Hotel of the Week: Designer Michael S. Smith Transforms a Historic New York Property

Manhattan’s Upper East Side may have the greatest concentration of legacy hotels of any neighborhood in the city. And while more famous properties like The Carlyle or The Mark may receive the lion’s share of attention, New Yorkers and visitors looking for something more discreet often beeline instead for The Lowell, a 74-room boutique hotel located on a leafy, quiet block just a short walk from Central Park. “It’s just really the best hotel in New York,” says designer Michael S. Smith, who has collaborated with the property on multiple renovations. 

Unlike some of its neighbors on Park or Madison Avenues, The Lowell’s location on a side street is the first indication that this destination doesn’t aim to be the center of attention. Rather, its dignified brick and stone exterior is meant to blend in with the mostly residential street—and in fact, the building was built for apartments before its transformation into a hotel.

That sense of home—seen both with the staff’s distinct style of personalized hospitality and the hotel’s elevated, yet welcoming interior design—is perhaps one of the reasons The Lowell has been in business for as long as it has: in 2027, the property will celebrate its hundredth birthday. 

And, as befits such a milestone, the grande dame is getting ready for her moment well ahead of the big day. At the end of April, the hotel announced the completion of a renovation of seven rooms and suites, conducted under the direction of Smith, along with co-owner Dina De Luca Chartouni and the hotel’s in-house interior designer, Julio. E. Jiménez. 

All of the spaces received a complete overhaul, from new white oak flooring to Calacatta Monet marble in the bathrooms to installation of cove lighting inside the pre-war beamed ceilings. But despite the top-to-bottom six-month renovation, the refreshed interiors are not an aesthetic departure. A hotel like The Lowell “requires a constant, quiet incremental evolution,” Smith tells Galerie. “We don’t do anything that’s radical, but you want to keep it moving, and keep it sophisticated.” 

The refreshed rooms bear the hallmark of a Smith-designed space: muted color palettes with cream as the central focal point; couches and chairs with classic proportions and textured textiles; and nods to a more contemporary design in the form of art and objets. An evolution of the suites previously designed by Smith, these spaces are brighter and sleeker, although the overall vibe remains very much in the pre-war vernacular, thanks to details like classic crown and shadow box molding, and herringbone floors.

Adding to the sense of home-away-from-home are details like wood-burning fireplaces—a rarity in most New York hotels—with new marble mantelpieces sourced from Jamb in London, as well as built-in bookshelves curated with a collection of design books from Jiménez. And in the baths, many of which were expanded during the renovation process, guests can slip into deep soaking tubs, another feature which is hard to come by in a Manhattan suite. 

Smith and The Lowell team also collaborated on many bespoke furniture pieces, including down-filled sofas and club chairs in the living rooms, and chaise lounges in the bedrooms, all of which lend a homey, lived-in vibe to these guest spaces. And despite The Lowell approaching three digits age wise, technologically speaking she’s still forward-thinking: the rooms are equipped with everything from built-in speakers to televisions hidden inside mirrors, to new motorized blackout shades.

Yet, one of the design team’s favorite pieces is one of the oldest: the Louis XV-style black wooden writing desks, which were refurbished with leather and gold-leaf accents. 

As the hotel team will readily share, The Lowell is a place where repeat guests reserve their room not by category, but by specific number—that’s how well they know it and how often they return. So while the location’s interiors may be changing, what will remain the same is its longstanding sense of place: elegant, but never showy; classic, but never uptight.

“We’re always trying more and more to give it a sense of its own voice,” says Smith. “That’s what we’re constantly working on and perfecting.”