Taking His Work Home

Because he logs about 400,000 miles each year as travel editor for NBC’s “Today,” Peter Greenberg sleeps in a hotel almost every night. For the 60 or so scattered days a year that he needs a place of his own, he has created a home in Sherman Oaks that uniquely reflects the language and imagery he knows best.

The doorbell is an air horn from the Mississippi Queen riverboat; the hardwood floors replicate the Presidential Suite of the Sheraton in Stockholm. His door locks are from the St. Regis in New York and light sconces from the Park Hyatt in Sydney. And that’s just what you see from the front door, which came from the Regent in Bangkok.

Venture further and there’s the bathtub from the Peninsula in Hong Kong, tiles from the Four Seasons in Hawaii, a high-tech toilet from the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, a clock from the Hilton in Akron, Ohio, and a bed from the Four Seasons in New York.

At 51, Greenberg’s job is to transform his audience from mere tourists into canny travelers and show them sights they might not be able to reach. In addition to “Today,” he dispenses advice on “Oprah,” and he’s just finished producing “Jordan: The Royal Tour,” a one-hour special for the Travel Channel scheduled to air this fall, in which King Abdullah II leads a private tour of the wilds and wonders of his country. Greenberg’s also promoting his new book, “The Travel Detective” (Random House), filled with advice and anecdotes.

“I’m much more interested in substance and function than in aesthetics,” said Greenberg, who talked at his home and, over the course of a few weeks, while boarding a plane bound for Amman, Jordan; at his family’s summer home on Fire Island, N.Y.; and via e-mail on his way to a 3 a.m. flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

“In 15 years of travel, when I saw something great in a hotel and it really worked, I’d make a note of it, I’d remember. If it was really cool I’d think, ‘I’d like to have that one day.”’

The day came on Jan. 17, 1994, when the Northridge earthquake hit. Greenberg’s home of 16 years was red-tagged. By the time wrecking crews left, he and his architect, Santa Monica-based Garth Sheriff, were staring at a muddy hole. “Garth had me make a wish list for the new house, and I went room to room, starting in the bathroom,” Greenberg said. “He was laughing by the time I was done. Without realizing, I had put together a house built on my best hotel experiences.”

Forty-seven hotels, actually. And with a direct line to each one’s chief executive and general manager, Greenberg learned that yes, he could buy for himself a certain floor or bed or lamp or sink. So he cashed in some frequent flier miles and, architect in tow, went on a global shopping trip.

They started in Bangkok, where the Regent Hotel maintains a workshop and showroom to build the teak furniture and moldings it uses in its rooms. Armed with detailed plans, Greenberg ordered chairs, tables and couches. On another stop, he bought a 15-inch ceiling-mounted deluge shower head like those at London’s Savoy Hotel. He ordered a spa-like tub like one in the Peninsula in Hong Kong and has placed it behind a clear privacy window that, like those in the Princeville Resort in Kauai, fogs up at the touch of a button.

His bedroom and the guest room have king-sized beds like those in the Four Seasons in New York, and guests get the extra perk of a pair of first-class airline seats sent to Greenberg by United Airlines when it phased out the DC-10. A walk-in closet is modeled after the fabled Oriental hotel in Bangkok. That blur of white terry? A dozen hotel bathrobes.

Each time someone calls the house, dozens of antique hotel phones clatter, controlled by a PBX board stashed in the garage. “They all work, but you’ve got to dial 9 to get an outside line,” Greenberg said.

Outside, the house looks like a tiny village of four peak-roofed houses, based on Greenberg’s East Coast roots. (“The joke was we were building four Monopoly houses in search of a hotel,” Greenberg said. “Then they come inside, and it is a hotel.”)

A diamond of dark wood flooring in the entryway stands in the exact place it did in his demolished home, and from that spot you can see into every room and every part of the backyard. A 1906 Wedgwood stove, also from a previous home, gives a retro touch to the sleek, trophy kitchen. Dozens of Buddha statues fill the rooms, some small and simple, others richly carved and painted. All come with a story.

“That’s the thing about this house: It’s a story, it’s my story. It’s comfortable, it’s homey, and it works,” Greenberg said. “And of course we have a three-night minimum stay.”