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SPECIAL REPORT
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NEW YORK'S
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MARITIME HOTEL
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MANHATTAN’S LARGEST HOTEL GARDEN SPACE
IS A BLOSSOMING OASIS... AND A RISK THAT PAID OFF
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BY GISELA WILLIAMS |
The streets of New York City's meat-packing district, a small trendy district on the west side of downtown Manhattan, are lined with sleek boutiques, cutting-edge galleries and buzzy, of-the-moment hotels like the Soho House and the Gansevoort. But even amongst such glamorous neighbours, the six-year-old Maritime Hotel turns heads with its streamlined design and unique outdoor spaces. |
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The building itself, a sloping all-white structure of ceramic tile with enormous porthole windows built in 1966 by the architect Albert Ledner (a student of Frank Lloyd Wright), is one of the most recognizable and quirky facades in New York. Its 120 identical rooms and six suites are relatively small but stylish. They're designed like a bedroom in a luxury yacht with lots of sleek dark wood and efficient shelves. The Maritime's subterranean ballroom, Hiro, and its two restaurants, La Bottega, a Mediterranean café, and Matsuri, a cultish Japanese dining room, have hosted parties for Marc Jacobs, dinners for art legends such as Julian Schnabel, and events like the premiere of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. But it's the hotel's 10,000-square-foot courtyard, raised eight feet above the street and the largest public garden space of any hotel in New York that really makes the Maritime stand out like a diamond among pearls.
FROM NIGHTLIFE GURUS TO HOTELIERS When owners Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode won the bid for the building almost ten years ago, they were known in LA and New York as nightlife gurus and restaurateurs on both coasts. (Goode was responsible for such classic L.A. and Manhattan hangouts as Area, MK, Time Café and the Bowery Bar, while MacPherson launched the legendary L.A. hotspots Bar Marmont, Swingers, Jones, El Carmen and Good Luck Bar).
The Maritime was their first hotel project. As is true of all their projects, they designed every last detail of the space. More concerned with their unique vision than the bottom line, the two of them wanted to create "a space with ourselves in mind," explained the lanky 44-old MacPherson, who looks more like a surfer than a hotelier. "We treated it like it was our own home."
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A CALIFORNIA VISION FOR MANHATTAN For MacPherson and Goode, who both grew up in sunny southern California during the 60s, that meant as much outdoor space as possible. Investing in an expansive garden courtyard in a city with only about six months of warm weather was a risky and expensive endeavour that many experienced New York City hoteliers would never have considered. Fortunately for MacPherson and Goode, their two other partners (Richard Born and Ira Drucker, experienced hoteliers who own 30 hotels in the city, from a Holiday Inn to Robert De Niro's new Greenwich Hotel) trusted their intuition.
Neither MacPherson nor Goode are trained designers or landscape architects, but they both have similar eclectic tastes that favour authentic and organic materials mixed with a few well-chosen modernist and peacock-bright details. The Park, the see-and-be-seen restaurant/lounge that they opened in 2001, sparked the emergence of West Chelsea and foreshadowed what was to come at the Maritime. The two of them picked up objects for the space, like the three enormous redwood-root benches and a mirror set with taxidermied songbirds, on several road trips. Even more telling is that the star of the Park's main dining room is a 30-foot dracaena tree which towers above and beyond the ceiling through a twelve foot-high skylight.
VIP TREES
Before planning the Maritime courtyard, they went on a five-day, three-city tour of Brazil to photograph as many gardens designed by the legendary Brazilian landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx as they could. To get that same lush tropical feel, they tiled the courtyard, hung circular lanterns that reflect the porthole windows of the facade, encouraged ivy to grow up the surrounding walls, brought in dozens of hanging plants, and planted boxwoods and four magnolia trees. The magnolia trees alone cost $100,000. In total, $1.5 million was spent on the terrace along with the new building additions and steel beams that were used to reinforce the weight of the trees. (Underneath the courtyard is a large open ballroom). "Getting the magnolia trees in here was a huge ordeal," described MacPherson. "They were brought in from Pennsylvania with a huge crane. They had to close down part of Ninth Avenue."
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According to all four of the Maritime's owners the expense and effort put into the hotel's outdoor space has ended up being very worthwhile, especially in terms of continuing to draw crowds to the hotel's F&B venues. (In general, 60% of their profits come from the hotel rooms and 40% come from F&B). The courtyard is an extension of one of the Maritime's two restaurants, La Bottega, and seats more than 250. During prime hours on blue sky days, these outdoor seats are as coveted as front row seats at a Marc Jacobs fashion show and attract an equally hipster crowd. "I didn't envision the garden to be such a boon to the F&B," said Born. "From the moment spring arrives, the courtyard is at full capacity." He added, "And while in the last months many restaurants seem to be quieter, we are seeing that the outdoor venues continue to attract volume. Even in a bad economy people want to go out."
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EVERYONE'S A WEATHERMAN And while green space has turned a profit for the owners of the Maritime, managing a busy courtyard is not all a bed of roses. "We monitor the weather on an hourly basis," said MacPherson. "A lot of our staff is on call. Our operational staff changes day by day and hour by hour depending on the weather. " He added, "Hiring a wind consultant when we were building the courtyard would have helped." He explained, "Somehow we have a microclimate out there on the terrace. We've had small hurricanes. Bottles of olive oil have been swept off tables and onto Ninth Avenue." He laughed, "Everyone that works here has become a weather expert."
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DETAILS:
MARITIME HOTEL
363 WEST 16TH ST. NEW YORK CITY 10011 USA
OWNER: SEAN MACPHERSON, ERIC GOODE, RICHARD BORN & IRA DRUCKER
MANAGER: JAMES PALMER
CONTACT: +1 212 242 4300
WWW.THEMARITIMEHOTEL.COM
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