NYC's grand old Plaza returns with a flourish
Maciej, a butler and member of the "white glove" hotel staff, stands at attention in a room inside of "The Plaza" during a media tour for the hotel's re-opening following extensive renovations in New York March 1, 2008.
Bathroom fixtures with 24-carat gold plating are seen in a room inside of "The Plaza" hotel as it re-opens following extensive renovations in New York March 1, 2008.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two years after shutting its gilded doors for a $400 million renovation, Manhattan's famed Plaza Hotel on Saturday began welcoming back guests.
"The Plaza is back," Shane Krige, the hotel's general manager, said as he cut a giant red ribbon that spanned the entrance near the southeast corner of Central Park. "The legend is definitely going to continue."
The hotel's grandeur and attentive service inspired writers ranging from Kay Thompson, author of the "Eloise" stories, to Neil Simon, who wrote Broadway play and hit film "Plaza Suite."
While hotel guests began checking into the 282 guest rooms, most of which were booked for opening night, much of the storied hotel has been converted to luxury condominiums.
Officials said all but one of 181 units had been sold. They refused to confirm selling prices, which have reportedly run as high as $7,000 per square foot.
Guest rooms, which start at an average $1,000 a night, feature 24-karat gold-plated bathroom fixtures, flat screen televisions, electronic personal concierges, crystal chandeliers and gold gilt headboards and mirrors in keeping with the Plaza's traditional Louis XV style. White-gloved butlers are stationed on every floor.
The Plaza's top-priced Royal Suite goes for a cool $20,000, a far cry from the $2.50 per night ($4 with bath) the hotel charged when it opened in 1907.
The roof restoration alone cost $30 million, as the owners sought out the original Italian manufacturer of its famous green tiles.
Another major undertaking was restoring the Palm Court restaurant's laylight, a colored glass ceiling lit from above with changing hues of rose and violet. It had been plastered over since the 1940s, when Conrad Hilton owned the Plaza, and cost more than $2 million to repair.
The Plaza, co-owned by the Elad Group and the Saudi-based Kingdom Holding Co. and managed by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, will have a formal reopening on May 10.
Landmark adds luxury, technology
By Kitty Bean Yancey
USA TODAY
NEW YORK — If the fictional 6-year-old Eloise checked into The Plaza today, she'd enter her suite simply by waving a keycard above the doorknob. Once inside, she'd illuminate the crystal chandelier, set the temperature or order a butler to fetch a pot of tea by touching a computer-like screen on the wall.
Change has been brewing at The Plaza, which reopens Saturday after a two-year, $400 million lobby-to-rooftop renovation. Generations of tourists who have stayed at the imposing Beaux-Arts edifice on Fifth Avenue or nibbled scones in the Palm Court have been waiting to see what the new owners — New York-based Elad Group and Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holdings — have wrought.
"This hotel means so much to so many people," general manager Shane Krige says. "It's an icon."
Indeed, the century-old Plaza, once run by Ivana Trump and now managed by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, is much more than a hotel. It's the setting for Neil Simon's play Plaza Suite. It's where The Beatles stayed on their 1964 U.S. tour. It's the site of A-list soirees and celebrity wedding receptions. And it's a National Historic Landmark too. The new incarnation — originally mostly condos until hotel unions and history buffs put up a fight — includes 282 hotel accommodations (102 are suites) vs. the old 805, Krige says. Nearly half are condo/hotel units, owned by people who lock up belongings when not in residence. Another 180 units are purely residential and sold at prices in the $4,000- to $6,000-per-square-foot range, Krige says. (Sadly, they tend to have the better views of Central Park.) Rates for hotel rooms start at $775 a night, nearly $900 with taxes (reservations: 888-240-7775 or theplaza.com). About 80 hotel rooms now are ready for guests.
The downsizing allows a new level of "personalized service," says South Africa-born Krige (pronounced "Kreeg"), 39, who has speedily ascended in the hotel world. He used to be managing director of the chi-chi Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.
He's blending the Old World and the new. Service is personified by a butler on each floor, who'll greet guests, press clothes, draw baths.
Daily afternoon tea in the marble-pillared Palm Court still will be a ritual, even more elaborate under the supervision of hotel chef Didier Virot, who has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants including Manhattan's Jean Georges. Four courses (including crustless cucumber sandwiches with mint butter, scones, pink éclairs, berries and a selection of 22 loose-leaf teas and herbal infusions) start at $60. Virot's tasting-menu tea, with caviar and tidbits such as melt-in-your-mouth lobster salad with tarragon-tomato compote, soars to $120 with a glass of Champagne.
The Palm Court has been spiffed up with high-backed ice-blue velvety chairs, royal blue and gold china and Christofle silverware. A star attraction: its new stained-glass domed ceiling featuring entwined roses — a replica of the one hotelier Conrad Hilton had taken down in the '40s to make way for bulky air-conditioning equipment.
A new marble lobby off the Fifth Avenue entrance boasts five large Baccarat chandeliers, a Champagne bar and mezzanine Rose Club cocktail lounge. The Grand Ballroom, site of society functions including Truman Capote's celebrity-packed 1966 Black & White Ball, has been restored. The venerable Oak Room bar/restaurant is due to open this spring; the Edwardian Room restaurant will be replaced by retail space. The hotel will include expanded shopping, plus a Caudalie spa from France (famed for "vinotherapy" using grape-seed extracts) and a fitness facility headlined by celebrity trainer Radu.
Krige, an energetic man with a shaved head who's wearing a pinstriped suit and jaunty red pocket handkerchief, aims to attract young travelers as well as older Plaza devotees. Though rooms retain their flashy 24-karat gold-plated sink fixtures and Louis XV-style furnishing, the colors (olive, gold, cream) and décor are more refined, modern and muted than in the past.
Technophiles will be pleased, save for the fact that free Wi-Fi touted in hotel press releases won't be free after all. "It was a difficult, last-minute decision," Krige says. "All our competitors set a charge."
Showing a room, Krige demonstrates how guests get in by whisking a keycard past a panel on the door. Inside, everything from temperature to lights can be controlled by touching a screen on the wall that also can call the butler, display headlines and weather or be slipped from its holder to serve as a remote control for the TV.
Krige is primed to compete with Manhattan rivals including the Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental and The St. Regis. He says none has the Plaza pedigree. "Our biggest problem is going to be 50,000 (gawkers) going through the lobby." Employees have remained so loyal that three-quarters of current Plaza staffers are returnees, he says.
"It's maintained this high-class reputation for 100 years — that's hard to do," says Curtis Gathje (pronounced "GAY-gee"), author of At the Plaza. He worked there in the '80s and '90s as desk clerk, room-service waiter and director of guest relations.
He recently toured the hotel and pronounces the renovation "an incredible job. Prior to its redo, it wasn't that spiffy a place." Furnishings were worn, he says, and rooms didn't have central air conditioning.
"I think what's happened is the best thing that could happen to it," he says. "It's not meant to be frozen in aspic."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two years after shutting its gilded doors for a $400 million renovation, Manhattan's famed Plaza Hotel on Saturday began welcoming back guests.
"The Plaza is back," Shane Krige, the hotel's general manager, said as he cut a giant red ribbon that spanned the entrance near the southeast corner of Central Park. "The legend is definitely going to continue."
The hotel's grandeur and attentive service inspired writers ranging from Kay Thompson, author of the "Eloise" stories, to Neil Simon, who wrote Broadway play and hit film "Plaza Suite."
While hotel guests began checking into the 282 guest rooms, most of which were booked for opening night, much of the storied hotel has been converted to luxury condominiums.
Officials said all but one of 181 units had been sold. They refused to confirm selling prices, which have reportedly run as high as $7,000 per square foot.
Guest rooms, which start at an average $1,000 a night, feature 24-karat gold-plated bathroom fixtures, flat screen televisions, electronic personal concierges, crystal chandeliers and gold gilt headboards and mirrors in keeping with the Plaza's traditional Louis XV style. White-gloved butlers are stationed on every floor.
The Plaza's top-priced Royal Suite goes for a cool $20,000, a far cry from the $2.50 per night ($4 with bath) the hotel charged when it opened in 1907.
The roof restoration alone cost $30 million, as the owners sought out the original Italian manufacturer of its famous green tiles.
Another major undertaking was restoring the Palm Court restaurant's laylight, a colored glass ceiling lit from above with changing hues of rose and violet. It had been plastered over since the 1940s, when Conrad Hilton owned the Plaza, and cost more than $2 million to repair.
The Plaza, co-owned by the Elad Group and the Saudi-based Kingdom Holding Co. and managed by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, will have a formal reopening on May 10.
Landmark adds luxury, technology
By Kitty Bean Yancey
USA TODAY
NEW YORK — If the fictional 6-year-old Eloise checked into The Plaza today, she'd enter her suite simply by waving a keycard above the doorknob. Once inside, she'd illuminate the crystal chandelier, set the temperature or order a butler to fetch a pot of tea by touching a computer-like screen on the wall.
Change has been brewing at The Plaza, which reopens Saturday after a two-year, $400 million lobby-to-rooftop renovation. Generations of tourists who have stayed at the imposing Beaux-Arts edifice on Fifth Avenue or nibbled scones in the Palm Court have been waiting to see what the new owners — New York-based Elad Group and Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holdings — have wrought.
"This hotel means so much to so many people," general manager Shane Krige says. "It's an icon."
Indeed, the century-old Plaza, once run by Ivana Trump and now managed by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, is much more than a hotel. It's the setting for Neil Simon's play Plaza Suite. It's where The Beatles stayed on their 1964 U.S. tour. It's the site of A-list soirees and celebrity wedding receptions. And it's a National Historic Landmark too. The new incarnation — originally mostly condos until hotel unions and history buffs put up a fight — includes 282 hotel accommodations (102 are suites) vs. the old 805, Krige says. Nearly half are condo/hotel units, owned by people who lock up belongings when not in residence. Another 180 units are purely residential and sold at prices in the $4,000- to $6,000-per-square-foot range, Krige says. (Sadly, they tend to have the better views of Central Park.) Rates for hotel rooms start at $775 a night, nearly $900 with taxes (reservations: 888-240-7775 or theplaza.com). About 80 hotel rooms now are ready for guests.
The downsizing allows a new level of "personalized service," says South Africa-born Krige (pronounced "Kreeg"), 39, who has speedily ascended in the hotel world. He used to be managing director of the chi-chi Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.
He's blending the Old World and the new. Service is personified by a butler on each floor, who'll greet guests, press clothes, draw baths.
Daily afternoon tea in the marble-pillared Palm Court still will be a ritual, even more elaborate under the supervision of hotel chef Didier Virot, who has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants including Manhattan's Jean Georges. Four courses (including crustless cucumber sandwiches with mint butter, scones, pink éclairs, berries and a selection of 22 loose-leaf teas and herbal infusions) start at $60. Virot's tasting-menu tea, with caviar and tidbits such as melt-in-your-mouth lobster salad with tarragon-tomato compote, soars to $120 with a glass of Champagne.
The Palm Court has been spiffed up with high-backed ice-blue velvety chairs, royal blue and gold china and Christofle silverware. A star attraction: its new stained-glass domed ceiling featuring entwined roses — a replica of the one hotelier Conrad Hilton had taken down in the '40s to make way for bulky air-conditioning equipment.
A new marble lobby off the Fifth Avenue entrance boasts five large Baccarat chandeliers, a Champagne bar and mezzanine Rose Club cocktail lounge. The Grand Ballroom, site of society functions including Truman Capote's celebrity-packed 1966 Black & White Ball, has been restored. The venerable Oak Room bar/restaurant is due to open this spring; the Edwardian Room restaurant will be replaced by retail space. The hotel will include expanded shopping, plus a Caudalie spa from France (famed for "vinotherapy" using grape-seed extracts) and a fitness facility headlined by celebrity trainer Radu.
Krige, an energetic man with a shaved head who's wearing a pinstriped suit and jaunty red pocket handkerchief, aims to attract young travelers as well as older Plaza devotees. Though rooms retain their flashy 24-karat gold-plated sink fixtures and Louis XV-style furnishing, the colors (olive, gold, cream) and décor are more refined, modern and muted than in the past.
Technophiles will be pleased, save for the fact that free Wi-Fi touted in hotel press releases won't be free after all. "It was a difficult, last-minute decision," Krige says. "All our competitors set a charge."
Showing a room, Krige demonstrates how guests get in by whisking a keycard past a panel on the door. Inside, everything from temperature to lights can be controlled by touching a screen on the wall that also can call the butler, display headlines and weather or be slipped from its holder to serve as a remote control for the TV.
Krige is primed to compete with Manhattan rivals including the Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental and The St. Regis. He says none has the Plaza pedigree. "Our biggest problem is going to be 50,000 (gawkers) going through the lobby." Employees have remained so loyal that three-quarters of current Plaza staffers are returnees, he says.
"It's maintained this high-class reputation for 100 years — that's hard to do," says Curtis Gathje (pronounced "GAY-gee"), author of At the Plaza. He worked there in the '80s and '90s as desk clerk, room-service waiter and director of guest relations.
He recently toured the hotel and pronounces the renovation "an incredible job. Prior to its redo, it wasn't that spiffy a place." Furnishings were worn, he says, and rooms didn't have central air conditioning.
"I think what's happened is the best thing that could happen to it," he says. "It's not meant to be frozen in aspic."
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