If You're Going to San Francisco...

Why not stay in a hotel that sends their linens to a green laundromat and has walls made of recycled particleboard? by Kevin Raub


Photography by The Orchard Garden

Those who grew up in the Midwest, like me, will remember there was once nothing sexy at all about being called “green.” It meant you lacked experience with the opposite sex or were entirely naive in all matters of sex in general. For the record, I'm certainly not green in the Indiana sense of the word. But nowadays, green has shed its negative image and re-emerged as a cutting-edge term for those who give a rat's ass about the future of the world and are actively doing something about it. That kind of green I am.

orchard To that end, this month I wanted to check out a certified Green Hotel and see if I noticed any difference (in price, in comfort, in experience, in anything) between it and a regular old Hyatt or Marriott. At press time, there are only two LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified Green Hotels in the U.S., the gold standard designation from the U.S. Green Building Council. One is – funny enough – the Marriott Inn and Conference Center on the campus of the University of Maryland. Since I'm a fan of Indiana Hoosier basketball and they lost to Maryland in the 2002 NCAA Championship, I refuse to support them in any way, even to save the planet. So I headed to the other one, the lovely Orchard Garden Hotel in San Francisco.

The experiment is simple: Do we have any excuse whatsoever not to choose a Green Hotel over one that is not actively practicing environmentally responsible hoteliering? I mean, I realize there are only two in the U.S. at the moment, but that will soon change. There are 45 more in the pipeline worldwide, 38 of which are scattered across the U.S. With green being the new black and all, these hotels should soon be in demand. But is the hotel experience any different?

Checking in at the Orchard Garden is pretty straightforward. No noticeable difference from a regular hotel, other than the lobby is tiny and the restaurant/bar nearly share the same space. Could be the scarcity of real estate in San Francisco's Union Square, or could be a keen sense of putting the kibosh on the American tendency to go big or go home. Either way, I like it. Come to find out later, the normal looking walls here are actually not the hardwood they seem but, rather, fashioned from recycled particleboard. I like that, too, mainly because I didn't notice it.

One noticeable difference, to someone anally searching for differences, anyway, is that despite opening its doors less than a year ago, there is no "new" smell to the place. It turns out that that "new" carpet smell is usually due to chemicals used to treat the fabric. Those got the Heisman here. So, instead of smelling like Dupont, the carpet – recycled, non-offgassing – smells like nothing at all. Kind of refreshing.
Share/Save/Bookmark 1 | 2 |

 

Bliss World, LLC