You turn off the hectic Spring Street onto the quiet Thompson Street, and the noise falls away. A sea-green tiled façade between wine bars and barbers, a narrow door. Inside, a lobby dense with materials greets you, marble, brass, leather, a bronze fireplace, a water feature out of the sixties. Nobody shouts, nobody rushes. You have arrived before you notice.
© Chris Mottalini
The Location
The Manner stands at 58 Thompson Street, a quiet, tree-lined street in the heart of SoHo, among galleries, boutiques and old cafés. All around, the cast-iron façades of the historic district, the cobbled lanes, the flagship stores on Broadway. The hotel’s façade is clad in sea-green tiles, the latest layer in a block of restaurants, record shops and paint stores. From outside the hotel seems restrained, almost residential, one door among many. Only inside does the stage open. The subway lines at Spring Street and Broadway-Lafayette are a few steps away.
© Chris Mottalini
Backstory
The Manner is the first house of a new brand from Standard International, the group behind The Standard Hotels, which Hyatt acquired in 2024. Behind the concept stands Amar Lalvani, Executive Vice President, President & Creative Director, Lifestyle, who wanted a hotel house quieter and more private than the playful Standard, a place like the home of a cultivated friend.
The building was designed by the Milanese architect Hannes Peer, known for residences, here for the first time for a hotel; beside him stood Verena Haller, the group’s chief design officer. Peer invokes Aldo Rossi’s book on the city and its layered memories, a principle he translated into every room.
© Ben Rosser
© Chris Mottalini
Interior and Architecture
Peer’s design thinks of the hotel as a sequence of living rooms, each with its own character, held in the Milanese mid-century spirit of a Gio Ponti. The lobby combines marble, metal, leather, wood, ceramic and cement, on the wall a hand-glazed terracotta frieze by Giovanni De Francesco, plus a sculpture by Nicholas Shurey.
© Chris Mottalini
In The Apartment on the second floor, glossy cork lines the ceiling, rough ceramic reliefs by the sculptor Ben Medansky frame the fireplace, and more than five thousand bubble-like tiles on the elevator wall bow to Ponti’s Parco dei Principi in Sorrento. The colours are strong, ochre, sand tones, light blue, broken by dark veneer and navy lacquer. Bespoke furniture from Italy, asymmetrical chandeliers of smoked glass, designed by Peer himself. Art from Alex Proba to Elvira Solana runs through the hotel.
A Look Inside
The house counts 97 rooms, among them ten suites and a two-storey penthouse, plus the public spaces on the ground floor and the guest areas above. The Apartment on the second floor, open around the clock, is a lounge for overnight guests only, with a fireplace, books, light snacks and the daily aperitivo hour.
© Chris Mottalini
The rooms measure between roughly thirty and eighty square metres, kept in strong colours, mango-yellow walls, lacquer-red headboards, blue closets. Instead of televisions there are full-height mirrors, integrated audio systems and marble bathrooms; in the closets wait slippers of mustard velvet.
The higher suites offer a balcony with a view over SoHo. The bathrooms are framed in marble, the closets ultramarine. The beds, wide and carefully made, with lacquer-red headboards, are among the best in the city.
© Chris Mottalini
Culinary
The food at all the venues is overseen by Alex Stupak, who shaped Manhattan with his Empellón restaurants and was nominated several times for the James Beard Award. On the ground floor lies The Otter, a neighbourhood restaurant for fish and seafood, open from morning to night, wrapped in an expansive. On the ground floor lies The Otter, a neighbourhood restaurant for fish and seafood, open from morning to night, wrapped in an expansive mural by the Spanish architect and artist Elvira Solana that splices Renaissance and Art Deco. On the menu, lobster rolls, two-colour scallop crudo, and swordfish au poivre with shoestring fries.
© Chris Mottalini
One floor up lies Sloane’s, a cocktail bar like a jewellery box, hidden behind a velvet curtain, with green velvet walls, red-lacquered tables and a wall of hand-applied gold leaf. Here they mix vintage spirits and serve, with a wink, chicken nuggets and oysters alongside the martini. Plus a house twist on the New York classic, nuggets with a spoonful of caviar. On the roof, in summer, a terrace opens for guests and their friends, with a wide view over the rooftops of SoHo, good for morning coffee as for the drink at the blue hour.
Wellness & Relaxation
There is no classic spa or pool; The Manner relies on retreat rather than treatment rooms. The heart of the calm is The Apartment on the second floor, a lounge for guests only, where coffee and pastries stand ready in the morning, snacks during the day, and the aperitivo hour with a white Negroni in the evening. On the roof, in summer, lies a planted terrace with a view over SoHo, a place for morning coffee or the sunset drink. Those who want more are shown by the house to the beauty address Onda Beauty and the wellness club Remedy Place just around the corner. The greatest rest, though, is the room itself, without a television, only mirror, music and quiet.
Surrounding Area
SoHo was once the quarter of the artists who in the sixties turned the old factory floors into loft studios, and that layer still lies beneath the luxury. A few streets away stands 101 Spring Street, the cast-iron home and studio of Donald Judd, preserved by the Judd Foundation as a total work of art, with works from Aalto to Flavin. The Drawing Center on Wooster Street devotes itself solely to drawing and belongs, like the Judd house, to the SoHo Arts Network. The gallery of Jeffrey Deitch has shown big names from Barbara Kruger to Jeff Koons since the nineties and brought out artists like Kehinde Wiley and Cecily Brown early. Book lovers head to McNally Jackson or the Housing Works Bookstore Café, whose proceeds go to those in need. For food, the old addresses Balthazar and Saint Ambroeus; for browsing, the cast-iron blocks and the flagship stores on Broadway. An insider tip for denim lovers is Blue in Green, with rare Japanese fabrics from Momotaro to Kapital. Just north begin Nolita and Little Italy with their cafés, churches and the old St. Anthony of Padua.
Activities
- For art lovers. The home and studio of Donald Judd on Spring Street, the Drawing Center on Wooster Street, the Jeffrey Deitch gallery and the houses of the SoHo Arts Network.
- For book people. The independent bookstore McNally Jackson, long an institution of the quarter, and the Housing Works Bookstore Café, whose proceeds go to a good cause, plus the small second-hand shops of the side streets.
- For the appetite. The seafood kitchen at the in-house Otter with lobster rolls and crudo, the cocktails at Sloane’s, plus the old addresses Balthazar and Saint Ambroeus for the New York of the old guard.
- For fashion people. The flagship stores on Broadway, the boutiques of the side streets, the concept store The Webster with fashion and jewellery and the avant-garde showroom of the Korean eyewear label Gentle Monster.
- For denim hunters. The shop Blue in Green with rare Japanese selvedge, plus the tailors and barbers that have held the old SoHo for decades.
- For those after calm. The beauty address Onda Beauty with guest access, the wellness club Remedy Place, the Equinox SoHo, all a few steps from the house.
- For city walkers. The cobbled lanes of the cast-iron district with their galleries and shop windows, Broadway, the edge of Nolita and Little Italy with their cafés, churches and old bakeries.
- For night owls. The hidden bar Sloane’s with vintage spirits behind the velvet curtain, the wine bars of Thompson Street, the venues of TriBeCa and the Lower East Side.
- For film lovers. The arthouse cinema Film Forum, a SoHo institution since 1989, for independent, restored and international film far from the big multiplex houses.
Details
- 97 rooms, among them ten suites and a two-storey penthouse; the largest with a balcony and a view over SoHo.
- The Otter (seafood, ground floor) and Sloane’s (cocktail bar, second floor); guest lounge The Apartment, The Rooftop terrace in summer.
- No spa and no pool; partner access to Onda Beauty and Remedy Place.
- Breakfast and a daily aperitivo hour in the Apartment; televisions upon request.
- Ages 16 and up; dog-friendly (up to 14 kg, Pawsh Stay package).
- Location 58 Thompson Street, SoHo; part of Standard International, owned by Hyatt.
© Chris Mottalini
