August 20, 2008

US & CANADA | US | NEW YORK

Comeback Classics: Morgans and The Mark

By Mark Jolly

Two of New York’s most iconic hotels are about to be reborn.

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For those of you who remember a world before 1984, you might remember that such a world did not include boutique hotels. That at least is the history according to Ian Schrager, whose Manhattan debutante, Morgans, was seen to pioneer the first branded lifestyle hotel. Never mind that Anouska Hempel first concocted the idea (shock design concept: no two rooms alike) in 1981 at Blakes in London: Morgans is the hotel that’s now known, almost mythically, as the category progenitor. And not least because of its minimalist checkerboard motif designed by Andrée Putman, now copied the world over.

On September 2, Morgans reopens after a $9 million, four-month refurbishment. But don’t expect any radical redesign. When she refreshed her “timeless” monotone interiors in 1995, Putman did so to make it look like nothing had been shifted. This time around, she’s introducing further subtleties of black, white and gray along with a collection of black-and-white Robert Mapplethorpe photographs in each of the 113 guestrooms. And you thought minimalism was dead?

Later this fall, another French design legend is set to unveil his makeover of another hallowed hotel, on East 77th Street. Jaques Grange — who counts Yves Sant Laurent and the house of Lauder among his clients — already has observers salivating to see how his reinvention of the Mark (pictured) might trump the neighboring Carlyle. Completely overhauled from an empty shell, the 1927 landmark is New York’s latest hotel-condo conversion (following Jumeirah Essex House and the Plaza) and promises to be everything Morgans is not: a grand and glitzy hotel. Think solid oak floors, embroidered velvet sofas and white-marble bathrooms (along with an on-site Frederic Fekkai salon).

Lording over the Mark’s 118 rooms are 42 new residential suites — one of which is a 10,000 square-foot penthouse complete with a sky-lit conservatory, a 26-foot-high cupola crowning the living room and a personal two-story elevator that ascends to a private rooftop pavilion. Despite — or perhaps because of — a $60-million asking price, the apartment has already been checked out by a Russian oligarch and Dolce and Gabbana.