Hotels with History

Classic grande dames are still offering a warm welcome in a changing world.

- By Gretchen Kelly and Dan Booth

When Business Traveler magazine held its annual Best in Business Travel awards ceremony at The Plaza Hotel in the aughts (with Queen Noor of Jordan as its MC) it was a very different world.

The hotel still had the patina of eighties excess from the days when Donald Trump owned what he called “a masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.” All the rooms were true hotel rooms (including the famous ones facing the park), the Oak Room was still very much abuzz (the star of scenes from Hitchcock’s North by Northwest to Streep and Hanks in The Post) and the constant stream of out-of-towners that whirled through its revolving doors never thought change would come to this New York landmark.

But change did come to the city and to the hospitality industry. Boutique hotels were on trend. Airbnb was born. A massive, old school heritage hotel with all its real estate eaten up by hotel room space was no longer sustainable.

In 2004, The Plaza was sold for $675 million to Israeli-owned El Ad Properties which closed the landmark, auctioned off its old furniture and converted 152 of its rooms into condominiums. All the Central Park-facing spaces went to the highest bidders. The Oak Room was closed and hotel aficionados held their breath to see if The Plaza could survive.

Today the hotel is now owned by Qatar-based Katara Hospitality, still a work of art but more of a modern masterpiece – a Damien Hirst rather than a Mona Lisa – and managed by Fairmont, king of the heritage hotel castle.