Let’s talk about Stephen Starr’s new Atlantic City hotel. The Chelsea is scheduled to open this summer with two Stephen Starr restaurants, a 7500 square-foot spa and a 15,000 square-foot pool. Locationwise, it’s across the street from both the Tropicana and Caesars. But what really interests us is the Paul Sevigny connection.
In New York, Paul (aka Chloe Sevigny’s brother) runs popular celeb hangout the Beatrice Inn. But this morning, we woke up to find — in our inbox — news that Sevigny and partner Matt Ambramcyk have teamed up with Starr to oversee the hotel’s nightlife. Here’s the good word according to developer Curtis Bashaw:
“It will be SoHo House-y […] All on the fifth floor, you’ll have a library, a game room, an oval-shaped bar and a Stephen Starr restaurant, which connect like a big house and spill out onto an enormous pool deck.”
In other words, they’re going straight for the heart of the SoHo House/Beatrice Inn demographic. It’s an ungainly mix of minor European nobility, new media titans, indie rock royalty and assorted Olsen twins hangers-on. New York nightlife blog Down by the Hipster seems kind of doubtful about it, but our local friends at The Illadelph are a bit more positive.
The question remains: Can Atlantic City attract the kind of crowd that would rather spend their time cajoling free drinks/scenestering around Nolita or Echo Park lounges than gamble at the Taj Mahal? We’ll see.
The Chelsea [Official Site]
SoHo Meets HoJo in Atlantic City [NY Times]
