GETAWAYS • Upstate
Next week, after a five-year renovation of a vacant pocketbook factory, the 46-room, multi-hyphenate Pocketbook Hudson hotel will open a few blocks off Warren St. It’s destined for every list of Upstate getaways. But it’s a gift for full-time Hudson residents like me, too.
The main floor, the social hub of the hotel, is outfitted with red leather couches and metal chain curtains along with a massive bar. There’s a cafe-style menu by day, and drinks with bites at night. The lobby overflows into the new restaurant Ambros, which serves Argentinian-inspired food with open-fire cooking techniques.
Rooms feature high loft-style ceilings, exposed brick, and simple furniture, with industrial touches like in-room stainless steel tubs and custom metal mirrors straight out of a futuristic dentist’s office. Oversized accents make standard rooms feel larger than they are. The walls are filled with modern art and there are colorful details throughout, like geometric-print Eckhaus Latta robes in every room and the giant water-park-inspired sink in the lobby bathroom.
The adaptive reuse project is one of the largest undertakings of its kind in Hudson, the work of a group of local hospitality veterans and interior design/architecture firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero. In addition to rooms, almost half the hotel’s footprint is retail and gallery spaces, serving as the new storefront for the high-end boutique Kasuri, and the new SHOW : ROOM, a 6500-square-foot homeware and design space for curated vintage goods and exclusive retail spaces for brands like Zak & Fox.
In a few months, a bathhouse and rooms for spa services will open in the building once used for factory storage. Continuing to defy all small-town hospitality expectations, there’s a club on the first floor, which will host events and rotating DJs. With street-level windows and concrete walls, there are not-so-subtle influences of a Berlin nightclub. Try as it might, it’s unlikely Pocketbook will become Berghain. But in a town full of hotels catering to leaf-peepers and summer interlopers, it’s bringing something fresh and new. I’ll take it. –Sylvie Florman
→ Pocketbook Hudson (Hudson, NY) • 549 Washington St • Rooms from $379.