Upgrade readers,
This week, I split out the Lobby Bar and Room Report from my usual Tuesday Upgrade article. The reasoning was that my article about how political policy, elections, and different administrations affect the travel industry was quite hefty, and I didn’t feel there was room. I also wanted to present Room Report from my recent stay at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York.
🗝️ The Lobby Bar
Hospitality updates, promotions, gossip, and the occasional pun
A bear walks into a bar and orders a gin and.......tonic. The bartender asks, “Why the big pause?” The bear says, “I was born with them.”
Aspen’s airport renovation has split the town. The Wall Street Journal reports that tensions over the project to move the runway 80 feet have come to a head. The plan the FAA approved in 2024 also widens the runway from 100 to 150 feet, which is the part opponents link to larger planes and more traffic. (The Wall Street Journal)
Bears are turning up at Aspen’s best-known food stops. One wandered through the Sant Ambroeus dining room in August, another got into food at the farmers’ market in September, and in October one was filmed near the takeout window at Paradise Bakery & Gelateria. Andrew Zucker looks at why sightings that used to be occasional now come up regularly. (Andrew Zucker, Town & Country)
The University of California’s investment arm bought the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay for $193 million. UC officials have not said what they plan to do with the resort or how it will be managed. The sale went through after the Half Moon Bay City Council declined to give the seller relief on a $2.1 million overdue hotel occupancy tax bill. (Royal Calkins, Coastside News)
Gencom bought Rosewood London. The Miami firm paid an undisclosed price for the 308-room hotel on High Holborn, its first European purchase and its second Rosewood after Rosewood Bermuda in 2017. CTF Development sold the property, and Gencom announced the InterContinental Miami purchase earlier the same week. (Hotel Dive)
Rosewood Calistoga opened bookings. Rates run $2,100 to $2,500 per night for the April 2027 opening, with reservations limited to Rosewood Elite advisors until public booking began November 4. (InsideFlyer, via One Mile at a Time)
French police searched the Ritz Paris as part of the Fayed investigation. Officers from London’s Metropolitan Police were present, and two other properties were searched in connection with the sex-trafficking allegations against the late Mohamed Al-Fayed and his brother Salah. French prosecutors opened the inquiry earlier this year, and British police have recorded 154 victims in their separate investigation. (The Observer)
🗝️ Room Report
The Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York
I recently traveled to New York to visit friends and family and for some meetings. I love New York and particularly enjoy trying out new hotels. My old staples are typically the Lotte Palace if I am traveling with my kids, or the Carlyle, but those rates have been prohibitively high for me lately. On this trip, I decided to check out the hotel everyone is buzzing about, the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I am a sucker for a Gilded Age mansion and maximalist decor. This hotel had both in a glorious fever dream of green walls, star lights on the ceiling, rouched fabric hallways, and incredible art.
I stayed November 5 to 7, 2026, in the Mansion Suite. The suite was lovely, but pricey at more than $2,000 a night. The hotel earned 88.1 out of 100 on my scorecard, which falls in my Strong Stay band.
The room. Everything runs through the iPad, which I do not love in most hotels. My friend could not quite master it, and I mostly had it figured out by day 2. I spend enough time on a screen, please just give me an old fashioned light switch.
However, there were outlets by the bed, decent mirror lighting, a lovely bath tub, good water pressure, soundproofing, temperature control, and enough clothing storage. The bed felt soft and the pillows felt medium to high. Every room has a Duxiana bed, Italian linens. Not every room has a bath tub, so choose carefully. Rooms run from 225 square feet to a 1,695 square foot penthouse with a 900 square foot terrace.
I recommend booking the corner room or above, because the first two categories, Nomad Queen and City King, are quite small. Fourteen of the NoMad King rooms can be converted to two beds, which helps if you are traveling with a friend or a child.
Arrival. Check-in speed, bag handling, and having the room ready on time all earned full marks.
Service. Housekeeping earned 2 of 4. On day 1, I left my do-not-disturb tassel on until 9am and then removed it when I went to some meetings. When I returned after a full day out, housekeeping was just then turning the room at 3pm. On day 2, it was done by 1pm.
On generosity, the minibar was included! This should be the gold standard for hotels at this price point.
The butler introduced himself at the first meeting, but then I didn’t see nor hear from him for the rest of the stay. I would like a chat function with the butler, and I could not find one on the iPad.
The bar. I spent a lot of time here. The Portrait Bar is like a mini version of the Morgan Library in terms of vibe, and is excellent. It opens to the general public at 5pm, and hotel guests can book in before then.
The hotel has no spa, and no connection with any nearby spas, which seems like a missed opportunity.
Food and beverage. Breakfast at Carmellinis was excellent. One room service order arrived on time, but the martini ritual did not.
The martini ritual. This was a major miss, and it left a black mark on an otherwise excellent stay. The doorman suggested the ritual, and I gave him our time, which he called in by walkie talkie. The concierge assured me the team had the request, and I reconfirmed with the front desk when my friend arrived. The time came and went with no service, so I requested it on the iPad. Twenty minutes later it arrived with just one martini. I asked for another glass and explained that we were on a tight timeline for dinner. The server took 20 minutes to come back. By then we were 45 minutes past our time and had to leave for our dinner reservation. The ritual costs $50 per person, and the hotel did not charge us because we never got to experience it.
Verdict. I would send a client here. I loved the decor, the restaurant, and The Portrait Bar, and most of the staff was great. My best moments were at The Portrait Bar and Cafe Carmellini.
The building
The corner belonged to Charlotte Goodridge, the wife of importer Frederic Goodridge. She hosted Thursday evening salons and stayed on Fifth Avenue after most of her neighbors moved uptown. After her death in 1902, the property went to Second National Bank, which hired McKim, Mead & White to build a five-story Italian Renaissance palazzo. Traditional Building and Wikipedia date the building to 1907, and the Landmarks Commission’s historic district summary says 1907 to 1908.
McKim, Mead & White added two stories on the north side in 1913 and a commercial addition at the back in 1928. The Ohebshalom family bought the site in 1978 and used the building for commercial and office space.
The hotel project began in 2012 with a public hearing before the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The commission told the team that building on top of the existing structure would not be considered. PBDW Architects then found a 1911 New York Times article describing a proposed tall loft building on the site, and that article helped persuade the commission to entertain a taller structure. PBDW’s consulting partner, Samuel White, is Stanford White’s great-grandson.
The team kept the facade of the 1913 addition, replaced the building behind it with a 24-story glass tower, and restored the buff brick, limestone, and terra-cotta cornice. The departure of the largest tenant, a bank like the building’s first, let the architects bring back the original two-story banking hall. GlobeSt described a 13-year project and a $360 million renovation. The Mansion, which is the hotel’s name for the original building, holds a penthouse and 21 rooms, and the rest of the rooms are in the tower.
Who owns it
Flâneur Hospitality develops and manages the hotel, so no outside brand operates it. Alex Ohebshalom founded Flâneur and is a principal of his family’s property-management company, Empire Management, which in 2021 oversaw more than 2,000 apartments and over 1 million square feet of office, industrial, and retail space. He said in 2021 that the family intends to own the hotel for the next 100 years. The hotel belongs to Leading Hotels of the World. Ohebshalom has described plans for a Flâneur Collection of independent boutique hotels, with Rome on the list and a family-run partner property in mind.
I reported a few issues ago that luxury hotels now cost about $2M per key, so financing is a slog. In this case, securing the money took longer than the building. GlobeSt reported in January 2024 that only half the rooms were ready at a partial opening the previous fall, and that Flâneur had extended a maturing $161 million construction loan after an unsuccessful refinancing attempt while it looked to sell a stake.
The Real Deal reported that Empire Management secured Santander financing in August 2019. Madison Realty Capital bought the distressed $82 million Santander loan in 2024 with Maguire Capital and Newbond Holdings, and the lender started a foreclosure that summer, alleging the loan had matured and that the property carried three mechanic’s liens. In February 2025, KSL Capital Partners and Columbia Pacific provided a new loan that replaced the Madison group’s loan and ended the foreclosure. Columbia Pacific had held the mezzanine loan.
The two loan figures are $161 million, the maturing construction loan GlobeSt reported in January 2024, and $82 million, the Santander loan Madison Realty Capital bought in 2024, as The Real Deal reported. The sources I reviewed do not give the terms of the KSL loan or say whether KSL holds equity in the hotel.
Who designed it
Martin Brudnizki Design Studio designed the interiors. Brudnizki also designed The Beekman and Hôtel Barrière Fouquet’s New York. Perkins Eastman is the architect of record, and PBDW Architects worked with it as design architect on the tower and the restoration.
Ohebshalom took his cues from Stanford White’s (the Vanderbilt’s architect) habit of collecting furniture and objects from his travels, and from his own trips to Morocco, Laos, and Myanmar. The palette runs through greens, pinks, and yellows with antique furnishings and Murano chandeliers, and the hotel markets the mood as “romantic bohemian.” Painted columns, pleated pink silk canopies, and rainbow-hued crystal chandeliers fill the public rooms. The corridors carry yellow wallpaper of insects and plants, and the door handles are shaped like reptiles. Ohebshalom chose the art collection himself, and VISTO Images supplied art for the project.
Brudnizki described the hotel as grounded in history with a theatrical streak. The project appears among the 2025 HD Awards winners.
The building also holds Café Carmellini from James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Carmellini, the Portrait Bar, a 5,000-square-foot ballroom, a two-story library, and a fitness center.
Awards, Awards!
Michelin. The Fifth Avenue Hotel received Two Keys in the first U.S. selection in 2024 and held them in 2025. Michelin defines Two Keys as an exceptional stay.
World’s 50 Best Hotels. The hotel joined the first extended list in 2025. In 2026 it ranked No. 78 on the extended list and won the American Express Travel One To Watch Award, which the 50 Best team gives to a hotel it believes can reach the top 50 in a future edition. New York had no hotel in the top 50 this year, and Time Out reports that Aman New York and The Greenwich Hotel also made the extended list.
Travel + Leisure. Readers named it the No. 1 hotel in New York City in the 2026 World’s Best Awards, the second year in a row. It ranked No. 81 worldwide and No. 2 among city hotels in the continental United States, with a score of 98.08 from more than 661,000 reader votes. I took these figures from the hotel’s announcement.
Café Carmellini. The restaurant ranked No. 39 on the 2025 World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
What it costs
The hotel does not publish nightly rates on its site, and the booking page asks for dates first. The Real Deal reported rates of $800 to $3,000 a night in early 2025. My Mansion Suite cost more than $2,000 a night in November 2026.
If you are weighing the Fifth Avenue Hotel for a New York trip, send me your dates and who is traveling at AnneMarie@alpenglowtravel.com, and I will look at which room type fits.
Sources
Traditional Building; The Fifth Avenue Hotel, Goodridge history; The Fifth Avenue Hotel, “Two Years Running”; The Fifth Avenue Hotel, “Reflections on Our Journey”; Wikipedia; Madison Square North Historic District; The Real Deal; GlobeSt; LEADERS; InsideHook; Forbes Travel Guide; Hospitality Net; Out There; Moffly Media; Hospitality Design; Michelin Guide; Maxim; The World’s 50 Best Hotels; Time Out New York
Love Cafe Carmellini - their wine list is incredible. Was curious about the hotel, appreciate the insights!
Imagining a bear sitting down at Sant Ambroeus twirling a fork full of cacio e pepe made my day