The Secret’s secret: It doesn’t work on design

Have you ever dreamed of spending the night at Caribou Coffee?

Well, I haven’t either, so I was perplexed when, on a recent business trip, I walked into what looked like the largest Caribou I’d ever seen (the Starbucks near the lobby made that observation all the more confusing).

While I haven’t actually read The Secret, my conversations with Oprah, although admittedly one-sided, had instilled in my heart a quiet confidence that I understood the basic tenants. So the faux boulders in the lobby shook me to my very core – I had certainly not visualized this.

Continued . . .

At the reception desk, I was surprised to see liquid hand sanitizer. What the? Then I heard the kids. Armies of kids running around screaming. The desk clerk seemed to sympathize. “If you were a kid, you’d love it,” she whispered. She had no idea who she was talking to; at four, I was critiquing the sets on One Life to Live. Vicki Buchanan is rich; her secret room would never look that bad.

My pulse quickened as I hurried to my room passing one bad design element after another. I breathed a sigh of relief upon entering; hotel rooms are basically all the same, right?

Wrong.

They put me in a kid’s suite. If you think life is passing you by, I suggest you book two nights at a place like this – I promise time will crawl.

How important is design in your choice of hotel? Are you willing to spend more to get it? What’s your favorite hotel? Maybe I’m being unfair – after a year where I stayed at Hotel Bourg Tibourg in Paris, the Soho Hotel in London and the Ace Hotel in Portland, anything would look bad.

This is not a TV, it’s “art” in the hallway

What? A red dragon?

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