The 3 Most effective Motels to Staycation in Portland | 2021


Probably you, like I, have not remaining the Pacific Northwest in 18 months. Perhaps you are still in need to have of something pleasurable and diversionary without the need of leaving the metropolis — and you are unable to wander the Oregon Zoo loop one more time without losing your mind.
Take into consideration the staycation: a chance to investigate the city’s local lodge scene as it, too, emerges from a horrendous period of closure and hiatus. Portland is residence to dozens of inns, and of these, 3 recently opened qualities feel objective-built to offer a hospitable getaway encounter (even if all you are only really acquiring absent from is your community).
What area resorts offer, maybe paradoxically, is an escape from metropolis daily life as it is genuinely lived, providing as an alternative a hyper-recognized variation of Portland, at the moment inside of the city and transposed higher than it—city existence as a fantasy. A good staycation, then, is much more than an escape from dwelling: It’s an escape from the town devoid of ever leaving, and really an escape from ourselves. (If a hotel isn’t your matter, you can also examine out our guides to neighborhood holiday rentals with swimming pools and staycationing on the Oregon coastline.) Here is why you should really prepare a staycation at one particular of these three Portland hotels.


813 SW Alder St—The Woodlark Lodge opened in 2018, and occupies two individual historic structures: The Cornelius Hotel, opened in 1908, and the Woodlark Building, developed on SW Alder avenue involving Park and 9th in 1912. Both equally are on the Nationwide Register of Historic destinations.
The hotel opened in late 2018 adhering to a restoration and design and style effort led by OFFICEUNTITLED, Oculus Inc. and Smith Hanes Studio, and is house to a important art selection anchored by the work of Portland-born photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976).
There are 150 guestrooms, every swathed in lush jeweled inexperienced and rose gold accents, with wallpaper by OMFG, marble topped consoles, wool rugs by Portland maker Christiane Millinger, and velvet home furniture.
Corner rooms are drenched in mild they also look specifically on new create construction to the west of the lodge. Every place comes stocked with an Urban Ears speaker kit, bathrobes, Liquid crystal display flat monitor Television set with DirectTV, Simmons Beautyrest Black Napa mattresses, and an LG air conditioning unit.
If it is in the spending budget to splash out, lofted rooms are available, just about every with their possess spectacular spiral staircase. And two Woodlark suites comprise what, to me, is the most coveted item in any resort space: a huge bathtub.


The on-web-site food stuff and beverage choices for the Woodlark Hotel are spectacular. Cocktail lounge Abigail Hall—since the end of Clyde Typical, the city’s greatest foyer bar—and Texas-nouveau smokehouse Bullard are overseen by nearby cafe group Holler Hospitality, with foyer coffee provider by regional roaster-retailer Great Coffee.
Space assistance is offered in each home by way of the cafe Bullard all room expert services are available by using a scan code in the area, in position of in-place menus. Abigail Hall occupies the former Females Reception Hall space, a suffragette hub back again in the Cornelius Lodge days, and the crew at Holler have transformed it into a floral, maximalist, unapologetically femme lounge, with drinks named for feminist pop stars (The Billie Eilish is neon-blue, and adorned with edible glitter) and playfully upscale retro food stuff (remarkable shrimp cocktail and burgers).
One particular specially amazing point at the Woodlark is its compact, viewed as health club, which incorporates both equally Peloton and Mirror manufacturer work out units, together with a small established of weights, drugs balls, a treadmill and cross-coach, as well as a fridge complete of neat towels. Perfect.
This, merged with the hotel’s proximity to Rich’s Cigar Store (for candy bars, publications, and what-have-you) and Park Avenue Wonderful Wines (one of the city’s very best bottle outlets) usually means one particular could happily stay inside the quick block with no want to leave for a succession of days, the mark of a correct staycation.


100 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd—A former apartment developing from 1912, and owned for generations by the Stark relatives vacuum empire, it sat vacant for decades until finally July 2018, when the Kex resort group purchased the place, in partnership with local cafe team ChefsTable and Green Light Progress.
Inside of they identified rooms whole of vacuums and assorted suction pieces, a third flooring infested with plucky Portland pigeons experiencing the free of charge lease, and plumbing and flooring in want of a full rebuild. Expense? Some 14 million dollars (which is USD, not Icelandic Krona).
It labored: the Kex Hotel’s major ground is a amazing, transportive foyer: 100-year-aged wood flooring salvaged from Fort Vancouver body two complete delivery containers total of international ephemera, from Dutch bric-a-brac to Egyptian tile to an huge entry leather sofa from Brussels and a dozen Belgian racehorse placards woven into modern foyer art.
The conclude end result is evocative of Europe and travel and global exchange a go to to Kex is an worldwide holiday for the rate of a Lyft.

The lodge opened really briefly prior to the pandemic in 2020, in advance of closing for a great deal of the calendar year and effectively into 2021. During this time many of the hotel’s shared bathroom hostel-fashion rooms have been converted to personal suites. Now, just 6 rooms are continue to offered hostel fashion, bookable on AirBnB. Every and each and every room at Kex has an AC unit, however there is no place company, and no bathtubs. Rooms are chic and comfy, if smaller, reflecting European design sensibilities through a Pacific Northwest lens.
Kex is home to two restaurant concepts: a rooftop cocktail bar identified as Lady of the Mountain, and a key floor lounge and cafe identified as Dottir that sprawls across 3000 sq. ft, presenting a kind of multi-use lobby-lounge bar and all-day eating strategy. The upstairs see from Girl of the Mountain is worthy of a visit alone—for the 1st time I didn’t dislike the Fairhaired Dumbbell, which is ghastly from avenue degree, but seems variety of wonderful four stories up, offset by the relaxation of the new industrial Southeast design. There is no home assistance at Kex, but beverages at both bars are exceptional, with Katie Stipe of Voysey (and prior to that, Brooklyn’s Grand Military bar) jogging a single of the city’s most ingenious and attention-grabbing drinks plans, from an outstanding Fino sherry and snap pea cocktail on the rooftop to a cheeky lobby Cosmo, or sophisticated property Aquavit infusions served in antique European glassware like one thing out of Frozen. There is also, remarkably, an fantastic kegged wine plan remaining poured at both bars, and a persuasive bottle checklist at the upstairs lounge. Kex’s Portland-primarily based co-owner Sean O’Connor has individually sourced kegs of wine from Oregon winemakers including Cameron, Maloof, and St. Reginald, providing both equally group pleasers and unusual a single-offs.
Some of Kex continue to feels like a perform in progress—there will be a downstairs non-public eating possibility coming before long, and not all of the rooms were being concluded nevertheless on my take a look at. But for a just one evening getaway with out leaving the town, it’s effortless to slip into escapism mode in the hotel’s huge, imaginative foyer lounge, a general public lodge room in contrast to any other in Portland ideal now.


509 SE Grand St—The most recent lodge in Portland, Lodge Grand Stark opened in Spring 2021, and has been considerably-buzzed about in lodge industry circles. It’s a 57 area house from Los Angeles hotel group Palisociety, housed in a four-tale composition initially crafted in 1908. Recognized variously as equally the Chamberlain Hotel and the Franklin Resort in the early 20th century, it was the home of Schiefler Furnishings for the previous four decades, in advance of getting obtained in 2016 and crafted throughout the system of 4 decades.
Lodge Grand Stark’s foyer is vivid, airy, and presents off substantial-finish artwork gallery vibes. Home furniture in the room is by Midnight Daylight, with scarce publications and objet d’art by Spartan Store, which in the coming months will be readily available for sale. Anchoring the foyer is the Grand Stark Deli, which deftly brings together the lobby café aesthetic with a thing akin to a midcentury diner, established in tones of pink, birch, and emerald.
Food stuff here is by Submarine Hospitality, that includes espresso roasted by Great Espresso, which appears to have Portland’s hotel espresso current market cornered. The deli’s massive ticket item is a Katz’s pastrami sandwich, with the meat flown in from New York Town. Which is fun—you’ll preserve on Goldbelly charges, I suppose–but the authentic action right here is at the pastry counter, house to truly excellent buns, scones, cookies, and a just cannot-overlook blueberry muffin. Even much better, all of it is accessible as room services.


Rooms at the Grand Stark are tastefully appointed, with pink and tartan inexperienced accents. Each individual place comes stocked with a Smeg fridge, remarkable in-place snacks, breakfast door hangs, Acme cups, Kassatex stoneware, and a white noise equipment upon request. The Grand Stark’s rooms are also equipped with Comcast cable, which implies if you are hunting for a hotel home in which to enjoy the summer months Olympics, or the NFL draft, or the Bachelorette finale, this area is a are living broadcast paradise.
A foyer bar, Bar Chamberlain, is set to open later this summer months, and will feature out of doors seating together the hotel’s back parking whole lot. The moment the bar element is open up, Grand Stark’s offerings will be entire, resulting in a new Portland classic on the hotel scene.
This is not, to be apparent, a “boutique hotel” — it is a hotel, no preface needed, in which you can have space service, foods all day, cable television and home treats. A staycation in this article would be divine, but if you’re hunting to truly install you for a series of months, months even, with an air of luxury and your each want catered to, Grand Stark is up to the task.
