(FORTUNE Magazine) – EVERY HOTEL EXPERIENCE is in its own way extreme. There's the creepy thrill of sleeping under that much-used comforter, and the demanding sport of digging for stuff left under the bed. But Bill Lee, 34, has his own idea of what an adventuresome lodging experience should be. The former Internet entrepreneur recently opened eXtreme Cabarete, the first in a planned line of far-flung hotels catering to action- sports enthusiasts.

"After I sold my first Internet company [San Jose--based RemarQ, an online discussion service], I basically wanted to take some time off and travel the world and surf," Lee says. "I discovered that there was no hotel brand aimed at the adventure traveler." So Lee started eXtreme Hotels. The idea is that each outpost will serve participants of a specific pursuit, such as cliff diving. The Cabarete is a modest, 20-room hotel on a windswept Dominican Republic beach that's well known for kiteboarding (a newish sport where one is strapped to a board and then towed through the water by an oversized kite).

The hotel is currently accepting guests, but Lee says workers are completing minor renovations (including on the skate- boarding ramp out back), and Cabarete will have its grand opening March 11. "It's a very interesting concept," says Diane Clarkson, an analyst at Jupiter Research. "Adventure travel is a fairly narrow niche in the travel industry, but it's growing." Though the hotels sound like a teen's dream, Lee says he's getting inquiries from a lot of wealthy "people in their 50s who are retired." Well, at least it's an alternative to the midlife-crisis convertible. -- Reed Tucker