Clayton Hotel & Members Club

A destination fee is seldom good news. At the Clayton it is the reason to book, because the hotel is a private members' club with 63 rooms, and the fee lets hotel guests in: to its lounges and steam rooms, and a gym that never closes. 4240 Architecture took two four-storey buildings and made one six-storey building of them, faced in charcoal brick, with the name in gold script above a canopy lined in pale wood. AvroKO did the rooms in pale blue to shoulder height and white above, with a brass lamp on a swing arm by the sofa. The best of it is the roof. A long bar runs under rattan lanterns on herringbone oak, the floor-to-ceiling windows look over the treetops of Cherry Creek rather than downtown's skyline, and the heated pool stays open until ten at night.

Recommended for anyone who likes the idea of a members' club and would rather not join one, and for families, who have the Clayton Two Queen, or a Junior King Suite that connects to a King Guestroom. Admission to the Denver Zoo, about ten minutes by car, and to the Botanic Gardens, twenty on foot, is included in the stay, and Cherry Creek North's shops and galleries start at the front door. At Alteño, Johnny Curiel cooks from Los Altos de Jalisco, which the hotel calls the birthplace of mariachi and fine tequila, and guests' reviews praise the food. Dogs are welcome, two to a room, with a bed, a bowl and treats waiting, but in the public rooms they keep to the lobby level, so the club stays strictly two-legged.