The Inn at Irving Place

The Inn at Irving Place Review

Fantasies of Old New York—Manhattan straight from the pages of Edith Wharton and Henry James, an era of genteel brick town houses and Tiffany lamps—spring to life at this discreet 20-room inn, the city's most romantic. There is no sign outside the 1830 town house, a hint of the somehow small-town qualities of Irving Place, a lightly trafficked street on the south side of Gramercy Park. One of the city's most famous tea salons, Lady Mendl's, is run on the lobby level. Rooms have ornamental fireplaces, four-poster beds with embroidered linens, wood shutters, and glossy cherrywood floors. The room named after Madame Olenska (a lovelorn Wharton character) has a bay window with sitting nook—this is one of the most memorable spots in New York; reserve it for anniversaries. Still, the rooms can sometimes seems like a novel's character who has aged too rapidly—and the street and restaurant noise occasionally spoil the fin-de-siècle fantasy.