We're giving up our half-hearted ban on Robert De Niro coverage now that he's got the Nobu Hotel in the works.
The Financial District property will be half-hotel, half-condo and include a spa and a Nobu restaurant outpost. (In case you can't make it the less than two miles to the Nobu in Tribeca.)
The NY Post has it that 77 condos will be up top--where they belong--and the floors below will house the 128 hotel rooms. The restaurant will be on level three. Rockwell Group will handle the interiors, while Moed de Armas & Shannon did the glassy facade.
Curbed notes that this is one of many new condotel developments in the FiDi, joining the W Downtown and the Four Seasons on Church Street. We'll remind you that the Andaz on Wall Street is also joining the club soon.
If you want to trek to Machu Picchu, but sleep beforehand with a bit of style, take note of the new La Casona Inkaterra, opening this month. It's Cusco's first boutique hotel (with just 11 rooms), a renovation of a colonial manor house. Each suite overlooks either the hotel's courtyard (Patio Suites) or has views over the town of Cusco (Plaza Suites).
On Tuesday night, we checked out the Preview Party at the Beatrice Inn for The Chelsea Atlantic City which is still on schedule for a mid-July opening.
Our favorite Philadelphia Restaurateur (and soon to be Hotelier) Stephen Starr was there along with Curtis Bashaw and his sister Colleen Bashaw who designed the interior of the Chelsea, as well as a number of Curtis' other hotel projects in Cape May.
While we were a little disappointed that there were no pictures of the interior, or a presentation about the hotel, drinks were free, hors d'Oeuvres were excellent and the opportunity to actually get into the Beatrice Inn without having to pay off a bouncer made up for it.
And yes, we sat on the couch where Lindsey Lohan probably made out with 684,384 guys (in one night) last week and felt a little bit of the celeb vibe.
The other month we learned that angry chef Gordon Ramsay was going to move into the hotelier world with the York and Albany Hotel, a 10-room boutique fashioned from an old pub.
Of course, we expected a restaurant to come with it but now there might be two. From Bloomberg:
Gordon Ramsay Holdings's first U.K. hotel, in north London, will feature two restaurants run by Angela Hartnett, private dining, a cocktail bar and a delicatessen, Design Week said, citing the York & Albany's general manager.
The original plan was for the York & Albany to become part of Ramsay's pub group, Design Week said, and then the decision was taken to operate it as a hotel, with 10 suites. The Regency designs are by Russell Sage Studio, with custom-made silk fabrics, Design Week quoted manager James Partridge as saying.
Remember, last time we reported on this it was going to be Angela Hartnett's project from top to bottom. She's a friend and fellow chef of Ramsay, who will be the hotel's owner. York and Albany is expected to open sometime in later Summer.
Is what you see above: A) another nautical building sticking off the back of the Maritime Hotel? B) a homeless shelter? Or is it C) Vikram Chatwal's $70 million dollar chunk of the Meatpacking District?
As is only proper in the business of building New York hotels, ALL THREE crazy statements are very true. The property at 346 West 17th Street, formerly The Covenant House homeless shelter, was purchased by Vikram's father's company Hampshire Hotels late last year.
Looking like The Maritime in drydock, the Downtown Dream so far has a gutted interior, a fully painted mud-grey exterior and construction that appears to be moving right along...for now.
According to Vikram's company website, his Downtown Dream is due to debut in early 2009, just in time to give The Maritime a run for its summer rush. And yes, just in case you need to hear it again, the Downtown Dream is right next to the Maritime Hotel so that should be a very interesting situation when it opens.
A few weeks ago, a very reliable tipster (we heard from them about the Hotel Riverview before anyone else) put forth the possibility that hotelier Sean MacPherson was going to operate the Magic Castle Hotel sans partner Eric Goode.
Well, said tipster returns with some new info:
i have it from two very reliable sources that the magic castle is in the hands of sean macpherson. he is also the new owner of the famous japanese restaurant on the same hill.
That Japanese restaurant our tipster refers to is the Yamashiro which was built in 1914.
Previously Sean MacPherson's rep was not aware of any new project the last time we checked but this sounds pretty definite now. So what will Eric Goode be doing? We say Eric, now's the time to open your Ojai fantasy hotel!
Was this ToteVision tested in a storage facility in New York before you turned it on? Probably.
The NY Times has a look inside some of the test rooms that hotels set up before they actually open a hotel or before they begin to offer a new technology or service.
There's the Room X inside the Marriott Courtyard at the University of Delaware which is testing every high-tech guestroom gadget imaginable. There's also the Westin Chicago River North which we learned was a test center for the jet lag therapy program.
But other hotels are testing their shizz out too. Hyatt Place built an entire test hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz. The James Hotel Chicago has a test site in Queens while Kimpton Hotels use the wine hours in the lobby (usually 5 to 6pm every night) to "supplement research on what guests want." Aha! We knew there was a catch to free wine.
We also know that Aloft and Element Hotels, the newest brands from Starwood, have a test site/warehouse in God-knows-where upstate New York.
But these test sites aren't really necessary. You can always go the route of Thompson Hotels which open the rooms as soon as humanly possibly, even if exterior and interior construction needs to be finished, thus undergoing trial and error while giving guests a cheap rate for being the guinea pig.
The Montage Beverly Hills slowly continues to rise over the ritzy city's Golden Triangle. We were driving by the other week and snapped this shot of the construction process from the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Beverly Drive.
But we're really curious as to what this place is going to look like when it's done. Thanks to Curbed LA we have a peek at a rendering (inset). Curbed reports:
Yes, the final rendering will likely change slightly again, a rep for the development tells Curbed, but you get the idea--there's a Spanish Colonial Revival thing going on. Set to open by November, the 201-room hotel will also sell condominiums and will offer two 2,000 square-foot fancy Presidential Suites. Just in time for the election.
All in all, it's not as bad as we were expecting the Montage to turn out. And this urban resort will offer a rooftop pool, bar and grill. Hear that Thompson BH? Better get yours open first!
