The Hotel Chelsea bills itself as “a rest stop for rare individuals.” The idiosyncratic hotel, which has been home to Mark Twain, Sarah Bernhardt, and Dylan Thomas among others, serves both long-term residents and short-term guests, and business is booming.
“We’re the busiest small hotel in the city,” Chelsea manager and owner Stanley Bard told me. “The whole world knows about us.”
The hotel, which was built in 1884 as a cooperative apartment complex, entered the 21st century a year ago. That’s when long-term residents Debbie Martin and Ed Hamilton began working on Living with Legends, a blog about the Chelsea’s past and present. Now, that blog is bringing the hotel even more attention.
“I don’t know whether I want blogs or logs or what I’ve got here,” said Bard. “I just want nice people to come and stay at this hotel.”
And while the venue is absolutely turning a profit, it’s not a marketing plan that makes it so successful. It’s the dedicated following, the characters and the history that keep people coming back. That’s why a blog is perfect for an establishment such as this.
And in this case, it’s probably even better for the Chelsea that the blog isn’t an official piece of the hotel’s business puzzle. Bard couldn’t have dreamed up a better marketing plan if he’d tried. After all, it’s the residents that make the Chelsea unique in all the world.
Via Gridskipper.
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Oliver 07.31.06 at 12:08 am
I found the “living with legends” blog interesting at first, who doesn’t want to know more about the people living at the hotel but, man, these people are not cool! I think they should rename it “living off legends”