Centurion United Kingdom Autumn 2014

BLACKBOOK URBAN PRIMER

BLACKBOOK URBAN PRIMER Above: St Regis Dior suite; below: the lobbies of WestHouse, left, and Quin, right But in a city that seems to have construction going on at every corner, new hotels are popping up, too. Stretching high above 57th Street is The Park Hyatt New York (newyork.park.hyatt.com). Its 210 rooms are tucked in the lower floors of the 90-storey One57 condominium, which is among New York’s tallest buildings. Amenities at the blue-glass tower, by architect Christian de Portzamparc, include bathroom mirrors embedded with TVs, and guests can also get two shirts pressed on the house. Across the street, with more of a boutique feel, is the Viceroy New York (viceroyhotelsandresorts.com), a 29-storey, 240-room tower by Roman and Williams, which designed NoMad’s trendy Ace Hotel. Rooms are decorated with mid-century furnishings and styled with panelling; more warm woods turn up in a rooftop bar that provides panoramas of Central Park. A third option on the same block is the 208-room Quin Hotel (thequinhotel.com). Touch-screen tablets on nightstands allow easy control over air, light and music, while baths sport marble and textured tile. As shimmering as a chandelier, the Baccarat Hotel and Residences (baccaratresidencesny.com), from Starwood Capital, offers 114 rooms on the lower floors of a hotelcondo hybrid on West 53rd Street, by the MoMA. And an Art Deco vibe rules at nearby WestHouse Hotel New York (westhousehotelnewyork.com), a 172-room property on West 55th Street, where guests luxuriate in 400-threadcount sheets. Not to be outdone, the Towers, a nestingdoll-like hotel-within-a-hotel at the New York Palace on Madison Avenue (newyorkpalace.com/towers), provides use of a Maybach for those who stay in its 176 rooms. No word yet if trips to Williamsburg will be discouraged. New York BIJOU BOLTHOLES A trio of discreet and timeless hostelries continue to lure the cognoscenti to the Upper East Side THE MARK With its iconic black-and-white marble flooring, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten-helmed restaurant and the dexterity of a concierge for whom no challenge is too great, this Jacques Grangedesigned property is a deco gem dating from 1927; it is ably overseen by French-born General Manager Olivier Lordonnois. 77th Street at Madison Avenue; themarkhotel.com THE LOWELL Evoking the elegance of a stately country home complete with wood-burning fireplaces, a rarity in the city, this landmark 1920s-era hotel features 74 individually decorated rooms and suites – and from early next year a Michael S Smith-designed restaurant – populated by bold-named, camerashy personalities for whom discretion is a byword. 63rd Street at Madison; lowellhotel.com THE SURREY Located on the doorstep to Museum Mile, it’s no surprise that art figures large at this onetime residence hotel. The historic property’s 189 Lauren Rottet-designed salons and suites beckon the creative set, who also have an exclusive private roof garden from which to survey the city on the 17th storey. 76th Street at Madison; thesurrey.com BY FARHAD HEYDARI, C J HUGHES, JOHN LOPEZ AND JOHN Mc NAMARA PHOTOS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: BRUCE BUCK, © QUIN HOTEL, LLOYD G. TAPPER JR., SHANNON GREER, TODD EBERLE, © WESTHOUSE HOTEL 34 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM The latest news on hotel openings around the world at WWW.CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM

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