It began a few years ago: Guests in posh hotels could buy almost everything in their rooms to take home--the sheets, the beds, artwork, furniture and, even, at W Hotels, the plants. But that was child's play, says our Savvy Traveler, Rudy Maxa. Now you can move right in.

Maybe you've noticed if you've stayed recently at a Ritz-Carlton in DC or New York. Or a Four Seasons in San Francisco or Miami. From the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the new Time-Warner Center in Manhattan to the Hyatt hotel in the posh Knightsbridge neighborhood of London, the latest rage among developers is to not just build a hotel, but also to build condominiums connected to the hotel that routinely sell for more than a million bucks.

The idea is, if you like the luxury of the hotel, you'll love living in condos bearing the same brand name and offering a long menu of hotel services: a concierge, room service, daily maid services, and lots of other amenities that make staying in a $300-plus-a-night hotel room fun.

This trend toward living the hotel life appeals to wealthy global nomads--designers, models, actors, and businesspersons for whom one address simply isn't enough. Or who would prefer to call housekeeping instead of schlepping their own dry cleaning and laundry.

Usually, the condos are built on floors atop the hotel rooms or adjacent to them, but they always have their own elevators and doormen.

And it's not just in cities that this new lifestyle is catching on. Resort developers, too, are finding selling condos in conjunction with a brand-name hotel can mean a faster return on investment. At both warm and cold-weather resorts, you can stay at a Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons or Marriott AND buy a condo next door. The hotel will even rent out your place when you're not using it--if you really need the extra income.

But, please, don't call these condos. The marketing guys like to call them "residences." And when you have one, you're not just an owner. You're a "GUEST owner" or an "owner RESIDENT." It sounds so much more delighful, doesn't it?

And if you can afford the buy-in price and monthly maintenance fee, it probably is delightful. Because for once in your life, you can check in, but you never have to check out.

From St. Paul, I'm Rudy Maxa for Marketplace.

August 24, 2005