Sky Hotel Aspen

Class: First

Style: Stylish alternative

Rooms: 90

Stylish ski hotels are rare enough, and all the more so in Aspen, where the local style tends toward a fairly conservative overstuffed-armchairs-and-stone-fireplaces sort of luxury look. The Sky Hotel is the first hotel in town to try to change all that, and its efforts haven’t gone unnoticed — from some of the early local reviews you’d imagine it was some kind of crazy moon hotel, rather than simply a member of the stylish-yet-accessible Kimpton boutique hotel group.

To be fair, the eclectic mix of modern furnishings, from the stretched-out wingback chairs to the vaguely mid-century kidney-shaped tables, looks a bit more outré in the context of a ski hotel than in a big-city boutique, which is, of course, pretty much the point of this place.

Urbane touches like L’Occitane bath products, free wireless internet, iPod-ready stereo systems, all right at the foot of Ajax mountain — it’s not rocket science here, but it’s a combination the world could use a lot more of. Add in a hip-but-not-alienatingly-so cocktail bar, the 39 Degrees Lounge (don’t worry, it’s quite a bit warmer than its name) and suddenly Aspen is looking a whole lot younger.