona Biltmore – Phoenix
Once you’re at the Biltmore, there’s no need to really leave. You’re here to be here, though the surrounding desert landscape and Piestewa peak in full view behind the main lawn deliver the “you’re in Arizona” memo. For a hotel with over 700 rooms, each manages to feel classically luxurious without steering into the cold or cookie-cutter. Plush beds, desertscape artwork, and bulbous ceramic lamps all over make the room feel both set in the Southwest and tony enough for a Waldorf.
The Breakers Palm Beach – Florida
For a good part of a century, Palm Beach has been a winter magnet for those attracted to a luxurious oceanfront getaway. And undoubtedly the most recognizable fixture within that pull is The Breakers, a 534-room beachside hotel that presents itself less as a resort and more like a palace. The majestic narrative is in part due to the grand architecture that emulates 15th-century Italian villas, inclusive of gilded and fresco ceilings hand-painted by Florentine artisans. Guest rooms, marked by neutral shades that deliberately play second fiddle to the view of either turquoise blue ocean or verdant gardens, match the resort’s comfortable sophistication.
Casa Cipriani – New York City
This New York hotel is a Cipriani property, so it’s luxury to the max, but in that effortlessly chic Italian sort of way. Picture it: presidential suites featuring cashmere-covered walls by Loro Piana Interiors – that’s the sort of luxurious detail you’ll find in every nook and cranny of the guest rooms at Casa Cipriani. It’s hard not to fall completely under the spell of the hotel from the minute you step into your room or suite. Maybe it’s the Art Deco light fixtures or artwork on the wall. Maybe it’s the jazz playing softly in the background, or the way the setting sun hit the lacquer furniture and the shiny brass knobs. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the guest rooms at Casa Cipriani are the private terraces.
The Charleston Place – South Carolina
Since opening in 1986, The Charleston Place has garnered praise for its architectural sleight of hand. Hidden behind a row of diminutive and colorful 19th-century storefronts lurks the Holy City’s largest hotel: a behemoth at 434 rooms, with upper floors deliberately set back to render them invisible from street view, preserving the intimate scale of the city. At ground level, good-natured jacketed greeters swing open double glass doors to usher you into gleaming marble hallways lined with high-end boutiques and galleries, culminating in a grand central lobby.
Chateau Marmont – Los Angeles
West Hollywood’s secretive Francophile-inspired institution, Chateau Marmont has been the domain of Eve Babitz, Anthony Bourdain, Hunter S Thompson, Lana Del Rey and even an annual Beyoncé and Jay-Z Oscars afterparty. In a city that is notoriously sprawling and decentralized, it is the beating heart of off-duty Hollywood, and the washed-up starlet most fun to drink with. Whether you’re peeking over your sunglasses at the infamous palm-shrouded pool or sipping something heady in the lobby bar, with its moody Old Hollywood lighting, you are a someone here – everyone is.
Eden Rock St Barths
Chic, glamourous and island-appropriate way. This is how Eden Rock St. Barths can be described. It’s the type of place that just being there makes you feel like the most glam, sun-kissed version of yourself. The hotel is almost entirely surrounded by calm, gin-bottle blue water that’s heavenly for a swim. There’s a diving platform a little ways out, and you can take out rafts and paddle around the point. The rooms are lovely and elegant, with a subtle Carib-meets-nautical vibe, at once bright and airy.
Fairmont Hotel Vancouver – Canada
Nicknamed the Castle in the City, the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver feels grand at every step. The grandiose hotel’s Art Deco–influenced aesthetic leans into deep blues and bronzes, with marble and velvet accents – a look that carries into the rooms too. Left in place after the renovation was much of the building’s original woodwork, crown moldings, and built-in decorative fireplaces that keep the hotel’s historic feel alive and well.
Farmhouse Inn – Sonoma, California
Located near the Russian River, this 25-room property feels delightfully laid-back and intimate. The Inn has five different room categories, and all are beautiful with a country-chic look; bright and airy with white wainscoting, pillowy bedding, and haute-rustic touches that might include a personal welcome message, a fireplace, and comfortable overstuffed chairs. All in all, Farmhouse Inn looks and feels like a classic New England country charmer.
Four Seasons at the Surf Club – Miami
In the quiet residential enclave of Surfside, ensconced between the skin-revealing glitter of Miami Beach proper and the buttoned-up flash of Bal Harbour, the Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club is a timeless and all-welcoming, new-fashioned take on old-school glamor. In 72 of the 77 guest rooms and suites in the new towers, glass balconies give way to soothing interiors by famed Paris-based creator Joseph Dirand, delivering design studies in midcentury modern updated for the present day, underscored by juxtapositions of travertine–finished spaces, clean-lined-yet-curvaceous hybrid furnishings, and tastefully gilded accents.
The Greenwich – New York City
This exquisitely designed property in Tribeca opened its doors in 2008, but feels like it’s been part of the city’s fabric for much longer. The Greenwich is the hotel’s lived-in aesthetic textures: Not one of its 87 rooms, suites, and penthouses looks like another, all furnished by your chicest, most well-traveled uncle. In the guest rooms, there are Savoir beds, hand-made and cloud-like; in the bathrooms, Carrara marble and Moroccan tile; in the lobby, terra-cotta floors modeled after those in a 14th-century Italian palazzo; in the spa, timber that once held up a 250-year-old farmhouse in Japan—all of it undeniably luxe yet somehow unpretentious.
Meadowood – Napa, California
There are a lot of excellent places to stay in Napa Valley, but Meadowood has been the veritable heart of this region for over 60 years, and it shows. From its 36 guest rooms and suites designed by locally based, globally renowned architect Howard Bracken, to its impressive wine center spotlighting the area’s best vineyards, and a spa that taps into the area’s centuries-old legacy as a wellness destination. The guest rooms and suites have a sort of chic barn feel. They aren’t at all rustic – clean lines, a sea of white and neutrals – but the wainscoting and high, beamed ceilings do give fancy farmhouse energy.
Round Hill Hotel and Villas – Montego Bay, Jamaica
It’s easy to imagine that very little has changed at Round Hill Hotel and Villas, a 1950s-era resort. The green-striped awnings shading vast terraces and the interiors’ cream-colored paneling offset by dark wood, along with the tea and sandwiches served at four sharp every afternoon, enhance that caught-in-time feeling.
Thompson Seattle
Designers and building buffs love the Thompson chain’s focus on architectural details, and its Seattle location, which debuted in 2016. With an angular glass exterior by local firm Olson Kundig and modern-yet-friendly furnishings throughout, the hotel has quickly earned a reputation as Seattle’s most stylish stay, in which the rooms are sharply furnished and understated, with dark woods, navy accents, and stately pin-striped duvets.
White Elephant Nantucket
The harborside White Elephant is a historic inn-and-cottages resort that masters classic New England chic whilst keeping up with the times. Case in point, the resort just celebrated its 100th birthday with a complete top-to-bottom renovation of the 54-key hotel and 11 on-site cottages, including a new artist-in-residency program and airy interiors paying homage to the island’s basket-weaving and seafaring heritage. Cerulean textiles, brass elephant-head door knockers, wood and leather armchairs, and marble accents compliment the ocean and white caps just beyond the window.
XV Beacon – Boston
With only seven guest rooms per floor, XV Beacon has a distinctly residential feel, and rooms are spacious but still intimate. The fact that each one comes with a personal fireplace speaks to the level of luxury and coziness here. Every detail feels special, from the Frette linens, and the one-of-a-kind commissioned artworks, to the cashmere throws, and the pillow menu. A transportive paradise of serenity and relaxation.
These are the best hotels and resorts in North America! What is your favorite one?
