San Jose’s Modern Domain

We’re pleased to have this guest post from Amanda Crater, Founder and CEO of CraterCom — a public relations firm specializing in work for green brands. Amanda attended the recent Executive Council Value-based Sustainability summit in San Jose and offers her views on Joie de Vivre’s Domain hotel.

My enthusiasm heading up to San Jose for the Executive Council’s Value-Based Sustainability Summit last week was definitely rewarded by the caliber of speakers and intimate size of the conference (about 80 people attended by invitation only). The editorial content was excellent and the moderators did a good job engaging the audience throughout the day. The summit opened with a compelling keynote from Adam Werbach and featured timely conversations with sustainability executives from leading corporations including IBM, Microsoft, UPS, e-Bay, Coca-Cola, SAP, and PG&E. They announced a Twitter hashtag (#ecvbs) and some really good tweets emerged from the event.

I didn’t intend to stay at the hotel Domain but, when I arrived at my original hotel — the Avatar — I was told that they were overbooked and that I was being relocated, gratis, to the nearby Domain. It was 8:45 p.m. and I was ready to kick back and relax so I was not happy being kicked down the road.

However, once I walked into the lobby of the Domain, I was so thrilled with the lobby and then my room that I forgot all about it. Plus, they comped the room because of the inconvenience, a $139 value for an extra seven-minute drive to Sunnyvale.

My original reservations were for the Avatar hotel, which has a retro theme and a collection of vintage toy figurines in the lobby and shag carpet, but the Domain, part of the same Joie de Vivre chain, was even cooler with an oversized theme, from the giant sheer curtains covering the wall-sized window in the lobby to the oversized desk lamp next to the bed that reached the ceiling. I really loved the layout of the room and the blue walls – it was tranquil and cozy.

If I was staying there longer than one night I would have spent some time writing in the lobby, which had nice tables set up, good natural daylight and the soothing sound of running water from a fountain. A great place to compose some prose.

The room also had one of those sleep number beds, which I experimented with but honestly didn’t notice any differences from one setting to the next when I tried it. I liked the bamboo shampoo, conditioner and facial soap they provided and was so tempted to take the cute little aqua-colored soap holder…but of course I didn’t. The only problem (well aside from too-soft pillows) was that my room was right in the heavy traffic area of the hall outside the elevator. I jumped a couple of times at first because I thought people were trying to get in my room but soon realized they were just rattling by.

Overall, the trip was great. I made excellent connections with people, traveled comfortably and returned to LA feeling inspired and refreshed! I definitely recommend Executive Council events and the Domain hotel in Sunnyvale.