To see a room at the Washington Duke Inn being cleaned is to see the room undress.
Her elaborate coverings-nine pieces in all-are peeled off, replaced with fresh linen.
In the bathroom, dirt from showers past swirls and gurgles down the drain.
In an hour, or maybe more, Vanessa will emerge, a cart laden with soaps and mats and sheets in tow. When she's done, the room will be spotless, and a rim of sweat will have formed on her forehead.
She passes herself in the mirror, examining her reflection only for streaks. In a few hours, a man will brush his teeth before it. A woman will spill powder on the dresser. They will not think of the faceless women who readied the room for them.
But Vanessa thinks of them.
"I try to get to know who you are. I'm conscious of my guests and their needs," she says, recalling the Duke families who stay in "her" hall.
Even if she's unable to greet guests (meeting people is one of her favorite parts of the job), she notices their habits-how much shampoo they use in a day, for example. Whether they drool during sleep. It's attention to detail, after all, that makes the hotel worthy of its four-diamond status.
"These ladies get paid next to nothing and they have the hardest job in the hotel," says Ryan Maher, a recent grad of N.C. State, who's now a manager at the Washington Duke. "So Mary Kay [Smith, his superior] and I try to counteract that by giving them a fun place to work, where they can laugh."
One woman enters the staff meeting late, and Maher ribs her, thanking her for showing up. Cue laugh track. The ladies seem close, unified by a routine that plays out in back corridors and behind doors. Vanessa confirms that there's a familial aspect to the job, talking about how she's picked up a little Spanish from the Hispanic girls who work at the hotel. But Vanessa injects this family narrative into her relationship with guests, too. She seems to long to see them, to say hello, to know exactly what they'd like her to do with their sheets. She readily soaks the good from her prodigal sons while she washes away their trash.
Their day starts early, 8:30 a.m., and it can get long if they don't work quickly. Maher reminds the group not to forget Q-tips-and no, he clarifies, they're not doing cotton balls this week. He doesn't say whether this is among the kind of cutbacks most luxury hotels are making: scrimping in places that don't really affect the guest experience.
The recession has cut bluntly into the luxury hotel industry. Jim Bressler, director of sales and marketing, estimates a 30-to-40 percent revenue shortfall in the luxury/resort category, but happily adds that the Washington Duke's shortfall is closer to 15 percent. On this day in May, a whiteboard in the back room reads, the Washington Duke Inn has 94 percent occupancy. 94 arrived, 53 departed, and 213 were in-house.
It's possible that the Inn has fared better simply because of its superior service, that that alone demands double fees. More likely, it's because of Duke.
Duke, not exactly cheap itself, attracts the kind of family willing to pay more for quality. The University or the Hospital books the speakers, lures the luminaries. It provides the steady stream of girls walking pigeon-toed on heels through the WaDuke bar on an evening after classes.
The Washington Duke has stumbled into a feedback model that works. The Inn's market is convenient enough-rooms for Graduation 2010 filled within the first day families could book them-and it is an expert in serving them.
"[When] people pay as much as they do here," Vanessa pauses-it is, even with recent discounts, a lot of money-"They need to get the best."
Vanessa is a perfectionist when it comes to readying a room, and she narrates while she works. There's a spot on this bathmat, she insists, though it can't be bigger than a freckle. Still, if it's mold, she doesn't want to have anything to do with it, and she begins hunting for a fresh one. She returns and arranges the Gilchrist and Soames body wash, shampoo and conditioner at a 45-degree angle on the bath mantle, ordering them in the way a guest would wash his body.
"I take care of all my guests as though they're special," she says, almost rebelliously.
But some are more special than most, they might say. Internally, the Washington Duke Inn circulates a list reporting VIPs who are staying in the hotel, a system titled the "Special Guest Program."
Typically, the Inn-which is owned by the University, bringing it revenue-arranges rooms for Duke's high-profile guests. This past year, both Ted Kennedy and Robert Redford visited Duke, and each chose the fifth-floor Homestead Suite. Three floors below sits the reportedly 1,900 sq. foot Presidential Suite-larger, probably, than many Durham residents' homes. Maher heard that it cost more than a million to furnish. One might speculate that they could have counted on Oprah, but she chose not to stay there. Maher speculates that she unwound at the Umstead. Officials there did not respond to a request for comment. Bressler suggests they didn't court Oprah, whose entourage would have numbered around several dozen. Maher adds that displacing so many guests for her benefit would have been contrary to the Inn's commitment to its existing patrons.
Simply put, the system ranks the Inn's higher-profile guests in order to provide "enhanced" amenities.
That's not to say the hotel's other clients don't demand a particular level of service. "We never say no to a guest," Maher says. "It's yes-and then.." He rattles off the oddities he's seen as he wanders into a closet where the hotel stores the relics: baby monitors ("How far away are you from your child?"), an especially ornate lamp, 60 hangers ("They were there for three nights!").
A guest's vacant room, too, could probably be ranked according to its state of disarray.
"The rooms are usually tore up," Vanessa confides, shuffling around Mountain Dew bottles strewn about a third-floor room.
Vanessa spends more than an hour on a single room. It's more than the time she's officially allotted, and the sooner she finishes, the earlier she'll go home. She'll have a four-day weekend whenever that last room is checked, the first time she'll go home to Greensboro in awhile.
Before she wraps up, packs up her cart for her next assignment, she checks under the bed, to "make sure they didn't leave $1 million for me." (Today's vacationer, as it happened, didn't.)
She fishes in a dish for two chocolates wrapped with a Washington Duke crest. The chocolate is last-the turndown service was always last. But in a downturn, the chocolates are by the bed before the guests are.
"I'm in here laughing at myself sometimes-all this for one bed," she says, piling on pillow after pillow, tucking everything in before she leaves. "But they love the way it makes the bed look." The intricacy seems to have grown on her, a creature of habit if ever there was one. "I be making my bed like this at home, and I'm like, oh my God. This is unreal."
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