Be Their Guest

December 6, 2012

White-walled guest rooms are cozy and bright, with feather-soft beds and light streaming through wide windows. Meanderers stroll around the lobby, stopping to check their email on a central computer or read complementary copies of The New York Times and the Yale Daily News in a leather lounge chair. The attached restaurant, Heirloom, is one of New Haven’s most popular, known for its locally sourced farm-fresh food, and those who appreciate a good cocktail can find kinship with a knowledgeable bartender at the bar or a small group of friends around a low candlelit table nearby.

Still, for me, the Study at Yale’s most compelling aspect is less about the facilities and more about the feeling.

sponsored by

When I enter and approach the front desk, ready to introduce myself and inquire about writing this story, I’m stopped mid-sentence. “It’s Nora’s mom!” one of the women exclaims. Despite the constant turnover inherent to the hotel business, they remembered me from several months back, when I visited family staying there. My young daughter, screaming gleefully, had scampered from the lobby to the hostess stand at the restaurant about a million times while the friendly staff—to my relief—looked on with laughter.

“How are the kids?” asks Felicia Puccino, the Front Office Manager. “You have two now, right?” Right.

The hotel opened in 2008, making it downtown New Haven’s newest (joining The Omni, Courtyard by Marriott and New Haven Hotel). Despite its youth, or maybe because of it, the place is comfortable enough with its class to get a little clever. Bellmen, for example, wear collegiate attire: rugby shirts and baseball caps.

The uniforms still echo the, well, studious theme of the establishment, and they’re not alone. A sculpted pair of oversized eyeglasses adorns the front steps, and tall bookshelves in the sitting area house a collection of literature, non-fiction and large art books, including works penned and donated by hotel guests.

Those guests often enough vary between Connecticut natives looking for a “night away” to the occasional celebrity cast member in town for a stage production (keep your eyes peeled).

Yet the mainstays revolve around Yale, says Director of Operations Anthony Moir. This makes sense, as the Chapel Street hotel is within walking distance to campus, as well as dozens of restaurants and boutiques. Regulars include visiting professors, alumni and Yale parents; indeed, the staff can become quite friendly with families of Yale undergrads over their four-year college careers, bookended by freshman orientations and commencements.

As for the hotel’s 124 guest rooms, in addition to the basics, there are eight larger “studies” and one presidential suite, all including a leather reading chair and work area. Rates, of course, depend on date and room type, from around $150 to upwards of $350, with special promotions and packages available, including a “Yale Repertory Package,” which gets you into an opening night performance as well as the afterparty with cast and crew.

If you prefer to wait until after you’ve booked your rooms before deciding which of New Haven’s many diversions to pursue, staffers—who take walking tours to study the Yale campus and city as part of their training—are ready to offer suggestions or secure reservations or tickets. Especially to Yale athletic events: in addition to their relationship with the Rep, I’m told the Study’s got an inside track to Bulldogs tickets.

The Study’s engagement with the community extends beyond the front desk, though. It works with non-profit literacy group New Haven Reads, planning an annual breakfast with Santa for children enrolled in the program; the children, in turn, design the holiday cards that the hotel sends to clientele and sells in the lobby (with all of the proceeds benefitting NHR).

And be sure to check out their Aisling Gallery. Displayed works come courtesy of the Yale Art School, located directly across the street. Director of Operations Moir personally peruses the school’s halls on a regularly basis, choosing a different student to feature every six to eight weeks. Artists are given a reception for 50 people and a valuable opportunity to sell their work.

“We don’t think of this as a hotel where you stay and then you leave,” says Moir of the overall philosophy. “We really wanted to be a cultural platform.”

Of course, if you want nothing more than impeccable lodgings, you’ve got it. The Study takes perfection to heart: they’ve got a full-time painter on staff to touch up scuffs on those white walls.

But, as carefully crafted and upscale as The Study is, it’s still comfortable. Hence all the hanging out in the lobby. Here, visitors feel both important and at ease.

And those are pretty good feelings.