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Dilapidated mansion to be reborn as 23-room luxury hotel

(NEWSER) - Wish you could live as grandly as Louis XIV—or at least as grandly as one of his right-hand men? You'll soon be able to. Versailles' Hotel du Grand Controle, built in the 1680s to house the offices and residence of the king's treasurer, will open its doors as a five-star hotel in January 2012. Located a slim 300 feet from the palace, the former mansion sits in a state of disrepair: Evacuated during the French Revolution along with the rest of Versailles, its walls are crumbling in parts—and the palace doesn't have the $7 million needed to restore it. More»

Champagne, butlers, and Maybachs, oh my!

(NEWSER) - To stay at the top of NYC's Four Seasons Hotel, you have to fork over $35,000 a night (no matter who you are—no discounts given). The four-room 4,300 square-foot Ty Warner Penthouse (named for the hotel's owner/Beanie Baby mogul) took 7 years to design and $50 million to construct. So what do your mega bucks get you? The Wall Street Journal takes a look:

• a personal butler on-call 24 hours a day
• unlimited room service (unless you want thousands of dollars of caviar; that's extra)
• living room carpet made of white silk, handmade Venetian silk bedspread, bathroom sinks made of rock crystal

Dubai is out of favor, but these destinations are heating up

(NEWSER) - With Dubai in dire straits, where will jet-setters go now? The Frisky knows. See full details here .

• Morocco: Big names like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston were in Marrakesh recently for the opening of a Chopard jewelry boutique.
• Croatia: With the war over, celebs such as Steven Spielberg and Robert De Niro have been enjoying the Mediterranean beaches and cuisine.

(NEWSER) - If your big summer vacation isn’t complete without raiding the hotel minibar, AskMen.com has a list of the best the industry has to offer. A sampling:

• The Delano, Miami: If you get lucky on South Beach, you’ll be glad for the condoms and other sex accessories alongside the tiny bottles of booze.
• W Spa and Retreat, Maldives: Comes with a bikini from high-end designer Heidi Klein in the hotel chain’s signature purple.

(NEWSER) - The recession is igniting new hotel wars: not battles for customers, but between owners of luxury hotels and the properties’ operators, the New York Times reports. The owners are often struggling to keep up with big debt payments, hindered by a more than 16% average drop in hotel bookings across the sector. But operators are loathe to cut rates or amenities, saying that doing so will diminish a property’s brand. More»