(FORTUNE Magazine) – If all your nights on the road are spent in the same old cookie-cutter hotels, next time treat yourself to some style. In the past year or so, a bunch of one-of-a-kind high-concept hotels have surfaced; we polled the design community for their big-city favorites. Surprisingly, the going corporate rates for such quarters are comparable with or less than the better chains.

THE MANSFIELD, New York City. Step into the gracious lobby of this clubby, European-style hotel, and the hubbub of Midtown suddenly seems far away. Striking Beaux Arts architecture, buttery art deco leather sofas, and a magnificent oval staircase greet you. In the rooms the lavish furnishings are updates of Edwardian-era classics and include custom-made velvet chairs, dramatic metal mesh headboards, and French etched-glass doors.

Standard rooms are attractive but small, so go ahead and splurge on larger digs: Corporate rates for suites average a mere $225--less than half the starting price for a standard room at New York City's Four Seasons hotel. The best in the house: a drop-dead duplex penthouse with 20-foot ceilings, a loft-style bedroom, and adjoining Eva Peron balcony, which costs only $325 during low season (January, February, July, and August), $650 the rest of the year.

MONDRIAN, West Hollywood. Adjectives usually associated with Philippe Starck-designed properties--lush, sumptuous, over-the-top--do not apply. Strikingly simple best describes this Sunset Strip hotel. But that's not to say that the witty designer had no fun at all--he spent $17 million revamping the old Le Mondrian. His trick here is to play with scale--in both size and price. You enter through giant, 30-foot lacquered doors. In the lobby, tiny schoolroom furniture mingles with museum-quality 20th-century classics as well as homey wooden tables and chairs. The rooms, all white on white, have spectacular views of Los Angeles. Prices are moderate, from $175 up to $385 for a deluxe suite.

HOTEL MONACO, San Francisco. To remake this 1910 Beaux Arts hotel, Los Angeles designer Cheryl Rowley envisioned a "galleon that plies the oceans of the world collecting exotica and precious treasures." Whoa. The result: Rowley, a master mixer, has boldly blended stripes, florals, leather, velvet, and silks for a decor that is not for the shy. Every nook and cranny in the 201-room hotel is lively; guests even register at a desk that is a playful rendition of a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk.

When owner Bill Kimpton bought the building from Japanese investors three years ago, it had been gutted. Only two original elements survived: a bronze filigree staircase with marble steps, and a soaring, two-story inglenook fireplace crowned by three domed skylights. They became the focus of Rowley's lobby design. Guest rooms, equally fanciful, feature canopy beds. Corporate rates go from $185 for standard rooms to $375 for suites.

THE HEMPEL, London. The most controversial hotel in recent memory, this temple of minimalism--called perverse by some and a morgue by others--was clearly designed with the irrefutably hip in mind. The lobby is a vast, white void, with only two gas fireplaces that spew 15-foot flames at each end. Owner Anouska Hempel says it has the "feeling of an ancient pyramid."

Wisely, Hempel has added a bit of Hollywood to each of the 52 guest rooms. The most requested one, a junior suite called the Lion's Den, features a bed encased in a cage that is suspended from the ceiling. Giorgio Armani prefers the Beluga suite, which has an enormous four-poster bed and great views of the Zen garden. Rates range from $420 to $1,600 per night, but corporate discounts are available to regular customers.