Aug. 5--Two years ago, they were the place to stay. 

Cool boutique hotels were where your whole visit was an experience -- from lobbies that resembled swank lounges to rooms with fancy furniture, ionized air, filtered water, and fancy linens. 

But the boutique hotel industry has taken a beating for the past year. The recession and the dot-com bust, followed by the events of Sept. 11, cut occupancy levels to 45 percent or lower at many hotels late last year. 

Although occupancy levels have slowly been coming back, many boutique hotels are discounting rates, making a stay a good buy for the business traveler who wants an alternative hotel experience. 

This is especially apparent in San Francisco, where the boutique hotel concept was born two decades ago. The city has several dozen such hotels, the nation's largest cluster, all competing against each other for a smaller market of travelers. 

With Spanish colonial architecture lending it an old world feel, the 236-room Serrano Hotel breaks the stereotype that boutique hotels are for Generation X only. But the Serrano has been offering rooms for as low as $159, including parking, which is normally $29 a day. Before Sept. 11, the hotel's rates hovered around $200 a night and up. 

"Business is starting to come back," says general manager Mike Casola, who grew up in Teaneck. 

The hotel's 68 percent occupancy rate in June was still below the average 80 percent before Sept. 11, he says. 

The Hotel Rex, designed to appeal to literary types with a clubby lobby and cases filled with antiquarian books, offers a $135 nightly rate, down from a minimum of $179 before Sept. 11. 

Better yet, book the hotels through Quikbook.com, a discount, Internet-based reservation service. Quikbook.com features the Serrano for as low as $129 and The Rex for $127 a night. 

Is a boutique hotel for you? It depends on what you're seeking. 

Most boutique hotels are smaller than their traditional counterparts, meaning you're less likely to get lost or encounter long check-in lines. They also try to offer more intimate service. The Serrano has a daily complimentary wine hour with tarot card reading and a library of board games for guests to play. Its nearby neighbor in San Francisco, the Monaco, offers neck massages during cocktail hour and a goldfish delivered to rooms, to keep the lonely business traveler company. 

Often, however, the hotels have smaller guest rooms than those at chain facilities, and may have only limited room service or lack the full- service business centers found in bigger hotels. But that's not true in every boutique hotel. The Serrano, for example, features a business center with high-speed Internet service and a copy machine, and the services are complimentary, a rarity in any hotel, whether big or small. 

Above all, make sure the theme of a particular boutique hotel appeals to your sensibilities. 

The Rouge in Washington is aimed at the so-called hip traveler. The lobby features a red interior with pop artwork and sensuous blown-glass sculptures. The hotel rooms feature floor-to-ceiling red faux-leather headboards and crimson velvet draperies. Mini-bars are filled with out-of-the-ordinary items, including red wax lips, red Jell-O, and temporary tattoos. 

The Topaz Hotel, another new Washington boutique hotel, offers complimentary energy drinks in the morning with gingko, ginseng, or wheat grass and daily horoscope readings in the evening. 

What if you just want a nice, comfortable room? 

That was the plight of Oakland, Calif., television reporter Roland De Wolk during a May business trip to Seattle. De Wolk stayed at the W hotel in Seattle, the giant Starwood chain's answer to the boutique concept. De Wolk, 49, said he felt out of place as soon as he entered the facility. 

"I was the oldest guy there by 30 years," he says. "I felt like I was coming into a youth hostel." 

De Wolk says everyone seemed to be wearing black. He says he felt like he was the only man who didn't have a ring in his nose. 

The hallways were so dark that he couldn't read the numbers to find his room. "It looked like a bordello," De Wolk says. 

Although the hotel billed itself as high-tech, De Wolk felt the ultimate irony when he tried to use his cellphone. 

"It's supposed to be high-tech and modern, but I couldn't get a cellphone signal," he says. 

What really got him was when he called the front desk to see if he could get some toothpaste, which he forgot to bring. 

"They wanted to know how they could help enhance my experience," he recalls. 

"I didn't want my experience enhanced; I just wanted some toothpaste." 

All in all, De Wolk says, the hotel staff was actually very nice (he eventually got toothpaste), and he could see how the W might appeal to some people. But he says it wasn't the right facility for him. 

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(c) 2002, The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. HOT,