Kyle.831: A Former Resident's Chelsea Experience Inspires a Fragrance

Kyle Taylor lived down the hall from us in 831, a part of Thomas Wolfe's old suite, from 2000 to 2004.  While at the hotel he returned to his creative roots in fashion and is currently in development on a line he designed while living in 831 that will debut along with the fragrance.  In addition to fashion, the Chelsea inspired a series of paintings that will be presented in a solo show this spring and three chapters of a book on his father and a serious pot habit.  Kyle was transformed by his time at the Chelsea and says that it is the only truely accepting home he has known as at adult.

Kyle.831
It was intimidating, the hotel, not due to its colorful history or famous artist or infamous events or even its shabby condition.  When I entered the lobby for the first time a powerful energy seemed to slap me in the face as though hundreds of voices were speaking simultaneously, beckoning me in with wary curiosity.  They emanated from the strange paintings on the walls and the dusty sculptures and the worn white marble floor and reverberated off the thirty-foot ceiling.  I don't know what they were saying, but these were not your typical run-of-the-mill spirits.  I felt an uneasy excitement, as if I was a child breaking the most tempting rule for the first time.

Although I had lived in New York for ten years, I knew little of the Chelsea Hotel.  I had passed its stunning Victorian Gothic façade with wrought iron balconies and tall windows on 23rd Street many times with great curiosity, but never bothered to investigate.  One day, while looking for a new apartment, I was compelled to inquire about long-term rentals.  I called and was told, "Yes, they rent by the month. You will have to stop by and speak to the manager, Mr. Bard." 

After the initial shock of the lobby, I walked to the mahogany front desk at the far end and asked for the manager.  A handsome, slightly built and impeccably dressed man in his early 60's appeared from a large door.  He confidently told me that I was in the "most famous hotel in the world" and ticked of the names of numerous current and former residents, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur Miller, Ethan Hawke, Madonna, Hendrix, Maplethorpe, Pollock, Rivers, Twain.  He explained that every room was different and asked what I was looking for.  I wanted a room on the front with a balcony.  "They are very expensive" he retorted, "I will show you a wonderful room on the fourth floor, it has air conditioning", something I assumed they all would have.

He grabbed a key from behind the desk and spirited me up the stairwell.  Although, the hotel has elevators, I assume Mr. Bard wanted me get the full effect of the Chelsea Hotel experience.  The gently slopping brownstone stairway is the center core of the building. The rooms are down wide, white marble floored hallways off either side.  On the backside of the stairway the high walls were adorned with artwork that was oddly mismatched and randomly hung with little thought.  On the front side was a heavy decorative wrought iron railing with a wood and brass handrail.  The walls appeared to have hundreds of coats of paint in colors that reminded me of a 1950's nursing home: pastel greens and blues that had no relationship to the style or period of the building.  Old wiring was exposed along the wide heavily painted molding and turn of the century fire hoses hung coiled behind small glass doors stenciled with the word "fire" in red paint.

I was mesmerized; I had been nowhere so utterly unique and oddly authentic.  As I was lead down the fourth floor hallway, I realized the hotel had a distinctive aroma.  A sort of musk that I have since discovered is also unique to the Chelsea Hotel; a blend that combines the subtle lingering undertones of the century old wrought iron and marble with hints of painting oils and a distinct overtone of the artist's favorite creative stimulant.  An intoxicating scent that I have had recreated in my pheromonic fragrance, Kyle. 831.

I did not take the room that day, and it would be two years before I would return to live at the Chelsea.  But all my senses had been awoken with the sights, sounds and smells of "the most famous hotel in the world".
Kyle. 831