The Chemists’ Club Hotel (formerly The Dylan)

By Terry Trucco

At a glance: Unlike office buildings and department stores, residential clubs can morph into hotels with relative ease and success, even if the process takes a while. Consider the Chemists’ Club Hotel.

In 2000, the hotel, then called the Dylan, took over the Chemists’ Club, a handsome Beaux Arts clubhouse built in 1911 for professional chemists to meet and mingle (amenities included lab rental, a research library and a billiards table).

With exquisite bones and a superb location near Grand Central Station, the Dylan started strong as a stylish boutique property with celebrity connections (Britney Spear was behind the hotel’s original restaurant) before down-shifting to a more modest iteration that, ultimately, needed of a reboot.

In early 2025, the hotel reopened with a new owner (Azora), new management  (Crestline Hotels & Resorts) and a fitting new name that’s easy to celebrate, as the Spain-based design team Ilmiodesign discovered with clever touches like the lobby showcase filled with artfully arranged beakers, cylinders and Erlenmeyer flasks.

The hotel’s smart new look starts with the jaunty, black-and-white striped window awnings and extends to the lobby, an airy, white space furnished mid-century style and punctuated by bold jewel-toned colors — crimson velvet stools at a high table, teal velvet chairs behind the check-in desk. You can plop on a sofa to check your messages or pull up a laptop at a table. A dramatic, curved staircase leads to the well-appointed gym on the mezzanine.

A bonus is the Benjamin Steakhouse adjoining the hotel and serving breakfast, lunch and dinner in a Tudor-inspired refectory. The imposing fireplace throws off real heat.

Rooms: The redesigned rooms, enveloped in white with pops of saturated color, are contemporary, airy and sleek. Views in many are minimal, so the glamorous floor-to-ceiling curtains are best left closed.The smallish bathrooms are clad floor to ceiling in Italian Carrera marble and have washstands with bowl sinks and wood-framed glass doors. Though rooms range from big-enough-for-two–by-New-York-standards to downright spacious, high ceilings make even the little ones seem bigger than they are.

Crave drama? Book the Alchemy Suite, an alluring, Gothic chamber with a vaulted ceiling  and carved, ebony columns named for the alchemical symbols depicted on the room’s spectacular stained-glass window from 1932.

Food and drink: Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served in the Benjamin Steakhouse, the hotel’s third restaurant since it opened in 2000 but by now a keeper. With white tablecloths, a mile-high ceiling and waiters dressed bistro-style in long white aprons, the place looks like a classic steakhouse – or an English men’s club.

We sat in front of the enormous fireplace, gas-jetted but gorgeous, and tucked into a juicy grilled hamburger on a roll and excellent steak sauce, which arrived in a gravy bowl along with the breadbasket and butter. The lunchtime room bustled – almost every table was taken with a local business crowd and an occasional guest (the mathematician from Mexico City who sat at the table rhapsodized about the hotel).

Surroundings:The Chemists’ Club’s location is superb unless you hunger for greenery (or want to be downtown). Grand Central Station is a block away. Bryant Park, the New York Public Library, Times Square and Broadway theaters are easy to reach. And Rockefeller Center, Fifth Avenue shopping, the Empire State Building and cultural treats like the Museum of Modern Art are a short hop away. Downtown Manhattan is a straight shot south. And buses and subways are steps away.

Back story: When the Dylan opened in 2000, it brandished the classic elements of a successful boutique hotel including a big name designer (Jeffery Beers), a trendy air and a drop-dead exquisite Beaux Arts building from 1903. But the hotel, developed by real estate magnate Morris Moinian, took forever to open and even longer to get its footing. The parade of restaurants occupying the dramatic dining space typified the hotel’s uneasy fortunes. Virot, the creation of the talented chef Didier Virot, lasted but a wink and was replaced by Nyla, an ill-fated collaboration with Britney Spears. (The name is a contraction of New York and her home state of Louisiana – get it?) But Spain’s Eurostar hotel group took over the hotel in 2007, ushering in a low-key style and stability — and the Benjamin Steakhouse.  In 2025, the hotel completed a top to toe renovation designed by Madrid-based Ilmiodesign and overseen by new owners Azora and Crestline Hotels & Resorts management. And the Benjamin Steakhouse is still going strong.

Keep in mind: The boring, urban views from many of the rooms are reason to draw the curtains.