A heavenl y p e x rienc e e l e t o h BY JEREMY WAYNE
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ello,” says Stirling, the chipper front desk agent at The Abbey Inn & Spa, Peekskill’s new luxury hotel which has already garnered the “3rd Best New Hotel in America” accolade from USA Today’s 10Best awards. “Are you checking-in with us today?” No, we’re not coming to stay on this occasion but we are coming to have a jolly good snoop around, although I don’t put it in quite those terms. Whatever, Stirling is unfazed. “Well, please, have a seat, make yourselves comfortable, enjoy. Oh, and can I get you some coffee? Cream and sugar?” It’s the kind of welcome that makes a difference. As any hotelier across the region, and very likely across the country, will tell you, finding great staff and assembling a cohesive team in the pandemic wind down and reset (if it isn’t too soon to call it that,) is proving extremely challenging. Hospitality personnel — both long-term professionals and recent recruits sensing that their industry was more demanding as well as more vulnerable than
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most, left the industry in droves during the pandemic and have not returned. The Abbey may be the exception that proves the rule. In a magnificent position high above the Hudson River, just an hour’s drive from New York City and five minutes from the Peekskill train station, the inn — the former convent of the Episcopal Sisters of St. Mary’s, who inhabited the building for nearly 100 years from 1872 — opened auspiciously in January 2020 and never closed during the pandemic. Staff we encountered couldn’t have been more helpful and service standards generally seemed high. Seamlessly repurposed, the original Abbey was gutted and reinforced from the ground up by the hotel’s developer, the Valhalla-based GDC. Beautiful old stonework was restored and harmoniously integrated with high-end new carpentry and joinery, giving the inn a unique sense of history blending sympathetically with a contemporary vibe. “Having everything custom-made, which it needed to be, was certainly a challenge,” General Manager Gilbert Baeriswil, formerly head honcho of the Castle Hotel & Spa in Tarrytown and now The Abbey Inn’s general manager, shared with me on an elaborate site tour. If the inn has an abundance of historical features in its public spaces, its guestrooms and suites — 42 in all — are an exercise in quiet and restrained modern luxury. I loved the cream and taupe-themed superior suite, with its Italian tilework, state-of the-art technology, luxury amenities and granite-top bathroom, complete with Gilchrist & Soames products. It looked out over some of the estate’s 52 acres adjacent to Fort Hill Park, with lush woodland concealing a variety of gorgeous trails that guests are invited to explore. Several rooms have Hudson River views, including one with a balcony, but Baeriswil apologized that none was available to view. If there’s one thing a hotel general manager needn’t apologize for, it’s having a fully occupied hotel, I was quick to assure him. A charming series of curated pictures and
Apropos Bar. Photograph by Jeremy Wayne.
