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Meg Connolly
212-505-8200
meg@mcc-pr.com

The St. Regis New York’s Colorful History

Completed over a century ago, the iconic St. Regis New York’s 18-story Beaux Arts landmark building
was originally designed by architects Trowbridge and Livingston, and was the tallest building in the area at the time. A source of wonderment to visitors for a century, The St. Regis New York was declared a
New York City Landmark in 1988. The site of the hotel, at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, was largely a residential neighborhood when Colonel John Jacob Astor IV broke ground for it in 1902 which added to
its appeal for visitors from around the globe. Astor spared no expense in creating a hotel of world class
luxury and taste: $5.5 million was spent to construct the hotel with marble floors and crystal chandeliers, furnished with antique tapestries, oriental rugs, antique Louis XV furniture and a library of 3000 leather-bound, gold-tooled classic and current books, many from Astor’s original collection.
Astor’s vision was to create a hotel, which rivaled the finest hotels in Europe, where his close friends and family could feel as comfortable as they would as guests in a private home. For their comfort, he
introduced such “modern” conveniences as telephones in every room, a fire alarm system, central heating and an air-cooling system that efficiently predated modern air conditioning and allowed each guest to control the temperature of his room. Mail chutes were installed on each floor, a newsworthy innovation at that time. An equally innovative feature was a special design “for the disposition of dust and refuse” – one of the first central vacuum systems. All maids had to do was plug their vacuum cleaner’s hose into sockets situated throughout the hotel.
The St. Regis soon became the center of Manhattan social life, and the headquarters for the original
“Astor 400” -- the elite social group designated by Colonel Astor’s mother.
Colonel Astor died when the Titanic sank in 1912, leaving The St. Regis to his son, Vincent Astor.
Feeling he was too immersed in other real estate ventures to devote the necessary time, he quickly sold the hotel to Duke Management (the tobacco Duke family) who in 1927 expanded the hotel to 540 rooms