Ace Hotel NYC

Ace Hotel New York is improvisational — a mix of styles, historical periods and objects that come together in layers. The hotel’s design takes its cues from the vibrancy of street life, the honesty of materials and the potential of invention. It is about soul, latent in the historic architecture and reintroduced through forward-thinking design.

Ace collaborated with the New York-based design firm Roman & Williams to create Ace Hotel New York. Roman & Williams designed a new residential building on Elizabeth Street and The Standard Hotel in New York, as well as homes for Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Hudson. They are known for highly tactile, layered and resonant environments. The firm shares an appreciation of history with Ace as well as a desire to create something fresh and new.

Roman & Williams uncovered the building’s historic bones and infused the spaces with a mix of vintage and custom furnishings and objects. They riffed on the hotel’s intrinsic character with a sense of play, unconstrained by any static time period or style.

The mélange of furnishings, objects, lighting and finishes reflects this sense of freedom and unconventionality. By layering pieces from several different periods, sources and original uses, Roman & Williams has created something that feels entirely new. A variety of vintage seating pieces with their original patinas — some recovered with modest industrial fabrics such as felt and wool and others recovered with more luxurious velvets — mixed with two massive sectional suede sofas (with a ‘70s vibe) custom designed by Roman & Williams provide ample space for lounging and conversation. An 18-foot laboratory table with a slate top provides space for impromptu meetings, meals and conversation. A graffiti mural by collage artist Michael Anderson covers the twin winding staircases descending into the lobby. Custom-designed lighting fixtures, made of blown glass globes and industrial pipes, encircle the four massive columns in the lobby.

The 'library' is defined by blackened steel shelving units (with a selection of books curated by Ace and Roman & Williams), a French bakery table, school chairs and English wing chairs. For the reception desk, Roman & Williams fused together three steel factory tables, covering the tops in leather, and retrofitting them to hold all the computer equipment necessary for a contemporary hotel. A large vintage apothecary cabinet behind the desk provides storage. For the lobby bar, Roman & Williams has taken an entire room, reclaimed from the library of a Park Avenue apartment, and installed it like a stage set in the lobby. This 25-by-10-foot space operates as a found object, a celebrated artwork and a focal point. It isn’t a trick — the bracing that holds it up and the room’s section-like cut remain visible — but it represents the designers’ embrace of history, without the need to slavishly recreate it.

!The lobby of Ace Hotel New York has become widely heralded as a hive of creative activity. Our travelers and guests are the city’s and world's creative, new media and technology professionals, quietly changing the world from behind laptop screens along the slate table, or meeting for after-work cocktails at the lobby bar.

Where the lobby is layered and historical, the rooms are more efficient. Roman & Williams’ customdesigned furnishings feel like mid-century wood prototypes. A clothes rack constructed from bent plumbing pipes with hanging steel boxes replaces a closet, and references the neighborhood’s fashion and garment history. Pipes also appear in the bath accessories and desk legs, showing how stock materials can be re-appropriated to make something elegant but simple, unfussy and ultimately antidesign.

Music comes from either your iPod or a sleek Music Hall turntable, made complete by a classic wire basket mounted under the desk to hold a collection of new and used records. In some rooms, a fullsize Smeg refrigerator, with a streamlined, vintage profile, is stocked with real food, making the rooms feel more like a friend’s cool apartment than a typical hotel room. Chalkboard paint on the walls and paintings by emerging and international artists individualize each room.

Our larger event space consists of three rooms separated by two moving walls, allowing for configurations of one, two or three spaces. Liberty Hall is ideal for a wide range of events, such as fashion shows, corporate meetings, wedding receptions, cocktail parties, temporary gallery shows and live concerts. It’s flexible but still has a distinctive Ace vibe.

The Boardroom is a 700-square-foot space well suited to meetings, presentations or screenings. There’s a big walnut conference table and the room can be arranged for presentations or screenings. Thirsty? There’s a coffee maker and a retro Smeg fridge. A huge black-and-white board is integrated into the wall and we have all kinds of office supplies you can use.

The loft suites are great for intimate get-togethers, pop-up shops, small meetings, cocktail parties or prepping for a big night out. These 700-square-foot corner rooms have big half-moon couches, a large table for eating or meeting, bathroom with clawfoot tub (fill it with ice and bottles), full size Smeg refrigerator, hardwood floors and bright views of both Broadway and 29th Street. There’s also high speed wireless internet, a big flat screen TV and an in-room safe.