WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LIVING. By John F. Bailey. Part 1 of 2. December 14, 2007:
Have you seen the well-to-do
Up and down Renaissance Square
On that soon-to-be-famous thoroughfare
With their bluetooths in their ear?
Why don’t you go where leaders take the reins
Openin’ the Ritz in White Plains!
The distinguished members of the press will be getting a first look at the Ritz-Carlton Westchester Tuesday (at 11 AM, moved up in time) at a pre-opening party for the entire new staff of the hotel when the throng of 400 or so employees assemble for a group photo. Then they will be piped in to the hotel by the Police Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Corps. In the Grand Ballroom Louis Cappelli the Super Developer will present the key to the hotel to General Manager of the Hotel, Jacqueline Sanders.
The following night, December 19, the R-C will have its official Ribbon Cutting with remarks by Simon Cooper, head of Ritz-Carlton Worldwide, Louis Cappelli, Mayor Joseph Delfino, and others. The employee party is a prelude to the invitation-only reception for 600 guests that will most likely be a demonstration of the hotel’s Grand Ballroom.
WPCNR took a look two weeks ago with Geoffrey Thompson of Thompson & Bender, who took us on a pre-opening tour.
It's not a hotel. It's a Ritz.
A Ritz is of another era of service and style done in such a proper way reminiscent of the Waldorf Astoria in New York, the Parker House in Boston and The Palmer House in Chicago.
The Ritz-Carlton Westchester, based on two pre-opening tours taken by this reporter, is creating a different world in White Plains that touches the clouds and puts you on one for a night. It is an ode to the "feel" of the world of the luxury liners that plied the Atlantic one hundred years ago, but a contemporary touch.
The minute you walk in the place, it's a venue of distinction! Doublepane crystal clear glass from floor to ceiling of ever so right blue hue cuddle you, shroud you from the stress, squeal, honk and inconvenience of real White Plains, creating a sensuous quiet similar to the interior of a theater, anticpating a performance. As a guest the Ritz performance features you as the star. The cast caters to you.
The Ritz-Carlton Westchester will be where the globetrotters, the connected and the go to’s have their nearly every whim and fancy catered to by a staff there to please them.
In five days, it will welcome the guests who expect the highest standards -- where you are never more than five feet away from refreshment, food, pleasure 24/7. The Ritz-Carlton never sleeps in its mission to cater to a guest (never a customer).
Teaching The Ritz Way: Jacqueline Sanders, GM of the Hotel
Jacqueline Sanders, General Manager of the Ritz-Carlton Westchester has been supervising the hiring, training and the upgrading of a regiment of 400 odd valets, masseurs and masseuses, cleaners, cooks, servers, concierges, spa attendants, stylists, manicurists, vendors, go-fors and facilitators of frills instilling them with The Ritz-Carlton way. She decided all the hires herself, with aid of a screening service going through all the background checks. Her staff is in place. When we met her she was hiring for BLT Steak, the hotel's restaurant.
There's one difference. She has to teach them the Ritz Way.
Ms Sanders managed The Ritz-Carlton on Central Park West before taking the Ritz-Carlton Westchester G.M. position . She told the CitizeNetReporter the biggest challenge is instilling the dedication to service, gentility, and congeniality of service in their new employees as she and her other managers prepare the staff to receive and serve the demands of the discriminating Ritz-Carlton guest.
Ms. Sanders took this reporter behind the scenes of the new White Plains Ritz-Carlton Westchester where the hotel is getting ready to receive its first guests.
Just Drop off the Keys and Pick them up on your way out.
The Ritz-Carlton Westchester By Night.
The Renaissance Square boulevard created expressly for the Ritz entry is wide and there are three cobble stone lanes for dropping off your Mercedes, limousine, or Corolla for parking. You do not get to park your own car. A valet comes up and takes your key (and they can drive a stick shift). Persons living in the Ritz condominiums enter the Ritz-Carlton Residences tower to the right of the hotel entrance into their own chandelier-presided foyer.
The grand entrance of The Hotel is under the silver marquee. Ritz-Carltons do not have lobbies. The entry of the hotel and corridors will have no signage, and consist of a formal broad hall furnished in warm chocolatey Anegre paneling, a medium brown wood that has a muted tiger-stripe encases the grand stairway and ballroom corridors. The inviting paneling flanks an unpretentious main desk with two shaded lamps. No scripted Ritz logos, no sign of high-tech computers.
You will know you are in the Ritz-Carlton Westchester because it does not feel like a business, nothing so crass as the click, click and whir of a computer to disturb. I did not hear the phones ring. The wide foyer when I was there two weeks ago was occupied with over 50 applicants for positions at BLT Steak, the house restaurant which will furnish all food and drink to the hotel, as well as serving the public, I would imagine some other furnishings will be in the entrance opening night.
A floating elliptical ceiling runs the entire lobby of the hotel in genuine burnished-on silver leaf. Mirrored below is a floor pattern made of nattages limestone from France accented with three varieties of granites: black, blue pearl, and translucent grey French Savoy – the better to click stiletto heels upon.
A Notch Tastefully Below Over-the-top
Everything you see takes a discreet step back from the razor edge of glitzy taste, choosing understated artful elegance over Vegas over-the-top rococo, from the posh public spaces to intimate room settings. The Ritz-Carlton Westchester has been custom designed by the small, highly specialized interior design firm, Frank Nicholson Incorporated of Concord, MA, which focuses exclusively on luxury hotel development. Now – there’s a niche!
Departing the registration desk, your bags will be in the hands of a valet, (you do not have to touch a bag once you enter the R-C I presume), you may be distracted on your right to the sunken lounge with the waist-high black marble-trimmed fireplace in its center. The “conversation squares” of settees and easy chairs, perhaps to wait for a client or colleagues. You’ll walk on thick wool carpets custom-designed by the Nicholson firm – exclusive to The Ritz-Carlton, Westchester – all 100% wool carpeting, hand-woven in the Far East from 20 to 30 specially dyed-to-order colors – the Ritz hue as it were.
A Throw back Made New.
In the days of old, relaxation in hotel lounges was a feature of the old time elegant dowager hotels of yesteryear. The Ritz brings this back.
Guests can order refreshments from the lounge area and conduct conversations with a view of the arrivals pulling up front. Since the sweep of the hotel entrance faces the West, guests may watch the sunset during cocktail hour – and every hour is cocktail hour at the Ritz. After all if you have just flown in from Istanbul it is cocktail hour at 10 AM.
The Ritz lounge is spacious with comfortable couches and low settees, “hand-drawn art, designed then fashioned by hand using exception veneers including maccassar ebony (a black-brown wood with a tiger-striped effect) and sappelli – a blond wood.” When I toured the Ritz backstage (before opening) the lounge was chock-a-block with furniture, boxes, and workers (all dressed quite neatly), but it still radiated warmth, comfort and forcefulness of purpose that would meet a captain or diva of industry’s standards as fitting for them to relax in – a neutral venue for common ground.
Special Events
Ms. Sanders said the Ritz would be holding social events in the lobby such as Sushi nights on Thursdays, wine tastings, perhaps and that she planned other engaging events to weave the Ritz into the social fabric of White Plains society.
My guide “Mr. Buzz,” Geoffrey “Think-of-everything-leave-no-angle-behind” Thompson of the crack Thompson & Bender agency, and I ascended the circular “signature staircase” reminiscent of the grand staircases of the luxury liners of the past that whisks you to the second deck of the Ritz. You do not even feel like you’re walking.
The Grand Staircase -- another signature feature of Ritz's the world over -- is paneled in the signature dark chocolate wood with marbled circular walls leading up to the understated elegant “meet, mingle and greet” area for the Ritz-Carlton ballroom. Partiers, event-planners and corporate entertainers will find this a splendid venue for staging as it overlooks an above-the street view of the White Plains horizon to the west.
The view out the panorama windows does not compare in contrast to the views on the top floors of the 11-story hotel and the 42-story tower residences above but is still impressive. The reception area adjacent the ballroom is a wide open space and not in the least claustrophobic. It sprawls languidly out to the edge of the hotel’s glass panorama mezzanine above Renaissance Square, putting guests on a plain above. It is where entertainment should be conducted.
Dance Card Filling Up
The 500-person capacity ballroom can be divided by soundproof visually compatible walls – shielding your corporate or social gathering off from simultaneous events.
The ballroom pommele wood paneling is a dark mahogany color. A cross pattern carpet of mocha and cream wafts you as you walk upon it. Adjacent and across a wide carpeted hall to the center ball room are six individual specious meeting rooms fully technology equipped with state of the art communications for corporate or community use.
The ballroom ceiling is high and does not press you in. There is no view of the outside from the ballroom. But you are able to enjoy views of White Plains about 100 feet off street level from the airy reception area previously described.
Ms. Sanders said there would be specialty shops adjacent to the spa on the tenth floor, and that the ballroom had a private room for brides and members of the wedding party to freshen up before receptions. There is also a beauty salon adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton Westchester Spa which will be under the supervision of the Stylist of the Stars, Sierra Shore who is depended upon for creating the coiffly-correct looks of Westchester celebrities.
Word of the versatility of the Ballroom has already resulted in The Ritz-Carlton ballroom having over a third of its ballroom events already booked for 2008. Ms. Sanders is currently booking 2009-2010. Sanders is pleased at the respons. The Westchester Arts Council will be holding their annual gala at the Ritz-Carlton Westchester.
BLT 24-7
As we slipped behind the scenes of the Ritz, my guide lead me to the spacious kitchen of BLT Steak – gleaming with stainless steel – abustle with cooks being apprenticed in the BLT way that morning. They were cooking sample dishes under the supervision of a BLT quality control chef. BLT Steak and technological nerve centers of the Ritz – which though bustling with noise – you did not hear the noise in the public areas of the hotel.
BLT Steak is located in many Ritz-Carltons and, in White Plains will serve as the 24 hour a day food and beverage purveyor to the Ritz guests as well as the residents of the Ritz towers.
(The 42 Restaurant located spectacularly off Spire One of the Ritz Carlton Westchester, will be open to the public and will be operated separately from the Ritz. More on “42” tomorrow).
According to the Ritz-Carlton website, http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/Westchester , "Laurent Tourondel's acclaimed BLT Steak is a reinvention of the classic American steakhouse, specializing in aged, perfectly prepared meats; fresh seafood such as broiled Maine lobster, delicate Dover sole and spiced swordfish; and a mouthwatering assortment signature side dishes, from delicate potato gratin to earthy sautéed hen of the woods mushrooms. BLT Steak's famed "blackboard specials" highlight seasonal flavors and ingredients."
Chef Laurent Tourondel. Courtesy, Thompson & Bender
BLT, which stands for "Bistro Laurent Tourondel," has redefined steakhouse dining with its modern décor and infusion of classic French techniques. The restaurant integrates traditional elements of a cozy French Bistro with those of a stylish, urbane boite. A palette of chocolate browns and golden ambient lighting suggests comfort and luxury. The eye-catching bar at the front of the restaurant features toffee-colored bar stools, while the relaxed dining room combines Macassar ebony tables, deep caramel-colored banquettes and walnut floors to create warmth amid modernity.
BLT Steak a street level eating emporium on Main Street, (you cannot call it simply a restaurant). The rich darkfloored interior is an alive place – even now. It has a long dark-hued bar that will obviously become a discreet hip meeting place. Its floor which blends with your Bostonians, gleams in a rich brown finish but with a distinctly urban veneer. Oblong chicly sleek lights – reed thin like Versace models -- suspend from the lofty ceiling on cords unobstrusively “just right” over marbled black tables.
The “place to be” will be the 75 foot long banquette of cushioned seating from where you and your squeeze will view the “well-to-do” promenading down Renaissance Square. BLT Steak has a private room for parties, too, and the sprawling complex on Main Street seats about 200. The atmosphere impeccable. The visual, exciting. The food expensive and with a high, proven caliber.
Geoffrey Thompson, standing in the Reception Hall of The Ritz-Carlton Residences. This gives you an idea of the Ritz-Carlton world. WPCNR could not take photographs of the actual hotel interior.
Next, we'll take a look at the Spa and the 42 Restaurant.
Parody of Puttin' on the Ritz, (c) Irving Berlin Estate.
