The man behind the world’s sexiest (and most elitist) hotels
From Miami to London, Ian Schrager — the veteran hotelier and Studio 54 founder — has created some of the world’s most lavish stays. He tells John Arlidge about Public, his affordable new brand and why he’s turning his back on the velvet rope
Ian Schrager is the guy who made Studio 54 the hottest nightclub in history (think Bianca Jagger atop a white horse) and went on to create hotels so hip — the Delano South Beach in Miami, Mondrian in LA, St Martins Lane in London — you had to look a certain way to book a room.
When he embarked on a joint venture with Marriott in 2007 to develop a chain of “style hotels”, few gave the collaboration between the scrappy cultural gunslinger and the buttoned-up global behemoth a chance — but fast-forward 16 years and there are 16 Editions around the world, including one on Berners Street in London. Ten more are under construction. Now, however, he tells me as he sips a Starbucks coffee in his triplex penthouse in Noho surrounded by a 360-degree view across Manhattan, the collaboration is over. We had a great run, created a valuable brand and both sides learnt a lot. But it’s time for me to move on. I now want to focus on Public,
Schrager says.
Public is the 77-year-old’s newest hotel concept and it marks a cultural U-turn. At Studio 54, and often at night at Edition, there was a velvet rope at the door. If you weren’t the right kind of person, you weren’t getting in. And if by some miracle you did manage to get over the threshold, you had to be able to afford it. The prices! Oh, the prices! A round of cocktails and dinner could rival your monthly mortgage repayment.
In a more egalitarian, diverse age, not to mention a time of high inflation and war, Schrager says that’s “obnoxious”. He explains: People change, times change. Today it’s all about luxury for all.
Public combines more affordable prices with the kind of “simple, intuitive” services that modern travellers want but few hotels offer in one place. To keep rates down, rooms at the Public on New York’s Lower East Side, so far Schrager’s first and only hotel under the brand, are small but, he believes, perfectly formed — like the cabins on a yacht
. You could swing a cat, I find, when I check in — but only just.
