Why you should experience The Kimberly Hotel in New York, NY.
The Kimberly Hotel is an intimate suite hotel where Midtown East's residential polish, diplomatic cosmopolitanism, Art Deco skyline drama and enduring culture of independent hospitality converge within a family-owned New York address approaching half a century of operation.
Set along East 50th Street near Lexington Avenue and just steps from St. Bartholomew's Church, the hotel opened in 1985 and has remained independently owned, developing its character around unusually generous suites and a staff culture in which numerous employees have remained for more than 20 years. A substantial design chapter arrived through De-Spec, architect Frank Denner, lighting designer Brian Orter and Pentasia Design, whose work extended across two lobbies, public spaces and a penthouse rooftop conceived through references to the Algonquin and Waldorf Astoria. The 2009 guestroom program simultaneously renovated 85 accommodations, including a complete reconstruction of the 30th-floor suites with Breccia and Empress marble, Scott Jordan furniture and windows rising as high as ten feet. The result is a hotel where independent ownership, long-serving staff and carefully accumulated design interventions preserve a distinctly personal form of Midtown hospitality.
What you should know about The Kimberly Hotel.
The Kimberly Hotel is best known for opening in 1985 and remaining independently operated through four decades of enormous change in Midtown hospitality, reaching its 40th anniversary in 2025 with numerous employees having spent more than 20 years at the property. A major 2009 accommodation project renovated 85 guestrooms and suites, nearly half the contemporary inventory, while completely reconfiguring the 30th-floor suites around 650-square-foot plans incorporating separate bedrooms, living rooms, dining areas and wet bars, Scott Jordan patented sofa beds, Frette linens, California Closets and bathrooms finished in Breccia and Empress marble. De-Spec subsequently undertook its first hospitality commission at The Kimberly with architect Frank Denner, lighting designer Brian Orter and Pentasia Design, developing two lobbies, a restaurant, bar and rooftop environment as an interconnected design program. Their penthouse project, Upstairs, opened in 2010 as a 4,000-square-foot rooftop composition framed by living green walls, embossed bronze panels, heated floors, retractable glass ceilings and walls, theatrical lighting and furniture from B&B Italia, Knoll and Moooi, with the Chrysler Building deliberately positioned as the visual centerpiece. De-Spec principal Farnaz Mansuri conceived the architecture around choreographed experience rather than isolated objects, giving an independently owned hotel founded in 1985 a major contemporary design intervention 25 years into its history.
The Kimberly's street-level dining carries another piece of New York history through Empire Steak House, whose room preserves the architectural character of a former 1920s opera house through an ornate winding staircase and cathedral-domed ceiling before the Sinanaj brothers established their steakhouse within the space. Bistango introduced a contrasting culinary chapter in 2014, developing seasonal Italian cooking around house-made preparations while building a completely separate gluten-free kitchen with dedicated equipment, cookware and fryers, an unusually rigorous operational commitment embedded within an independent hotel restaurant. Upstairs adds a third authored environment through Brian Orter's theatrical illumination, De-Spec's bronze and living-wall composition and the retractable enclosure that allows the penthouse to operate throughout the year while maintaining direct Chrysler Building and East River perspectives. Empire Steak House, Bistango and Upstairs consequently reveal how The Kimberly has accumulated distinct creative chapters across decades, connecting a surviving 1920s performance interior, specialized contemporary Italian cooking and a major De-Spec rooftop commission within one independently operated Midtown property.
How to fold The Kimberly Hotel into your trip.
The Kimberly Hotel works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing the architectural ambition, international culture and decorative sophistication concentrated around Midtown East.
Begin at Japan Society, founded in 1907 and housed since 1971 within Junzo Yoshimura's purpose-built cultural center, where galleries, performance spaces and Japanese architectural principles established a permanent setting for artistic and intellectual exchange between Japan and the United States. Continue to Austrian Cultural Forum New York, where Raimund Abraham won a 1992 international competition involving 226 submissions before completing his astonishingly narrow 2002 tower, compressing galleries, performance spaces, offices and residences onto a site only 25 feet wide. Conclude at The Morgan Library & Museum, where J. Pierpont Morgan commissioned Charles Follen McKim to create his private library, completed in 1906 as an Italian Renaissance-inspired ensemble uniting rare manuscripts, drawings, books, marble, murals and carved ornament. The progression moves from Yoshimura's Japanese modernism through Abraham's rebellious vertical geometry into McKim's cultivated world of collecting, revealing the international architecture and deeply authored interiors that give The Kimberly Hotel's own layered design history a richer Midtown context.
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