It was the Roaring Twenties. Women bobbed their hair and hiked their skirts, and an estimated 100,000 speakeasies flourished in New York City in the face of Prohibition. Yet there was an oasis of calm: Frederick Law Olmsted’s Central Park. Overlooking the leafy landscape on the Upper East Side, the private homes of the privileged rose with the stock market and multiplied into elegant neighborhoods. In 1926, a small residence hotel with a Beaux-Arts façade opened at 20 East 76th Street and seamlessly blended into the neighborhood. The Surrey was luxurious and discreet; qualities movie actresses Claudette Colbert and Bette Davis and other celebrities appreciated. Later, John F. Kennedy made the popular residence his home in the city.
But by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Surrey had lost its luster, until new owners launched a $60 million, 14-month-long renovation. Debuted in 2009, the aura of the 17-story, 190-room hotel‘s historic past remains intact, but interior designer Lauren Rottet has added a contemporary flair, helped along by the installation of thirty-one original works by international artists...
Continue reading this article about the Surrey Hotel, which was reinvigorated by the leading interior designer Lauren Rottet, on InCollect.com.
