Throughout the years, many people have chosen to take up residence in hotel rooms, rather than rent an apartment. But is living in a hotel permanently, especially ones like The Ritz or the Four Seasons, really as glamorous as it sounds? The answers vary.
There are real-life Eloises, brought to live in hotels by their parents. Or travelers sent overseas, for whom a hotel is the ideal prefab base. For others, a stint living in a hotel helps them create a bridge across life’s tougher moments—it can even be a livelier alternative to a retirement community. Here are the stories of 10 people who have lived long-term in a hotel—each for a different reason.
Crashing in a shared room with others
Jules Feiler, 67, lived in New York City’s Gershwin Hotel (now The Evelyn) for eight years in the 1980s. A publicist-turned-playwright, he now lives in an apartment on the Upper West Side.
I was separating from my then-wife in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I had no place to go when a college friend told me to come and live at the Gershwin Hotel in New York, where he was the manager.
I was originally in a hostel room with several other [guests]. The hotel was very run down when I first arrived: Shared rooms were $20 a night, so the guests for the most part were backpackers, but there were sometimes some unsavory characters who would steal from other guests. Living there felt reminiscent of the movie Casablanca. After a while, the owner asked me to do public relations for the hotel, and I was given my own room as part of my payment for doing press.
The hotel was filled with young people and employees who had no money and no other options. At the time, I was one of them. But it quickly became a cool place to be. I was able to create whatever I wanted, as long as it generated press. I invented a models-only floor; I emptied out an abandoned hardware store, which was connected to the hotel, and turned it into an art gallery; we had parties with John Waters, Johnny Depp, and Lou Reed. I did the first séance for Andy Warhol.
