The Whitby is a Contemporary-Style Hotel You’ll Want to Visit in New York

If Lewis Carroll had gone into hospitality, he might well have divined The Whitby—the newest magical New York City property confected by hotelier and British design doyenne Kit Kemp. Sister property to the beloved Crosby Street Hotel, this upper-midtown hotel—a couple of blocks south of Central Park—is a giddy, mood-hoisting fantasia of colour and print.

The hotel’s 86 bedrooms, spread across 16 floors, are individually (and exquisitely) designed and exceptionally large (especially by Manhattan standards)—each panelled in floor-to-ceiling windows and many spoiled with private terraces larger than most studio apartments. If the hotel is a couple of blocks from Central Park and a platinum card’s throw from Fifth Avenue, the challenge, here, is in actually leaving the property.

Each public space its own dreamscape, glutted with art and charm. There is an Orangery, and with its upholstered, pillow-dolloped banquettes, it’s the kind of magical place that makes you wish you could get re-married, just so you could do it here; the Whitby Bar, festooned with a dangling constellation of British baskets; and even the hotel’s entree is as jubilant as a Matisse canvas.

The most luxurious room is The Whitby which sprawls across the hotel’s entire top floor. I’m told it’s perfect for a family (yes, if your last name is Amal-Clooney). When I popped in for a wander, I spotted an adorable piece of art perched on a commode: upon closer inspection, I noticed they were tiny figurines of a couple standing on a desert island the approximate size of a macaron and facing the suite’s giant windows and the enamelled-blue skies beyond. If I could be stranded anywhere, this hotel would be it.