{"id":94936,"date":"2023-05-04T12:57:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T16:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/?p=94936"},"modified":"2026-02-23T16:41:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:41:04","slug":"firmdale-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/2023\/05\/firmdale-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Firmdale First"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The
The Whitby Hotel (and a very tired child) \u2014 New York City<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTake Your Daughter to Work Day\u201d hits different when work that day is at the Whitby, and when it\u2019s her first time ever staying in a hotel. But not just any hotel \u2014 the Whitby is a Firmdale hotel.<\/h4>\n

My daughter had never been in a hotel before. She\u2019s not yet five, but considering I write about hotels for a living, it\u2019s at least a little surprising. So when we needed to kill a couple days during her spring break from the pressures of pre-K, I figured, now\u2019s the time.<\/p>\n

I decided to treat us to something special: two nights at the Whitby Hotel<\/a> in midtown Manhattan. Frankie loves the subway, so it was a nice commute from our apartment in Brooklyn. She\u2019s also a fan of the Eloise books, so I knew she\u2019d enjoy the pageantry of the Whitby\u2019s afternoon tea. I\u2019m a fan of the Sopranos<\/em>, and hoped our Manhattan tea date went better than that time Carmela dragged Meadow to the Plaza.<\/p>\n

At check-in, I saw a couple celebs milling about. The Whitby is the kind of place where celebrities feel comfortable milling about. A former SNL cast member seemed amused by the sight of Frankie giving her stuffed bunny a tour of the lobby. Our reservation was for a room type usually located on a lower floor. So when I was told we were in room #1600, on the 16th floor, I was excited that we\u2019d be getting a better view than expected. Then I saw that the elevator didn\u2019t go any higher than 16.<\/p>\n

This is where I tell you that yes, sometimes in this job you get upgrades. Usually that means a nice one-bedroom suite or a bottle of champagne. Sometimes \u2014 rarely<\/em>, but sometimes \u2014 it means the Whitby Suite, a nearly 2,000-square-foot pleasure palace that takes up the entire top floor of the Whitby Hotel.<\/p>\n

The elevator opened onto a private foyer lined with bookshelves. Private foyers are always a good sign. It felt like an episode of Succession<\/em>, and I was about to be ushered into Logan Roy\u2019s Upper East Side townhouse (I promise this post is not sponsored by HBO). I unlocked the only door, #1600, and was immediately bowled over. My daughter quickly recognized how cool this all was and barked a wide-eyed \u201cwow!\u201d as soon as she stepped inside. <\/p>\n

The first words out of my mouth were \u201cFrankie, not every hotel stay is like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"The
The Whitby Suite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not every hotel stay will be in the penthouse suite, but every hotel stay should feel special. The job of a great hotel is to provide you with an elevated, uncommon living experience. When you open the door to your room you should be delighted with what you find, just like I was. It\u2019s not all about size either. I won\u2019t downplay how exciting it was to be in the Whitby Suite, but I will say that I\u2019ve stayed in large hotel rooms where the extra space was totally wasted \u2014 where it felt like the hotel had no idea what to do with it, and neither did I. And I\u2019ve stayed in compact rooms that were ingeniously conceived and brimming with energy, begging you to engage with every nook and cranny.<\/p>\n

Space is important, but it\u2019s more important to have a designer who knows how to use it.<\/p>\n

The Whitby is a Firmdale hotel. There are eleven hotels in the Firmdale group. Eight in London and three in New York (including the firm’s latest, the Warren Street Hotel<\/a>). They were created by Tim and Kit Kemp, the latter an interior designer with an intensely personal vision that marries eccentricity and sophistication. Her style is a riot of pattern and color that somehow never clashes and feels both classic and contemporary at the same time. As someone whose design tastes once tilted toward the sparse and industrial, Firmdale\u2019s house style didn\u2019t initially appeal to me. When I first experienced it in person, though, my preferences recalibrated.<\/p>\n

Not long after Firmdale launched in the \u201980s, hotel design began a trend toward minimalism. It\u2019s made it easy to think of Kemp as a maximalist. She\u2019s really a master of restraint. To play so boldly with patterns, colors, and textures and to know where to stop is perhaps her most impressive gift. Her subtle use of symmetry brings an additional layer of order. Firmdale interiors are fun and engaging, with none of the imposing heft you might expect from traditional luxury in London and Manhattan. Kemp\u2019s approach is welcoming, winking away any upper-crust seriousness. There\u2019s even a bit of an industrial vibe, thanks to the steel-framed warehouse-style windows found in many Firmdale rooms.<\/p>\n

It was all enough to melt my cold, concrete-loving heart.<\/p>\n

A changed man, one reason I chose the Whitby for my daughter was to get back into Kemp\u2019s comforting hands. Another was the service. For Frankie\u2019s first-ever hotel stay, my wife and I wanted to spoil her, and very few hotels spoil their guests better than Firmdale\u2019s. Beyond afternoon tea, which was a resounding success (Frankie loved the tower of treats), we took ample advantage of room service and of Firmdale\u2019s excellent amenities for families, like kids’ bath robes, slippers, and toiletries, a clever Whitby coloring book, a menu tailored to a child’s diet, and a stuffed welcome gift that quickly rivaled Bun-Buns for my daughter\u2019s affection.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"The
Bun-Buns and Tally Ho, the Firmdale Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s easy for us to write about architecture and design, since those can be accompanied by arresting imagery. More challenging is to describe service in a way that captivates and doesn\u2019t come across sounding like a passage from a bad romance novel. Also, it’s not always relevant; there are perfectly great hotels that intentionally limit their amenities, and perfectly reasonable guests who don\u2019t plan to use a hotel for much more than sleeping.<\/p>\n

There are times, though, when you want to indulge yourself, and the main selling point of the best luxury hotels is their ability and willingness to meet your needs. That\u2019s what you\u2019re promised. That\u2019s what you pay for. That\u2019s what we all deserve from time to time. The Whitby didn\u2019t have to put us in their penthouse. They have a number of other suites with outdoor terraces and multiple bedrooms that we would\u2019ve been incredibly grateful to stay in. But it\u2019s in their DNA to delight, and to go out of their way for guests.<\/p>\n

Not every hotel is like that.
\n <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Whitby Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
New York City<\/h5>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Whitby Hotel brings the warmth and coziness of English hospitality to Midtown, a neighborhood that\u2019s already got plenty of American-style luxury hotels, proving that Firmdale can compete with anyone in the world on comfort, while looking just that much more stylish and charming while they\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n

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Crosby Street Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
New York City<\/h5>\n

\"Crosby<\/a><\/p>\n

Crosby Street is exactly the kind of hotel New York City needs. The contrast between the downtown grit of the cobblestone street outside and the plush sophistication of the hotel\u2019s lobby is immediate, and striking. Say what you will about the bright colors and the decidedly un-minimal d\u00e9cor \u2014 it\u2019s a rare New York boutique these days that presents so opinionated a face to the world.<\/p>\n

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Warren Street Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
New York City<\/h5>\n

\"Crosby<\/a><\/p>\n

The inimitable Kemp style continues to evolve. Warren Street was designed by Kit and her daughters Willow and Minnie, and the result is somehow even more packed with pattern, texture, and color than ever \u2014 in stark contrast with the minimalist styles that once defined Downtown Manhattan style. Each of its 69 rooms and suites is unique, though obviously cut from the same vast and eclectic collection of cloth.<\/p>\n

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Charlotte Street Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Charlotte<\/a><\/p>\n

The setting for the Charlotte Street Hotel is Bloomsbury, and the interiors pay plentiful tribute to the neighborhood\u2019s cultural heritage, displaying original artworks by the storied Bloomsbury Set themselves. You\u2019re equidistant from the British Museum and the theatres of the West End, so if you leave without taking in a bit of culture, it\u2019s nobody\u2019s fault but your own.<\/p>\n

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Covent Garden Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Covent<\/a><\/p>\n

On a narrow side street in the bustling and chic Covent Garden district of London\u2019s West End, this splendidly theatrical small hotel\u2019s exclusive atmosphere and central location make it the perfect London pied-\u00e0-terre for visiting actors, professional shoppers, and savvy yet indulgent travelers. The opera house and the theatre district are close by, as are the West End\u2019s best shops and boutiques.<\/p>\n

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Dorset Square Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Dorset<\/a><\/p>\n

Longtime Kemp-watchers \u2014 there must be more than a few of you out there \u2014 might remember that the Dorset Square Hotel was Tim and Kit\u2019s first venture, a sort of rough draft for their extremely successful Firmdale Hotels brand. It was eventually sold off, but not forgotten \u2014 now a decade and a half later it\u2019s back in the Firmdale fold, and there\u2019s nothing at all rough about it.<\/p>\n

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Ham Yard Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Ham<\/a><\/p>\n

A ground-up redevelopment of a little side street in Soho, Kit and Tim Kemp call Ham Yard an \u201curban village.\u201d And not without reason. For alongside a fairly substantial hotel, there\u2019s also retail space, a restaurant and lounge, a rooftop garden, a 176-seat cinema, and a four-lane bowling alley, all along a charming pedestrian thoroughfare complete with a bronze sculpture and a fair bit of greenery.<\/p>\n

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Haymarket Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Haymarket<\/a><\/p>\n

As expected, the Haymarket Hotel comes with its share of public and semi-private places \u2014 a conservatory, a drawing room, a private dining room \u2014 as well as a fine restaurant serving brasserie-style modern English cuisine, and a full-service spa. Where it steps out ahead of its sisters, however, is downstairs, where you\u2019ll find an 18-meter swimming pool, complete with a poolside bar and a booming sound system. <\/p>\n

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Knightsbridge Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Knightsbridge<\/a><\/p>\n

The Knightsbridge Hotel is the perfect modestly priced entr\u00e9e into one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world. In fact the Knightsbridge is the ideal shopper\u2019s hotel, a sort of junior version of its sisters, Covent Garden and Charlotte Street, with a correspondingly lower nightly rate, leaving plenty of room on the credit cards for expeditions to Harrods and Harvey Nichols, as well as the shops of Sloane Street and Brompton Cross.<\/p>\n

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Number Sixteen<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"Number<\/a><\/p>\n

Number Sixteen is either the coziest boutique hotel in London, or the most luxurious bed and breakfast \u2014 we\u2019re still not sure. The location, down a sleepy side street in South Kensington, is fairly well hidden; just a row of nineteenth-century Victorian townhouses without so much as a sign to show the way. As a member of Firmdale\u2019s Townhouse Collection, it\u2019s a more low-key experience than the bigger, more lively Ham Yard or Soho Hotel.<\/p>\n

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The Soho Hotel<\/a><\/h2>\n
London, England<\/h5>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

London\u2019s Soho Hotel is impossibly glamorous, a luxury boutique that is at once classic and original \u2014 classic in the now-familiar London sense of overstated and outsized comfort, robust and enveloping furnishing and fixtures (as compared to the papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 set construction in lesser boutiques) and original in its avoidance of worn-out tropes like featureless white rooms, cheap \u2018Zen\u2019 minimalism and off-the-rack hotel-standard furniture.<\/p>\n

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