The Chatwal hotel lobby, NYC
Frequent travelers know all about the wonderful feeling that’s almost like coming home once they’ve identified a favorite big city hotel to return to over and over again. If you’ve never stayed at The Chatwal in midtown Manhattan, you may not yet have discovered your very favorite New York City hotel.
This is even better than the comforts of home…There’s a working fireplace in the dining room! Two gleaming art deco bars! Oversized umbrellas at the ready! Frette 400-thread-count linens on a handmade Shifman mattress! A cashmere throw! Rainforest showers, Jacuzzi baths, Asprey amenities, and heated toilet seats, of course!
Such a place can become a habit.
A Storied Past
The Chatwal is hiding in plain sight directly across the street from the Hudson Theatre, one of seven Broadway theaters on West 44th Street — just look for the color pop of the hotel’s distinctive deep red awnings.
The 1905 structure is re-imagined from the former home of The Lambs Club, a neo-Georgian architectural gem smack in the heart of the Broadway Theater District, distinguished as America’s oldest theatrical organization for actors, playwrights, and songwriters.
Designed by famed American Beaux-Arts architect Stanford White, the 1905 building is a New York City Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Browse the coffee table book in your guest room to catch up on the prodigious career and larger-than-life story of the ill-fated Mr. White.
A Clubby Feel
The cozy, clubby spirit lives on at 130 West 44th Street in the handsome Lambs Club Restaurant, where — most unusual for New York City — an oversized French limestone 18th-century stone fireplace graces the dining room.
Settle into a banquette of handcrafted red leather for a modern American menu created by the multi-talented Chef Geoffrey Zakarian and a wine list recognized as one of the nation’s best by Wine Spectator’s Restaurant Awards.
Matinee tickets? The Bar offers a two course $29 lunch menu and live music adds at brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.
An Empire Art Deco Vibe
Order bar snacks and a dry martini before the curtain goes up or drops down on your Broadway show. Two sleek bars doesn’t make choosing one any easier, unless you’re mesmerized by the upstairs bar with its hanging lights fashioned as mini Empire State Buildings. Either way, hand cut ice, fresh pressed juices, and custom glassware are all part of the retro-tinted experience.
Everywhere you look, The Chatwal’s signature 1930s Empire Art Deco look has been beautifully dialed up by master architect and designer Thierry Despont in gorgeous rich hues of saffron, sepia, and ruby.
Check in to be pampered by a personal butler, concierge, spa with indoor saltwater lap pool and Jacuzzi plunge pool, mani/pedi salon, 24 hour fitness center…or you might just want to curl up with a book by the fire.
A Rooftop Of Your Own
We like hanging out on the spacious plant- and sofa-filled rooftop terrace in a penthouse suite, too. It’s an utterly non-New York City kind of indoor/outdoor hotel space, but one that a person can certainly get used to. Feels just like home, right?
DETAILS:
The Chatwal Hotel
130 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
(212) 764-6200
www.thechatwalny.com
Note: The author was a guest of the hotel. Opinions expressed are entirely those of the contributor involving no payment from The Chatwal Hotel or the Luxury Collection.
A career-long tourism, destination, hotel sales and marketing pro, Laurie Jo Miller Farr is a dedicated urbanite who loves walkable cities and has a knack for always finding the best public restrooms. As a San Francisco-based travel and copywriter, she enjoys views from its crazy signature hills following half-a-lifetime promoting her dual hometowns, a couple of oh-so-flat places: NYC and London. Her work is found online at USA Today, Yahoo, Eater, CBS, Where Traveler, and more. She tweets @ReferencePlease and posts on Instagram @lauriejmfarr.
