Richmond's Once-Moribund Jefferson Hotel Just Got Top Marks
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Guest Arrival Phase: Doorman/Bellman obtains guest name from luggage tag and uses it, escorts guest to the front desk. . . . The guest's name is used more than once.
-- Mobil Hotel Rating Criteria
It starts with the name. Sometime between opening my car door for me and opening the lobby door, they get my name. And they use it. The bellman -- fishing bags out of the trunk -- hands us off to a doorman, who hands us off to another doorman (the head doorman?) hovering at the center of the Jefferson noble entrance court. He gets us to the door and passes us to a valet who whisks us inside and hands us to another valet who seems to be waiting for us in the lobby, and who in turn delivers us to the front desk clerk, who knows just who we are and greets us . . . by name. In the first three minutes I am called Mr. Hendrix by so many people I feel like a high school science teacher.
I'm not sure if it's because the Jefferson staff is still abuzz from last month's announcement that it is officially one of the country's very, very best hotels, or if this is their natural ebullience -- albeit one nurtured to the point of choreography. But these days, when you arrive at the Jefferson, you know you've arrived.
And that, apparently, is what makes the five-star difference, according to Mobil, the oil company that has been rating hotels and restaurants since early in the automobile age. Once a hotel has climbed through Mobil's constellation of rankings from one star ("provides a comfortable night's lodging . . . entrance is free of cigarette butts") to four stars ("has its own style and personality . . . is luxurious, creatively decorated, and superbly maintained"), it becomes much harder to specify exactly what boosts a few properties into the ultimate stratum ("among the best in the United States, superb in every respect and entirely memorable.") Like pornography, five-star quality is hard to define, but you know it when you see it.
Still, Mobil does give some detailed guidance to the well-dressed army of travel critics it sends out each year to review anonymously some 22,000 candidate properties. "They look at every experience from arrival to departure," says Mobil spokeswoman Sandy Duhe. "Everything from how their car is handled to how their reservation is handled to how their shoes are shined. And when a property is being added to the list or taken off the list, it is visited more than once, even more than twice."
Public Spaces: The exterior of property is immaculate. Signage is visible and free from chips and fading. The public areas overall present a level of elegance and exude excellence. Staff use service elevators only. The quality of furnishings and decor is high, custom designed, and congruent with the establishment overall.
There used to be alligators in the fountains of the Jefferson lobby. The first pair was abandoned by some early-century guests returning from Florida, and reptiles lounging around the Palm Court became a tradition that lasted almost 50 years. There aren't any gators here now -- nor any fountains, for that matter -- but the lobby is still striking enough to make you catch your step, no matter how briskly you're being escorted. It's a high, colored space under stained glass, a sort-of cathedral canopy over a towering full-size statue of Thomas Jefferson. Off to the left and down a plunging Niagara staircase, a lower lobby is even more resplendent, a grove of 40-foot columns surrounding a marble meadow of plush chairs, pianos and carved wood. It's a five-star space indeed that makes you feel so grand by so utterly dwarfing you.
In the public restrooms, the vanities are clean and dry. The toilet paper is pointed after servicing.
Toilet paper pointed -- check.
Guest Room and Bath: The room has a sense of elegance. The furniture is of high quality fabric and may be custom designed. 100 percent cotton high-quality linens and down pillows are standard. The dust ruffle is pressed properly, and touching the floor. The closet is illuminated and there is ample space for personal belongings. A minimum of 4 skirt and 6 suit and 4 padded hangers are present.
The desk clerk releases us (guest key and credit card are placed directly in guest's hand) and a valet escorts us up the elevators and down the soft halls to our room, asking how our trip was. Johnny the bellman is already there when we arrive, hanging our things in the closet (indeed illuminated, certainly roomy) on hangers numerous, yes, and padded. He points out the many phones, the thermostat, the mini-bar stocked with premium brands, the TV with video games. When Johnny comes back with a full ice bucket, I hold out my hand and he whips off his white glove with a seamless gesture before shaking it. Nice!
In the bath, there may be separate shower and tub facilities. The floors and counters are likely marble, there may be a lighted makeup mirror and a heat lamp. Designer bath amenities are available.
Check, check and check. The tub is deep and blinding white, the robes spotless and thick, the towels as long as burial shrouds. You could shoot a movie under these lights, but you couldn't find a spore of mildew. My wife fills the tub with drifts of warm bubbles. I open the mini bar . . . .
The Jefferson hasn't always worked so well, or looked so good. Richmond's fanciest hotel was built at the end of the 1800s expressly to be one of the finest in the South, and for much of the 20th century it was a well-upholstered crossroads of Richmond society and American celebrity. But a ruinous fire in 1901 checked its career, and another blaze in 1944 set off a gradual decline to mediocrity that finally shuttered the Jefferson completely in 1980. It reopened six years later as a Sheraton but still with poor reviews from those who remembered its glory days.
"It was seedy," Richmond businessman William Goodwin tells me over a breakfast of grits and fruit in Lemaire, the hotel's four-star restaurant. Goodwin was no hotelier (he made his fortunes through computer leasing and as the one-time owner of AMF Bowling), but he still perked up as a proud native when an investor asked him and his partner to put up some money to save the good old Jefferson. "If it hadn't been the Jefferson in Richmond we never would have had that meeting at all. As it was, we ended up owning the hotel."
They brought in a hospitality wunderkind from Washington named Prem Devadas and told him he had $5 million to get it turned around. Last year, they sunk another $4 million into expanding the dining room, adding a vast new porte coche{grv}re entrance and an indoor pool.
Services: Concierge service is available 24 hours per day. Services are unlimited and include babysitting, personal shopping, pet sitting, etc. The concierge staff is creative in handling requests.
"We've had people lend guests their running shoes," says Jeanita Harris, a 15-year employee and now director of guest services. Ebullient, of course. "We've washed shirts and taken them home to iron at midnight. We've run to Wal-Mart at 3 in the morning to find computer equipment for a guest."
Clothing disasters are the most common, Harris says -- forgotten tuxedos, mismatched socks. Men and brides are the worst. "We keep a box of cuff links and collar stays standing by," she says. Recently, a guest asked the concierge desk to organize a quick helicopter tour to Williamsburg and back. "Whatever it takes."
Last fall, I learned how hard it is to stump the Jefferson concierge desk. A friend and I stayed here during a kayaking weekend along the in-town rapids of the James River. After our last run, we called the hotel for a ride. A few minutes later, a black limo pulled up at the river's edge and I climbed in -- soaking wet, muddy neoprene and all.
The driver's only comment: "How was the water, Mr. Hendrix?"
Escape Keys
Virginia:
D.C.: None
Maryland: None.
Delaware: None.
Pennsylvania: None.
West Virginia: The Greenbri -- oops. None. (The Greenbrier lost its fifth star last year.)