Ace Hotel Portland

The Portland outpost of the Ace franchise is a boutique hotel, but that means something slightly different here. Forget the jet-set model of the trendy designer boutique — that sort of thing would never fly in America’s Northwest, and certainly not in Portland. For as cosmopolitan as this city may be, it’s far off the LA-Miami axis, and here, pretension ranks high on the list of deadly sins.

The look at the Ace Portland, as you might expect, leans heavily on recycled and repurposed materials — bits and pieces from the original Clyde Hotel as well as disused factory furniture, clip-on lights and military-surplus pieces — and scrappy works by local artists. Some rooms have shared bathrooms, others private, some of the latter with antique claw-foot tubs.

It may sound minimal, and we don’t mean minimalist. Get used to it; this is the face of a new breed of budget boutiques in America’s second-tier cities, hotels whose idea of cool has nothing to do with what’s in the design magazines. Services (and service) are stripped down to keep rates low, and guests are real live creative types, rather than slumming executives — instead of a $15-a-drink cocktail bar, you’ll find Portland’s legendary Stumptown Coffee Roasters, the cozy communal-seating Clyde Common restaurant, a second-floor guest room converted into a breakfast nook, and the retro diner-themed Kenny and Zuke’s Delicatessen.