Word: royalton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
More to the point, is the new Royalton really suitable for out-of-towners? The old Royalton sheltered Third World businessmen, flight crews from obscure airlines, unglamorous theater folk, out-of-town magazine writers, and several old ladies who looked like great aunts. The stains on the wallpaper got to be old friends. If you came in past 11:30 p.m., you found the door locked. Eventually, the night porter would answer the bell, not exactly in his bathrobe but looking the way your girlfriend's father used to when you brought her home late. If your step was wobbly...
Then, a couple of years ago, the Royalton stopped answering its phone. Crazy stories circulated, all true. There were new owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the Merry-Andrews who ran the wildly successful disco Studio 54 a decade before (and shared a cell in federal prison for evading taxes on the disco's income). To reinvent everything from door knobs to plumbing, they hired Philippe Starck, a Euro-glitz wild man usually described as a French biker-designer (he is French, rides a big motorcycle and designs things...
...designer's best bold stroke was to hollow out the Royalton's long, block-through, columned lobby and bring it alive. People sit here and talk nonsense to one another, order tea -- a liquor license is still to come -- wait for somebody to tilt a chair back, argue about what Starck did right and wrong. (Right: a bar, made of dark marble, with a lovely, sinuous stainless-steel footrest, and a thin strip of glowing blue glass set into the top. Wrong: tacky purple ropes with tassels, holding up enormous mirrors...
...Rubell and Schrager. They insisted that their builder hide the door. "Discreet is in," says Rubell, 46. "If you don't know where it is," observes Schrager, 42, "you wouldn't be comfortable there. Our guests will be a certain sort of people who will feel right here." The Royalton is the second Manhattan hotel bought by the pair, with two other partners. The first, Morgans, on Madison Avenue, is so discreet that no name appears outside, and cab drivers have to intuit its location. They have plans for two more, including the Barbizon, once a stately hotel for women...
After a $10 million face- lift, the remodeled Royalton may be the least boring public building in Manhattan. It' s so cutting- edge you' d better bring Band- Aids -- and plenty of cash...