It's hip to be off the square

h2hotel's pop-art inspired lobby

h2hotel is the latest hip lodging in Healdsburg to pack 'em in. The name even sounds like a text message. On a recent Thursday night, each of h2's 36 rooms was spoken for, and the rates are not for the budget-minded. (Recession? What recession?) Located a bit south of the Plaza, the hotel is starkly elegant, but with colorful lobby furniture (wide-wide-wide-wale corduroy loungers with '60s-style upholstery prints) that would look appropriate in Austin Powers's flat. Another point in the hotel's favor: upstairs hallways left unadorned, with no tired and tacky watercolors of vineyards anywhere in sight. What a relief.