Casa Cipriani New York ★★★★★

A Ferry Terminal on the Harbour, Reborn as a Venetian House

At the foot of South Street, where Lower Manhattan runs out of island, stands a Beaux-Arts ferry terminal in green-painted cast iron. Boats still leave from its slip for Governors Island. Behind that facade the Cipriani family has installed forty-seven rooms and suites, a spa, a jazz room and a private members' club, in a conversion led by Marvel Architects with the designer Thierry Despont. The Great Hall kept its landmarked patterned glass ceiling and its period ironwork. The rest was furnished in custom mahogany and low light, the register the family has held since Harry's Bar in Venice. It is one of the few hotels in New York that feels like a house.

Why It Works

Three things decided it. The building: a landmarked waterfront terminal is a rare address in a city that builds upwards, and the conversion worked with it rather than erasing it. The scale: forty-seven keys, twenty-eight rooms and nineteen suites, small enough that the staff learn your name, large enough to carry a full spa and a proper kitchen. And the club below, which gives the ground floor an evening life of its own instead of the empty lobby most downtown hotels offer after eight. Guests reach it, and that access is the point.

Why This Location

10 South Street is the last building before the water, where the Financial District meets The Battery and its gardens. The Staten Island Ferry terminal is next door, free and running through the night. Wall Street, the outdoor tables of Stone Street and Fraunces Tavern are five to ten minutes on foot; the South Street Seaport is a twenty-minute walk north along the river. Whitehall Street and Bowling Green stations sit two blocks inland. What the address imposes is quiet: this corner belongs to the wind and the ferries at night, and dinner in the West Village means a car.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Venetian, clubby, low-lit, waterfront

• Rooms: 47 in total, 28 rooms and 19 suites, from one to four bedrooms, including two Presidential Suites with Loro Piana interiors

• Best For: couples who want downtown over Midtown, design-minded travellers, guests who value a club atmosphere after dark

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the private terraces and pergolas on the upper floors, facing the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge at once

• Dining: an Italian kitchen in the Cipriani register, bar service, a jazz room with evening entertainment, breakfast in the room on request

• Amenities: full-service spa, cryotherapy, private steam rooms and saunas, fitness space and studio, terrace, concierge, free shuttle, family rooms, facilities for guests with reduced mobility

• Attractions: The Battery (across the street), Staten Island Ferry (next door), Wall Street and Stone Street (5 to 10 minutes on foot), Fraunces Tavern (about 7 minutes), South Street Seaport (about 20 minutes)

Rooms That Face the Water, Rooms That Face the Skyline

The split matters here. River-facing rooms look out at the harbour, the ferry traffic and the two landmarks everyone comes for; city-facing rooms look up at the Financial District towers, a quieter pleasure. Interiors run to mahogany, brass and heavy fabric rather than the pale minimalism of newer downtown openings. Suites climb from one to four bedrooms, and the two Presidential Suites are dressed by Loro Piana. Several units open onto private terraces with pergolas, the feature that separates this house from every other five-star address in Manhattan.

A Spa for Long Stays, a Jazz Room for the Evening

The wellness floor is unusually complete for a house of this size: a large fitness space, an airy studio, private steam rooms and saunas, cryotherapy, and a full-service spa whose signature treatments run to massage and reflexology. Downstairs, the jazz room carries the evening and the bar holds the Italian line the family is known for. Between the two, three or four nights here work without ever crossing Broadway.

What to Know Before You Book

Access is the thing to plan. Whitehall Street and Bowling Green put you two blocks away, a free shuttle is available, and the run in from the Brooklyn Bridge by car is short. Check-in starts in mid-afternoon, check-out is at midday, later than most of the city. Children are accepted and family rooms exist, though the club atmosphere reads adult after dark. Ask for a terrace unit early: it is the smallest category of the house.