Axel Vervoordt has a problem. The master bathroom he has designed in the penthouse of the Greenwich Hotel in New York is without a door, and the hotel’s co-owner, Ira Drukier, is putting his foot down. The so far doorless opening faces north, with a panoramic window in front of it, and Drukier is pointing out, not unfairly, that guests will insist on at least the option of not being seen as they emerge, dripping, from the tub, the rim of which is fashioned from a monolithic 17th-century stone farm trough. It is the first moment of several during that day — among innumerable others that have occurred over the two-and-a-half-year course of construction — in which the purity of the aesthetic concepts behind this project bumps up against the practicalities of its intended use as a hotel suite. PhotoStones for the drawing room mantel were found locally, and give expression to the wabi atmosphere.