In the pre-gentrification ’80s, everyone from down-at-the-heels apartment dwellers to Andy Warhol trolled the flea market stalls that crammed the empty lots of New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. By the ‘90s, though, luxury buildings had begun filling those spots and many vendors moved indoors to take over an old parking garage. Eventually even the Antiques Garage, as it was known, bowed to development pressures and closed.
“All of these spaces had a place in my heart,” says Sara Duffy, principal at Manhattan-based Stonehill Taylor, which handled interior design and architecture for the Renaissance New York Chelsea hotel that recently opened on the garage site. “They are a big part of our concept, which is a celebration of the curated and the elegant.” A second inspiration for the 341-key property, she adds, is the still extant but greatly diminished wholesale Flower District, whose sensory abundance once colored and perfumed the entire neighborhood.
The hotel’s 341 guestrooms and suites feature whimsical artwork and accessories
In fact, visitors pass through a garden before they even reach the hotel, which is set 25 feet from the street. Inside, they might pause in the vestibule, where the lilt of recorded bird song greets them, before moving onto the reception area, which is backed by a piece of digital art depicting an abstract forest. To the left is a lounge “that’s supposed to evoke the sense of being in a garden as a kid,” Duffy says.
The light fixtures suggest fireflies in jars, the carpet patterns call to mind microscopic aspects of nature like butterfly wings, the chairs echo the form of garden rakes, and the ottomans resemble picnic baskets. A partition inspired by the veiny structure of leaves sets off the hotel’s Italian restaurant, Cotto, where an installation of hummingbirds frolicking around a blossom is crafted from antique garden tools.
The 39-story hotel is located at the former site of the Antiques Garage flea market
Other moments, such as shelves crammed with tchotchkes and an assemblage of antique door hardware that leads the way up a stairwell, offer shoutouts to flea market finds. On the guestroom floors, corridors are adorned in a digital wallcovering depicting vines creeping over aged brick. In the rooms, whimsical touches like bunny- or gnome-shaped lamps blend the garden narrative with the vintage vibe.
“There’s a tug between the idea that you definitely feel like you’re in New York while escaping it at the same time,” says Duffy. “It offers a celebration and embrace of the neighborhood and its history, but it’s also a chance to relax at a slight remove from it.”
A variety of artworks set the scene in the Renaissance New York Chelsea Hotel lobby
