The Residences at the Westin, with expansive views of Providence, have sold for prices ranging from $424,000 to more than $2 million.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

No matter what hour it is, residents who walk into the lobby of their private entrance to The Residences at the Westin in downtown Providence are greeted by a concierge who is there to take care of their needs.

Around the corner, elevators are waiting to whisk them up to floors 16 through 32, home to their modern condominiums, most equipped with spectacular views. Maid, valet, bellhop and room service are always just a phone call away.

If this lifestyle seems far removed from the sometimes gritty reality of everyday life, well, that’s because it is. A condo development connected to a luxury hotel is a housing choice that is unique in Providence, something more often associated with the big-city glamour of New York.

And like The Residences themselves, many of those who have bought one or more of the 103 condos at Providence’s new tower are also above such pedestrian problems as the troubled economy and the faltering real estate market.

The list of Westin condo owners includes some high-profile names, including Thomas M. Ryan, chief executive of the CVS drugstore chain, and his wife, Cathy H. Ryan. The Ryans paid $1,069,000 in December for a 1,480-square-foot condo on the 23rd floor, according to Providence deed records.

Kenneth F. Guarino, a Rhode Island native who runs an international pornography business, bought a condo on the 29th floor for $1,610,900 in April with his wife, Elvira H. Famiglietti.

Gloria Duchin and her husband, David Duchin, paid $1 million in February for a condo on the 29th floor. Gloria Duchin Inc., of East Providence, is a leading manufacturer of metal Christmas tree ornaments.

The condos may not be selling quickly, but 22 of the units at One West Exchange Street have been sold since the high-rise opened last fall, at prices that seem to defy the housing inventory glut, troubled mortgage market and tide of foreclosures in Rhode Island.

In April alone, three condos at The Residences were sold for a total of more than $5 million. The individual prices were $2,030,000, $1,450,000 and $1,610,900.

In addition to the initial sales prices, which have ranged from $424,900 to more than $2 million, Residence owners must pay monthly condo fees that can be higher than a typical mortgage payment.

For instance, a 27th-floor condo priced at $942,000 commands a monthly fee of $1,224, according to the Multiple Listings Service; for a 24th-floor unit priced at $1,026,000, the fee is $1,509 per month. A condo on the 18th floor, priced at $456,000, has an association fee of $661 per month.

GLORIA DUCHIN said she uses her Westin condo as a summer home and winter pied-à-terre. Her primary residence is in Florida. She said she was attracted by the idea of “living in a condo in a hotel with all the amenities.”

“They have a concierge 24/7,” she said. “…You never have to be home. Everything will be taken care of for you.”

Recently, Duchin, who is having most of the furnishings for her new condo custom-made, said she was staying at a rented villa in Tuscany when a large piece of furniture was scheduled to arrive. The staff at the Westin handled the delivery and stored the item for her, she said.

Duchin said she’s living at the Westin now with mostly temporary furnishings. She hired a designer, Jason Nunes, to plan the interior space, and a landscape designer will customize her 500-square-foot terrace.

New owners at The Residences also include professionals. Omar Meer, a doctor, bought the lowest-priced unit that has sold to date, a 16th-floor condo for $424,900, in January.

At the 32-story Westin tower, the first floor is retail and restaurant space; floors 2 through 6 are parking, for residents only; floors 7 through 15 include 200 new hotel rooms; and floors 16 through 32 are the condominiums.

Meer, who is from Pakistan, is an internist in his late 30s who trained at Brown University, and he lives at the Westin full time. As a self-described “control freak,” he said he doesn’t often use the array of hotel amenities available and they are not the reason he bought there. “I usually prefer to do things myself,” he said.

Instead, Meer, who rented an apartment in downtown Providence before buying the condo, said he wants to be a part of the “rejuvenation” of the downtown.

“I think Rhode Island gave me a lot, and I see it as investing in Providence, and investing in the downtown area, which I think has a lot of potential,” he said. He said it is time for “a lot of people who are my age and younger to move in and take a chance and remove the stigma from downtown Providence.”

VALENTINE FERRARIS, a dentist from Cape Cod, has a winter home in Arizona, and he bought a 19th-floor condo at the Westin for $529,900 in December. His daughter went to Providence College, she married a Rhode Islander and today lives in Barrington.

Ferraris said he wanted a place close to family, but he is also enjoying part-time life in Providence; he keeps a boat nearby and spends a lot of time in Rhode Island in the summer. “I’m 67 years old,” he said. “I’ve watched Providence change. … I’ve just seen Providence become more and more fun every time I visit.”

M. David Odeh, a structural engineer with Odeh Engineers of North Providence, and his wife, Marguerite E. Odeh, bought a condo near the top, on the 30th floor, for $1,539,900 in February. Odeh has professional ties to The Procaccianti Group of Cranston, the developers of The Residences at the Westin, but his company has also worked on the competing Waterplace condominium project in downtown Providence.

The biggest sale to date at The Residences was to a financial professional, Robert Herron, who bought two condos on the 24th floor for $2,030,000 in April and has merged them into one larger three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit. Herron, who works in commercial real-estate finance with the Boston office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P., said he helped The Procaccianti Group finance the tower project. He said he will keep his primary residence in Cambridge, Mass., and bought at the Westin primarily as an investment. Herron said the contemporary, high-rise style of his new condo is very different from his Cambridge residence, a duplex in an older house near Harvard Square.

Herron isn’t the only Westin owner who has doubled up on condos. Russell and Carla Ricci, of Charlestown, bought two units on the 22nd floor in February for a total price of nearly $1.6 million.

Like Duchin, Herron said he’s enjoying the convenience of owning a condo with all the amenities of a four-star hotel. The night he moved in, he said, he and a friend were able to kick back, relax and order a gourmet restaurant meal, delivered in style by the hotel staff.

It may not be the most frugal choice, but for Westin buyers, living the high life in downtown Providence is well worth the price tag.

“The taxes are kind of high, and the condo fees are ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter,” Meer said.

“There aren’t that many pent-houses in Rhode Island,” Duchin said. “The views are beautiful, just beautiful.”

cdunn@projo.com