New York City

The Plaza Hotel is synonymous with luxury and elegance. It has hosted world leaders, dignitaries, captains of industry and Hollywood royalty. The first Plaza, designed by McKim, Mead & White, opened in 1890, but was demolished in 1905 to build a much larger hotel by its new owners, financier Bernhard Beinecke, hotelier Fred Sterry, and Harry S. Black, President of the Fuller Construction Company.

They hired architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed the Dakota apartments in New York, the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. and The Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, to design new a 19-story, French château-style hotel. Construction took two years and no cost was spared. The largest single order in history for gold-encrusted china was placed with L. Straus & Sons, and no less than 1,650 crystal chandeliers were purchased for the hotel.

On this private tour with architectural historian and author Francis Morrone, we will look at the Plaza both inside and out. We will learn about its landmark interiors, which may include the Oak Room, the Ballroom, the Terrace Room, the Palm Court, and other rooms (subject to availability due to hotel events). Morrone will discuss the architecture and interior decoration, including spaces by Alavoine & Co., as well as the lives of two of the Plaza’s most famous residents, Eloise and Frank Lloyd Wright.