A Grand Affair An Architect's Lifelong Passion for Hotels, Simple and Splendid

David Beer¿s A Grand Affair transforms the way we see hotels. From the first step through the front door into the lobby, on to the bars, guest rooms, spas, swimming pools, and even the private apartments above, he provides an insider¿s view of what makes for a successful hotel, whether modest or grand luxe.A Grand Affair is an elaboration of the lectures that Beer, an architect and designer, gave at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for many years, enlivened by delightful, quirky anecdotes about the adventures and misadventures he experienced while traveling the world to work on projects.He sits next to Princess Diana¿s sacrosanct corner table at The Ritz Restaurant in London, admires the extravagant hats worn by ladies around the Cipriani pool in Venice (illustrating the fact that not all swimming pools are meant for a swim), and proves that you do not have to be an emperor to have a swinging time in the imperial suite at Le Grand Hotel in Rome, even when you¿re on a budget.He takes the reader to a balcony far above the Aegean Sea on Mount Athos where he drinks wine with the monks of Simonopetra, and to a third-class car on the Orient Express where he travels standing-room-only from Paris to Rome. After one too many martinis at the old Ritz Bar in Paris he misses the wedding of the ambassador¿s daughter at the Madeleine. He enjoys the Duchess of Windsor¿s favorite drink, Dubonnet and gin, in her apartment at the Waldorf Towers; sits alongside Ingrid Bergman on a terrace in Taormina; and in a Palm Desert club is bemused when Mamie Eisenhower shows him her vast collection of pastel-colored slacks, neatly arrayed in an immense walk-in closet.A rich and provocative book, A Grand Affair will not only beguile those who love staying in hotels but also chronicle the exciting life David Beer led during the golden age of travel, when it was still possible to visit the world¿s great sites with nary a tourist in sight.