You probably never thought you'd bunk with rocker Courtney Love, but Seattle's new Hotel Max, which opened in October in the former Vance Hotel, offers an interesting alternative. Each door of the 163 guest rooms is plastered with a 6-foot, black-and-white, often Seattle-centric photograph―like room 515's life-size image of Love. All 10 floors feature imagery from Seattle-based photographers, and public areas and guest-room walls are adorned with paintings from 30 local artists, making it the city's most thoughtfully curated new art gallery. The swanky guest rooms have a more subdued aesthetic, each bathed in rich orange, black, gray, and red tones.
As for the artwork, none is for sale, but all of the commissioned pieces are gathered in Maximalism, a slick paperback available at the hotel for $20.
INFO: Hotel Max (from $159; 620 Stewart St., Seattle; 866/833-6299)
