—by Freya Herring
In a city that never stops changing, New York’s restored Waldorf Astoria offers something radical: less intervention, more preservation, and a deep respect for architectural heritage
Few hotels carry the weight of New York legend like the Waldorf Astoria. After a seven-year closure, it has reopened under the passionate guidance of French interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon—and his passion for the project is unmistakable. “The building itself was the main inspiration,” Rochon says. “It doesn’t need decoration; it speaks on its own. The proportions, the rhythm, the materials, the Art Deco vocabulary—all of that was already present.”
Of course, this isn’t Rochon’s first rodeo—he has been responsible for reimagining many of the world’s great hotels, including Paris’ George V, The Savoy in London and The Peninsula in Shanghai. His history with this particular hotel heavyweight, though, spans decades. “My wife and I stayed at the Waldorf Astoria more than 30 years ago,” he says. “I remember walking through the hotel and saying to her, ‘One day, I would love to redesign this place.’ And years later, the opportunity came.”
The hotel, which dates back to 1893, was demolished in 1929 to make way for the Empire State Building before reopening in its current Park Avenue incarnation in 1931 in a flurry of Art Deco flamboyance. Many illustrious decades followed, with guests from Queen Elizabeth II and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra (who also lived there for several years) passing through its bronze-edged doors. By the 2010s the interior had grown tired, and in 2017 the hotel closed for refurbishment. Enter, Rochon.
“My wife and I stayed at the Waldorf Astoria more than 30 years ago. I remember walking through the hotel and saying to her, ‘One day, I would love to redesign this place.’”
“At the time of the renovation, the hotel was closed, of course, but its spirit was still very present,” Rochon notes. “It was a sleeping monument. You could feel the power of its past—the scale, the Art Deco geometry, the energy of New York in the 1930s. What we did was not invent something new; we brought comfort to what was already there. The architecture was already doing its job beautifully.”
The makeover of the Waldorf Astoria has been a labour of love. “The goal was to make it whole again,” Rochon emphasises. “And in a way, more honest— because comfort today is not the same as in the 1930s.” This objective was achieved through careful planning and a profound appreciation for the building’s original form.
“This kind of building doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the city. You’re just a caretaker, really,” he observes. “There was a sense of responsibility in restoring it with care and precision. Our role was not to reinterpret or overdesign—it was to let the building breathe again, and to bring back its original dignity with today’s standards of comfort.”
Luxury, through the Rochon lens, is not about decadence or extravagance. “Modern luxury is invisible,” he states. “It’s silence, comfort, discretion. Those things can—and must—be integrated into a historic building, but in a way that never disturbs its essence.”
The hotel’s new iteration is a triumph of quiet luxury, with a palette of materials and tones that highlight and celebrate its 1930s heritage.
“The clock in the lobby remains exactly as it was,” notes Rochon. “There are also the main doors, the historic entrances, the mosaics in the floor—these elements are part of the collective memory. We didn’t need to reinvent them. We needed to care for them.” This meticulous care is evident in details like the lobby clock restoration, on which a team comprising a master metalsmith, clockmaker and four conservators worked for almost a year, painstakingly restoring each component.
01 The hotel’s fresco-lined silver corridor.
02 Cole Porter’s vintage Steinway piano takes centre stage in the glamorous Peacock Bar, set within the hotel’s soaring atrium.
“We worked with preservation teams, with artisans, and above all, with the [hotel’s] history,” Rochon explains. “Every time we touched something, we asked, ‘Can we conserve it? Can we repair it? And if we must replace, how do we do it respectfully?’” The process was laborious, but for a building with such significance, it was also a vital endeavour. “There were many challenges, but we took the time. You don’t rush a building like this,” he maintains. “It’s like restoring a piece of music—every note matters.”
Sweeping changes converted the hotel from 1400 guest rooms to 375, with the smallest room measuring twice the size of the hotel’s original rooms. There are also 372 privately owned condominium residences designed by Jean-Louis Deniot on the upper floors. “Many of the structural elements couldn’t be touched. We had to respect the historic envelope, while also introducing entirely new functions and layouts,” Rochon explains. “On the Park Avenue side, for instance, there were split levels and odd transitions that made orientation difficult. We had to find a new spatial logic within a protected shell. Another challenge was daylight, or the lack of it, in certain areas.” In response, a mezzanine was removed to bring back natural light that had been lost for decades, an entirely new lobby was created, and the ground floor sequence was reordered. “It’s not just about aesthetics,” insists Rochon, “it’s about restoring logic and clarity to the flow of the space.”
The sense of clarity extends into the hotel’s colour palette, which is often pared-back and almost celestially pale. In a relentlessly loud and hectic city like New York, it’s an approach that feels like a welcome tonic to the fray. The bedrooms encapsulate this—soft, tactile fabrics that both soothe the spirit and muffle the noise, a prominence of cream and white tones, and decor that is both minimal and considered. As with much of Rochon’s oeuvre, there is the sense, if not the reality, of diamonds— glittery moments flickering in the light. Like a diamond’s cut, the design appears simple from a distance but upon closer inspection reveals the rich detail and craftsmanship it took to shape it.
The hotel’s Silver Corridor and Grand Ballroom have been restored to their magnificent states, but the newly reinstated Peacock Alley offers a moody contrast—dark and richly textured with maple burl wood panelling, blue carpets and ornate ceilings. Stretching from Park to Lexington Avenue, it is named after the fabled corridor which linked the former Waldorf and Astoria hotels after they merged in 1897. Back then, patrons would promenade between the buildings, ‘peacocking’ the latest fashions and establishing themselves as New York’s most fashionable set in doing so.
Its new manifestation honours the original by reintroducing materials from the initial designs, such as Portoro marble. “It’s a rich black marble with golden veins, typical of the 1930s,” Rochon says. “It gives a sense of rooted elegance.” Facets that couldn’t be saved were sympathetically replaced. “We couldn’t save the original carpet in Peacock Alley,” he explains. “We created a new carpet as a reinterpretation, drawing from archival motifs.”
Historic pieces take pride of place: a clock commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1893, and the grand piano gifted by Cole Porter, who lived at the hotel for some three decades. Bronze accents, too, were brought back. “Always with a patina; never shiny,” notes Rochon. “This project was less about introducing new materials than about restoring existing ones. The soul of the Waldorf Astoria was already there, we just helped it re-emerge.”
Rochon hopes that this approach could mark a way forward for future grand hotel renovation. “We don’t need to constantly invent,” he says. “Sometimes, the most powerful gesture is to listen to the building, to trust its original language, and bring it into the present with precision. That kind of integrity, I think it’s what guests are looking for now. Not noise, not novelty—but truth.” 05 Living room space of guest suite with Park Avenue view.
The Waldorf Astoria will make its Australian debut in Sydney in late 2026.