Publishing history and contemporary lifestyle dovetail beautifully in the renovated Hyatt Regency Greenwich, which had its official opening Thursday, Oct. 17, with tours of the elegant site, once a home of Condé Nast publications; delicious sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails from its new Townsend Bar & Lounge; and the jazz stylings of The Creswell Club instrumental ensemble that nodded to the hotel’s marriage of past and present.
The $40 million refurbishment represents a new chapter in the life of the 38-year-old hotel, part of the Hyatt Regency brand of more than 230 locations in 40-plus countries, and for Trinity Investments, a Honolulu-based private real estate investment firm that acquired the Hyatt Regency Greenwich in 2022 for more than $37 million. With a 28-year history of specializing in value-add opportunities in world-class markets, Trinity has invested more than $9.8 billion in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Japan as of April of this year.
The revamping by Curioso – a Chicago-based collective of architects, interior designers and artists – reflects a desire to blend the spirit of the hotel’s Old Greenwich locale, the last Greenwich stop before Stamford, and its Condé Nast past, with all the modern amenities that the digital age demands.
“The renovation was all about building on the 1920s era and leaning into that and a modern nod,” said Sherry Hicks-Buckles, the hotel’s general manager, referring to the years (1921-67) when the 15-acre site housed the printing press and some offices for such Condé Nast publications as House & Garden, Vanity Fair and Vogue.
We could see this fusion unfold as we toured the four-story hotel with Marcus N. Ong, director of sales, marketing and events. The Library, off the vaunted atrium lobby, in particular evokes the clubby “Great Gatsby” era with its humidor, billiards table and bookshelves displaying vintage Condé Nast covers – all wrapped in a bottle-green palette, a signature hue of colleges, the Jazz Age and now the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.
Its masculine energy, Ong said, contrasts with the lighter, more feminine sage and blond palette of the adjacent Glenna’s Café & Market, which continues the 1920s theme, being named as it is for New Haven-born World Golf Hall of Famer Glenna Collett-Vare (1903-89), who dominated the women’s game in the 1920s with a record-breaking 59 (out of 60) match wins in 1924. But Glenna’s also seeks to fulfill today’s lifestyle demands. Sit-down lunches are not big with hotel guests, Ong said. They’re out for lunch or looking for grab-and-go options for lunch as well as breakfast. Glenna’s offers an assortment of coffee drinks and house-made breakfast and lunch options, along with items from local businesses.
Vintage magazine covers also line the guest-room corridors – there are 1,100 pieces of art there – and grace the 374 rooms, which mix clean-limbed furnishings and green floral designs. Among the rooms are 13 suites, including the Presidential Suite – with its fireplace, deep tub and a blowup of silent film star Rudolph Valentino dancing with a swooning blonde – and the new Residential Suite. Designed for guests who are in it for the long haul while visiting from out of town or remodeling their neighboring home, the suite includes perhaps the ultimate in modern amenities – a GE Profile 2-In-1 Washer/Dryer that dries the clothes immediately after the wash cycle, no unloading and reloading necessary. As George and Ira Gershwin’s 1930 song “I Got Rhythm” would say, “Who could ask for anything more?”
To which the TikTok generation would reply, what about streaming your own shows on the smart TV? (Yep.) Ample outlets and USB ports as well as a dedicated workstation? (Yep, yep and yep.) A fitness center? In late 2023, the hotel upgraded its indoor pool, hot tub and 24-hour fitness center to include new cardio and strength equipment along with three new Peloton Bikes. Ride a Peloton for 20 minutes, Ong said, and you get World of Hyatt points.
But perhaps nowhere is the contrast between past and present sharper than in the reimagined atrium lobby, which many area residents will remember for its plant-lined stream and footbridges, all leading to a gazebo bar and Winfield’s restaurant, where Sunday brunch was a must.
It’s all been replaced by 2,300 individual plants – 800 more than before – a fountain reminiscent of the original one on the grounds 100 years ago and Townsend Bar & Lounge, a sun- and moon-lit space serving craft cocktails, bar bites and shareable plates from late afternoon into the night either at the bar or in the spacious Garden Court, with its ample, intimate seating.
Sitting there, enjoying mini burrata and tomato salads, melting pastrami sandwiches and perfectly dressed cold lobster rolls, courtesy of Townsend, we couldn’t help but remember all the family brunches at Winfield’s and interviewing tennis legend Billie Jean King and actress Tracee Ellis Ross at lunches for Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, The Fund for Women and Girls – to say nothing of the Breast Cancer Alliance events in a tent pitched outside to contain two runway shows and 1,000 guests. (The renovated 28,000-square-foot event and meeting space was revealed in 2020.)
But as we took another sip of a virgin gin and tonic – well, tonic with lime – looking at all of the opening’s contented guests sipping, eating and seeing, another thought occurred:
Time to make new memories at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.
