No matter what’s trending in fashion, the New York City uniform has remained constant—any cut, any style, but make it black. And the same has long been true of Manhattan hotels, with slick onyx, creamy white and neutral linens serving as reliable antidotes to the city’s sensory overload.
Not anymore.
“If you think about what the consumer wants today, they don’t want beige,” says Elizabeth Mullins, managing director of the Fifth Avenue Hotel and chief operating officer of its parent company, Flâneur Hospitality. “They want a hotel with soul.”
Mullins, a veteran of Ritz-Carlton and the Walt Disney Co., says this has been true ever since the pandemic left people wanting to reawaken their senses and “feel something” along their travels. Most commonly, they want to feel a sense of place. “But it’s hard to evoke much of anything when you’re beige.”
The Fifth Avenue Hotel
This former Gilded Age mansion on 28th Street and Fifth Avenue is a shockingly rare example of low-rise opulence smack in the middle of the NoMad neighborhood, just down the street from the Ned, Ace and Ritz-Carlton hotels. But this is less the preserved home of a turn-of-the-century tycoon and more of a fun-filled portal into Manhattan’s modern wonderland.
If you don’t like judging a book by its cover, don’t judge this hotel by its traditionally styled lobby, with its elegantly draped double-height windows and crystal chandeliers. But if you must, form your opinion from the contents of two vintage hutches against the back wall: The cheeky curiosities include a single goldfish cracker in a “plastic baggie” made from crystal.
That sense of humor is a through line for this kaleidoscopic hotel, fashioned with all sorts of winks and nods by the ever-whimsical designer Martin Brudnizki. In one hallway is a gallery wall of framed eyes—some painted, some drawn, some googly. Its 153 rooms feature martini carts piled high with full-size spirits and fresh-baked lemon cookies, all from chef Andrew Carmellini, who runs the excellent Café Carmellini restaurant downstairs. Mercury glass panels behind the headboards create a brilliant optical illusion: they reflect the twinkle of star-shaped ceiling lights, making each room feel twice its actual size.
The Warren Street Hotel
Designer Kit Kemp is the OG preacher of “anything but beige,” and her third New York City property for Firmdale Hotels is every bit as hypersaturated and pattern-happy as its predecessors, the Whitby and Crosby Street. The lobby can cure jet lag with its bursts of mustard yellow, kelly green and royal blue. Yet the double-paned, floor-to-ceiling windows in the rooms—with spectacular downtown vantages toward One World Trade or Herzog & de Meuron’s “Jenga building”—make for pin-drop-quiet sleep when you need it.For fans of the U.K.-based brand (and there are many), the overall look will be familiar: dramatically oversize headboards and upholstered dress forms in mix-and-match patterns are Kemp’s indispensable signatures. The same is growing true about other design tropes she’s adapted here, such as long displays of white porcelain pots adorned with mushrooms and fairies in glowing, red-painted nooks, or the color-block leather stools at the bar. If it’s slightly formulaic by now, there’s a reason for that: the effect is still mesmerizing.
Fouquet’s New York
Another Brudnizki special is this French-inflected 97-room gem on Greenwich Street, which has already earned two Michelin Keys and whose pink-and-green color palette was inspired by a dainty box of macarons. But that doesn’t mean the hotel is entirely demure. By one central staircase you’ll find a giant, bedazzled sculpture of a gorilla wearing a Team USA-inspired hat and holding the Eiffel Tower in its clenched fist. Custom toile wallpaper in the rooms sport New York street scenes interspersed with cheeky drawings of pigeons snatching croissants. (It’s a permanent installation by France-based contemporary sculptor Eddy Maniez.)Thoughtful details abound, including green marble luggage benches built into little foyers. Ditto on the amenity side: The hotel has thought of all sorts of clever perks, such as a full cinema in the basement (with velvet chaise seats!) that can be used for kids’ movie screenings on rainy days.
Virgin Hotel NoMad
The most eye-catching space at the Virgin Hotel is hidden away on the third floor, around the corner from a coffee bar that feels almost as long as a football field. Do a little exploring, though, and you’ll wonder how Everdene restaurant has stayed a New York secret. The food is solid—mostly American classics with a twist, delicious if not exactly star-worthy—but the space itself feels like a rarefied haven. On one side, rainbowlike bookshelves dramatically arch from floor to ceiling, filled with tomes in bright corresponding colors; on the other are swooping blue banquettes that face walls of windows and two massive outdoor terraces. One floor up, in a separate oasis, is a rooftop pool decked out with black-and-white striped loungers, all with killer views of the Empire State Building.That’s a lot of amenities for a hotel with shockingly well-priced rooms, though there are 460 of them—a big number by New York standards. Even the entry-level ones have separated, suitelike foyers, a brand standard designed to give solo female travelers extra privacy. (We love not having to say hi to room service staff while wearing a bathrobe.)
Also standard at all Virgin hotels are a handful of supersmart, space-saving design tricks. There’s always a very comfortable bed that includes a built-in cushion in one corner: You can sit against it if you want to work with your computer on your lap. In most rooms here the upholstered gray headboards stretch a few extra feet to one side, forming bench seating to go with a small round table—a functional dining space. Elsewhere, splashes of red abound; it’s the Richard Branson signature.
W Union Square
Nothing stays cool for 20 years, not even the original downtown New York location of the world’s first hip hotel brand. But as W’s devotees have grown older and more sophisticated, so, too, have its properties. Nowhere will that be more visible than at this fully redesigned global flagship, slated to wrap its four-year-long renovation in November after numerous lengthy delays. (The hotel has been open continuously throughout construction.)“We’ve really moved from being this original lifestyle hospitality disrupter to being firmly rooted in the luxury lifestyle portfolio for Marriott,” says George Fleck, senior vice president and global brand leader for W Hotels. “But we don’t want to lose the playfulness and sense of style that we’ve been known for,” he says. “It’s an evolution, not a revolution.”
Part of that is simply shifting the colors to richer and more saturated tones, such as the forest green carpeting and orange leather headboards that stretch all the way to the ceiling in many of the hotel’s 256 rooms. Downstairs, a sizable gym with a Peloton “studio space” is done in minty green-and-yellow checkerboard tile; on the second floor, a Beaux Arts “Living Room” replete with ornamental plaster work gets a dose of fun from a mod, ochre-toned fireplace shaped like a giant rainbow (similar to the Virgin Hotel bookshelves). It’s refined and smart but with a cheeky edge—a little like New York itself. Rooms from $550
