Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake

If there’s one overriding regional trend in luxury hospitality at the moment, it’s the rise of China’s regional cities as a high-end hotel market. Simply put, as impressive as the luxury hotels of Shanghai and Hong Kong may be, the rest of the country is catching up, if not progressing to another level entirely. Take, as an example, the Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake.

West Lake itself is more than just a body of water. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it’s something like Hangzhou’s version of Central Park, if Central Park were hundreds of years old, and dotted with ancient temples. The Four Seasons blends effortlessly into this environment, with its 17 acres of gardens and waterways and its low-slung traditional pavilions.

With just 78 rooms, this is on the small side for Four Seasons, and while they’re stylistically somewhat conservative, they’re tailored to the location, with plentiful nods to traditional Chinese design. They’re also extravagantly comfortable, from the deluxe rooms all the way up to the suites and the three-story, three-bedroom villas, each one a lavish residence unto itself.

And the facilities, however carefully hidden among the pavilions and the pagodas, are the equal of any urban Four Seasons. The restaurants serve upscale Chinese and Western fare, and the hotel offers an extraordinary 11 private dining rooms, each one with a terrace overlooking the gardens.