Steeped in New York City history, decorated with artefacts from across the globe and with an unapologetic flair for the dramatic, it's a new grand dame for the 21st century.
The name alone would make you think it had been here for generations: The Fifth Avenue Hotel. So too might the hotel's location, in a gracious Gilded Age mansion at the corner of East 28th and Fifth. Once you've stridden across the circus-striped, yellow-and-blue welcome rug, past the planters overflowing with hydrangeas and begun wandering the lamplit, curios-filled halls, the if-these-walls-could-talk vibe is even more pervasive.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel is, in fact, less than three years old, but it came by its forever feeling honestly. The property sits on the site where socialite Charlotte Goodridge commissioned a mansion and carriage house in 1856, filling it with worldly antiquities until it soon became a 'place to be seen' on the Manhattan social circuit – not unlike what it is today. Even as the area gave over to commerce and Goodridge's peers left for the Upper East Side, it defiantly stayed put on the southern corridor of Fifth Avenue. 
The Fifth Avenue Hotel opened in December 2023
Following her death, in 1907, McKim, Mead & White – the firm responsible for New York City landmarks including the original Pennsylvania Station, the Brooklyn Museum and the Washington Square Arch – erected the Renaissance-style palazzo that is, today, at the heart of hotel. Long the home of Second National Bank, it housed multiple businesses over the next century, with offices upstairs.
In the 1970s, it was acquired by Fred Ohebshalom, who would go on to become one of New York City's biggest real estate developers. And in 2012, his son Alex, who'd been learning the hospitality business by working a variety of lowly hotel jobs around the city, took charge, with the goal of transforming the building into a modern urban oasis steeped in Gilded Age heritage.
A sanctuary for sophisticates
At the centre of his vision was the character of the flâneur, a leisurely urban stroller popularised by Charles Baudelaire right around the time Charlotte Goodridge had her mansion built.
A mixed-media portrait of Baudelaire by Michael Mapes, one of more than 700 artworks throughout the building, is displayed in one of the elevator banks, signalling the hotel's intentions. The archetype was the heart of Ohebshalom's pitch to Martin Brudnizki, the prolific, playfully sophisticated Swedish interior architect who designed the hotel. 
Swedish architect Martin Brudnizki's colourful interiors bring the hotel spaces to life
"The idea was that the hotel is the embodiment of this single individual who has lived all over the world, travelled widely, has exceptional taste and loves to collect objects," Ohebshalom says.
Brudnizki's flair for colour and drama gives The Fifth Avenue Hotel its incredible sense of mise-en-scène. It's the kind of place where a gorgeous vignette awaits at every turn, from the flower-filled photograph Queen Mary (The Queen) by Alana Airitam, hung in the lobby over ruffled ruched red fabric, to the colourful, maximalist Murano glass chandeliers in the sitting rooms of the 15 mansion suites or the Burmese mirrors in the recently added penthouse suite.
These intimate tableaus give way to grand spaces like the upstairs ballroom, another new addition; the multi-level Portrait Bar; and especially Café Carmellini, with its double-height ceilings, enormous globe chandeliers in bronze and seeded glass and a pair of magnificent tree sculptures at the centre.
The hard work of easy living
Much of this work was painstaking, Ohebshalom says. Ruching, the centuries-old French dressmaking technique found in the lobby, the elevator banks and upstairs at The Portrait Bar, takes months to complete and only a few skilled artisans still know how to do it. 
The Mansion Suite is one of the hotel's premier rooms
Brudnizki's ornate green room dividers, which separate the sitting rooms from the boudoirs in the mansion suites, took a year to engineer. Ohebshalom had noted brass inlays with a geometric Moroccan-style pattern in photos of the private residence of Stanford White – one of the principles of the architecture firm behind the building,and a flâneur in his own right – and sought to replicate them in the guest rooms.
There was also the matter of restoring many of the original McKim, Mead & White details, like the elaborate crown moulding, not to mention securing the approvals needed to construct the 24-storey tower adjacent to the mansion, which contains most of the rooms, or the glass enclosure on top of the mansion, which houses the new penthouse. "These are the trials and tribulations of restoring an historic building," says Ohebshalom. 
The in-room martini service is one of the hotel's most memorable rituals
Because scent is integral to a sense of place, The Fifth Avenue Hotel spent a year and a half developing its own with French fragrance brand Mane. Called Eau de L'Aire (if you hadn't noticed, that rhymes with Baudelaire), it uses enticing notes of basil, bergamot and mandarin.
Theatrical flourishes abound during the course of a stay, making guests feel like they're living inside a story: the movie theatre-style carton of everything-bagel-seasoned popcorn that comes with a cocktail at The Portrait Bar; the server's detailed introduction to all the items on the breakfast pastry cart at Café Carmellini. And then there's the in-room martini ritual, served wherever and however you'd like, and enjoyed with a side of every martini garnish you could possibly imagine.
It's a moment that fulfills Ohebshalom's hope for the hotel: "You drop in. You're transported." This world is tough. Sometimes we go to the theatre to enter another world, and sometimes we go to a hotel that feels like theatre. And if all the world's a stage, The Fifth Avenue Hotel is a place that feels like a stage for all the world.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel is the winner of the American Express Travel One To Watch Award, as part of The World's 50 Best Hotels 2026. The 1-50 list will be revealed on Tuesday 15 September.
