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A Salvaged Stay in New York City
An inspired stay at an old bank turned hotel dazzles
By: Tiffany Pratt
Being a designer is a blessing and a curse. I notice everything down to the smallest detail. Most of the time, details are forgotten or lost. On my latest trip to Nine Orchard, a hotel in New York City, being a designer proved to be a blessing. I was on the best magic carpet ride of my life, and I never wanted to get off.
Hotels.com sent me on a mission to experience what they call a Salvaged Stay at Nine Orchard in the Lower East Side of Manhattan to see what sleeping in a fully restored bank from 1912 felt like. Nothing could have prepared me for this experience. Salvaged Stays and Hotel Hopping are trends Hotels.com has identified for the coming year as part of its Unpack ’26 Travel Trends Report. More on this later.
Some spaces are fully restored to their original state, while others bring back as much as they can to their former glory, but with a twist. This place had twists everywhere waiting to be discovered. With travellers putting the “rest” back in restoration by checking into hotels that combine historical architecture with modern amenities. I hit the jackpot.
In a city of intersections, Nine Orchard is just that – a visual intersection of history, restoration that meets artful, luxurious sass. The Gucci wallpaper in the lobby gave my eyes a hug when I walked in for the first time. The cozy golden yellow ceiling was a signal that design moves were being made, and please note, a ceiling painted a colour is one of my favorite design moves because it transforms a space more than you could realize, depending on the colour you choose! I digress! What I noticed the most throughout this hotel was that at every turn, there was a celebration of the human touch!
The craftsman, the artists and the handmade were enlisted for most everything, and it made my maker’s heart sing. From the Tyler Hays handcrafted furniture and ceramics that drip from every room lamp, toilet paper dispenser and light—including the ceramic key chain that holds the fob to get into your room—I was in awe! The Happy Menocal studio hand-painted woodwork, walls, and lamp shades throughout two of their three restaurants. I was in love. Never had I seen hand-painted woodworking like this before. It was such a bold and special touch!
With trends like Primary Play making a big impact on the design scene this year, I am seeing the hand-painted, hand-crafted, imperfect touch everywhere, and I love it. In the classical design sense, all the material appointments of this space were expertly chosen. Something I recommend highly to my clients! Spend on the things you cannot replace and have a blast with the things you can! But then the design guitar riff hit, and you knew that outside of these high-end finishes and cream of the crop choices were designers’ artists that wanted to express something more than just good taste.
We all know the feeling of crawling into a crisp, clean hotel bed, but these spaces took that comfort to a whole new level. In my work, I rely on feelings more than rules when it comes to design, and I highly recommend this approach to anyone I work with. I do not let the rules of design override some of the design decisions that I need to make to ensure that a space feels a certain way. Creature comforts are undoubtedly essential, but more than that, a sense of ease and comfort is key in hotels. I always know that a hotel room is intended to inspire people to take some of these moves home and make them a part of their daily habits. But what I love is when simple luxury is laced into the mix with whimsical details, reminding us it is necessary to make even the most refined and classic space feel one of a kind and curated.
Sometimes there is a need for hardworking materials that stand the test of time, and then there are design choices that allow for fray and patina, because with use, age and imperfection help it belong to an older space like this. Almost all the upholstery choices here evoke this kind of feeling, and I am sure they were chosen to age in an interesting way. Never forget to think of loving something long past its prime when you invest in something for a space. We must love things no matter what they have been through.
The curation did not stop anywhere I looked, and trust me, I was looking. Right down to the custom Ojas speakers, playing curated playlists throughout the space. No stone was left unturned. And when I say stone, I mean it. The stone and marble selections in this place were just as one-of-a-kind as the hardworking spaces they were placed in.
And speaking of working, that is what Manhattan does. It works. A city filled with creatives that, at the heart of it all, are all craftspeople who know how to create something and bring it to life. Buildings are filled with many types of manufacturers that make things happen. I visited M&S Schmalberg, a manufacturer of fabric flowers, on this trip. Every step happens right there in NYC in their workshop, and you get to be a part of it all as you shop and select your flowers. Flowers that very much remind me of that Gucci wallpaper in the Nine Orchard lobby!
If you had a time machine, you might be able to see all the many incarnations that 9 Orchard has lived through since it was a bank in 1912. Lovingly restored and carefully curated, this decade-long resurgence of supersized space and award-winning preservation was a labor of love.
It is rumored that the Swan Room, which is the grand central hangout spot, was a Chinese food restaurant before this restoration. It was said to have had a drop ceiling installed that fully covered the original Neo-Renaissance decorative coffered ceiling that truly takes your breath away. You ask yourself, “Who could have covered that up?” That is the thing about New York City, everything was and has always been something else or somewhere else at some point. New York does not cling to the past; it restores what it can and gives it a new name.
Every room was designed to allow for movement in a circular pattern. There is a perfect flow of a figure eight in the space that comes with all the appointments of each space. I implore you to think of how you move through space as you assemble it! Movement is everything!
I got a quick tour of their Green House on the 14th floor, which is an event room that feels like stepping into a Dorothy Draper’s design fantasy. With its stunning stone-checkered floors, lattice-covered walls, and green-on-green color scheme, there is something to behold here. A resurgence of Hollywood regency with 360-degree views, I had no notes. I wish there were more spaces as bold, deliberate, and stunning as this one.
Curved ceramic tiles throughout the space made me weak. That simple nod to things being installed with intention and historical reference! The subway tile style and selections reminded me of the NYC subway itself and speaking of the subway, I took a peek at the gym at Nine Orchard just because I thought why not and although I should have fallen for the fresh equipment, it was the hue of arsenic green they painted the room and this vintage hooked rug framed against the wall of clown beating a drum that got me sweating. I thought it was wild and weird until I got to a subway station later that day, and I saw tiled characters lining the walls of the subway, in the same size and just as kooky as the framed hooked rug in the gym. You see, in NYC, we are constantly being barraged with imagery and inspiration. Some way, somehow there is a through-line!
And now that we are discussing through-lines. The ceramics at Nine Orchard speak to the love of handmade ceramics right now! Even in the current exhibit of Rashid Johnson’s at the Guggenheim, the handmade ceramics that hold all those plants! These handmade ceramics all evoke a feeling.
The Gallery in the Carlyle Hotel gave me the same textural feeling as all the fabrics, upholstery, and mismatched patterns as in the Swan Room. Something about a long-upholstered sofa in a restaurant makes it feel like home. And while we were at the Carlyle, we had a quick drink at Belemans Bar, because I cannot get enough of the walls turned into hand-painted masterpieces. There is a theme here in NYC with hand-painted walls.
Before we left the island, I needed to take a ride on the Sea Glass Carousel in Battery Park, because the Blue Room at Nine Orchard had a playful under-the-sea vibe, and I believe that we should all encourage our inner children to come out and play, both by day and in our design choices. As those transparent fish were bobbing up and down, I saw the Brooklyn Bridge and realized where we were swimming next.
Changing the game from a Salvaged Space to something entirely fresh and new was a dose of culture shock for this fish, but the William Vale hotel held us tight for the night. To end the trip, I did a little hotel hopping over the bridge to Williamsburg in Brooklyn to get closer to some flea markets that I wanted to check out before heading home.
Hotels.com says Hotel Hopping is a major part of their Unpack ‘26 Travel Trends in a report stating that more than half of travellers (54%) are making every trip count by booking multiple hotels within a single destination. This emerging trend is driven by travellers’ desire to explore different neighbourhoods and get better hotel deals. I get it! I digress! Let’s get back to Flea Markets!
Flea markets selling old things, thrift stores, salvaged shops, and vintage boutiques are like old buildings – like the Nine Orchard. With some time, energy, and vision, we can bring new life back to something that was cast away, covered or forgotten. All we need is love to inspire us to pull something off or bring it back together.
As a designer, I love this restorative work. Taking something old and making it new again, both in terms of spaces and objects. Showing people, by curating something properly, that it has legs. Styling something so well that you might never know how it came to be, but you know you love it. You don’t care where it came from or how it got there. You just know it belongs to you – even if for only a moment. This is style. This is life. This is NYC. This is Salvaged Stays.
