The Sherry Netherland ★★★★★

Gargoyles, a Vatican Lobby and the Corner of the Park

The Sherry-Netherland replaced the Hotel New Netherland in 1927 and kept the ambition of what it replaced. Schultze & Weaver, working with Buchman & Kahn, gave it a Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic skin and finished the roofline with gargoyles that disguise the water tower. Inside, the lobby is groin-vaulted, marble, gilded at the capitals and modelled on the Vatican Library, and set into it are carved limestone panels rescued from the Vanderbilt mansion that once stood across Fifth Avenue. The apartments went co-operative in 1954. Fifty rooms and suites still belong to the hotel.

Why It Works

This is a residential building that keeps a hotel inside it, and the difference shows in everything. There are only fifty keys, so the service is personal by arithmetic rather than by policy: doormen who learn faces, elevator operators in white gloves, a hair salon and a barbershop on the premises, a massage arranged in the room. Suites come with kitchenettes and, at the top of the range, two bedrooms, so a week here works the way an apartment works. The building sits inside the Upper East Side Historic District, which protects the very thing you came for.

Why This Location

Fifth Avenue meets 59th Street at Grand Army Plaza, and the hotel takes the corner. Central Park begins across the road, with the Pond and the zoo inside the first few minutes of walking. The carriage stand is opposite. Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany and the Fifth Avenue shopping run south, MoMA is under ten minutes on foot, and Madison Avenue's galleries and boutiques start one block east. Museum Mile heads north along the park. Almost every reason people come to Midtown and the Upper East Side sits inside a twenty-minute walk of this door.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxe

• Vibe: 1927 co-operative, old-school service, Fifth Avenue

• Rooms: Fifty rooms and suites, individually decorated, suites with kitchenettes and up to two bedrooms

• Best For: Long New York stays, returning guests, dog owners, anyone who wants Central Park from the window

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The Vanderbilt mansion's carved limestone, saved from the demolition across the avenue and set into the lobby

• Dining: Harry Cipriani on the ground floor for Venetian cooking and cocktails, plus in-room dining

• Amenities: White-gloved elevator service, concierge, hair salon and barbershop on site, in-room massage, valet parking, dogs welcome, staff in six languages

• Attractions: Central Park and Grand Army Plaza (across the street), Bergdorf Goodman and Fifth Avenue shopping, MoMA, the Madison Avenue galleries, Museum Mile

A Co-operative With Fifty Keys

Because most of the building belongs to residents, the hotel floors behave like apartments that happen to be available. Rooms are decorated individually rather than rolled out to a standard, and they divide by outlook: city-view rooms and suites face the avenue and the park, courtyard rooms face the quiet. Suites carry kitchenettes and, in the largest, two bedrooms. That combination suits a stay measured in weeks rather than nights, which is how a good number of guests here use it. Dogs are welcome, which in a building of this formality is not a given.

Harry Cipriani, Gloves and the Old Service

Harry Cipriani holds the ground floor with Venetian cooking and a cocktail list people cross town for, and hotel guests are looked after on the bill. Above it, the service runs on a model that has largely left New York: elevator operators in white gloves, doormen who know the residents, a salon and a barbershop in the building, a masseuse who comes to the room. It is not nostalgia for its own sake. Fifty keys is simply small enough that a hotel can still be run this way.

Choosing a Room, and a Season

Ask for a city-view room or suite if the park is why you are booking, and a courtyard room if sleep matters more than the view. Check-in is mid-afternoon and check-out is midday. Valet parking is available, though in this part of Manhattan a car is a liability rather than an asset. Autumn puts colour in the park directly outside the window, and December puts the Fifth Avenue windows a short walk away. Those are the two stretches worth booking furthest ahead.