A New Destination Resort for Harried Travelers: The Plush Hotel Bathroom

“A well-fitted shower cap, not too small, not too big; an extra toothbrush and tube of toothpaste; a small bottle of mouthwash; a nice big bathrobe; hypo-allergenic, non-perfumed soaps; shampoo and conditioner, and a makeup area with good lighting.” These are some of the things Martha Stewart likes to find in hotel bathrooms.

Others would say her list is too meager by half. My friend Linda Yellin wants bath salts; my globe-trotting sister likes electric towel warmers; and for the Roman Empress Poppaea (as played by Claudette Colbert in the 1932 movie “The Sign of the Cross”), nothing less than a tub full of asses’ milk would do.

Few of us have towel warmers at home, but when we’re away such amenities can be ours, if only for a few days--which may be why women tend to brighten at the mere mention of hotel bathrooms. To most men the baths in hotels are functional places where you shower and shave. But to women the best of the lot are marvelous clean slates someone else tidies up, seductively decorated and full of delightful doodads you’re expected to take away.

At the budget end of the spectrum, you’re still likely to find a prefab tub with a frumpy rubber mat, thin towels and miniature bottles of generic shampoo not worth pocketing. But if you spend more--and once in her life every woman should, I think--the baths in hotels become the stuff of fantasy, pleasure palaces where you waste entire afternoons primping while others see the sights.

L.A. interior designer April Greiman loves above all the bathrooms at the Tawaraya ryokan in Kyoto, with their own private gardens. Martha Stewart thinks the villas at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas have the best-outfitted baths. Janet Greer, president of Designers II, a firm headquartered in Atlanta that has created bathrooms for Hilton and Sheraton, thrills at the memory of a bathing chamber at the Amanpuri Hotel in Thailand, with an oval tub made of teak overlooking the Andaman Sea. My traditionalist sister likes the style and accouterments of the Park Lane Sheraton in London. Grace Leo-Andrieu, a luxury hotel consultant based in Paris, recalls honeymooning in a suite at the Hong Kong Regent Hotel, where picture windows transformed the tub into a front row seat on the city’s stunning skyline. My pal Linda, who lives in New York, would come back to L.A. in a split second to sink into a tub-for-two at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica, and I have fond memories of the bath at the little Pringga Juwita Inn in Bali, where half of the room was open to the sky and one morning I woke to find a mother cat nursing kittens in the tropical greenery under the sink.

All in all, hotel bathrooms have come out of the closet in recent years, due in part to the fact that an increasing number of designers and consultants are women. High-end baths are getting bigger, with a place to sit, separate shower stalls and tubs, double sinks and room enough for two to do their ablutions. The European custom of placing the toilet in a small, separate chamber has crossed the Atlantic, though the U.S. persists in turning its back on bidets; as Janet Greer says, “Americans still aren’t sure what to do with them.”

Bathroom gadgetry has come a long way too, particularly when you consider that there were no proper bathrooms in Buckingham Palace as late as 1830. These days hair dryers hardly seem worth comment next to appliances such as phones, TVs, CD players, radios and heated mirrors that don’t steam up when you take a shower. At the American Club, a Wisconsin resort owned by Kohler Co., the plumbing manufacturer, every tub has whirlpool jets, while some have “bath habitats” that can be programmed to emit cycles of sunshine, steam, misty rain and gentle breezes. The tubs at the Nob Hill Lambourne in San Francisco are extra deep, with dial-up temperature controls and faucets by your hip instead of at your feet--an admirable feature that lets you really stretch out. And for those who favor antique-looking fittings, isn’t it a pleasure to find a single tap replacing separate ones for hot and cold water (which make it hard to wash up without scalding and freezing yourself by turns).

Comfy robes and plush towels are a plus, and though it’s environmentally incorrect, few protest having housekeeping change them twice a day. And then there are all those wonderful free bathroom products in chic brand names, such as Hermes at Hotel Le Bristol in Paris, Floris at the New York Palace, Contemporel at the Clarence in Dublin, and Rainforest Essentials at Shutters in Santa Monica, where the bathrooms also have candles, fresh flowers and rubber play toys for the tub (to make guests feel like they’re staying in a beach house instead of a hotel).

Best of all is the fact that hotel bathrooms are more aesthetically pleasing than they used to be--in fact, downright stylish. April Greiman favors clear glass shower stalls that yield a “floaty” effect; Grace Leo-Andrieu emphasizes precious materials such as African wenge wood; and Janet Greer ties her bathrooms together visually with color-coordinated fabrics.

“Women in particular respond to sophistication,” in the opinion of hotelier Ian Schrager, who, with the help of designer Philippe Starck, has transformed hotels like the Mondrian in L.A. and the Delano in Miami into chic, minimalist meccas. At the newly refurbished Delano, that extends to the bathrooms, which have tubs molded out of seamless blocks of marble. I haven’t seen them, but they sound rather like the first bathroom in recorded history, which dates back to 1800 BC and was owned by King Minos of Crete Modern amenities are nice, but I’d pay a bundle to take a bath there.