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Tag: Vikram Chatwal View All Tags

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What To Expect Inside The Chatwal New York

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036-4011
October 8, 2009 at 12:48 PM | by MsRebecca | 2 Comments

As regular HotelChatter readers know, we’ve been salivating for news—any scrap of detail we can get—on the upcoming opening of The Chatwal New York. We’ve seen glimpses of what’s to come on the hotel’s website, but now the property’s PR folks have some more bite-sized hints to feed us. Join us, if you will, for a teasing appetizer of what the new property will be serving come spring 2010 …

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Vikram's Dream South Beach To Come True in Early 2010

September 15, 2009 at 11:03 AM | by juliana | 2 Comments

UPDATE: We have some renderings after the jump.

The Dream South Beach in late July 2009.

We know, we know. The Dream South Beach has said they would be opening several times before. But this time, we think they really mean it. A rep for Chatwal hotels has told us that the Dream will become a reality in early 2010. Yes, early 2010. And yes, that building above will be transformed into a Dream Hotel by early 2010.

There's still no mention of Dream South Beach on the Vikram Chatwal Hotels website and the DreamSouthBeach.com is not functional. BUT there is a Twitter feed. The first update? "Preparing for opening in Spring 2010!" Hmm...spring, eh? Well, we'll take into account this new truth of social media: If you tweet it then you must believe it.

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Vikram Chatwal's Bad 'Dream' Continues in South Beach

Where: 1111 Collins Avenue [map], Miami, FL, United States, 33139
August 14, 2009 at 11:18 AM | by MsRebecca | 0 Comments

Back in February, we did a drive-by of the South Beach site of Vikram Chatwal's Dream Hotel in Miami. Back then, the signs plastered over the construction said "Coming 2008." We chuckled. Six months later—guess what? Yup, this is what it looks like now.

We'd make a joke here about playing a game of "Spot the Difference in the Pictures," but given Mr. Chatwal's financial troubles, that seems a little cruel. And, besides, there is no prize.

More photos of The Dream South Beach after the jump.

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The Chatwal's Rooms Will Be '$1 Million a Night'

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036
August 4, 2009 at 9:19 AM | by Jenna | 3 Comments

Hmm. We think something may have gotten lost in translation here. Well, at least we hope it did.

We were poking around the ol' web to see if we could unearth any new info about the supposedly-coming-next-month (but still not taking reservations) Chatwal in NYC, the newest from Vikram Chatwal, when we came upon a new website for the hotel group. Which was neat — but not particularly helpful, as The Chatwal's logo was teensy weensy and unclickable on the bottom of the page, the only evidence of the property's existence.

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Don't Count On That September Opening For The Chatwal

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036
July 21, 2009 at 9:41 AM | by Jenna | 0 Comments

Listen. We wouldn't necessarily call ourselves pessimists or cynics when it comes to the Manhattan hotel market. In fact, we like to think we're open-minded and hopeful, embracing pleasant surprises like on-time openings, cool new concepts and even a little bit of neighbor drama. But we've been doin' this for a while and we have come to lower our expectations when it comes to hotel hype and promises of opening dates — in Manhattan, it is a sweet, sweet miracle from the heavens when a hotel opens on time.

Which is why we're calling this now: we don't think The Chatwal is going to open in September, as the Leading Hotels of the World site is promising us right now. See, not only is the hotel not taking booking at all for the month of September (not too unusual, but certainly not promising), but we haven't heard a peep outta Chatwal's peeps in a good long while. And let's not forget this one tiny detail: this hotel has been in the works for about a decade now.

Also, this: The HVS Manhattan Market Overview lists The Chatwal's opening date as early 2010; we're inclined to go with the word of HVS on this one.

Got any hot gossip on The Chatwal for us? Speak up.

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The Chatwal is Now Shooting For a September 2009 Opening

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036
June 17, 2009 at 9:24 AM | by Jenna | 1 Comment

Hey, remember when someone told us that The Chatwal would open "sooner than we think" and that "sooner than we think" was going to be July? Yeah, no: now we're looking at September.

The former Lamb's Club-turned Vikram Chatwal vanity-ish project has had a lot of obstacles to overcome, we suppose (what else takes a hotel ten years to open?) — and we checked in on the property's Leading Hotels of the World page to find that the "New hotel: Opening to be advised" message had turned into "NEW HOTEL - OPENING SEPTEMBER 2009 (date to be advised)."

We noted a couple months ago that the property had mysteriously disappeared from the list of hotels on the Vikram Chatwal Hotels site, but we were reassured that the place was still going to open — and, also, we really have no idea what this means, but when we Google "The Chatwal" the search results come up like this:

This is probably nothing we need to read into, but it's just sort of...weird.

Anyway, in conclusion: they're shooting for September and we're not holding our breath.

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South Beach's 'Dream' Will Become a Reality on Labor Day

Where: Collins Ave [map], Miami, FL, United States, 33139
May 26, 2009 at 12:01 PM | by Jenna | 2 Comments


Dream SoBe, in February 2009.

'Twas when we were in Miami earlier this year when we first heard news of Vikram Chatwal's plan to take his Dream Hotel to South Beach — in fact, we drove past the hotel itself, which is going to be the result of renovations of the Tudor and Palmer House buildings on Collins Avenue, and it was under some pretty serious construction. But that was in February — and no opening date was in sight.

But we did a little checkup on the VC Hotels website today and noticed a sweet little "Labor Day 2009" next to the hotel; can it be? But where we assume its website should be (dreamsouthbeach.com), there's nothin' but a bit of plain text nonsense.

Whenever it does open, the 110-room hotel will span across the two renovated buildings connected by a glass-enclosed walkway. It's set to have two food and beverage establishments: a ground-floor restaurant and a glass-enclosed rooftop bar.

We'll keep our eye on this bad boy 'til September 7th. In the meantime, send any hot gossip our way.

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Rejoice! The Chatwal Shows Signs of Life, Might Open This Summer

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036
April 28, 2009 at 5:32 PM | by Jenna | 1 Comment

No, we can't believe it either. Surely egged on by our not-so-wild speculation and eyebrow-raising (what? The fact that the hotel disappeared from the VCH website was legitimate cause for concern), we received a sparkling nugget of a press release in our inbox today: it was from The Chatwal, the mythical, fabled hotel from hotelier Vikram Chatwal that we thought would never open.

Well, it still hasn't opened — but it is showing signs of life! The hotel announced today that it has hired itself a general manager: one Mr. Joel Freyberg, who most recently held the position of Executive Director for New York's Waldorf Towers (at the Waldorf Astoria).

And — ready for this? — this caught our eye: "Opening in July 2009, The Chatwal will salute the New York City “baby grand” hotels of a bygone era, offering unparalleled accommodations and a fresh perspective on the luxury hotel experience."

July! July! July! It's coming! And now...we wait. And no, it does not appear to be accepting reservations yet.

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The Chatwal Will Open 'Sooner Than You Think'

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036
April 23, 2009 at 10:36 AM | by Jenna | 1 Comment

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?

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Has VCH Given Up On The Chatwal After All?

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 130 W 44th St [map], New York, NY, United States, 10036
April 22, 2009 at 4:50 PM | by Jenna | 2 Comments

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

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: SA Road, Ernakulamv, Kochi, Kerala, India, 682020
April 7, 2009 at 9:38 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

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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Dream Downtown NYC Delayed to 2010?

Where: 346 West 17th Street [map], New York, NY, United States, 10011
March 16, 2009 at 11:19 AM | by JetSetCD | 1 Comment

Back in April of 2008, we stood at this very same vantage point in West Chelsea for a look at hotelier Vikram Chatwal's upcoming Downtown Dream Hotel, which abuts the back end of Sean MacPherson's Maritime. Now almost a year later, the Dream construction (on the left) remains shrouded like Chernobyl while the Maritime beams at the thought of having another summer to itself.

Originally slated for "early 2009" and with no official revised date, we'll take the initiative and peg this as early 2010. If we're to understand anything from the construction company's project website for the Dream Downtown, then they're having enough issues with the porthole-like windows, forget the rest of the place. What this means is that The Maritime will enjoy smooth sailing this summer, its (most likely) final one as the only hotel and cabanas on the block. That is, unless you're willing to walk down several blocks to The Standard.

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