Inc.
By Margaret Rhodes
Graduate Hotels exist only in college towns, but you'll never see a felt football pennant in one of their lobbies. Instead, in the boutique chain's Berkeley, California, location, you'll find 9,000 vintage issues of National Geographic --the magazine's cover features a Pantone number that matches one of UC Berkeley's team colors. In the Graduate in Lincoln, Nebraska, home of the Cornhuskers, cornhusks styled to mimic the pattern of the banana-leaf wallpaper at the Beverly Hills Hotel adorn the walls. And at the Athens, Georgia, outpost, rooms are decorated with chalkboards bearing the chemical formula for sweet tea.