Out with Trump, in with Astor at downtown hotel
Some 106 years after he took a dunk off the Titanic, John Jacob Astor IV finally has a pad in Toronto. The great-grandson of a man who made a fortune in beaver pelts and opium — and whose familial boom led to him being the richest man by far on the storied sinking ship — was, as it happens, also the man who sired the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. This week, the world-travelled brand offi
cially opened an outpost in Canada and, with it, a penthouse named in Astor’s
honour.
That’s right. It’s out with the Trumps, in with the Astors.
Consider, if you recall, that the new gussied- up hotel, at the corner of Bay and Adelaide Sts., was where T-R-UM-P once loomed and — like a pimple popping atop the skyline — where the sign came down more than a year ago. With one now-notorious family brand being vanquished, and the vestiges of another being summoned, I thought it would be fun to investigate the latter. The Astors, or what is left of them, have nothing to do with the hotel brand now. Vincent Astor, the son of John Jacob IV, sold the original hotel and name rights decades ago, and his grandmother, Caroline Astor — the grande dame of the gilded age — would have bristled at the very use of the word “brand,” let’s be real. And yet the history of the family is fully imbued into the DNA of any St. Regis, complete with “rituals” that they began still going.
To New York! To 55th St., near Madison Ave., to be exact.
Making a quick trip to the American metropolis earlier this month, I got a
further grip on the St. Regis story.
“That is a functioning mailbox,” my guide beamed, as we stopped at the beginning of a tour, in the hotel lobby, and I gaped at the most ornamental gold chute I have ever seen. There since the opening of the hotel in 1904, it sits on a wall, topped with an open-winged, equally gold eagle. Gimme, gimme: snail mail.
It is not the only thing that has been meticulously maintained. The lobby, with its frescoed ceilings and its intimate, salon-like feel, is a time-capsule unto itself: a model of Beaux-Arts inspiration. See, too: the thousands of leather-bound books that Mr. Astor collected, which have been preserved on the original bookshelves in the hotel.
The ghosts of all the fabulousities who passed through the place still flock: everyone from Salvador Dali (who lived in the hotel every fall and winter for a seven-year stretch) to Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio (who once had the stormiest of fights in one of its suites). From Vidal Sassoon to Alfred Hitchcock: welcome, all.
“And this is the famous King Cole bar,” the guide announced, as we went further into the entrails of the hotel, arriving at the bolt that is most famous for two things: one, the place where the Bloody Mary was invented; two, the home of a world famous, kind of naughty Maxfield Parrish mural.
Taking in the mesmerizing mural — the backdrop for any number of high-stakes trysts, over the decades, no doubt — I was as impressed to be reminded that, in the reels of recent movie history, this is also where Andy in The Devil Wears Prada goes to meet her friend, Christian, to pick up a copy of the not-out-yet Harry Potter manuscript, after being commanded to do so by her lady-boss, Miranda Priestley. Good times. But back to Astor: despite opening a hotel once seen as an exemplar of opulence, with a cost estimated at $5.5 million (unheard of then), a height that made it the tallest in town (18 storeys) and game-changing features that were nothing if not unusual for the time (telephones in every room), his death would be his ultimate defining legacy. Funny how that happens.
Having boarded the Titanic in 1912 with his new 19-year-old bride, Madeleine — shocking New York when John Jacob IV abandoned his wife for her — they settled into a first-class room with a manservant, maid, nurse and their dog, Kitty. The last time he was spotted? Seen smoking a cigar on the deck, having sent off his wife (who was pregnant at the time) in a lifeboat. In the end, when Astor was pulled from the seas — one of only 333 bodies ever recovered, IDed by the initials sewn into his jacket — the infamy was complete.
You can toast the poor chap at the “champagne sabring” that is an evening ritual in any St. Regis hotel (now part of the Starwood hotel group) in any part of the world and will unfold in Toronto each night.
While you are it, you can also toast the daughter-in-law he never met, Brooke Astor, who rescued the Astor name from ignominy and, in her signature white gloves, made it purr again. Before dying in 2007 at age 105 she had, for decades, raised more money for New York City charities than any single person.
Add to that, a proper afternoon tea, set to happen Saturdays and Sundays at the new hotel (an Astor hand-medown). Also, intriguingly, a “Midnight Supper”: a St. Regis tradition that takes place once or twice a year and is an homage to original matriarch Caroline Astor, who was the gatekeeper to the elite back in the day and whose own handpicked late-night gatherings (often following nights at the opera) were known then as the “Astor 400.”
The Toronto hotel will have its first version of the party on Dec 11, this one hosted by celebrated fashion designer Jason Wu.
Caroline, by the way, has a suite named after her, too, at the new hotel, not far from the equally grand one named after her son.
Yet another nod to the past and a way of sending the one message that counted when the Toronto tower made its makeover official: Make Astor Great Again.