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The Chatwal Will Open 'Sooner Than You Think'
From the depths of a late-afternoon delirium, our emotions got the best of us and we were moved to write a poem about how upset we were that we couldn't find Vikram Chatwal's ten-years-in-the-making The Chatwal — slated to open this year — on the official roster of VCH's open or in-development hotels. However! Thanks to a fairly confident commenter and an official hotel rep, we are happy to learn that The Chatwal is indeed on the way. Supposedly.
Says BVCH:
Because of the more traditional nature of the product and slightly different demographic that The Chatwal will [we feel] ultimately will appeal to, it is being marketed outside of the VCH Collection as a stand alone property and possibly the progenitor for its own line of hotels... but make mo mistake about it, it is coming and sooner than you think.
Interesting. Very interesting. An official hotel rep confirmed this morning that this was arrurate — the hotel is "still slated to open this year," and we'll get the deets as the opening date gets closer. Hm. Okay.
While this is good news, it's also kind of disappointing because now we have to wait some more. This is kind of like one of those relationships where you don't really trust the other person but they keep you hangin' on. Or like that Diana Ross song. Vikky, set us free, why dontchya babe?
Tags: Vikram Chatwal / Hotel Hype / VCH Hotels / Hotel Rumors / Lamb's Club Hotel / → All Tags
Has VCH Given Up On The Chatwal After All?
Vikram had a little Lamb,
little Lamb, little Lamb,
Vikram had a little Lamb,
Whose name was changed, we know.
He named his Lamb 'Chatwal' one day,
'Chatwal' one day, 'Chatwal' one day,
But we checked the VCH website and —
Oh wait, where did it go?
We were sitting around Dream-ing (ha! See what we did there?) of Vikram Chatwal when we realized that it's been a mighty long time since we'd heard anything about The Chatwal, the "upcoming" Times Square hotel formerly known as the Lamb's Club Hotel which has, so far, been a decade in the making. What gives? Isn't that bad boy supposed to be opening soon?
Maybe not. We did a thorough search for info about the hotel and dug up nothing: the Leading Hotels of the World website still says "opening to be advised" and the Chatwal site itself is still claiming that the hotel will be "coming soon." Hmm, whatever.
But then: we headed over to the VCH website (yes! And we did enjoy ourselves some hot jams, thank you very much!), to find that The Chatwal was mysteriously absent from the listing of U.S. hotels — and the roster seems to be up to date, since Dream Cochin is listed as open and Dream Downtown's opening has been updated. Interesting.
Anyone know what's going on or why The Chatwal seems to have mysteriously gone missing? Let us know.
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Vikram Chatwal Wants Us Floating On a Cloud at Dream Cochin
While the opening of the Downtown Dream Hotel in New York is, pardon the pun, still just a dream, Vikram Chatwal's VCH group seems to have managed to get their act together with another Dream hotel at least: the Dream Cochin in Kerala is now up and running.
Per Luxist, The Indian tourism ministry has apparently already awarded the Dream Cochin five stars, although the Dream gang seem to think their new hotel is even better than that; they promise it "offers a glimpse of the future of deluxe accommodations."
The future is apparently going to be blue in color, which the Dream people think will give us the feeling of floating on a cloud. Think a mix of hippy and hip, because they've also tried to plug in modern technology all over the place too.
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Finally, Hotel Website Music That Doesn't Suck
You know what's the worst? The music on hotel websites. It's a vicious cross-breed of elevator music, lounge beats and a "grown-up film" soundtrack — and since we spend an inordinate amount of time on hotel websites every day, our patience for said music is, well, thin. Very thin. On more than one occasion, we've left a tab on our browser open to the Thompson site for hours without realizing it — with the sound on — and we're certain that the music both infiltrated our dreams and kick-started a slow descent into crazytown.
However! One of us was on Vikram Chatwal's VCH Hotels' website the other day and, inexplicably, caught herself doin' a little head-bop to the music. Another one of us visited the same site this morning and, upon further discussion we both agreed that, um, we seem to have stumbled upon some hotel website music that doesn't suck. After some major Google sleuthing, we found out that the jam we're diggin' at the VCH site is a song by The Incredible Moses Leroy called "1983."
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We Finally Have an Opening Date for The Chatwal
It's official: The Chatwal will, indeed, open. Well, according to the Leading Hotels of the World website, anyway: NewYorkology has stumbled upon an opening date! A date! Not just a nebulous time period like "early 2009" or "this winter"!
A bit of backstory: we've been watching this 88-room hotel for a while now. It sits in the Times Square space that was once the iconic Lamb's Club and has been in the works for ten years. It was originally supposed to be called the Lamb's Club Hotel, but it will finally make its debut as The Chatwal (named, of course, for the one and only Vikram Chatwal, the oh-so-modest hotelier behind hotels like Dream, Night and Stay.Hotel).
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The Lamb's Club is Now The Chatwal and Might Actually Open
Oy. The controversial Lamb's Club Hotel — Vikram Chatwal's new Times Square project that has pretty much taken 10 years to open and was renamed The Chatwal — now has a website and some details that indicate the place might actually open.
A little background for those of you not keeping up: back in 1999, the New York Observer reported that Hampshire Hotels (the parent company of VCH) had announced plans to turn the historic Lamb's Club, the legendary Times' Square "theatrical social club" frequented by beloved figures like Fred Astaire and George Gershwin, into a hotel. Locals were sad.
In 2006, the NY Post runs a similar story, this time specifically mentioning that "Hampshire Hotels announced plans to gut the building and construct a five-star, 99-room boutique hotel" to open in 2007. It did not.
The date was pushed to August 2008 — which also didn't happen — the place was reflagged as The Chatwal, and today Newyorkology pointed us toward the brand new website, which says it will be up and running in "late 2008."
So, what's in store for the Chatwal?
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Snapshot :: Grand Opening Party at Stay.Hotel's Aspen Social Club
Last night, we hit up the grand opening of the Aspen Social Club at Vikram Chatwal's new Stay.Hotel. We came, we saw, we tasted the food and met some folks (at least one man -- who was not Vikram -- who claimed to be "basically the owner" of the hotel) and managed to snap this shot without looking too shady.
We came away with several impressions: the space is awesome. We have to admit that the Aspen theme looks a little bit Disney-world-forced, but hey, it's Times Square and Aspen is far away. The "forest" of birch trees was created by an illusion with mirrors, and that looks crazy cool.
A shot of the birch forest (plus a few more thoughts) after the jump.
Tags: Manhattan Hotels / Times Square Hotels / Vikram Chatwal / VCH Hotels / Hotel Openings / Hotel Construction / TripAdvisor / → All Tags
What's the Difference Between Vikram Chatwal's Stay.Hotel and The Quality Inn? Not Much.
Ah! So that's why we didn't hear more about Vikram Chatwal's brand new Stay.Hotel before its official unveiling earlier this week: the property morphed into the Stay from its former identity, The Quality Inn Times Square, relatively seamlessly.
And now we're kinda wondering if maybe the place is basically a Quality Inn with a baller lobby.
Here's what happened: we hopped over to TripAdvisor this morning hoping that perhaps someone had already submitted the hotel's first TripAdvisor review. But when we found a handful of Stay.Hotel reviews from September, we were disappointed in ourselves for not stalking Tricky Viky with our usual gusto: it turns out the place was quietly operating as the Stay.Hotel for a while, but only recently had its official "unveiling."
We called the hotel to see what the deal was. The fairly knowledgeable woman who answered the phone explained to us that the hotel really just switched lobbies -- as in, the new swanky lobby our tipster showed us was the new Stay.Hotel lobby, and the old Quality Inn lobby space was being turned into the restaurant.
As for the rooms? We're told that nothing was renovated -- the decor just changed. You know, like, "curtains and stuff." Which is maybe why guests have been totally shocked at the teensy size of them. Even for New York.
Tags: Vikram Chatwal / VCH Hotels / Hotel Openings / Hotel Opening Rates / Manhattan Hotels / Times Square Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Vikram Chatwal Opens Stay.Hotel in Times Square Today
Vikram Chatwal: you, sir, are a sneaky one.
We have been so busy obsessing over all the drama with Lamb's Club Hotel that you pretty much flew under our radar with this other NYC property you were developing. Apparently, while we were busy doing that, you kept yourself occupied with converting the Quality Inn in Times Square (which was already part of the Hampshire Hotels Portfolio, we hear) into the swanky new Stay.Hotel -- which opens today.
Yes, for reals. We're psyched. Well, about everything except what appears to be a gimmicky name (there is a period after the word "Stay" on all of their marketing materials; we're just going to ignore that for now).
More deets and another photo after the jump.
Tags: Vikram Chatwal / VCH Hotels / Lamb's Club / Hotel Openings / Hotel Delays / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
Lamb's Club Hotel :: 10 Years in the Making and Still Not Open
Hey, remember the Lamb's Club Hotel? You know, Vikram Chatwal's new Times Square project opening up next month? No? Allow us to refresh your memory:
Back in 1999, the New York Observer reported that Hampshire Hotels (the parent company of VCH) had announced plans to turn the historic Lamb's Club, the legendary Times' Square "theatrical social club" frequented by beloved figures like Fred Astaire and George Gershwin, into a hotel. Locals were sad.
Fast forward to 2006. The NY Post runs a similar story, this time specifically mentioning that "Hampshire Hotels announced plans to gut the building and construct a five-star, 99-room boutique hotel" to open in 2007.
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