What better way to choose a hotel than to find out where the rich and famous stay? After all, with money no object, their time so precious and the best advice money can buy on hand, following their lead can’t be a bad idea.
New York City’s Crosby Street Hotel is a favourite with celebrities visiting the Big Apple. Here’s the run down on the Soho hotspot.
The Celebrity Guests
The Crosby Street Hotel has been a magnet to A-listers for a while now. Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Penelope Cruz, Richard Gere, Liv Tyler, Carey Mulligan and Alexa Chung have all been spotted there. Demi Moore reportedly holed up at the Soho site when her marriage to Ashton Kutcher ended.
One Australian journalist reported having seen, during her week-long stay at the hotel: Halle Berry passing through the lobby on her way from one of the hotel’s downstairs function rooms; Daniel Day-Lewis hurrying up to his suite; and Meg Ryan hunched over her laptop in the lobby. Sienna Miller and high-profile magazine editor Tina Brown have stayed here; Brown hosted a screening in the private cinema. And Kate Winslet and former husband Sam Mendes are known to recommend the Crosby to out-of-town friends.
Meanwhile, Australian high-profile design media editors Neale Whitaker and David Clark are said to rarely stay elsewhere when in New York.
Neighbourhood
Crosby Street Hotel is in Soho in the heart of downtown New York. It’s set among quiet cobblestoned streets and 19th-Century warehouse buildings, and surrounded by the loft apartments of New York’s wealthier residents. (Samuel L. Jackson’s apartment is across the road.)
Walking distance to
A quick walk away is Balthazar, the French-style brassiere that has attracted Hollywood stars for more than a decade. It’s close to Elizabeth Street, where you’ll find New York’s most interesting boutiques while Bloomingdales is a very short walk out of the back door. In between the famous Prince and Spring streets, the hotel is also on the doorstep of some of Manhattan’s most exciting bars, restaurants, cafés and galleries.
Size and style
There are 86 high-ceilinged, light-filled rooms and suites across 11 floors, all with floor-to-ceiling warehouse-style windows; those on the upper floor revealing breath-taking views across Manhattan. Decorated by celebrated British hotel designer (and co-owner of Firmdale, Crosby Street Hotel’s parent company) Kit Kemp, each room has been designed individually, meaning each time you stay, it will be a fresh experience. Kemp’s extraordinary design talent is one of the key attractions of the hotel. She astonishes fans by masterfully pulling together colours, patterns and objects that really shouldn’t go together.
Guest profile
This hotel is a magnet to movie stars and high-profile media types who are often spotted milling around its public areas. But, perhaps because the owners are British, or maybe because it serves an exceptional all-day British afternoon tea, the hotel tends to attract a lot of Manhattan’s Brit expats as well as a notable preponderance of British stars among its celebrity clientele.
The VIP treatment
Suite guests are treated to: in-suite check-in, pressing upon arrival, unpacking service on arrival or packing service on departure, fresh flowers in suite, complimentary international newspapers daily, mineral water on evening turndown and a complimentary shoeshine service.
You need to know this
There’s a private cinema in the hotel and guests can purchase a surprisingly inexpensive dinner and movie package on Sunday evenings. But the real attraction of the cinema is that it brings in the A-listers who come for private screenings. Lindsay Lohan and Emma Stone have been seen there.
On-Site dining, drinking and other facilities
The drawing room, on the ground floor next to the lobby, has books and magazines to read, and an honour system for guests helping themselves to drinks throughout the day.
The Crosby Bar, an airy, spacious, long room with high ceilings, oak floors and tall windows, is open all day. It offers breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, cocktails and an all-day afternoon tea in the old British tradition (also served on the outdoor terrace in warmer weather).
There’s a kitchen garden on the hotel’s 12th-floor rooftop supplying the hotel with fresh, seasonal produce such as melons, blueberries, tomatoes and herbs, and there’s a Tudor-style chicken coop with four residents.
Travelling with children?
Crosby Street Hotel offers: a children’s menu, blu-rays and popcorn, board games, connecting rooms, baby cots, sofa and rollaway beds, children’s bathrobes and toiletries, and high chairs