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This page, from left: Jimmie Martin’s recipe for a Manhattan on a chaise designed by Lauren Rottet; the gilded door to the Penthouse Suite. Opposite, from top: the 2,200-square-foot Presidential Suite overlooking Central Park. The floral carpet pattern was inspired by the background of a black-and-white Horst photograph of Coco Chanel
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reclining on a chaise; an etched coffee table in one of The Surrey’s 190 Guest Salons.
The seat cushions in the guestrooms’ windows are even poetic: “the poem written on the window seat is meant to draw the guest into the view of New York outside their window and start their imagination running about what they will find in the city outside of their room.” The telling words of one of the unfinished window seat poem? “...through these windows lies the soul of the city...” The soul of the city lies within The Surrey’s windows as well. Rottet spent time in The Surrey before the tour-deforce renovation began, walking through the neighborhood and “watching how the streets and building fronts changed with the day.” The neighborhood came to life in her design: “the Upper East Side influence,” Rottet says, “is everywhere... from the subtle scents to the uniforms to the historically elegant, but currently fashionable, [details]. I wanted the rooms to feel like the bedroom suite of an Upper
East Side grande dame’s apartment: very personal and collected with style and care over time—not done in a moment.” Hardly a moment’s work, the renovation took more than fourteen months and has since been celebrated by the design community—not to mention by the lucky guests who get to rest their heads on one of The Surrey’s DUX beds by Duxiana. The Surrey has not escaped the locals’ notice either: tucked off the lobby, Bar Pleiades has become the go-to spot for after-work cocktails and romantic rendezvous alike. Rottet’s hand is apparent au bar as well, as are the dual influences of Coco Chanel and the Deco period, specifically “the classic Chanel compact, black and white with the diagonal tufted pattern, and the sharp contrast of black lacquer with white inlay from the Deco period.” Rottet wanted the bar itself to be “small and personal and the rooms to be a little dark and romantically mysterious, like
looking into a vintage photograph. And, as with the other spaces, I wanted the bar to feel as if the furnishings and art had been collected over time, from 1920 on. The murals are hand-painted scenes of ancient India—travelers in the ’20s began to explore India.” For guests, neighbors, and design aficionados alike, The Surrey represents contemporary romantic luxury: a sublime melding of its Deco birthright with modern art and urban wit. “[Being in] the hotel is like being cast into a black-andwhite photograph from a romantic trip to New York in the ’20s,” says Rottet—but with constant reminders of the twentyfirst century: unusual, skewed mosaic carpets, graffiti-painted cabinets, and video art. “Every turn has a small surprise,” says Rottet, and each of them transports. u The Surrey Hotel is located at 20 East 76th Street. For more, call 212.288.3700. A P RIL 2 0 1 0 7 5