Greensboro hotel makes climate-conscious travelers swoon

Visitors with low-emitting, fuel-efficient vehicles can pull into a preferred parking spot closer to the front entrance, where a U.S. Green Building Council seal proclaims the hotel's status as LEED Platinum — a rating reserved for the most energy-efficient of buildings.

In my loft-like room on the Promixity's top floor, with its stunning floor-to-ceiling windows, exposed concrete walls and towering ceiling, a card on the plush king-size bed details more of the hotel's Earth-loving ways.

The furniture might be locally manufactured and the construction materials carefully recycled, but sitting in the hotel's airy two-story lobby one afternoon, I was struck not by the sustainability of it all but by the serenity.

Natural light spilled in from massive windows, which overlooked an interior garden brimming with bluebells and flowering magnolias.

Later, in the adjacent Print Works Bistro — a cozy restaurant that could have been plucked from a Paris side street — I frankly gave little thought that the bar had been made from salvaged walnut trees, the service trays from Plyboo (bamboo plywood) or the drink coasters from cut up pieces of cardboard.

The group also builds custom furnishings for the hotel — antiqued mirrors, one-of-a-kind tables, cabinets, chairs and lampshades — that are more unique and typically less expensive than buying from outside vendors.

The solar panels, the high-efficiency plumbing, the salvaged wood and recycled construction materials — it's an admirable, Earth-friendly approach, not to mention an apparently astute business decision.