Once you pull down the bed from its hidden space in the wall in one of the Chatwal's one-bedroom suites, you'll find an 11-inch-thick luxury mattress.
It's the same mattress that you'd sleep on in a regular bed, Chatwal general manager Joel Freyberg told me recently during a tour of the hotel. (Freyberg, however, insists on calling it a "descending bed," to move away from any perceptions people may have of a thin, uncomfortable mattress.)
Introductory rates at the hotel, which opened last month, start at a princely $545 a night.
In the case of the 83-room, Art Deco-inspired Chatwal, the upscale Murphy bed works well because it lets guests who either couldn't get a two-room suite - or didn't want to pay for it - transform their one-bedroom suite into a two-bedroom suite. The one-bedroom suites have two full bathrooms.
But the Chatwal's not the only high-end hotel resurrecting the old-fashioned, space saver.
Another Manhattan luxury hotel - Gansevoort Park Avenue, which I toured in July while it was still under construction - features a Murphy bed in a room in its presidential suite.
Among the other hotels that let you relax on a Murphy bed:
* Westin St. Francis in San Francisco
* Teton Mountain Lodge in Jackson Hole, Wy.
* Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver
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