D4| Saturday/Sunday, February 22 - 23, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
old-fashioned approach, including
Curtain Bluff in Antigua, with a
breezy open-air library organized
around the simple “take a book,
leave a book” premise. “When you
immerse yourself in their world,
that’s the real vacation,” said Ms.
Ubell-Meyer. Here, a few other
bookish hotels, as well as recom-
mended reading:The Gates Hotel
Key West, Fla.
Why read by the pool when you can
read in the pool? Last year, the
Gates Hotels debuted an underwa-
ter library. Created by Bibliobath
on synthetic paper made from
polypropylene, the collection in-
cludes waterproof and tear-resis-
tant classics such as “Macbeth”
and short stories by Mark Twain.
So, now, at long last, you can quote
Lady Macbeth while playing Marco
Polo.From $267 a night, gatesho-
telkeywest.com
Book pick“Wild Milk” by Sabrina
Orah Mark. “The stories are a
crazy mix of surreal, funny, heart-
breaking and serious,” said Lee
Sheehan, area director of sales
and marketing.Acqualina Resort &
Residences
Miami, Fla.
Guests tote the Bedside Reading
books from the beach to the pool to
hammocks around the resort. Some
authors such as Michelle Tillis Led-
erman lead book discussions for
guests; and, for kids, there’s a
monthly Story Hour in the library.
From $700 a night, acqualinare-
sort.com
Book pick“Finding Mrs. Ford” by
Deborah Goodrich Royce. “I love
thrillers, and this one kept me on
the edge,” said Alexandra Wensley,
the resort’s vice president of
communications.The Jefferson
Washington, D.C.
The hotel library stocks leather-
boundbooks on Thomas Jefferson’s
favorite subjects (including orni-
thology), and at the Michelin-
starred Plume, solo diners can
pluck a book from the shelf above
the bar. The hotel also donates a
book to a child for every room re-served through DC Public Library
Foundation’s partnership with Dolly
Parton’s Imagination Library.From
$327 a night, jeffersondc.com
Book pick“Brunelleschi’s Dome:
How a Renaissance Genius Rein-
vented Architecture” by Ross King.
“It’s a nonfiction book that reads
like a movie script,” said Susan Sul-
livan Lagon, hotel historian.Chatham Bars Inn
Chatham, Mass.
In January, this Cape Cod inn with
its own library of a few hundred
books hosted its first Literary Week-
end, where author Casey Sherman
led writing workshops.From about
$295 a night, chathambarsinn.com
Book pick“Where the Crawdads
Sing” by Delia Owens. “I love when a
book captures my attention from the
first sentence,” said Coleen Traynor,
library consultant for the inn.Kimpton Hotel Arras
Asheville, N.C.
There are loaner books throughout
the lobby, but you can also grab one
by a local author—such as “HauntedBYKELSEYOGLETREE
THE AGE OFof the dreaded
cruise-ship terminal—those
colossal clearing houses that
often squat on prime water-
front real estate—might be
coming to an end. Consider
the cascading terraces of the
new extension of Hong Kong’s
Ocean Terminal, designed by
British architect Norman Fos-
ter. Its glass walls and cantile-
vered levels stand at the wa-
ter’s edge—overlooking the
Kowloon Peninsula to the
north and Causeway Bay to
the south—with restaurants,
shops and outdoor space open
to all. Or Zaha Hadid’s reinven-
tion of the marine terminal in
Salerno, Italy, that looks like anoyster shell. Or Luís Pedro
Silva’s Porto Cruise Terminal,
in Portugal, that seems to un-
spool like a ribbon, or the five
white 90-foot sails that have
made the Canada Place Cruise
Terminal a landmark in down-
town Vancouver.
“Look at airports,” said Car-
olyn Spencer Brown, chief
content officer of Cruise Me-
dia. “No one goes there unless
they have to. You’re captive.
So there’s been a lot of effort
to seem more regional and
more appealing—and to make
more money.”
Enter Galataport. Spread
along a mile of waterfront on
the Bosporus, the $1.85 billiondevelopment of the 500-year-
old neighborhood aims to be a
micro Istanbul within the
Turkish city. Four renovated
buildings will turn into a 170-
room Peninsula hotel (Penin-
sula is an investor in the proj-
ect); a long 1911 structure with
a baroque skylight will be a
Covent Garden-style shopping
arcade; there are two muse-
ums (including the Istanbul
Modern museum in its new
Renzo Piano-designed home);
restored Ottoman era
mosques and gardens; and
lots of restaurants, cafes and
pedestrian avenues, all an-
chored by a 31,000-square-
foot underground cruise ter-
minal. When it opens in April,
all the evils of security, cus-
toms and immigration, bag-
gage check and ground trans-
port will take place on two
subterranean levels. “Before
we took over,” said Figen
Ayan, vice president of Galata-
port’s cruise operations, “the
port was surrounded by ugly
fences, looked like a jail and
was closed to the public. Our
dream was to give access to
the waterfront and pier to ev-
eryone.”—Christian L. WrightSplashy new cruise-ship piers are rippling through several cities
Port of Appeal
ALAMY (PORTUGAL); GETTY IMAGES (SALERNO)The Porto Cruise
Terminal in
Matosinhos, Portugal.Hotels and resorts where the featured
amenities turn out to be real page-turnersRead the Room
Y
ears ago, Jane Ubell-
Meyer found herself
dumped by a boy-
friend while vacation-
ing together in St.
Maarten. The only thing that saved
her trip? A book, namely “Cry to
Heaven” by Anne Rice. In 2017, Ms.
Ubell-Meyer, a former celebrity-gift-
bag consultant, turned her lifesaver
into a business called Bedside Read-
ing. Each month, the company se-
lects books for more than two dozen
hotels, with collections tailored to
the property’s clientele. Conrad New
York, for example, offers business
books, while lifestyle hotels like the
James New York—SoHo include
some racier options (i.e., “Vicious”
by L.J. Shen). For guests, the books
are complimentary, and housekeep-
ing replaces them until stock runs
out—and fresh titles arrive the fol-
lowing month. Almost all the books
get taken, said Ms. Ubell-Meyer.
That’s a good sign, considering
the latest stats on reading: Fewer
than 18% of adults reported reading
for pleasure daily in 2018, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics—an all-time low. But a number
of hotels, and not just those that
participate in the Bedside Reading
program, cater to traveling book-
worms. Some pride themselves on
enormous libraries, such as Hakone
Honbako, which opened in Hakone,
Japan last year, with more than
10,000 tomes (though few are in
English). Other places take a more
‘When you immerse
yourself in their world,
that’s the real vacation.’
Asheville” by Joshua P. Warren—off
the hotel’s Serenity Cart, which
wheels around in the evening.From
$179 a night, hotelarras.com
Book pick“Becoming” by Michelle
Obama. “It gave me insight into the
lives of some of today’s most histor-
ical figures and their struggles,” said
Michael-David Carpenter, the hotel’s
guest experience manager.Hotel Commonwealth
Boston
The Reading Suite has its own book
nook, literature-inspired memora-
bilia and 50 titles signed by authors
who have stayed at the hotel. All
rooms are replenished with fresh
books each month, and guests can
tune into Bedside Reading’s new
podcast, featuring conversations
with authors, streaming through
room TVs.From $190 a night, hotel-
commonwealth.com
Book pick“Non Obvious Mega
Trends” by Rohit Bhargava. “The
power to identify trends that are just
percolating below the surface can be
transformative,” said Adam Sper-
ling, the hotel’s general manager.RAY BERNOFF (HOTEL COMMONWEALTH)
PUMP UP THE VOLUMEThe library at the Jefferson hotel in Washington, D.C., which favors vintage editions.BEDTIME STORYOne of the books
offered to guests at Boston’s Hotel
Commonwealth.The Zaha Hadid-designed marine terminal in Salerno, Italy.NEWYORKCITY 26 Varick St | 1625 York Ave
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