The Wall Street Hotel

The Wall Street Hotel opened in the summer of 2022 in the Tontine Building on Wall Street, a pearl-trading office building completed in 1901. It is an independent hotel with 180 rooms and suites, owned by Nick Paspaley and the Paspaley family, Australian pearling operators who had kept offices in the building for years. It was named the top New York City hotel in Travel + Leisure's 2023 awards.

The place

The hotel is in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, on Wall Street, in a Beaux Arts office building that had never been a hotel. The address is quoted as 82 Wall Street in some trade reports and as 88 Wall Street in others.

The hotel's own pitch is a stylish and cultural heart for the neighborhood, aimed at weekday business travel from the surrounding offices as well as leisure guests.

The concept

The Paspaleys, who operate pearl farms in northern Australia, converted the Tontine Building rather than licensing a chain brand. Actium Development was the developer. Stonehill Taylor restored the original structure and kept its early-twentieth-century character, while Rose Ink Workshop, led by creative director Liubasha Rose, designed the interiors.

The 180 guest rooms and suites range from king rooms to multi-bedroom suites, with reported sizes between 300 and 800 square feet. The design reference is a classic New York home, with a light, warm palette, velvet, marble floors, high ceilings and hand-applied finishes. Rooms carry custom furniture, shelves of books chosen for the hotel, original artwork and a handmade bar cart stocked with spirits.

Common areas include a lobby lounge, a 24-hour fitness center and a rooftop ballroom, the Gerdau Ballroom, used for events. The building's own history is part of the pitch: for decades it housed one of New York's largest pearl-import businesses, which is the family's connection to it.

Dining & wellness

La Marchande is the ground-floor restaurant, a French brasserie overseen by chef John Fraser, with Rick Horiike as executive chef. The room was designed by Charles & Co. and the menu applies French technique to ingredients from several countries.

Bar Tontine sits on the fifteenth floor, with indoor and outdoor space and views over the downtown skyline. Fraser also runs the bar program. At opening the hotel said further restaurant and bar concepts would follow.