Noteworthy Restrooms: Movie Star Mirrors at the Hotel deLuxe Portland

I haven’t featured a noteworthy restroom lately. I’ve run into beautifully decorated women’s rooms but nothing that captured my attention like the women’s room at Hotel deLuxe.

  

The glitz and glamour of Hollywood doesn’t stop at the beautiful lobby of Portland’s Hotel deLuxe. You’ll want to explore each and every room of this beautifully renovated gem.

 

As you walk up the stairs to the Hotel deLuxe lobby,
you'll be transported back to the elegant heydays of Hollywood.

Hotel deLuxe was once Portland’s Hotel Mallory, built in the early 1900’s. When you read the hotel’s back story you’ll find out that even then it was a luxurious retreat: the Crystal Room (now the Screening Room) was a ballroom featuring Grand Piano and orchestra pit. In its previous life, the Green Room was a billiard room furnished with a pool table, crystal decanters of spirits and fine cigars. Across the lobby, ladies could socialize privately in the Lady’s Parlor, which is now the Editing Room.

These stunning mirrors accenting the pink marble caught my eye.

The hotel’s décor takes its influences from Art Moderne, and the Art Deco movement that ignited during Paris’ 1925 World Fair. It was renovated and re-opened in 2006.

The women’s room just off the lobby is stunning because of the glitzy metal and glass mirrors reminiscent of the 1920’s and ‘30’s.  The restroom is done in beautiful pink and white marble but the mirrors are what caught my eye.

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Noteworthy Restrooms: Portland's Kennedy School

Once a grade school restroom, the Kennedy School women's room has been spiffed up art-deco style

Here's an art deco restroom found in Portland, Oregon at The Kennedy School. It's a great place to go for a meal, for an overnight or just to explore the funky decor and history.

The Kennedy School, now a McMenamin's hospitality complex, opened as a grade school in 1915. The first elementary school classes were held on the school grounds in portable, one-room buildings in 1913, two years before the present-day school building was built and opened

Over the years, local children were educated at The Kennedy School and the facility was well-used by community members. The school was closed in 1975 due to declining enrollment.

Sadly, the building was condemned. Fortunately, Mike and Brian McMenamin presented a proposal for reviving the condemned property and it was accepted. In 1997 the building opened as  McMenamins Kennedy School. The school serves as an inn, pub, restaurant and much more.

Throughout the building are reminders of the school's history as well as the fanciful hipster gathering place The Kennedy School has become.

While this women's restroom just outside the old gymnasium is not a fancy one, the art deco graphics make you stop and take note. Look beyond the paint and design and you will see the tiled walls and fixtures that were part of school life in the 1900's.

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Noteworthy Restrooms: A Deep in Thought Place in the Woods

You never know what you will encounter on a day trip in Canada's remote Haida Gwaii. While vacationing in Sandspit on Moresby Island, we enjoyed rocky beaches, tide pools and daily sightings of eagles nesting, flying or feeding.

But there was more to see. Within less than an hour’s drive you can adventure through beautiful green forest via a logging road, explore rocky bays and then come to a lovely sandy beach.

This is Gray Bay, a place where you can swim, picnic and camp. It’s a remote park, an area preserved due to its natural beauty.

There is a 40 kilometer loop that will include this area but I found the trip to Gray Bay to be a short little trip for a picnic and walk on the beach if you just take the logging roads in this area.

Along the way, you’ll see interesting fisherman’s cabins and remote homes of some Haida, especially along the rivers and inlets.

It was in this area that I spied an outhouse showing that the home-owner had a sense of humor.

It was across the road from a ramshackle fisherman's cabin that had a huge note painted on the door - "Please Use Front Door."

You can only imagine what sort of person was out there in the woods running rampant with their sense of humor... and thoughts!

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Noteworthy Restrooms: WTH?? First Encounter with a Japanese Toilet

Japanese Toilet - Copyright: Suzanne Fluhr

On a visit to Japan two years ago, the very first photo I took was not of a lovely pagoda nor beautiful garden. No, it was of the first toilet I encountered at Narita International Airport outside Tokyo. 

Figuring out how to operate this contraption was a struggle for my jet lag addled brain. My husband always has to wait for me outside airport bathrooms (along with most of the other men on the planet waiting for their wives), but he was becoming seriously concerned when I had not emerged after what seemed an inordinate amount of time. 

The truth is, I was seriously overwhelmed by the options presented to me on the toilet control panel. (Seriously, people, Japanese toilets have control panels!) What if I pushed the wrong button and started World War III? 

To make matters worse, not all the buttons had English translations. Is there some part of toilet operation that the Japanese feel compelled not to share with gai jin (foreigners)? 

Not only was my first photo of a Japanese toilet, my first blog post was about Japanese toilets. I found them utterly fascinating.

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Guest writer: Suzanne Fluhr is a recovering lawyer who blogs about Baby Boomer Travel for the body and mind at Boomeresque.
 

Noteworthy Restrooms: The Wash, Dry and Fluff Toilet

A toilet with a control panel.
Photo Credit: Irene S. Levine

When visiting Napa Valley, California, we booked a room at a green hotel, the Hotel Bardessono, which has received LEED platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. One evening, we were dining in the hotel restaurant and I had the occasion to use the public restroom in the lobby. 

After I entered one of several cubicles arranged in a semicircle in the unisex bathroom, I closed the door to my stall. 

I was blown away when I saw a control panel on the wall. It looked like it could launch a rocket ship and was far more complicated than the thermostat in my home. 

This was the first time I encountered a multipurpose toilet/personal cleansing system called the Toto Neorest 500 that washed, dried and fluffed. The seat was heated and cleaned itself, and the water temperature was adjustable. Needless to say, I fell in love with this Toto toilet and made sure my husband had the opportunity to “experience” it, too. Subsequently, I learned that the units are very popular in Japan.

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Guest Writer Irene S. Levine is an award-winning travel and lifestyle writer who is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers. Her blog, MoreTimeToTravel.com offers advice and inspiration for travelers over 50