For those in search of a big serving of kitsch and a dash of a Hollywood theme, go no further than the Chelsea Pines Inn in New York. The Chelsea Pines has been around for a while--with a quirky reputation that kept it in business--and more recently it's had some refurbishments going to make it a bit fresher and more enticing.
The NY Times published a review over the weekend that was really quite flattering and does make us keen to check in too.
Ouch. And we thought we were being too hard on The Plaza Hotel's re-opening but this Bloomberg reporter had even harsher words.
Architect critic James S. Russell has pretty much panned the restoration from the lobby to the rooms. Actually, he's admired the restoration effort, calling it impeccable, particularly the return of the Palm Court laylight which was originally a part of the hotel but taken out by Conrad Hilton in 1944.
However, he seems thoroughly displeased with the interiors.
I hoped architect and designer Gal Nauer would bring a sexy new glamour to an added lobby and the gutted and rebuilt rooms. Regrettably, she mixes a stiff formality with Walt Disney whimsy....
Reproduction formality rules the guest rooms, where delicate, gold-trimmed side tables and curlicued headboards look stranded against stark white walls. The grand baths with carved marble pedestal sinks and 24-carat gold faucets come with an amateurishly drawn flower stem by Nauer worked into the tile.
Yikes. Yet we all knew that when they closed the Plaza three years ago, the place would never be the same again. The challenge, Russell says, is for the hotel to create its own distinct personality. But the new interiors and the $1,000 room rates aren't helping.
What we found interesting is that the new owners, Elad Properties, are going forth with their Plaza replication in Las Vegas on the site of the old New Frontier, which will have "six towers crowned by Plaza-like mansard roofs and themed with 'Eloise.'''
This begs us to ask the question: They had to go to Vegas to replicate the Plaza when they could have just done it here?
We're big fans of any hotel review that starts with this:
The Colony Palms Hotel was built in 1936 by the Detroit mobster Al Wertheimer as a front for a brothel and gambling house.
Sadly crime-fueled antics are no longer the norm, after a $16 million renovation completed about 10 months ago. But there are still enough edgy touches to impress your gangsta' id.
In-room, photos of "nearly naked models frolicking on the hotel beds" adorn the walls, and along with a stocked minibar, you'll also find a martini shaker. Coffee is delivered to your room in the morning, eliminating the need to face the world after a long night. And with rates at a relatively cheap $209 a night, you won't need to be a cash-stacked mobster to afford a stay.
Chicago's Hotel Sax is finally up and running after a $25 million reno of the old House of Blues Hotel. The New York Times checked it out recently and has a punny review that's all-in-all complimentary. (Sample pun: the HOB hotel "changed its tune." Barf.)
We were almost more interested in a review of the hotel's Crimson Lounge than the rooms themselves, which sound decent and start at $300 a night. See, last year the Sax was hyping its attached lounge with its:
It is a dark space lighted by chandeliers and candles in red-tinted holders...The room is heavy on crushed red velvet--both on the wallpaper and on low-back chairs...The mood got livelier when a D.J. in the red patent leather booth spun danceable pop tunes from the likes of Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The New York Times follows our lead (again) this week with a stay at a property we've been obsessing over. This week, Fred Bernstein checks into Hotel Le Bleu and comes away with a not-too-pleasant review of Room 604, which is just down the hall from the unit we checked out in September.
Thing is, Bernstein seems to miss the point of Hotel Le Bleu. Saying it doesn't offer much lower prices than Manhattan doesn't ring true: A room of this quality across the river would cost hundreds more. And while this stretch of Fourth Avenue isn't that nice, the bubbly, yuppie epicenter of Park Slope is but a couple blocks away; guests who can stand to be more than 100 yards from a Starbucks should manage to live through a stay.
None of these strange observations, though, compare to his bizarre room layout demands:
Oddly, the room was designed so that there is no way to see Manhattan from the bed, which faced the wrong direction.
We're not sure what other direction the bed *could* face, given the room layout. And if you're staying anywhere in Brooklyn, hotel or not, you'd be lucky to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty at all, let alone the full Manhattan skyline. (That's the thing about NYC, it's, like, full of tall buildings.)
Bernstein was right to criticize the service, though, even if it was just a hiccup:
The hotel's Web site says "Our motto is: `Ask, and consider it done.'" But I was denied the one thing I asked for: a second plastic chair, so my partner and I could eat our Thai food somewhere other than the bed. A bellhop told me he wasn't allowed to enter any of the empty rooms to fetch a chair.
It may be cheaper than Manhattan, but for $309 a night, an extra chair is definitely a reasonable request.
Not long ago, we heard from The NY Times that The Royalton Hotel's facelift failed to recruit the glamorous patrons who packed the lobby bar, Brasserie 44, in the 90s.
And now Times reviewer Denny Lee dishes about his lackluster stay last week. Like the investment bankers and magazine editors who lament the hotel's transformation from swank-glam to glam-glam, Lee's visit to The Royalton carries an air of nostalgia. He spends most of the Check In, Check Out column listing what is no longer present at the hotel rather than appreciating its new amenities.
The red door is gone. So is that waterfall urinal. In fact, so little remains of Philippe Starck's iconic lobby that it's hard to remember that the Royalton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan was the prototype that launched a thousand boutique hotels...gone is the dark and moody nightclub; in its place, bright woods and brassy rails, almost like a luxury liner.
The only changes he notes are flat-screen TVs, iPod docks, and pay-per-day WiFi. One notable attribute of the old hotel has remained, Lee discovered -- the ditzy staff. They screwed up his check-in ("the computers are acting crazy") and pestered him about his Manhattan address ("Why are you staying here?").
By the end of the story, Lee's frustration is palpable. In true surly New Yorker form, he ends the story grumbling that the formerly hip Midtown hotel, now tamed, is just another mediocre place to spend $500 a night to sleep in Manhattan.
We put out the call for your reviews of the East Houston Hotel, and so far, it doesn't sound like much of a winner. HotelChatter member LinkMan lived a bad experience vicariously:
Some family members recently made a reservation through their website and were faced with three different cancellation policies (two variations on the website itself, and a third drastically different one in the confirmation e-mail), none of which were correct according to the guy who answered the phone when they called to clarify.
And that's not all. Member luciferbumps chimed in, too after calling up the hotel:
These guys are boneheads...Good thing this place is only 40 rooms, any more and their heads might explode.
We looked on TripAdvisor to try to find some good news, but the hotel doesn't seem to be listed. Nor is it on many other websites out there. You can dig up some photos of the hotel on Flickr, where the lovely roof can't make up for the comically small rooms.
If you'd rather skip all the drama, the East Village Podcasts Blog is offering you some floor space "East Village style" for just $149 a night.
It's hard to want to write about this week's Tori and Dean episode since we have heard how deceitful they have been. We never thought Dean had this much coldness in his heart but we have come to realize that Dean is here to play the Hollywood game and who better to learn from than little Ms. 90210 herself, Tori Spelling. (Perhaps we should start making some "Divorce Tori" t-shirts?)
What are we babbling about, you ask? Well the duo, who consistently whine about how they invested their life-savings into this B & B, were just faking it for the show as the Fallbrook Village News paper revealed that the property has not been sold to anyone recently, although it's still up for sale.
But the show must go on. And this week, Tori and Dean host the first guests at Chateau La Rue.
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by amandak
