Rebecca Tobin
Each December Travel Weekly hosts a Twitter chat about luxury travel. We invite luxury-minded travel agents, tour companies, cruise lines, hotels and anyone else who loves luxury travel, to tweet about trends and tips.
And in what has become a tradition, my colleague and I live-tweet the chat from a posh hotel in New York. Part of the tradition is that we always conduct a tour of the hotel just before the chat starts. And part of the tour is that we always hope to see the hotel's very tip-top suite.
What better way to kick off an hour of talking about luxury travel than getting some inspiration right from the top? (Literally; the biggest suites are almost always on the top floor.)
A hotel's penthouse or owner's suite is indicative of the overall personality of the hotel. Some are palatial, some are cozy. Some are very modern and sleek, others are full of traditional details.
A vase of perfect Baccarat-red roses on the dining table of the Baccarat Suite in the Baccarat Hotel New York. Photo Credit: REbecca Tobin
The Baccarat New York, where we held this year's chat, has the appropriately named Baccarat Suite, which is a jewel box of elegance. It's a 2,190-square-foot apartment, and the wallpapered foyer opens up into a living/dining room -- Baccarat calls it "salon-like spaces" -- featuring high ceilings and traditional touches. The bedroom is big enough to include a sitting area and tall enough to accommodate a canopy bed and showcase walls of lacquered wood.
A few exacting details: a vase of perfect Baccarat-red roses in the center of the dining table; toiletries in tissue paper in a red box; and a wall of Baccarat crystal barware. In fact, all the stemware and chandeliers and much of the art is made of Baccarat crystal.
Baccarat is a French brand, and the room's high ceilings, wainscoting and herringbone-patterned wood floors seemed very Parisian. I expected the windows to overlook the Eiffel Tower but, this being New York, they overlook the Museum of Modern Art. Nightly rate: $18,000.
Speaking of views: All the hotels have excellent vistas from their prime suites. The Ritz-Carlton Central
Park boasts views of New York's most famous green space. Its
1,980-square-foot, two-bedroom Royal Suite is its top category.
The refurbished Royal Suite at the Ritz-Carlton Central Park.
The
hotel is in the midst of a refurbishment that it calls "an
elegant reawakening," so the suite has been updated since we toured the property,
with white walls and dark-wood accents, but it still looks like a model
of traditional elegance -- "townhouse-inspired tranquility,"
Ritz-Carlton calls it. Nightly rate:
$35,000.
The prime prospect from the windows of the
2,500-square-foot Presidential Suite in the Wagner Hotel at the Battery
(a Ritz-Carlton when we toured the hotel; it is now an independent and part of
Leading Hotels of the World) is of the
Statue of Liberty. From its perch at the very tip of the island, the
Wagner can do what almost no other New York property can: Offer its
guests nearly unobstructed views of sky and sea. Nightly rate: $5,000.
Last year we inspected the Conrad New York, in the nearby Battery Park City neighborhood. The hotel's centerpiece is its soaring lobby, but the Conrad Suite is cozy and intimate. Unlike the Baccarat's open living and dining salon, the Conrad breaks its suite up into separate rooms for dining, living and working.
The intimate Conrad Suite at the Conrad New York.
The art is contemporary (a Roy Lichtenstein hangs on the wall), and the furniture modern. The dining table can seat six, but when it's warm and sunny out, I recommend the rooftop Loopy Doopy Bar as a setting for entertaining. Consider this one luxe apartment living. Nightly rate: $2,000 per night.
Also in lower Manhattan is the Four Seasons Downtown New York, which we visited the year it opened, in 2016. The hotel is situated at the edge of Tribeca, and the vibe of the 2,400-square-foot Royal Suite takes some cues from the luxury lofts of that neighborhood: High ceilings, tall windows, modern touches and lots of bare wood floors makes it downtown chic.
The suite takes up half of the hotel's 24th floor, with views of the Financial District from the living room and the rest of Manhattan from the bedroom at the north end of the apartment. An open-plan room big enough for two separate living-room groupings, a dining table for 10 and a bar island is furnished in a sleek style; in other words, entertaining is a must.
The open plan of the Royal Suite of the Four Seasons Downtown makes it ideal for entertaining. Photo Credit: Rebecca Tobin
A media room and little office hide just off the long hallway to the bedroom. A small touch, but one I drooled over: the closets are a standout of the Four Seasons Downtown, just inviting guests to unpack and stay. Nightly rate: $10,000.
However, it's hard to top the Four Seasons New York. The hotel where we held our first #TWchats is home to the 4,300-square-foot Ty Warner Penthouse Suite, a masterpiece of opulence. On the 52nd floor of the hotel, the views from the four balconies, each set on a diagonal to the city's street grid, made my colleague dizzy, but the views from inside the suite through 25-foot-high bay windows are just as stunning. I was frankly more concerned about marring the plush carpet; our host asked us to remove our shoes at the door.
The art on the wall was selected by Warner, who owns the hotel, and by its architects I.M. Pei and Peter Marino, the Four Seasons said. Just a few details from the hotel: A Lalanne chandelier is suspended over the grand piano, which is set into one of the bay windows just off the library, which features floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a cathedral ceiling. The living room has hand-lacquered walls, the bathroom is clad in rare Chinese onyx, the "Zen Room" has a floor-to-ceiling waterfall.
The Four Seasons also notes that "should a second bedroom be required, the suite's private spa can be converted to a second bedroom." Nightly rate: $50,000, making it one of the most expensive suites in Manhattan.
Luxury Insight editor Jeri Clausing is on vacation.
CORRECTION: The nightly rate for the Ritz-Carlton Central Park was misstated in an earlier version of this Insight. It is $35,000 per night.