Artsy Hotel Raises the Barre
Ballet Director Teaches Doormen and Bellhops Some Classy Moves

By Adriane Quinlan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Yesterday's staff training at the flashy new Hotel Palomar included none of the standard lectures, manuals or cheesy retro videotapes.

Instead, the management sent in ballet dancers. And comedians.

And so the sleek marble lobby bobbed with the compact frame and overflowing personality of Washington Ballet Artistic Director Septime Webre, who commandeered a troupe of lavender-shirted bellhops in a lesson of classical ballet.

"Fluid movements, one two three, one two three," Webre chanted, extending his arm toward the lobby's textured wallpaper. "Tuck in your [backside]. No booties out in Maryland, please. It's 202, not 301."

Greenbelt resident and Palomar bellboy-in-training Alvin Green tucked in. "This is extensive training," he said. "It's a . . . uh . . . different experience." Sighing at Green's port de bras, Septime said only, "Very, very good" before swanning away to adjust the shoulders of a future concierge.

That the Palomar has given its hotel a theme ("Art -- in motion," revealed General Manager Brett Orlando with a dramatic pause) may not come as a surprise. Though the theme of some chain hotels seems to be "Hand over credit card, get key," boutique hotels in past years have attempted to one-up each other in lobby spectacle. Think of the Standard in Los Angeles with its live female model ("performance artist") behind glass near the check-in. Or the Hotel QT near New York's Times Square with its glass wall looking through to swimmers lounging in a "plunge pool."

"There's a notion in hospitality that 'a great waiter disappears,' but I disagree with that," Webre said with a flourish. "I think of a lobby as a stage set."

Echoed Orlando, adjusting his taupe plaid tie against his taupe striped shirt: "Every hotel tells a story."

The Palomar hopes to tell its story to gallery-hopping guests who would get excited about chocolates hand-painted by an "artist chocolatier" and nightly "art of wine" tastings at which local artists mingle with the crowd. The Dupont Circle hotel will have its grand opening in September, but is currently accepting guests on a limited basis. It is Kimpton Hotels' seventh location in the District; others include Hotel Monaco and the Hotel Madera, just two blocks away.

At the Hotel Palomar, book the "ballet suite" with its barre and wall of mirrors and you'll become a patron of the arts: An (undisclosed) portion of the room fee will be donated to the Washington Ballet, according to Orlando.

But back to training.

Along with all the fancy physical footwork, employees must dance around guests' demanding personalities, too. Enter comedians from the Washington Improv Theater, who were called in to train the staff in how to deal with difficult customers.

By a carved column of dark ebony, comedians Amy Saidman and Natasha Rothwell theatrically complained yesterday, throwing up their hands like prima donnas, while bellhops improvised ways to calm them.

As she ran her finger over her chest flirtatiously, Rothwell stage-whispered in a low, breathy drawl, "I could stay longer than three nights."

Amid the hoots and whistles of the watching employees, bellhop Wendell Williams said, in absolute deadpan, "That won't be possible, ma'am."

Previously employed in a hotel dining room, "but never the front desk," the Improv's artistic director, Mark Chalfant, now captains the troupe's corporate events team. "We went out to Las Vegas to do some work for the MGM Grand staff and we did get to stay in the MGM. . . . I haven't hit up the Palomar for a room yet," he said. Why on Earth not? "Last time I was here it was all exposed concrete. I had no idea it would be so sexy."

"Sexy," apparently, is cold marble tile giving way to dark wood or limestone walls, with framed chunks of coral set in recessed, lighted boxes. A freestanding glass sculpture in the middle of the room is covered with those smiling and frowning drama masks.

Or, as Orlando described it: "We're as minimalistic as possible to allow the guests to experience art. So our lobby is discreet and philosophical."

Looking around the lobby, ballet master Webre explained what he saw to his students: "The theatrical experience is going to have a beginning . . . when the curtain goes up and the lights go on. This is that beginning."

Orlando agreed with Webre's vision: "Art starts at the curb when the bellman opens the door."

And so Webre Pied-Pipered a thin line of bellboys out to P Street, where they practiced opening the heavy glass doors. A van painted with the logo Trash Masters Inc. slowed to ogle him praising one employee for "a good welcome gesture" but chastising his "much, much too small a guiding gesture."

While the other bellhops clumped into the lobby to practice how to properly pick up a piece of luggage, Green sashayed out to the curb, where an SUV had just pulled up. He unloaded a trunkful of matching bags onto a brassy service cart and opened the plate-glass door for one of the hotel's first guests.

"Welcome," he said, smiling broadly as he bent in a bit of a plie.