Halcyon, a Hotel in Cherry Creek

The pool

• Year-round heated pool
• Rocky Mountain views
• Cabanas
• Cherry Creek setting

Why it's on the list

A year-round heated rooftop pool that shrugs off the altitude — Rockies on the horizon, cabanas at the edge, and water blue enough to forgive the thin air. The 14ers visible from the pool deck on a clear morning are the kind of view that makes the resort fee feel optional.

The stay

Halcyon is the settle-in one — 154 rooms and eleven suites that opened in 2016 in Cherry Creek, with Local Jones doing the all-day bistro downstairs and a Gear Garage lending outdoor gear for getting out of town. Cherry Creek is Denver at its most polished: low-rise gallery-and-boutique blocks southeast of downtown, quieter by night than the city core. At $$$ it's the grown-up base — the pick when the trip is pool, dinner, and mountain light rather than downtown nights, and the year-round heated water makes a clear January swim a real plan instead of a brochure line.