It seems fitting that the former Fifth Avenue home of Charlotte Goodridge, distinguished Gilded Age hostess and New York City tastemaker, has been reincarnated as a destination for modern connoisseurs. Goodridge, who was known for her lavish parties and arts salons back in the day, would delight in the global-aesthete vibe and winks of whimsy that mark the mansion’s newest iteration as The Fifth Avenue Hotel.
The Fifth is the grand outcome of hotelier Alex Ohebshalom’s restoration of the original brick-and-limestone residence and addition of a 24-story glass tower—a decade-long effort by the team of Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, Perkins Eastman architects, and Flâneur Hospitality. For those who have been watching and waiting, The Fifth rewards with imaginative luxury in the form of an obsessively collected, unconventionally sophisticated aesthetic you don’t see every day. With its lavishly draped fabrics, unapologetic splashes of color, and an art collection that is equal parts important and eccentric, it feels at times like a modern-day palace.
The lobby, with its jewel-toned furnishings, fluted-mirror panels, and curious assemblage of crystals and oddities, draws you in like a moth to light. Passing through a chic tent-like nook, the hotel unfolds in similarly maximalist fashion. Around a corner is the intimate Portrait Bar, named for the collection of portraits lining its wood-paneled walls. The dimly lit atmosphere recalls a speakeasy, and the cocktails play on The Fifth’s worldly theme with spirits from Marrakesh, Seoul, Oaxaca, and Cebu Island, among others. This traveler’s recommendation is the Kolkata concoction: a bomb in mango lassi clothing.
In a lighter, brighter part of the hotel is Café Carmellini, the namesake eatery of chef Andrew Carmellini of James Beard fame. The room is a refined amalgam of New York and Milan, with tables and banquettes arranged around two massive trees lit by multitiered globe chandeliers. The menu nods to Italy and France but hits all the New York notes. This isn’t where you come for comfort fare, unless your version of it includes rabbit cacciatore or squab en croûte. As expected of Carmellini, the food is exquisite—especially the chef’s specialty, Chicken Gran Sasso for Two, presented tableside in two phases (white and dark meat): a true gourmand’s delight.
The rooms and suites feel like the pied-à-terre of a well-traveled friend with the eye of a stylist. Seafoam green-painted walls and millwork, including an arched room divider, offer a punchy backdrop for inlaid accent tables, horse head lamps, and a red-lacquered bar cabinet that opens to a gilded dragon motif. Though the windows reveal a crammed cityscape outside, one swipe of the heavy saffron-colored drapes will transport you to a Parisian boudoir, where your only decision is when to have the butler pop the Champagne.
New York stories are sometimes whispered, other times told in boldface type. The Fifth is definitely the latter: a grand oeuvre of hospitality inspired by the legends of the past but firmly rooted in a modern vision of American high society. (thefifthavenuehotel.com)
