The Hotel Diaries: The Marlton, NYC

It’s Hotel Diaries y’all. The column where we celebrate the very best and most divine hotel experiences. These are the kinds of hotels worth getting out of bed for. As in, get out of your boring old regular bed and slip into the absolute top of the line kind of beds only hotels can deliver. Ivy Knight is exploring the world’s best hotels and reporting back here with all the decadent details. This month she hits up Fashion Week in NYC with a stay at the most insider baby grand hotel. IYKYK. #HotelDiaries

Wherein we run into Kelly Cutrone during NYFW, and discover a classic Italian hero.

The Marlton feels like a hotel trapped in amber. The madness and mayhem of Greenwich Village falls away as soon as you walk through the doors. The lobby has a real fireplace. Not one of those hideous in-wall fireplaces so popular on Selling Sunset. At the cozy little check-in desk discreetly tucked in the back, the clerks are backlit by gleaming oak and old fashioned pigeon holes, adorned with room keys, each dangling a gold trimmed enamelled fob. There is plenty of polished brass and soft light. Is it any wonder Jack Kerouac checked in here at various times to work on manuscripts for a number of his books, including On The Road? And Valerie Solanas, she of the infamous S.C.U.M. manifesto, was known to crash here. It’s where she holed up after shooting Andy Warhol. Lenny Bruce stayed at the Marlton while being tried for obscenity. A little court case that helped shape freedom of speech as we know it today.

This humble fleabag has been home to real history. Built in 1900, the Marlton has gone through several iterations during its lifetime. Throughout, it has, against all odds, retained the best of itself. That’s due, in large part, to the hotelier behind it.

Sean MacPherson is not your typical hotel guy. He’s said of Edison light bulbs, “I think we’ve all seen enough,” of dining at Carbone “I was embarrassed to be there,” and of this jewel box of a hotel “Honey I shrunk the Ritz!” He transformed this former flophouse into something more than a boutique hotel, what he dubs a “baby grand.” He made sure to keep all that beatnik history, while adding a layer of classic luxury (not to be confused with the oh so beige quiet luxury – snore!) on top. He’s done this before, most famously at The Bowery Hotel and The Jane. Here, the Persian rugs are faded to just the right state of lived in. You’ll find oak herringbone floors and brass faucets in the rooms, as well as showers done in black and white marble. There are reproduction Hollywood Regency shell sconces and velvet banquettes in the dining room, and swooped throughout, plenty of delicious mouldings thick as cake frosting. The hallways are tight like the corridors of a ship, perhaps one captained by Wes Anderson. But that’s not quite right, there is nothing twee about this place, it feels more sturdy and timeless than that. More like MacPherson’s actual inspiration, Tender Is the Night. Less Andersonian, more F. Scott Fitzgerald.

And the robes. My god the robes. Cast your mind back to the most celebrated runway show of the year – the merkin-flaunting, hip-swinging, porcelain-faced brilliance strutted out by John Galliano for Maison Margiela. Well guess what? The robes at the Marlton are from the same house. Direct from Paris, and cut from the same pattern as the gown worn by the atelier’s couturiers. The treasures this baby grand hotel keeps serving up. Mon Dieu!

Let's Go Outside

The Marlton is a few blocks away from Washington Square Park, and ten minutes from everything else; the shopping mecca of Fifth Avenue, a hidden font museum at Cooper Union, one of the city’s most celebrated bakeries, and an Italian holy site on Bleecker…

Before venturing out into the city, get some breakfast at the restaurant on the main floor. Walk past that wood-burning fireplace in the cozy lobby, past the red leather booths in the bar, to the magical hidden oasis of the Margaux in the very back. Here the glassed-in conservatory roof pours in mood altering sunshine even on the coldest of early spring days. From my booth I see a pair of glittering dark eyes sparking with fierce energy. It is none other than Kelly Cutrone knocking back a mimosa. You know Cutrone, she of The Hills and the New York Times bestseller “If You Have To Cry Go Outside”, which should be required reading for every kid who ever dreams of making it in NYC. She’s here with her assistant planning a party at the studios down the street. As they talk guest list and swag bags, the servers glide quietly in and out delivering pots of tea and bowls of fresh fruit and granola.

Faicco’s Italian Specialties opened the same year as the Marlton. It’s possible that any one of those aforementioned history-making, zeitgeist-wrangling hotel guests came here for a bite. How better to fuel one’s writing, whether it be a novel, a raging manifesto or a boundary-pushing standup set (in every case genre defining. You want to talk canon? These folks are the very definition of canon) than with a massive Italian hero? When you walk in, go straight to the back, step up to the counter where you’ll be greeted by a phalanx of friendly sandwich artists. The most popular order at Faicco’s is the Italian Cold Cut Hero. I am a bucker of tradition so I got a smoked ham and Swiss. You may wonder why I refer to this humble deli on Bleecker as a holy site? That this building, which opened as an Italian deli when McKinley was president, and is still an Italian deli in the megalopolis of Manhattan almost 125 years later? That’s a miracle if I ever saw one. And the heroes themselves? In the words of the entire Sopranos cast “marone!”
Librae Bakery is just a few steps down from Cooper Union. Librae, of the famed rose-pistachio croissant and the glorious babkeh made with black lime. Be still my beating heart. There are so many warnings on social media about getting here early before they sell out, but honestly, who cares? Everything here is divine and drop dead delicious. You literally can’t lose. The pastry case is like the Middle East meets Scandi, and it sits across the street from the former home of the Village Voice. Enjoy whatever fresh baked treats you can get your hands on while gazing at the death of journalism. RIP.
Cooper Union is home to the archive of designer Herb Lubalin, and it’s a font-lover’s dream. If you care deeply about fonts and design, book covers and theatre posters, and want to see some of Warhol’s early editorial work, as well as one of the finest collections of works by Black designers (including Mozelle Thompson), it is worth a visit. You’ll need to set it up in advance though, they don’t take walk-ins.

The Marlton is a special kind of hotel. If you’re looking to get slathered in oils in a spa, or served cocktails poolside, this is not that kind of place. This is a city hotel, one you book for sleep and breakfast, the perfect launchpad from which to sally forth into Manhattan. If that other kind of hotel is your vacation villa, this is your pied-à-terre.

In Closing

Back to Kelly Cutrone. As she was leaving Margaux I called her name. She turned and walked toward me smiling. Cutrone has an unfair rep as a power bitch, when in actuality she’s the most affable and outgoing fashion insider you’ll probably ever meet. This woman’s client list has included everyone from Jeremy Scott to Vivienne Westwood, she just graced the cover of Paper for their 40th anniversary issue, and she hangs out with the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Anna Delvey. Dressed head to toe in basic black, she’s chatty and gregarious, very much like the warm-hearted den mother described in her bestselling memoir (with the greatest title), If You Have To Cry, Go Outside.

Just a reminder that this encounter is taking place during Fashion Week, the craziest time of the year for her. As she recently told Interview “I let people know that it could be dangerous to be in my field [during Fashion Week] because the amount of energy that’s floating through my body on any given day is way more than one human being can actually handle.”

Instead of exploding with stress, she’s chill. She even invites me to the party she’s planning that night. “If they won’t let you in, just tell them Kelly invited you.”

I can’t think of anyone who’d fit in better with this hotel’s famed guests of yore; Kerouac, Solanas and Bruce. I ask if she comes here often. “This is the most insider hotel in New York” she says, making note of its hidden-in-plain-sight appeal. “You don’t know it’s here, but it’s here.”

❤️ robes by Maison Margiela

❤️ the restaurant's solarium makes for the sunniest winter dining in NYC

💔 no club sandwich and no room service