Hotel chain Four Seasons Completed 1993 Floor count 52 | Construction started 1990 Architectural 682 feet (207.9 m) | |
Location 57 East 57th Street
New York City, New York, United States | ||
Four Seasons Hotel New York is a luxury hotel in New York that opened in 1993. Guest rooms begin at $1,200 per night. The Ty Warner Penthouse Suite, billed at US$50,000 per night, is listed at number 3 on World's 15 most expensive hotel suites compiled by CNN Go in 2012.
Contents
Building
In the 1980s, William Zeckendorf, a prominent American real estate developer, assembled 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2) of vacant property on 57th Street between Madison and Park Avenue. Robert H. Burns, founder of Regent International Hotels, approached Harunori Takahashi, owner of EIE International Corporation company to build a luxurious hotel on the property.
When the hotel was announced in January 1989, it was to have a main tower of 46 stories and a smaller tower of some 20 stories, with a total of 400 rooms. Completion was planned for late 1991. Construction was financed by a loan from a consortium of six Japanese banks, led by the Long-Term Credit Bank. The others were the Ashikaga Bank, Mitsubishi Trust and Banking Corporation, Mitsui Trust and Banking Company, Nippon Credit Bank, and Sumitomo Trust and Banking Company. The hotel was named Regent New York Hotel and managed by Regent International Hotels of Hong Kong, in which EIE International had a 30 percent interest. The cost of construction was reportedly more than US$1 million per room.
When the Japanese real estate market imploded in 1990, the hotel was sold to the Four Seasons group to recover from bad loans. Today, the hotel is owned by Ty Warner Hotels and Resorts, L.L.C. and operated by Four Seasons.
At 682 feet (208 m) tall and 52 stories, it is the second tallest hotel in New York City, and the fourth tallest in the U.S. In 2006, the Four Seasons New York opened the Michelin star restaurant: L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.
Design
The hotel is noted for its luxurious interiors which have an art moderne quality. I. M. Pei and Frank Williams collaborated as the architects. I. M. Pei was also the responsible for the interiors of the public spaces in the hotel. The building has more in common with the Waldorf Astoria and other hotels of the 1920s than it does with Pei's other works.
In 2004, in collaboration with Peter Marino, Pei came out of retirement to re-design the 52nd Penthouse Suite floor. This is especially significant since Peter Marino is known to refuse collaboration in any hotel or resort development projects.