Where to Stay Now 2004

I've eaten room-service dinner on a balcony over the River Walk, sipped a smoking martini, enjoyed a crushed-pecan body polish, soaked in a tub with an Alamo view, and generally had a swell time sleeping around (usually swaddled in luxurious linens). Why all this hard labor? So I could tell you about the ten Texas hotels that—at this precise nanosecond in time—are my special favorites.