A Scruffy Guitar Shop Survives the Chelsea Hotel’s Chic Makeover
Chelsea, we’ve got a few things to say. But first, let’s get to know the place.
In January, the 24-story landmark—a five-star hotel converted into an art gallery and venue—went under renovations. The 1,500-plus square foot structure was shuttered for a year while the project—including a retail space and two new restaurants (the former, The Publican and now the Publican II) and a hotel bar (now called The Publican, closed to the public)—took shape. The result was a $35 million renovation, to be completed in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary in 2016, according to the New York Post. This week, the hotel reopened as L.A. Weekly reports, the second-floor bar has reopened, along with the rooftop pool deck.
Chelsea, meanwhile, is up and running as of this morning, after a series of cosmetic makeovers.
Before the renovations began, the hotel’s bathrooms had been painted blue and the building was clad in pink and green—though the hotel had, in the past, sported much more eclectic colors. The new, more subdued color schemes, of white, gray, and black are, per the L.A. Weekly, “a reference to the streetwear and graffiti art that filled the shop’s space in the 1990s before it was gentrified.”
All in all, the hotel’s color palette is more beige on the main floor, although some rooms remain a deep blue and other rooms have been repainted in white. “Many guests and tenants took advantage of the hotel’s open floor plan, and the hotel didn’t have the budget to repaint all of its rooms a different color,” the L.A. Weekly says. “Still, the overall look is a good approximation of how it looked before the renovations.”
The transformation isn’t cheap, nor is it easy to walk through.
“It really changed the whole look of the hotel,” says David Hochstetler, the hotel’s general manager. “We needed the whole hotel to be made clean and presentable to begin with.
