Urbanite
The Warwick Hotel
New York
TEXT BY KEN SCRUDATO
In the 21st century luxury hotel wars, the Park Hyatt, Conrad and
Armani hotels battle to impress with acres of marble, absurdly
lavish spas, eight-figure art collections and, of course, all those
swaggering celebrity chefs. But there’s a certain sort of glamour
that cannot simply be conjured from a checkbook—it has to exist
in the walls themselves.
For all the fascinating historic hotels in New York City, it’s
perhaps The Warwick that can claim the most glittering history
of all. It was built in 1926 by that great, troublingly eccentric
Jazz Age tycoon William Randolph Hearst, whose intention was
to make it something of a pied-a-terre (a rather opulent one, of
course) for his beautiful actress mistress Marion Davies—and
several dozen of his closest Hollywood pals. Unsurprisingly, a
fabulous parade of Golden Age A-listers followed, from Cary
Grant to Audrey Hepburn to Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood…
and far too many others to list.
These days, though the movie stars have moved on, one
can’t help but feel a powerful sense of that glamorous history
merely upon entering the lobby. The Art Deco splendor has
been exquisitely preserved, and a quick peek into the Murals
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on 54 restaurant puts you face to face to with Dean Cornwell’s
allegorical 1937 mural, commissioned by Hearst himself. (A fun
aside: when the boss tried to stiff the artist on the bill, he secretly
painted someone pissing on Queen Elizabeth!)
The Warwick today does not rest on the allure of a bygone era;
it has tapped into its luminous past and given it a whole new sparkle. Calling upon the talents of Interior Design International’s
Stephanie Ellis-Carmody, the hotel has created new plush-butsexy signature suites, all making stylistic references to its past
whilst simultaneously exhibiting a striking sense of modernism.
The Marion Suite is a paragon of Deco cool, a striking mix of
black, white and green. The Jane Russell Suite offsets elegant
blacks and golds with provocative zebra striped rugs, and the
boldly colorful Modern Art Suite flaunts genuine Warhols.
But surely the guests are not checking in for the scene,
although the Randolph’s Bar is a great place for a bit of classic
cocktailing. It’s the most ineffable of amenities that is the most
attractive: a chance to sleep in a hotel that was frequented by the
most dazzling stars of the stage and screen, and to bask in that
glorious, lingering glow.