The Whitby Hotel – Kit Kemp's pattern behind a Midtown limestone face

On West 56th Street, two blocks from Central Park, The Whitby Hotel rises eighteen storeys in pale limestone behind a grid of steel-framed Crittall windows, a design chosen because it felt most compatible with the Fifth Avenue aesthetic nearby. Built from the ground up as Firmdale Hotels' second New York address after SoHo's Crosby Street Hotel, it opened in March 2017 on a foundation dug fifty-five feet below grade, freeing more than 20,000 square feet of amenity space beneath the lobby. Inside, Kit Kemp, Firmdale's co-founder and creative director alongside her husband Tim, turned the shell into 86 individually dressed rooms and suites, each guarded by its own upholstered mannequin, now a recognised symbol of the group. The MICHELIN Guide gives it Three MICHELIN Keys, its top distinction, for a stay built on English warmth, American scale and a restless eye for pattern.

01The house

The Whitby's limestone façade and steel-framed windows were designed to sit quietly among its Midtown neighbours, with architect Paul Taylor of Stonehill & Taylor explaining that the firm wanted the building to read as a gathering place rather than a glass tower. The 97,000-square-foot structure was oriented to pull natural light down into every one of its 86 guest rooms despite the density of the surrounding blocks, and its unusually deep foundation, excavated fifty-five feet below street level, allowed the hotel to tuck a cinema, gym and parlours underground rather than stack them above.

On the ground floor, the architect and Kit Kemp worked out a sequence of interlocking rooms designed to surprise guests as they move through the building: the restaurant and its long bar lead into a conservatory and small courtyard garden, then on to a book-lined drawing room before looping back to the lobby. It is the same choreography Kemp has used across Firmdale's hotels, and the same instinct that puts a dress-form mannequin, dressed to match each room's palette, beside every wardrobe in the building.

02Rooms and suites

All 86 rooms and suites carry floor-to-ceiling windows and their own colour scheme, with nothing repeated from floor to floor across the hotel's eighteen storeys. Junior Terrace Suites add high ceilings and a private corner terrace looking over Manhattan rooftops, while several categories come with granite or marble bathrooms and, in the upper suites, free-standing tubs set against the Crittall glazing.

Insider tip

Check-in 3pm/out 12pm; afternoon tea served daily in The Orangery; walk-ins welcome at the bar.

The best address in the building is the Whitby Penthouse, which takes over the entire top floor: two king-size bedrooms, a living room, guest powder room and kitchen, with doors opening onto two separate terraces that wrap both sides of the hotel. At 171 square metres, its white marble bathrooms are fitted with twin basins and a free-standing chrome tub set before frosted floor-to-ceiling windows.

03Where to eat

The Whitby Bar & Restaurant is built around a generous pewter-topped bar and filled with handcrafted, one-of-a-kind pieces, serving an all-day menu that leans on seasonal ingredients and modern European flavours. Executive chef Anthony Paris's kitchen is known for dishes such as a chai-spiced butternut squash soup and a lobster grilled cheese made with New York State cheddar, served beneath high ceilings and uniquely upholstered banquettes.

On Friday evenings the bar runs a Sailor's Farewell oyster menu with live jazz from the Sam Taylor Trio, and on Saturdays a vocalist-led series called Voices of New York takes over, pairing cocktails with new and established performers from across the city.

04Afternoon tea in The Orangery

Tea is served in The Orangery, a sunlit extension of the restaurant with a vaulted ceiling and skylight, its walls lined with porcelain pots designed by Martha Freud, each etched with an illustration of a different New York landmark. Guests can also take tea at The Whitby Bar itself, where the same colour and craft that define the guest rooms spill into the crockery.

The service is poured onto Kit Kemp's own Wedgwood collaboration, a china pattern called Sailor's Farewell used across the hotel's dining. The ritual has been recognised beyond the building too, named among Tasting Table's best spots for afternoon tea in the United States and included in Vogue's list of New York's best afternoon teas, both in 2024.

05The bar and drawing room

Guests have their own book-lined Drawing Room, filled with colour and curios, where a fresh juice or morning coffee gives way in the evening to a glass poured from the honesty bar. The adjoining gym is small but fully equipped for anyone working off a long flight or a heavy afternoon tea.

Beyond the public rooms sits the 130-seat Whitby Theater, a state-of-the-art screening room mostly reserved for private hire, though it occasionally opens for public screenings worth checking for before arrival. Three further private rooms and the Orangery itself handle everything from candlelit dinners to launches and live performances.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel sits on West 56th Street at Fifth Avenue, two blocks from Central Park and within walking distance of the Museum of Modern Art, making it a natural base for anyone visiting the city's galleries and museums. Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman are both a short walk away, alongside the wider run of Fifth Avenue flagship stores.

Sister properties sit downtown and in TriBeCa: Crosby Street Hotel, Kit Kemp's original SoHo outpost, and the newer Warren Street Hotel, both sharing the same eye for pattern and craft that defines the Whitby.

07Making the most of a stay

Check-in runs from 3pm and check-out is at noon.

Firmdale Hotels, the Whitby's owner, received the King's Award for Enterprise in 2024, recognition that sits alongside the hotel's own run of MICHELIN Keys and its afternoon-tea accolades. For a first stay, the Whitby Penthouse and a Friday night at the oyster bar make the strongest case for why Kit Kemp's Midtown outpost still draws a design crowd eight years after it opened.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.