Forty-six rooms, no two of them the same shape. The floor plan is the one the building was given in 1909 and we have stopped trying to improve it.
I asked for a quiet room and they gave me the one with the loudest radiator and the best light.
A GUEST, 1971
QUEEN BED • 200 SQ FT / 19 SQ M • COURTYARD
The smallest room we let, and the one we are least willing to change. A brass bed against the long wall, a marble washstand, one tall window onto the courtyard where the noise of the avenue arrives second-hand.
Built for one person with somewhere to be in the morning. Everything in it is within reach of the bed, which is either the point or the problem depending on the guest.
From $395
KING BED • 320 SQ FT / 30 SQ M • SIDE STREET
A desk at the window came before the bed here, and the room has been arranged around it ever since. Green-shaded lamp, a chair with arms low enough to write from, shelves that were built in when the floor was still let by the month.
The side street is quiet after nine. Guests who take this room tend to take it for a week.
From $520
KING BED • 420 SQ FT / 39 SQ M • TWO EXPOSURES
Windows on two walls, which in this building means light from the middle of the morning until the middle of the afternoon and a view of rooftops rather than of anyone's office. A carved headboard, a chaise in worn rose velvet, parquet under layered rugs.
The corner rooms are the ones long-stay residents held on to, and the floor plan has never quite recovered from how well they were built.
From $680
KING BED • 560 SQ FT / 52 SQ M • SKYLIGHT & ROOFTOPS
Under the roof, where the ceilings slope and the brick was never plastered. A skylight over the bed, a sitting corner with two armchairs and a fireplace small enough to be honest about what it does.
This floor was studios for most of the last century and the light is the reason. It arrives from above and stays late.
From $980
