95 Years Hovering Over Fifth Ave

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In 1930 restaurateur and Corsican immigrant Charles Pierre (Casalasco) opened New York’s Pierre Hotel (then simply called “The Pierre”). With the involvement and investment of socialites and millionaires of the day, including Otto Kahn (mostly known today for OHEKA Castle and The Burden Kahn Mansions), Edward Hutton, Walter Chrysler, and other Wall Street financiers and heavyweights, Charles set out to create a hotel that honored meticulous, high level, traditional hospitality. 

photo: Susan Stripling

The Pierre’s original 714 room incarnation cost $15 million to construct, which would be equivalent to over $200 million in 2025. At the time, a room rate was around $7 or $8, and private events- such as debutante balls- averaged around $3,000 (Charles Pierre’s business plan accounted for private events amounting to over 25% of the hotel’s revenues). 

Hovering 44 stories over Fifth Avenue, looking out onto Central Park, the building was designed by the New York architecture firm of Schultze & Weaver as a skyscraper that rises in a blond-brick shaft from a limestone-fronted Louis XVI base. 

The Pierre’s distinctive upper floors, with their Corinthian columns and arched windows and a copper roof with bronze-finished dormers, were modeled after Mansart’s Royal Chapel at Versailles, and make the building stand out amongst the Upper East Side skyline. 

Just two years after its opening, as the country drowned in the collapsing economy of the Great Depression, The Pierre went into bankruptcy. In 1938 famed oil magnate and one-time richest private citizen in the world J. Paul Getty acquired The Pierre for $2.5 million ($48 million today). Getty eventually sold many of the hotel’s suites as luxury cooperative apartments.

Over the years that followed notable residents at The Pierre have included Audrey Hepburn- who lived at the hotel while shooting “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”- Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, Andy Warhol, and Richard Nixon, who lived there as the President Elect of the United States of America.

In 1981, The Pierre was designated as a New York historic landmark.

photo: Brett Matthews Gallery

Today, as The Pierre Hotel- now a TAJ Hotel- celebrates its 95 years, the hotel has nearly 200 rooms and suites and 80 co-op apartments. Just stepping into the lobby affects a sense of importance- an amalgam of an echoing, grandiose government building and an ethereal museum.

photo: Marcin Pawlowski for Charming Images

The legendary Rotunda- with its iconic murals- remains, as does the celestial Cotillion Room. The epochal Grand Ballroom has just been completely renovated, signifying that The Pierre Hotel will continue to be one of the world's most sought-after wedding venues for years to come. 

photo: Susan Stripling

Off the hotel’s magnificent lobby is the hotel’s Two E Bar & Lounge. The small set of steps that lead down from its doors into the lounge area give guests the feeling of making a dramatic entrance into that gorgeous art deco space, just dimly lit enough to also present a hint of stylish danger- as if one would expect to see a Bond villain sipping a martini, or Veronica Lake fluttering her eyelashes over her glass of Champagne. 

photo: Brett Matthews Gallery

Through all the years and renovations, and countless guests and supremely elegant affairs, the one thing that has remained constant is the hotel’s mix of Old World New York charm and sensibilities with contemporary comforts- a brand of hospitality all its own. It’s not a hotel per se, so much as it is The Pierre. 

...the very thing Charles Pierre set out to create 95 years ago.