Tacoma's Murano sixth-best hotel in U.S., says Condé Nast Traveler

No hotel in such pricey and prestigious locales as San Francisco, Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Scottsdale or Seattle, not Vegas’ Bellagio, not San Francisco’s Ritz Carlton or Seattle’s Olympic can brag of an honor equal to that given this week to Tacoma’s Hotel Murano.

The well-respected Condé Nast Traveler magazine announced this week that its readers rated the 319-room Murano as the nation’s sixth-best hotel. The readers’ rating of 93.5 total points also won the art-filled Tacoma property a place – 72nd – among the world’s 100 top travel venues.

“I think the kind of money and imagination that the owners have put into this hotel have attracted national attention to the Murano,” said the hotel’s general manager, Mark VanCooney. “But it’s the hard work and skill of the staff that have ensured that the service is up to our high standards.”

The hotel, built as the Sheraton Tacoma Hotel as part of Cornerstone Development Co.’s Tacoma Center project in 1984, reopened as the Murano in the first quarter of 2008 after a $28 million renovation. Portland’s Provenance Hotels remodeled the hotel as a kind of art museum with sleeping rooms. The hotel’s collection of glass art in the lobby, hallways, meeting rooms and restaurants rivals many museums.

The hotel’s owners learned of the honor last weekend in a message from the magazine.

“To go from not even making the list last year to sixth is almost unheard of,” said VanCooney.

The magazine’s Web site included slide shows of all but a few of the winning properties. The Murano was without a slide show.

“The only thing I can think of is that most of the other hotels have been on the list before, and they’ve shot pictures,” said the hotel’s manager. “We’re new to the list, and they didn’t have any photos in their archive.”

The award, said the magazine, was based on voting by more than 25,000 of the magazine’s generally well-traveled readers. Those readers rated hotels based on food and dining, location, overall design, rooms and service. For the ratings to be valid, the magazine and its contracted research firm set a minimum number of reader evaluations needed to ensure a valid and broad-based rating.

The resulting rating number was the result of an average of ratings each property received. Ahead of the Murano on Condé Nast’s list were the 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, Ky., The Peninsula in Chicago, the Mandarin Oriental in Boston, The Peninsula in Beverly Hills and the Four Seasons in New York.

Other Northwest hotels that won high ratings were the Stephanie Inn in Cannon Beach, Ore., (seventh), the Fairmont Olympic in Seattle (24th), the Four Seasons in Seattle (25th), the Inn at the Market in Seattle (51st), the Hotel Deluxe in Portland (55th), and the Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie (59th).

The magazine’s readers also rated airlines, cruise lines, rental car companies, cities and islands. They named Celebrity the top mega-ship line. Crystal Cruises won the honor as top large ship line and Sea Cloud cruises won the small ship category.

Hertz was at the top of the rental car list. Virgin America was at the top of the list of domestic airlines (Sea-Tac’s Alaska Airlines was sixth). Singapore Airlines won again among global carriers.

San Francisco took best city honors for the 17th year in a row, and Kiawah Island, S.C., was the best North American island. Vancouver Island was second.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663

john.gillie@thenewstribune.com