Travel & Leisure | November 1986

HOTELS GO INTIMATE

The New Breed is Luxurious, Small and Sometimes Suite

By Charles Monaghan

First you see an item in the real estate section of the New York Times. A month later workers are buzzing around the facade of an old hotel in a good neighborhood, and you find yourself walking under a temporary wood and tin structure, New York's jerry built answer to the arcaded Rue de Rivoli. Spring passes into summer or autumn into winter and ecco! Poof! Voil‡! The arcade comes down and a new hotel is born. Another dowdy dowager has been transformed into a Euro pit stop complete with a concierge, croissants for breakfast, a chic restaurant and-lest communication with other world capitals be threatened even for a moment-a telephone in the bathroom.

Farther down the East Side is a new hotel (110 rooms, including 30 suites) that manages to be both a bastion of contemporary chic and a very cozy place indeed. It is Morgans, the creation of Steve Rubell and , who preside over the Palladium now and once stood Manhattan on its ear with the Studio 54 disco. They joined with developer Phil Pilevsky to take a leaden 18-story pile called the Executive Hotel and transmute it into Morgans, named after the Morgan Library next door on Madison Avenue, on the site of the former home of J. Pierpont Morgan.

The hotel's interior design was entrusted to AndrÈe Putman, who came up with a striking color scheme-all black, white and various shades of gray. The rooms at Morgans tend to be on the small side, but Putman has cleverly arranged things so you feel as if you're in a neat and compact cabin on an ocean liner.

Here is an example of Putman's taste. While most exclusive hotels try to hide the television set in a cabinet or armoire, as if it were a crazed relative, she chose the sleekest new TVs and made them focal points of the rooms, adding to the overall high-tech effect. The ambience of the good ship Morgans is complemented by the warm and smiling service of the young staff, would be thespians all, future stars of Broadway and Hollywood no doubt among them.