Hotel Roger Williams Rating: 3.5 Pearls

Gramercy and Murray Hill, Manhattan, New York City

The lobby

The Hotel Roger Williams has found the right formula: cool interiors with warm service. Walking into this 193-room hotel is like walking into a Scandinavian design showroom. The lobby's geometric rug, oversize lamps, and eclectic color palette give that saucy, fashionable air. So it's a tad surprising when the good-looking doorman with his deep baritone says, "Welcome to Hotel Roger Williams. We're happy to have you here," and he sounds like he means it.

Most of the guests are leisure travelers who have time to hang out in the alcoved seating areas around the lobby. There are also business travelers too, and the front desk is happy to help with late-night services.

The front desk

Service is exceptional, so ignore the hotel website's strangely worded description: "'Roger greets his guests with a cagey wink and welcoming nod." Not the best self-promotion.

The staffers have obviously been trained to go above and beyond the normal level of courtesy. At check-in, the receptionist prefaced every request with "If I could trouble you," as in "If I could trouble you for your credit card..." The desk staff also plays the role of concierge. Even the doormen seem to have come straight out of charm school -- Each time I walked through the entrance, it was more than a cursory greeting. It was, "Welcome back, Ms. Y! It's good to see you again." Yes, they remember your name. In the hotel's post-stay survey, one of the things they ask the guests is if they were made to feel "important."

Besides being charming, the staffers are efficient. Every request I made was answered within five minutes, whether it was asking an engineer to check on the bedside phone that wasn't working, or requesting another room key.

View on a Larger Map

With its corporate offices and residential buildings, the Murray Hill neighborhood gets quiet at night -- at least compared with the 24-hour bustle of Times Square or hip downtown 'hoods like the Lower East Side. It's also a safe part of town where local families take their kids to Madison Square Park, five short blocks from the hotel.

The nearest subway is the 6 train on 33rd Street and Park Avenue, a three-minute walk from Roger Williams. The 6 line runs along the east side of Manhattan, and is just one stop away from Grand Central Station, which has a shuttle train that connects to Times Square, the main hub for subway lines. Cabs are easy to hail outside the hotel entrance.

Valet parking is available at $50/24 hours. There's also a self-park garage called Icon on 32nd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. The discounted hotel rate is $22/24 hours. The parking ticket must be stamped by the hotel front desk to earn the discount.

New York City has three nearby airports: JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark (in New Jersey). Flying into JFK or LaGuardia is typically easiest and the least time consuming. From JFK, it's a flat-rate $45 (one-hour) taxi to anywhere in Manhattan. From LaGuardia, it's about a $40 (30-minute) metered cab ride to midtown Manhattan. Rides from Newark cost at least $40 (plus tolls) and can take over 1.5 hours. Don't forget to tip your driver 15 to 25 percent.

To save some cash, group shuttles are available at all three airports for about $14 per person. For more information on the shuttles, go to Super Shuttle or New York Airport Service. You can also take public transit from any of the airports for as little as $7 per person, but travel times can take up to two hours and involve a lot of lugging bags up and down stairs. For mass-transit directions right to the hotel, check out HopStop.com.

The Deluxe Room

Rooms are a good size for a New York City hotel. That is to say, they're not so tiny that you walk straight into the bed from the door. Every room has a small foyer.

Talking about the room design is a matter of taste. If you're not a fan of Ikea or contemporary Scandinavian design, then the rooms would probably turn you off. Bright, bold colors dominate the space and geometric patterns are spread throughout the room. Every bed has a colorful quilt, and the standing lamp has a blue plastic zigzag frame. Unlike Ikea, the furniture has held up well since it was installed more than four years ago.

Like other N.Y.C. hotels, Roger Williams gives room upgrades whenever possible. I had booked a superior room, but I got upgraded to a larger deluxe room. Like the superior room, it comes with a flat-screen plasma TV, an iHome -- with a button for nature sounds! -- and shoji (Japanese paper screens) that serve as the backdrop for the bed. Daylight pours in from a window behind the screens, and at night the paper panels glow from a soft backlight. I loved the combination of soft mood lighting and bright furniture.

The king-size bed has a comfortable Serta mattress, a lovely quilt, a down comforter, and Egyptian cotton linens.

And while I enjoyed the quirky add-ons to the room like the can of pencils and cool pencil sharpener, I didn't appreciate the amount of stuff blatantly for sale in the room. Apparently, you can take anything home for the right price. Enjoy the bathrobe? Pack it in your bags, and the hotel will charge $75 to your bill. Like the copy of City Secrets New York City on the bedside table? Take it home for 30 bucks. Forgot your toothbrush? Please, use the one in the bathroom for $8. At least the Aveda bath products were complimentary and plentiful. They included shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, bath soaps, a shower cap, and a shoe buff.

The minibar is a mini convenience store. Everything from a disposable camera ($12) to a nip of Macallan scotch whiskey (also $12) to a Bluewick Soy travel candle ($14) are within reach. When you reach for the bottle of Hildon mineral water on the bedside table, know that it's gonna cost you six bucks. It's disappointing that there is no complimentary coffee in the room, as most N.Y.C. hotels offer. In fact, there is no complimentary coffee in the building.

The only -- and significant -- problem with the bathroom is that it's very tiny. The sink, toilet, and shower area are within a foot of each other. The rainfall shower head was the only thing that reminded me I wasn't in an airplane lavatory. However, bathroom layouts differ from room to room. The handicap-friendly rooms (available in Superior class) have larger bathrooms. If this is of vital importance to you, specify whether you want a tub or just a shower area. It won't cost you more, so long as it's not an upgrade.

Two deluxe rooms, which are a step up from the standard rooms, come with a small terrace, but this isn't standard for all the deluxe rooms. If it's available, you can and should request for the deluxe with terrace, since there's no additional charge. I was so fortunate and had a view of the Empire State Building. Also, the terrace has a nice lounge chair that's great for getting some sun. By contrast, the more expensive garden terrace rooms have cramped bedroom space, since it was sacrificed for a bigger balcony.

Another thing to note is the room temperature. There is a temperature dial in the room, but I found that by turning on the heat, a loud, continuous blast of hot air comes in through the vents. It's a bit irritating, but not a deal breaker, since the room temperature is kept in the comfortable high 60s (Fahrenheit). Several guests have complained about the noise, though. Otherwise, the rooms are quiet (soundproof windows).

The gym

Surprisingly, the fitness center is more than just a token space. Guests actually use the modern equipment, which includes treadmills, ellipticals, exercise bikes, weight machines, medicine balls, and free weights. There are no individual TV monitors, but there are TVs in front of the machines. It's a fairly good gym for a boutique hotel in Murray Hill -- a lot of Times Square boutiques, like the Casablanca, give their guests complimentary passes to chains like the New York Sports Club. Roger's nicely lit gym has enough equipment to facilitate a solid one-hour workout.

Wi-Fi is "free" in the sense that the charge is already built into the final bill. Look for the $15 service charge on the receipt. If guests didn't bring a laptop, there are two Sony Vaio laptops near the front desk. There are no seats by the counter, so they're obviously meant for quick e-mail checks and finding flight information.

USA Today, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are available at the mezzanine lounge. The lounge is a stylish, intimate setting overlooking the lobby, and it's a great place to unwind in the evening.

Like other boutique hotels, Roger Williams offers complimentary room upgrade, early check-in (12 p.m.), and late check-out (3 p.m.). Based on the staff's accommodating nature, they're more likely to honor requests than less friendly boutiques.

Playground in nearby Madison Square Park

The double rooms, which have two double beds, are large enough for a family of four or five, but the bathrooms are too small for more than one person.

Roll-away beds are available for $40, but they only fit in the deluxe rooms, not the standard rooms. Even then, an extra mattress would make the space really tight. Cribs are available without a charge. The hotel doesn't offer babysitting, but it can recommend an outside service. There are no kids' activities around the hotel. In fact, the general area doesn't offer anything exciting for kids as it's mostly populated by corporate offices.

The Madison Square Park playground is the only kid-friendly venue around. It's just five short blocks down Madison Avenue, and the neighborhood kids swing on the monkey bars during the day. For kid-friendly food, the park has an awesome burger stand called Shake Shack.

Most of the kid-friendly museums (the Museum of Natural History, Hayden Planetarium, the Children's Museum of Manhattan) are in the Upper West Side. It's a bit tricky to get to this part of Manhattan. By subway it would be about a 30 to 45 minute ride, with two transfers.

The minibar in the Deluxe Room

The hotel is kept very clean. The bold, bright design adds a fresh feeling to the interiors, though they were last renovated in 2005. Everything about this hotel looks put together, from the stylish outfits of the receptionists (form-fitting navy blue dresses with red scarves -- think 1970s air hostesses) to the bedside telephone that had its cord wrapped neatly around it. Even after an engineer came to fix my phone that wasn't working, he took care to wrap the cord snugly around the phone.

A dish at the Mezzanine Lounge

Hotels tend to over-price food, but the lounge at Roger Williams is surprisingly affordable. A grilled strip steak for $16? The only other places in New York with these rates are Greek diners, not candle-lit mezzanine lounges at stylish hotel restaurants.

The menu is a short list of New American favorites: hanger steak sandwich, grilled striped bass, and lasagna. If you've only got time for one dish, go for the macaroni and cheese ($12). It may sound like simple comfort food, but there's nothing simple about this melt-y blend of three cheeses (gruyere, cheddar, and gouda) with chips of pancetta. It was a little oily, but still very good. The grilled strip steak was tender and tasty, and while there are better steakhouses in the city, this is a great deal. Filling too!

There's no bar with a countertop, and for booze there's just a small list of cocktails and beer. The ginger capirosca ($14) has ginger vodka, ginger, and fresh lime (it's lovely, like a tangy mojito). Imported Stella (Belgium) or Sapporo (Japan) beer costs $8.

The lounge is very intimate, with seating for just 25. I thought this would be a problem at breakfast since the hotel has 193 guest rooms, but it worked out fine. There's no à la carte menu, just a $17 breakfast buffet with croissants, Danish bread, eggs, lox, prosciutto, oat meal, fresh fruit, juice, and coffee. For people like me who just want to start the day with coffee, it's available for $3, but it's a mediocre cup. A glass of orange juice is $4 -- for that price it should be freshly squeezed, but it's not. You could do better with a fresh crepe and an espresso from Keko café, a quaint French café two doors down.

The restaurant boasts a selection of cheeses from Murray's Cheese Shop, a classic New York establishment. Options include a gouda from Holland and a California blue cheese.

Murray Hill isn't exactly a mecca for food, but there are some noteworthy restaurants around. Shake Shack is perennially popular, with long lines every day for its awesome burgers. This burger joint is in Madison Square Park, a five-minute walk down Madison Avenue.