The Lowell, New York. Photographs courtesy The Lowell.History-imbued and modern-masterpiece hotels continue to open in New York City and in Travel Talk we set out to cover the very best of them. But a recent stay at The Lowell,, first opened in 1984, reminded me why this particular hotel has long been and doubtless will long continue to be my favorite hotel in New York City.
Tucked inside leafy East 63rd Street, just off Madison Avenue, The Lowell is that rare bird — an independent hotel owned and run not by corporations or anonymous bean-counters in some faraway city but by passionate hotelkeepers, the Chartouni family, for whom hospitality is an art as much as it is a business.
Small by New York standards, The Lowell’s 74 guest rooms and suites have polished, parquet floors, beautiful lamps, bronze sculptures, alpaca throws and, joy of joys, windows that actually open. Thirty-three of them have their own fireplaces, too, along with a fireplace butler.
Not that New York “standards,” whatever they might be, really apply at The Lowell. That’s because nothing is standard here. Each room is unique, just like in a private house, and there’s the palpable sense that designer Michael Smith has clearly considered, room by room, what works here, or would perhaps sit better there, what jazzes up an empty corner and which spaces are better left quietly alone.
In the bathrooms, yes of course, you have the best Frette towels and the most luxurious robes and top of the line DDC 28 products from La Bottega in Italy, but you also have something that money can’t buy, or seem to buy, these days, and that’s a great shower. Because whereas people like me, that’s to say Europeans, used to associate the United States with great hotel showers, as opposed to the sad trickle they were used to at home, you may have noticed that water pressure in American hotels has been getting steadily weaker over time. That’s largely owing to the introduction of the so-called, now almost ubiquitous, “rain forest” shower, which I can assure you is nothing like the rain forest and sadly, on account of the ridiculously large size of the shower head, nothing like the great American shower used to be either.
Not so at The Lowell, though, with its Anystream showers by Speakman, which deliver such a powerful jet they could wash not only you but also your car or even your house.
The hotel’s reception room, known as the Club Room, is handsomely paneled. With its molded ceilings, elaborate drapes, bookcase-lined walls, leopard skin-fabric covered chairs, oriental rugs and console tables with flower arrangements reaching almost to the ceiling, it is one of the loveliest “public” hotel rooms in New York City.
The Lowell also delivers in the victuals department. Breakfast, or weekend brunch, in the well-proportioned Pembroke Room, with its atmosphere of a small English or French salon, sets the mood for the day. And the hotel’s celebrated Majorelle restaurant, inspired by the French orientalist painter Jacques Majorelle, is one of New York’s prettiest and most intimate. Open daily for dinner as well as lunch Wednesdays to Sundays, the restaurant offers a sophisticated French / European cuisine, with – naturally – a welcome nod to Morocco. And in collaboration with Dior Maison, Majorelle also offers a “Lily of the Valley” afternoon tea (Wednesdays to Sundays), served on Dior Maison’s exquisite Lily of the Valley tableware collection.
The painter additionally gives his name to The Lowell’s extremely chic bar, Jacques, with its inlaid floors, filigree tables, beautiful lamps and stunning glassware. It’s a sensory trip, and a lot of New York’s best dressed people agree. “I love this place. Let’s hang out here,” I heard a Jennifer Coolidge-lookalike, dressed in flowing summer Pucci, say to her friend one evening during my stay. Who knows, perhaps it really was Jennifer Coolidge – I’m hopeless with faces. Either way, her sentiments were mine entirely.
Another snippet of conversation I overheard during my stay was at the front desk, where a slightly scruffy young man in shorts was explaining to the young receptionist that he was the new pastry chef, reporting for his first day of work. He had clearly missed the hotel’s service entrance, or was simply green, but he was accorded great consideration by the agent, who politely asked him to wait while she called the kitchen for someone to come and escort him. (When a hotel treats its staffers like that, you can imagine how well it treats its paying guests.)
(At breakfast the following morning, enjoying a croissant that I must tell you was the equal of any croissant I have ever eaten in Paris, I couldn’t help wondering if that young man had baked it. If so, he has a starry career ahead of him.)
Many years ago, I asked Dina De Luca Chartouni, who serves as co-owner with husband Fouad, where they as hoteliers like to stay. “My favorite hotel in the world is J.K. Place in Capri,” she told me. “It’s not for everyone. Some say it’s too far from the Piazzetta, or it’s too this or too that. Well, whatever – for me, it’s just perfect.”
And there, in three words, she encapsulated just how I feel about her own hotel, the luxurious but low-key, very lovely Lowell.
