The Chatwal Hotel (New York City, New York)

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6-story Neo-Georgian hotel originally designed by Stanford White (McKim, Mead & White) in 1905 as a clubhouse for the Lambs Club from 1905-1974. When the club relocated to its current nine-story quarters at 3 West 51st Street adjacent to Rockefeller Center, it sold its own quarters to the Church of the Nazarene which intended to use the old building as a mission in Time Square. The church leased part of the building for what would become the Off Broadway Lamb's Theatre which is not related to the Club except for the name of the building. The theater seated approximately 350 and specialized in musical productions. In 2006 the Church of the Nazarene sold the building and theater, which has been renovated by the Chatwal Hotel, opening in 2010. They operate a restaurant in the hotel and named it The Lambs Club although there is no relation between the hotel and The Lambs other than what was left of the building. The hotel has 76 guest rooms.

The Lambs Club is a social club in New York City for actors, songwriters, and others involved in the theater. It is America's oldest theatrical organization, founded in 1868 in London, and in the U.S. in 1874. The club's halls and rooms were home over the years to such members as the Barrymores (except Ethel), Irving Berlin, Cecil B. DeMille, David Belasco, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Ridgard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Fred Astaire, George M. Cohan, Spencer Tracy and thousands of others.

The building had an extension added in 1915 by architect George A. Freeman that matched the original facade and doubled the width of the building. The facade is clad in dark-red brick and white marble with cream-colored terra-cotta ornament. The ground floor is faced with smooth marble surmounted by an attractive band course containing a Greek-fret motif. Identical doorways with Doric columns support full entablatures and accent the two entrances. There are three windows between the entrances, and one at each end, with keystones and wrought-iron grilles. A wrought-iron fence with gilded cresting and lampposts at the ends shields a stairway to the basement entrance in the center. Both of the entrances have rounded, black canvas canopies extending out over the sidewalk; the eastern one has lettering for The Chatwal New York hotel, and the western one for The Lambs Club restaurant and bar.

The upper floors are clad in brick and are flanked by stone quoins. At the 2nd floor, graceful loggias with French windows and wrought-iron balcony railings provide light for the principal rooms, and the windows are separated by paired Ionic columns. Ornamental terra-cotta pilasters flank the ends of the loggias. A continuous entablature with foliate frieze surmounts the loggias.

Round-arched windows at the 3rd floor (three on each side) have brick arches with terra-cotta keystones and impost blocks. Stylized lambs' heads are set between the spandrels of the arches. A flagpole projects from the center of the 3rd floor. The flat splayed arches of the 4th-floor windows have similar lambs' heads above the keystones. A large centrally placed wall plaque surmounted by a cartouche, flanked by figures of lambs, gives further emphasis to the special nature of this building. A bold projecting cornice surmounts the 5th floor, which has smaller windows between paneled piers, and a classical attic with cornice above the 6th floor is crowned by a roof balustrade, topped by a central, large cartouche that rises above the balustrade. There is now a rooftop deck for the hotel.

www.thechatwalny.com/
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