ace hotel

If you're heading into the friendly skies this Summer, there's another reason besides awesome mood lighting to fly with Virgin America — you could get the extra added bonus of surfing the web at 35,000 feet with a new Chromebook. Starting today, and running through Sept. 30, Virgin America and Google are loaning free Chromebooks to passengers for use on select flights out of San Francisco, Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston, and Chicago. To get one, all you have to do is find the ChromeZone kiosk nearest your departure gate for check out, enjoy during your flight, and then return it to your arrival crew before you leave the airport.

But there's another way for NYC travelers to get their hands on a Chromebook. Find out how after the break.

Since I first heard about the Ace Hotel four years ago, it has blossomed into a kick-ass, boutique hotel empire with pop-up shops in Tokyo, star-studded fashion fetes in New York, and Halloween pool parties in Palm Springs, attracting the young, hip, and restless. With killer interiors designed by New York design firm Roman & Williams, Ace has perfected its look and its brand. And it's parlayed both into the world of commerce with branded clothing, accessories, and decor.

The latest addition to the Ace's line of goodies is its Ace NYC Pendleton Plaid Blanket ($150 and up), which were made exclusively for the hotel by Pendleton. An emblem of the Ace experience, the blankets are made of pure virgin wool in Pendleton's Oregon mills and are soft, warm, and nonscratchy with a custom label. If you've ever stayed a night in the Ace New York, this is the very blanket you've slept under.

But, this isn't the hotel's first foray into bedding. The Ace originally introduced its Pendleton Elk Blanket ($275), which features a silhouette of the Thompson elk, a famous statue in downtown Portland. The only problem though, for me at least, is that it also reads "Portland Ace Hotel," which isn't exactly the most versatile item for those of us who live in houses not hotels. I'm excited to see the hotel deliver a more subtle yet equally handsome design. Would you like to own one?

The New York Times recently chatted up Alex Calderwood, one of the owners of the Ace Hotel Group, and its leading spokesman. The article features some revealing quotes from Calderwood, and also highlights some of the great things about the Ace, and also some reasons why people don't like it — or at the very least don't get its aesthetic or mission. It's definitely a must read for any hotel design fiends, so make sure to check it out. In the meantime, peruse some of my favorite facts about the Ace Hotel Group that you might not have known.

• Alex Calderwood is an entrepreneur who's opened a successful chain of barber shops (Rudy's Barbershop) as well as running a record label — he also hosted the first Jamiroquai show in Seattle
• Seattle is home to the first Ace Hotel. Other locations are in Portland, Palm Springs, and Manhattan.
• The Seattle Ace Hotel began life as a 28-room flophouse in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. In the NYT article, Ace co-owner Wade Weigel admits, "We were stupid enough to take it with all its tenants in it. It was just a nightmare. It was a bunch of crazies. People would throw toilets out the window."

Keep reading for more facts about the Ace!

Want to mix things up for Halloween this year? The Ace Hotel Palm Springs has decided to host a Halloween party and family-style dinner this year, and it'll beat staying home and doling out candy to trick-or-treaters any day.The hotel's popular DJ pals The Flash Dance will be throwing a dance party and costume contest, and a pool party is imminent, too! The hip hotel has introduced a special package for the weekend: for $326, you can enjoy a two-night stay (Saturday and Sunday) plus a family-style dinner. And as they note, it'll be a party "where you will dance your ass off and your costume will end up floating in the pool next to some plastic fangs." Sounds fun, huh!? To take part in the promotion, just enter the code FLASHDANCE when you book your room. Reserve your flights already: be spontaneous!

Want to get a peek at the hotel before you bite the bullet? Check out my Home Away From Home post and these photos from a CasaSugar Community member for a full tour!

Here's a post from CasaSugar Community member nancyeinhart from the Casa Inspiration group:

Last weekend my girlfriends and I headed down to the Ace Hotel Palm Springs, after I'd been salivating over Ace's hipster hotels for years. It did not disappoint. Yes, it was hot, but if you stay in the pool with an adult sno-cone in hand, you're fine. Plus, the Ace Suite was hip but not too posh, the perfect place to revel or rest. And the aesthetic was to die for. Check out my photos.

Continue reading to see more of her photos!

Ohh Ace Hotel . . . you can do no wrong. My obsession with the boutique hotel chain is borderline unhealthy, and now Ace New York has given me even more fodder for waxing poetic. The hoteliers have commissioned New York-based, Cleveland-bred designer Timothy Goodman to draw a new mural for a room in the Manhattan hotel. As a headboard of sorts, Tim painstakingly drew 99 frames on the 120-square-foot wall behind the suite's bed and desk. He filled each with a different fact or image that relates to the Big Apple using paint markers and opaque black paint. From Yankees caps and Grey's Papaya hot dogs to cockroaches, pigeons, and "over 100 million rats," the mural showcases all of the distinct cultural tidbits that New Yorkers have come to love — and put up with. Rad! Right?