By Denise McCluggage

Ian Schrager, whose hotel fancy this is (the hotel as apparel, as tech toy, as anti-hotel) is surfing a wave of success. There's a thread of similarities ranging from the edgy style and amusing touches to the dark hallways and no names on the exterior.

Two giant doors, the Stonehenge of doors, mark the place where your car should dive off Sunset to the entrance of the Mondrian. This used to be an apartment building. My room - complete with kitchen - is smallish for an apartment but wonderful for a hotel room. (The bathroom alone is larger than my room at Schrader's Hudson Hotel in New York.) I like the touches -vintage magazines and a mystery novel in white wrappers for setting the scene. A place with thought, I like that.

The outdoor space, poolside, is appealing. A city view framed in window-like arches, floor cushions on wide wooden stairs. And a Starckian touch of gigantism - a double row of shoulder-high flowerpots out of which sprout foliage that forms an arcade. Here the eye gets exercise as well as the body.

Past the pool and up some stairs is the Sky Bar, a large cube of a room with a carefully tended rep as hard to get into. (A perennial ploy carried forward from Schrader's days with Studio 54 in NYC.) The restaurant is certainly worth getting into. A foodie place with an inventive chef doing Cuban French Asian things. However someone has missed the fact that some visual input has a part in experiencing food, particularly when the food is primarily a tasteful and (I'm guessing) colorful mélange. Dim is good, dark is a nuisance.

Speaking of dark, a European guest was heard explaining to another that the murky halls of the Mondrian were a result of the California power shortage. The other nodded as he felt his way out of the elevator into Stygian mystery. Hey, guys, this kind of dark is like tearing holes in the knees of new jeans.

There's little space for cars in this most car-dense section of the globe. We used the parking lot across the street behind the Blues Brothers to learn about the Vibe and to take off on our ride-and-drive, a time honored way for motoring journalist to get an impression of a new car.

They don't want to say "wagon" because wagons are low, not tall, and have a family-vehicle image that might turn off young buyers. They don't want to say "hatchback" because that will blight sales in the US (though it's the most popular shape in Europe.) So call it "crossover" because nobody is sure what that means and it sounds new and hip. Or just call it Vibe, and it is new and hip. And if reason prevails Pontiac has a hit on its hands.

Out last month (January '02) as an '03 model, this cross-cultural cousin of the Toyota Matrix is intended to entice a younger, more style-conscious buyer into the Pontiac pool. The marketing ploys have aimed - even strained - at that. But the proof will be in the vehicle itself. (CONTINUE...)