The hotel guest, before visiting her mother’s grave, spoke about the importance of family. Upon returning to her suite, she found a photo collage of her children and grandchild. The card that accompanied it read: “The best things in life cannot be seen or touched, but must be felt with the heart.” And the guest — actress Goldie Hawn — was both grateful and emotionally touched.

The man who arranged the collage and wrote the note was Clarence McLeod, manager of the Fairmont Gold floor at The Fairmont in Washington, D.C. Being sensitive to guests’ moods and priorities, anticipating their needs and fulfilling their requests “pushes my creativity to the limit,” says McLeod.

The joy and importance of hospitality was ingrained in McLeod when he was a child. His family frequently entertained visitors from around the world, and his grandmother’s incredible cooking was the draw. “Make it happen, no matter what” could be his personal credo.

There seems to be nothing McLeod can’t accomplish. Just ask the couple who were to be wed in The Fairmont’s Georgetown Suite. McLeod made all the arrangements — from decorations to food — and things seemed to be going well, until the suggested officiant was declared dull and devoid of personality.

The betrothed jokingly suggested that their concierge conduct the service … and were thrilled when McLeod found a quick way to become an ordained minister, through Universal Ministries.

“A competent concierge will take no for an answer when trying to make a dinner reservation at a restaurant that is full,” says McLeod, a native of Jamaica who has been with The Fairmont since 1989. “An exceptional concierge will find a way to get the guests a reservation by using contacts and exhausting all avenues until the request has been fulfilled.”

Yet it’s the ability to fulfill a need without being asked — to go beyond the call of duty — that sets the truly extraordinary concierges apart from the rest.

At The Fairmont in Washington, D.C., a first-time guest who searches, in vain, for a 12-year-old movie in the hotel’s DVD collection later finds it delivered to her room on a silver platter. A frequent guest who mentions his new puppy, goes home with dog treats made by the hotel chef. Another regular, in the process of divorcing and alone at Thanksgiving, receives a care package of hotel slippers, tea, a teddy bear — and Jack Daniels.

Kevin Spacey, when in town to launch his movie Beyond the Sea, found a framed photo of himself and his mother on his hotel room desk. McLeod, who had done his homework, knew the film was dedicated to the actor’s mother.

The hotel concierge does his or her best to guarantee quality of service, and those who do an exceptional job are awarded membership in Les Clefs d’Or, which means “keys of gold” in French. Other ways to measure accomplishment include the Best Concierge Award from the Virtuoso network of luxury travel consultants. Frank Laino, executive head concierge at The Stafford Hotel in London, is the most recent recipient of that honor.

The native Londoner and 20-year concierge is accustomed to addressing unique requests, such as organizing tai chi lessons on horseback and finding a Savile Row tailor to craft a jacket for a guest’s dog.

Only occasionally will he set limits. “A longtime guest once took me out to dinner and asked me to propose marriage to his daughter,” Laino recalls. “As much as I would have liked to oblige, the gentleman didn’t realize I was already married!”

Christina Tonelli of Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, Ariz., says the exceptional concierge adopts “the heart of a servant, the enthusiasm of a child, and a mind that focuses on the most minuscule details of any and all guest requests.” She compares herself to a chameleon, adaptable and eager to change as circumstances deem necessary.

“My world travels have given me the training to be a concierge who understands that people all over the world want the same thing — respect and consideration of their needs,” she says.

Tonelli mentions a guest who in 2007 shared a photo of her father, a Vietnam veteran, standing in front of a military plane. The context of this image had been an unsolved mystery for decades, and the daughter wondered if a nearby Air Force base could help her identify the aircraft and its history.

The outside of the airplane was missing a few numbers, but Tonelli contacted the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, then checked back daily to monitor research progress. Concierge and customer eventually discovered the day and location when a bomb destroyed the aircraft.

It was an eerie coincidence: The month and day were the same month and day her father died — years later. “She broke down into tears, right there at the concierge desk,” but also was deeply appreciative, and Tonelli realized how much her work could matter to guests.

It’s not unusual for a concierge to become intimately acquainted with the details of guests’ personal lives. At no time is this truer than when dealing with the details and emotions of weddings.

When a bride from New York approached concierge Antonio Ferrara in tears, she likely expected little more than sympathy. The newlywed was desperate after discovering she had lost her wedding ring while departing from a private motorboat in the Port of Amalfi, about two miles from the Palazzo Sasso hotel in Ravello, Italy, where Ferrara was the concierge.

Ferrara arranged for a scuba diver’s services within minutes.

“As you can imagine, the water close to the piers is not so clear,” Ferrara explains.

“The diver was very clever,” he recalls. “He made a bit of a joke when he surfaced, several times, always with something” — first an iron boat ring, then a shoe and “at the end, the ring.”

Ferrara has worked at Palazzo Sasso since it opened 10 years ago, and “it is like a mission” to please people who have “different needs, different expectations.” He was born in a neighboring town and takes pride in sharing his heritage with visitors. “I can tell a lot of stories, making the place interesting,” Ferrara says.

Concierge Brandelyn Nelson of the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, has some interesting stories as well, like the one about the groom who broke his eyeglasses just 30 minutes before his wedding. Nelson and her team attacked the problem without hesitation.

“It took a great deal of rushing and maneuvering, calling shops until we found one that could complete the job, then sending a driver, but we made it happen,” Nelson says.

Sometimes guest requests are literally all business, as when concierges at the Conrad El Sheikh, at Egypt’s Ras Nosrani Bay, were asked to gather information to help a guest open a restaurant and bar. Under the leadership of chief concierge Khaled Gouda, the hotel staff became researchers who produced relevant information about a potential business location, competition, suppliers, menu possibilities and more.

“For me, the customer is undoubtedly king,” says Gouda, adding that today that particular guest runs a successful restaurant.

This is a business in which grace is evident in big and small ways. Nelson, for example, speaks highly of colleague Dawn Laulette, who has been at the Hotel Bel-Air 14 years. “Sometimes I think guests come back to our hotel just to see Dawn,” Nelson says. “She means a great deal to them and they connect to her. I cannot imagine her in any other line of work.”

At the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort & Spa in Colorado, Kendra Powell, the VIP and concierge manager, says her motto is that the answer is always “yes” unless the request is illegal or immoral. That has meant placing a homemade gingerbread house in a guestroom on Christmas, arranging the delivery of kosher food from Brooklyn and finding a helicopter to transport a guest to a special dinner.

The occupation can be full of obscurity, says Jake McHugh, chief concierge at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. He mentions the guest who wanted a specific type of handbag for his daughter, and McHugh finally found it — 1,800 miles away, in Tokyo.

“The long and short of it is that the bag was sent by FedEx back to our guest in Chicago,” McHugh says. “The end result is lifetime guest satisfaction and a guest who sings the praises of our organization all over the world.”

McHugh’s work background is as unconventional as his workdays are today. He has been an immigration officer, worked in a bank and been at the Hyatt for 10 years, where he has assisted Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, musicians Norah Jones and Bob Geldof and numerous other digni taries.

“I am empowered to do pretty much anything I feel is necessary to get the job done,” McHugh says, of his employer — and that can make all the difference in the world.