Power Play

While some of the faces are eminently recognizable-that's comedian Dennis Miller working on a cheese omelet in the corner, there's author Roy Blount Jr. swigging coffee, and here comes that senator from Massachusetts, the one who's running for president, what's his name, oh, yeah, John Kerry-you can't tell all the players without a program. And since the Four Seasons is far too discreet an establishment to hand out a roster of its regulars, I was relying on my tablemate, a former CNN reporter, to provide the play-by-play while I whittled away at my breakfast of finnan haddie hash with poached eggs.

"OK, see the gentleman who's just now leaving? That's William Webster, former director of the FBI and the CIA," she said. "Two tables over, just beyond the planter, that's one of President Clinton's former attorneys, and at the table next to him are some diplomats from Saudi Arabia. Vice-president Cheney was here yesterday morning. The Secret Service brought him up from the kitchen on the service elevator."

Yes, it was rather brawny company, but I was feeling as if I fit right in. After all, my wife and I were staying just a few floors above in the splendor of the hotel's presidential suite. If one is going to spend a few days in the nation's capital, then one really should bunk down in style. Our visit just happened to coincide with President Bush's State of the Union address, but since we couldn't swing passes to the Congressional gallery, watching the speech from the Four Seasons' presidential suite seemed a worthy substitute. Besides, the Congressional gallery doesn't have decent room service and the sergeant-at-arms tends to frown on hecklers.

There's no shortage of grand suites in D.C. The most venerable -and, at $5,500 a night, the most expensive-is the royal suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel, which has hosted every U.S. president since Woodrow Wilson. And more than 70 heads of state, not to mention such diverse personalities as Mark Twain, the Duke of Windsor and Bono, have stayed in the 2,300-square-foot presidential suite at the Willard Hotel, the beaux arts masterpiece just a couple of blocks from the White House.

When one thinks presidential suite, one conjures up images of bulky Early American furnishings, antique set pieces that get in the way, and dreary old oil portraits on the wall. But the 1,200-square-foot suite at the Four Seasons, which goes for around $3,700 a night, is a breath of fresh modernism, almost minimalist in its style. The low-piled carpet is a sort of sea-foam color with sleek Donghia sofa and chairs. I can't imagine that guests actually conduct business in such suites-not with big comfy beds and giant marble bathrooms sporting tubs to soak in for hours-but there was an oval desk at one end of the living room/dining room and atop it a flat-screen computer with all the hookups. The view out the broad bank of windows was south to the Potomac River, with a sliver of the Washington Monument poking up in the distance. But I must admit, I took a quick peek at the cityscape, then plopped myself down on the couch to focus on the suite's real centerpiece-the Sony plasma TV that occupied the greater part of one wall. And when the prez popped up, making his speech, it was almost as if I had a front-row seat, squeezed in somewhere between Sandra Day O'Connor and Colin Powell.

While our suite hasn't actually hosted any presidents, such luminaries as Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey have stayed there. And, as it turns out, the demand for presidential suites in D.C. is so high that the Four Seasons has three of them.

"The desire for that elite level runs deeps in a certain type of traveler," says Tricia Messerschmitt, the hotel's director of public relations. "We felt we needed more than one presidential suite because more people than you can possibly imagine call up and ask for it. And if you just have one and it's booked, then they will go elsewhere until they find a presidential suite."

I would have happily camped out in the suite for days, but when in Washington it's almost a patriotic duty to get out and see the sights. Here's my advice for anyone planning a visit: Even if you've been to D.C. dozens of times and think you've seen everything and know your way around-hire a private guide. The cost: about $150 an hour with a driver. Yes, it's pricier than those Gray Line tour buses, but well worth the tab. A friend who lives in Georgetown kindly set us up with Phil Ketchum, a professorial 70ish gent who has been living in D.C. since he attended law school at Georgetown University after World War II. After working as an attorney at the FBI-"J. Edgar Hoover used to ask me to make his bank deposits. Yep, I was his bagman"-Ketchum went on to work as a lobbyist before retiring. Sort of. Now he spends several days a week sharing his vast knowledge of the city and its history. One tidbit I learned while in the company of Ketchum: The word "lobbyist" originated during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln when various business titans-railroad men, industrialists, coal and iron magnates-used to book rooms at the Willard Hotel and conduct their meetings in the lobby.

On our six-hour tour, we covered an incredible chunk of turf, everywhere from Lafayette Square to the amazing Library of Congress to lunch at Union Station. Then it was on to two relatively new memorials, the ones honoring President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a sprawling linear monument that is laid out in four distinct sections representing each of F.D.R.'s four terms, and the memorial to those who served in the Korean War, which features a squadron of infantrymen on patrol, as haunting a monument as one can imagine.

After the tour, I had just enough time left to pay a quick visit to D.C.'s hottest new site-the International Spy Museum, a galvanizing collection of espionage gadgetry and gizmos-before hoofing it back to the Four Seasons. In a city of galleries and museums, the Four Seasons has its own substantial and impressive display-nearly 1,000 pieces from the private collection of William Louis-Dreyfus, the hotel's owner. Displayed throughout the hotel's garden courtyard, public areas and suites, the collection features more than 30 artists from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, including works from Rackstraw Downs, Red Grooms and Thornton Dial.

So much to see, so much energy required to see it all. I sought rejuvenation in the hotel's three level spa and health club-it's dreamy lap pool seems like something plucked from the South Seas-before rejoining my wife in our suite. Start your morning early with a power breakfast, and if you want to head out for the evening, it requires a power nap. So an endnote here about Four Seasons beds. A few years ago, Julia Roberts was on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Oprah asked Roberts what she did when she really wanted to relax. Roberts said: "I sleep in a Four Seasons bed." To which Oprah replied: "I know exactly what you mean, girl." And the two spent the next several minutes gushing about firm mattresses and such.

"The next day, the phones started ringing off the hook," Tricia Messerschmitt told me. "Everyone wanted to buy a Four Seasons bed."

I took a look at the tag on our mattress. For the record, it was a custom design from Sealy. All I know was the power nap turned into a full night.