Staying Power

A landmark of Old World opulence and modern excess, The Plaza has been the home of New York society since 1907. AIR checks-in with author Julie Satow to discover how this hotel icon came to define luxury.

Of all the famed guests to stay at The Plaza in New York – for all its Vanderbilts and Capotes, Trumps and Beatles – one of its more peculiar residents remains a lion. He belonged to Princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy, one of “a long line of colourful guests” who moved in with her private zoo in tow: The cub, Goldfleck, was accompanied by a falcon plus a family of alligators, who lived in the Princess’ bathtub.

“The Plaza management got a bit sick of him being there, though,” explains Julie Satow, author of a deliciously detailed new tome called The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel. “They told her the lion had to leave, so she donated him to the Bronx Zoo.”

When it opened in 1907, The Plaza, located on the corner of New York’s Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street, was the most luxurious hotel ever built. At USD12 million it was the most expensive, too.

The owners went on a buying spree to Europe: France for Baccarat crystal; to Ireland for fine linen; to London for Edwardian furnishings, and more. “The level of opulence and service was unparalleled at the time,” says Satow (herself a New York-native).

The Plaza’s inaugural guest on opening day was a Vanderbilt – “Alfred Gwyne, the dashing millionaire” – and what swiftly followed was high-society living, redefined. “At the time, most wealthy people in New York lived in single-family mansions with large staff, and Vanderbilt’s ‘endorsement’ started a trend of wealthy people living apartments,” Satow explains.

“About 90 percent of those who moved into the Plaza in 1907 actually lived there full-time; they weren’t transient hotel guests. All of a sudden, it became the chic new thing for the elite to live in a hotel.” Early residents included ‘The 39 widows of The Plaza’ – eccentric, rich, diamond-laden dowagers (one of whom is credited with having invented the cocktail party).

It was a true trendsetter. Outside the hotel’s entrance, the ubiquitous New York taxi cab made its debut. “It was the first hotel to have automatic thermometers,” the author elaborates. “Air in the rooms was purified. Meals from the basement were delivered to the room via a pneumatic tube… and oh, the food they served was exotic too: turtle soup and kangaroo meat, for example. It set the bar.”

Over its lifespan there has been enough high-society drama in the hotel’s history to fill a book (well, Satow has done just that). In 1948, Marlene Dietrich took up a year-long residence in the Lady Mendl suite prior to filming Hitchcock’s Stage Fright; a year later, a stunning suite was specially designed for Christian Dior, later occupied by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Attempting to get a glimpse of the band, Beatles fans foil horse cops in 1964

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Those who moved into the Plaza in 1907 lived there full-time. Living in this hotel became the chic new thing for the elite to do.

In 1964 The Beatles checked in on their first tour Stateside: a screaming mob of fawning teenage girls duly swarmed the Plaza entrance, with the property becoming less of a luxury hotel and more of fortress for the Fab Four.

In 1966, Truman Capote hosted his fêted ‘Black and White Ball’ in the Plaza ballroom – ‘the best party ever’ as per The New York Times – where the likes of Frank Sinatra and Andy Warhol soiréed into the night. In the 1980s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono planned a revolution from their bed before releasing Double Fantasy, while the 1990s Plaza is a grand backdrop in festive-film staple Home Alone 2, where the boisterous and abandoned Kevin McCallister runs amok.

The Plaza has a nuanced meaning to the city, one comes to realise when speaking to Satow. “The hotel is a lens through which to view a century of New York’s social history,” she says. “If you’re interested in the story of New York, you’re interested in The Plaza.”

Now a protected landmark, it has been a stoic watchman, everpresent throughout the Big Apple’s dizzy highs and devastating lows.

Proffers Satow, “It has navigated fiscal difficulties that affected the city: The Great Depression of the 1930s, and the difficult 1950s Post-War period. In the late 1960s it was the scene for the Women’s Movement, when feminists marched in front of the Plaza. Donald Trump owned it at the peak of his real estate prowess in the 1980s, and he was a man who represented the ethos of the ‘Go-Go 80s’.

Brigitte Bardot takes respite on her bed in 1965

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Elizabeth Taylor treads the plush Plaza carpet on check-in, 1969.

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In some senses New York is considered the capital city of the world, and The Plaza symbolises the trajectory of global wealth.

For decades, city dwellers would go there to dine in the Edwardian Room, or drink at the Oak Bar – it is an institution. “New Yorkers have a connection with this beautiful building,” she relates. “Many – including myself – have gotten married there. It holds a special connection for a lot of people.”

Satow also considers the hotel a pulse-check on how luxury has evolved over the last century.

“It represents the history of money and the ‘1 percent’. While the Plaza started a high society trend, New York now has its Billionaires’ Row and large condominiums owned by foreign owners – much like the Plaza, which is a boutique residence to foreign investors,” she reasons. “In some senses New York is considered the capital city of the world, and it used to be ruled by rich Americans. Now the city is influenced by foreign owners and investors. The Plaza symbolises the trajectory of wealth.”

The globalisation of ‘money’ can be charted through the Plaza’s very owners. It was under American ownership until 1995 – from Harry Black (the larger-than-life real estate tycoon, who built the hotel), and Conrad Hilton through to Donald Trump (current US president, then business magnate).

A Saudi/Singapore joint investment venture took it off the latter’s hands, before Indian business tycoon Subrata Roy stepped into to buy the hotel in 2012, without ever having stayed there.

However, Roy was jailed in New Delhi, ‘ordered to repay more than USD3 billion to poverty-stricken Indians who had invested in his non-Plaza related company bonds.’ (For many a hotel, such a scandal would be the leading headline. Naturally, for The Plaza, it’s yet another astonishing detail).

“When envisioning the Plaza, most people don’t conjure up visions of an absentee owner stuck in India, plagued by investigations and billions of dollars in debt,” surmises Satow. “They think of Eloise, the impish character written by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight, who pours water down the mail chute, or lavish weddings in the gold-and-white ballroom. Maybe for some, the Plaza conjures up images of men in top hats riding horse-drawn carriages, or writer F. Scott Fitzgerald frolicking in the Pulitzer Fountain. These are all accurate depictions. But today, in its history, so is Subrata Roy.”

Hotels ‘straddle the public and private spheres, making them uniquely positioned to explore matters of history, money and class,’ writes Satow in the book. ‘Anyone, from a guest who rents out the largest suite to a tired tourist who stops in for tea, can enjoy them.”

Qatar Investment Authority is the current owner of a hotel which is now predominantly condominiums, rather than hotel rooms, having acquired the famous brand in 2018.

Still, The New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger believes, “To many people, the fact that the Plaza is in private ownership is merely a technicality. They look upon it as if they themselves were the owners, as surely as they own Central Park or the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Let’s leave it to a previous owner – and an American – to put this New York icon into context, then. “This isn’t just a building,” said Trump, back when he purchased the hotel in 1988. “It’s the ultimate work of art. I am in love with it”.

He may have forked out USD407.5 million but, as a century of history has proven – be it a high-profile guest or starry-eyed owner – this trophy building has an unqualifiable allure that money just can’t buy.

And while the meaning of luxury has been redefined over the property’s lifetime, one thing is certain: luxury has always been The Plaza.

The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel is written by Julie Satow and published by Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. twelvebooks.com

Words: Chris Ujma