The St. Regis New York: John Jacob Astor’s Fifth Avenue Hotel
Exterior photograph by Motn, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0
John Jacob Astor built the St. Regis to be quieter than the city's biggest luxury hotels, though its limestone facade was anything but modest. At Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, the nineteen-story hotel offered another version of fashionable New York: a smaller, more private address in a Beaux-Arts tower.
Astor commissioned Trowbridge & Livingston to design it. Construction ran from 1901 to 1904. According to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the hotel answered a growing appetite for a more exclusive alternative to the vast Waldorf-Astoria. Its Fifth Avenue front is five bays wide; the lower stories are deeply rusticated, while the upper floors climb toward a copper-clad mansard roof.
The St. Regis Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, 1905. Irving Underhill, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
The hotel was modern under the formal stonework. The landmark report describes a building fitted with the advanced hotel services of its day. That contrast is part of its character: a French-inspired facade made for New York's emerging hotel skyscraper.
In 1927, Sloan & Robertson designed an addition on East 55th Street. The expansion extended the hotel without flattening its old Fifth Avenue identity. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated its exterior in 1988, citing its place among the city's earliest skyscraper hotels.
A reception room at the St. Regis in an early photograph. Bain News Service, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Who owns the St. Regis New York today?
Qatar Investment Authority bought the hotel from a Marriott subsidiary in 2019. Marriott's SEC filing said it would continue to operate the St. Regis under a long-term management agreement. The hotel remains a working Fifth Avenue address, with the old stone exterior still framing its present-day rooms and public spaces.
The ballroom in December 2025. Photograph by Epicgenius, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
A first-floor hall in December 2025. Photograph by Epicgenius, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources
- NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, St. Regis Hotel designation report (1988)
- Marriott International, Form 8-K (October 31, 2019)
- St Regis New York Dec 2025 01.jpg (image: Epicgenius, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- St Regis New York Dec 2025 04.jpg (image: Epicgenius, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- St. Regis Hotel, 5th Ave. & 55th St. LCCN2001697056.jpg (image: Underhill, Irving, -1960, photographer, Public domain)
- St. Regis Hotel- Reception room LCCN2014681361.jpg (image: Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain)
- 1910 Hotel St. Regis advertisement.png (image: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain)
- St. Regis Hotel, Manhattan, New York City.jpg (image: Motn, CC BY 3.0)
