PRICE:
Frommer's Exceptional

Unique truly is. In form this latest São Paulo design hotel is a teetering verdigris-colored disk, chopped off at the top to make a roof deck, and propped up at either end by a pair of concrete pillars hanging down like unfurled banners. Large round portholes gazing out the side of this slice give Unique something of the air of a boat, though an abandoned Martian Chronicles kind of craft. Inside it's all high design, from the lobby bar The Wall (the only cocktail lounge I've yet seen stocked with its own small library of expensive architecture books) to the rooms and suites that feature white-on-white decor, queen-size beds with luscious bedding, sparkling bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs, clever desk space, and a plethora of room gadgets including electric blinds, 48-inch flatscreen TV/DVDs, lots of light options, and a console to control it all. Suites are all located on the rim of the disk so their outer walls rise in one seamless curve from floor to ceiling. Room views are excellent, but the ultimate view is from the rooftop pool and lounge where on one side you see Ibirapuera Park, and on the other, the ridgeline run of skyscrapers on Avenida Paulista. The hotel has just completed a state-of-the-art fitness center and indoor heated pool with slide-in entrance.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Brazil, 4th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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