High tea and texting don’t mix. That, at least, is how I felt on a recent weekday afternoon as I sipped Lapsang Souchong and nibbled miniature sandwiches in the Gotham Lounge at The Peninsula hotel. Afternoon tea at a hotel is something of an anachronism, a last link to a “What is the weekend?” world. […]
Full disclosure: I love hotel soaps and have been known to wrap up a gently used bar of Malin + Goetz or Miller Harris and take it home. But I don’t always and I’ve wondered – what happens to the hundreds of thousands of lightly used soaps and shampoos hotels collect each week?
At the moment Kate Middleton and Prince William say “I Do” next Friday, early bird guests at a cluster of Manhattan hotels will raise their champagne glasses. How did London’s royal wedding turn into a hotel event in New York? Here’s our play-by-play of the race to see which hotel will catch the bouquet.
Shortly after I spent the night at the Crosby Street Hotel, I came across the April issue of Elle Décor. Inside I spotted the London townhouse of Kit and Tim Kemp, owners of the Crosby. Gazing at their fancifully sophisticated, color-drenched house awash in bold florals and even bolder stripes it seemed I’d never left […]
What new book would we choose if we were curating a hotel library? This slim, picture-rich volume compiled by London’s stylish Design Museum bags one of our votes.
We’ve been hearing a lot about juice cleanses lately. From celebrity sightings – pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker juice bottle in hand, blog posts from Gwyneth Paltrow – to news stories weighing the pros and cons, those cute, colorful little bottles labeled Drink Me exude an Alice-in-Wonderland mystique and are hard to miss.
A Paramount fan since its cheap-chic Philippe Starck/Ian Schrager days, I mourned the hotel’s fall into disrepair in the 2000s and cheered its renovation in 2009. But I disagreed with some design decisions. Apparently I wasn’t alone. The renovated Paramount keeps getting tweaked – and better.
The 1,781-room Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, a classic midtown skyscraper, is in the midst of a $150 million makeover. And not a moment too soon from what we saw on a recent visit.
New York hotels discovered eons ago that empty walls and fine art go together like poached eggs and Hollandaise. Consider the Audubon and Piranesi prints in The Carlyle guest rooms. Or the contemporary art by one-time residents like Larry Rivers and Susan Olmetti blanketing the Chelsea Hotel lobby.
I love design shows, and this is one of my favorites. (Full disclosure: I moderated the show’s New York Times design seminars, but I’d love it anyway.)