The Mercer – SoHo's original loft hotel, still quietly ahead

The Mercer sits at the corner of Mercer and Prince Streets, on a block of cast-iron warehouses that once held SoHo's artists' lofts and now holds its most discreet address. The building itself is older than the neighbourhood's reputation for glamour: a six-storey Romanesque Revival block raised in 1890 as office space for the Astor family, later colonised by painters and sculptors before André Balazs bought the long-empty property and opened it, in 1997, as the first hotel in SoHo. Seventy-three rooms and suites, dressed by the French designer Christian Liaigre in his language of restraint, look over cobblestones or a private courtyard garden. Nearly three decades on, the formula of loft proportions, low light and unmarked privacy has barely needed updating. The MICHELIN Guide gives it One MICHELIN Key.

01The house

Long before it was a hotel, 147 Mercer Street was business premises. Architect William Schickel, known for his extensive work on behalf of the Archdiocese of New York, designed the building as offices for the vast Astor family holdings, resulting in a façade considerably more ornate than its industrial neighbors, and prior to its conversion the building served as artists' lofts and studios, for which the hotel has become known. Built in 1890 for John Jacob Astor III, the six-story, 84,000 square foot brick building has been cited by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as an example of the Romanesque Revival period.

The transformation into a hotel began at the end of the 1980s. In 1989, André Balazs purchased The Mercer Hotel property in SoHo, a 100-year-old manufacturing loft. BD Hotels, with Balazs, refurbished the building, then opened it as The Mercer in 1997 — SoHo's first hotel, later noted as SoHo's first five-star hotel. The interiors were entrusted to Christian Liaigre, whose philosophy of restraint and proportion, favouring oak, linen and leather over ornament, set the tone that downtown luxury has chased ever since.

02Rooms and suites

The Mercer's seventy-three rooms and suites embody authentic downtown loft living: high ceilings, open layouts and oversized windows, with many rooms keeping their exposed brick, wood-burning fireplaces and iron-and-glass French doors onto a private courtyard. Categories run from the quiet Courtyard Room, with its queen bed and Juliet balconies, up through SoHo Studios and Loft Junior Suites to the top-floor Loft Suites, no two of which are quite alike.

Insider tip

Corner of Mercer and Prince Streets, in the heart of the cast-iron historic district

At the top of the range, the Penthouse Loft Suite is defined by eleven-foot ceilings and a wall of French windows over the courtyard, while the Courtyard Loft Suite opens through tall French doors onto its own 1,000-square-foot terrace. Two- and three-bedroom suites combine studios and lofts for families or longer stays, all furnished to Liaigre's original specification. This spring, The Mercer wrapped a full renovation, the first real refresh of all 73 rooms and suites since Liaigre's original 1997 design.

03Where to eat

For a quarter of a century the ground floor belonged to Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The Mercer Kitchen restaurant ran from 1998 to 2022, a fixture of the neighbourhood's early loft years. It has since given way to Sartiano's, where Scott Sartiano's vision meets the culinary direction of James Beard Award-winner Alfred Portale, serving a modern Italian menu that is warm and effortlessly chic rather than formal.

By day the off-lobby café serves light, thoughtful fare to the rhythm of the street outside; by night the downstairs dining room turns toward quiet sophistication, its open kitchen, Carrara marble bar and Hollywood-style banquettes recalling the ease of Rome's Villa Borghese. Guests can also have the Sartiano's menu sent up to their room or taken in the lobby, a privilege reserved for those staying at the hotel. The restaurant's reach now extends beyond SoHo: in March 2025, Sartiano's opened a location at the Wynn Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip, led by the same three-time James Beard Award winner, Alfred Portale.

04The bar

Beneath the restaurant lies Submercer, a brick-walled lounge with a history as layered as the building above it — a subterranean spot that first drew buzz back in the late 1990s, when the Mercer opened, before closing in 2001. In 2024, Sartiano reopened the brick-walled Submercer lounge, a storied SoHo bar, below the main dining room. Entry runs on reservation rather than walk-in, keeping the low-ceilinged room, its brick archways and small dance floor, for a crowd that prefers not to be found by accident.

05The neighbourhood

SoHo's grid of cast-iron facades and cobblestones remains one of the few parts of Manhattan built to a human scale, and The Mercer sits precisely at its centre, on the corner of Mercer and Prince. Galleries, ateliers and the boutiques that first drew the fashion crowd downtown in the 1990s are still a short walk in any direction, while the hotel's own concierge keeps what it calls its Black Book — a curated guide to the neighbourhood's dining, shopping and art for guests who would rather not ask twice.

06Making the most of a stay

Guests have complimentary access to Equinox SoHo, a short walk from the hotel, as well as a private workout room by appointment, and every room carries Dyson hairdryers and a complimentary minibar alongside nightly turndown and twenty-four-hour in-room dining. The hotel's partnership with Dr. Barbara Sturm extends the skincare brand's treatments to guests, and two-bedroom suites come with complimentary access to the members' club Zero Bond and to the Lore Bathing Club — a quiet way into two of downtown's more closely guarded addresses without having to ask for an introduction.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.