Did you really think that Audrey Gelman was going to settle for owning and operating a pricey country shoppe in the middle of Cobble Hill? This is the woman upon whom Marnie Michaels is based. Of course there was a more ambitious plan in mind — and now we know what it is. The Wing founder is opening a hotel in upstate New York as part of the Six Bells extended universe.
If none of those words mean anything to you, I’ll catch you up. In 2020, amid a pandemic that meant no one was co-working anymore and reporting that accused the Wing of being a toxic work environment (especially for staffers of color), Gelman stepped down as CEO, and a couple years later, the Wing was closed for good. In 2022, Gelman reemerged with her next gambit: an expensive homewares store that featured an elaborate backstory of Gelman’s own invention. It’s called the Six Bells, and it’s the place to pop into if you lost your $145 salad bowl in a move.
In a Wall Street Journalarticle, Gelman announced that she is expanding the Six Bells into the hotel space, saying, “This was always the plan.”
The Six Bells hotel will open next spring in Rosendale, New York. Gelman has secured a historic building that will feature 11 rooms, a café, and (duh) a store where you can buy all the stuff in your room. Rooms will start at $400 a night, which is cheaper than some of the quilts you can buy at the store.
What exactly you’ll get from your $800 weekend upstate at the Six Bells (aside from the opportunity to buy stuff) isn’t totally clear yet. Gelman is currently hard at work making little models of each room out of dollhouse furniture, so you know it will be cutesy in that specific way. Like the store, the Six Bells hotel will have “a fictional lore” surrounding it. “Something that’s very unexplored is the space between luxury hospitality and theme hospitality,” Gelman told WSJ. On the store’s website, the hotel (they call it an inn, actually) is referred to as “a storybook you can sleep in.”
WSJ noted that Gelman is a Disney fan, and all of these bits are leading me to imagine that there is going to be some kind of interactivity element to the Six Bells hotel experience. Might I suggest murder mystery? What happens when the village of Barrow’s Green is rocked by the brutal slaying of Ursula Lumley (described on the website as a “hearty spinster” and the town gossip)? Consider it cottagecore Clue for the Cobble Hill set. If someone else is paying, sign me up.
Related
- Audrey Gelman Pivots to Cottagecore
- What Was the Wing?
Olivia Craighead , 2024-06-06 18:28:28
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