Morris, Conn. — ARCHITECT David Sellers feels certain there are folks out there willing to spend $1,950 to hunker down for a night in a cave.
Not just any cave, of course. This is a custom-built retreat made from enormous boulders. Windows shaped like eyes offer views of a vast meadow. A massive stone fireplace -- so big it has a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk feel -- looms at the foot of the king bed.
"People are going to see it," Sellers said, "and think, 'Oh my God, I've always wanted to get inside a giant rock pile.' "
A lot is riding on that prediction.
The rock-pile hideaway is part of an unusual hotel that opened this month in the staid Litchfield Hills of western Connecticut, a 2 1/2 -hour drive from New York. Winvian, funded and run by heirs to a Merrill Lynch fortune, is at once luxurious, whimsical, spooky, stunning and flat-out startling.
Eighteen cabins dot the forests and fields of the 113-acre resort. Each is different and utterly unexpected.
For $1,700 a night, you can reserve a barn-like cabin dominated by a meticulously restored 1968 Coast Guard helicopter. Watch TV in the chrome-and-steel fuselage or take a bath by the mock runway.
The Golf Cottage has banked walls and a green shag rug that varies in thickness so you can grab an antique putter and play the course that runs through the bedroom. The two-story Treehouse sits 35 feet off the ground and sways with the wind.
Or try sleeping in a bleak box in the woods inspired by Yale's legendary secret society Skull and Bones -- and yes, for $1,450 a night, it's supposed to look like a tomb.
This play land for the wealthy is at the leading edge of an emerging trend: hotels that promise not just a getaway but an experience.
The traditional retreats of the elite -- resorts such as Twin Farms in Barnard, Vt., or Auberge du Soleil in the Napa Valley -- have made their mark with an understated elegance: Their refined hush is the draw.
In recent years, however, some weekend travelers have begun to demand more of their hotels than fine linens and exquisite food. They're looking for the same sense of novelty they find on African safaris or Costa Rican rain forest rambles.
"The new luxury is something experiential, something unique," said Maria Shollenbarger, senior editor at Travel + Leisure Magazine.
Thus the success of Miami's Delano Hotel. A night in one of the Delano's starkly hip, all-white Modernist bungalows costs $3,200 -- but the poolside cabanas are well-stocked with bronzing celebrities.
