Britain’s High-Style, Affordable Hotel Brand Finds a New Home in Brooklyn

The Hoxton has made its way to America.

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The British boutique hotel company, which opened its first location in Shoreditch, London, in 2006, has launched its first North American outpost in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

The Hoxton, Williamsburg just opened a few months ago—but it looks and feels like it’s been there much longer than that.

The new 175-room hotel occupies the site where the 1924 Rosenwach factory once stood, and it offers views of Manhattan and the East River. (The factory, which burned down in 2009, made the iconic wood water towers that dot the New York skyline.)

The Hoxton, Williamsburg stands on the site of the former Rosenwach factory, which produced wood water towers scattered throughout the New York landscape.

Expansive views of the Manhattan skyline are available from many of the rooms and from Summerly, the rooftop bar and restaurant.

Ennismore Design Studio outfitted the hotel’s homelike interior spaces, warming the industrial aesthetic of the building. The structure was designed by Perkins Eastman, with plenty of texture, color, and a collected-over-time sensibility.

The original building's carriage house now serves as the hotel's main kitchen.

The light-filled lobby, located in the basement, is at once industrial and warm.

The lobby—marked by a historic brick carriage house structure that was part of the original building and now encloses the hotel’s main kitchen—is located in the basement, but according to designer Charlie North, you don’t notice that fact. "We chose pastel colors, floral patterns, and glittering Murano glass chandeliers to ensure that it felt airy and light," says the designer, who sourced many of the lobby’s vintage furniture pieces locally as well as from 1stdibs.

Light-toned parquet floors, a pastel palette, and Murano glass chandeliers contrast with steel structural elements in the living room-like lobby, which offers food and drink service.

The rooms, too, strike a balance between past and present. "Like the public spaces, we wanted them to feel residential," North says. Brass fixtures and accessories and mohair-upholstered headboards are juxtaposed with raw concrete ceilings and blackened steel details. "The contrast calls out the neighborhood’s industrial past and creative present," North says.

Ennismore Design Studio supplied the rooms with brass fixtures and details, mohair-upholstered headboards, and bedding by Dusen Dusen, a Brooklyn company.

The rooms feature bed linens by Dusen Dusen, ceramics, and artwork—all Brooklyn-sourced. Each room also features a different book collection curated by a local resident as part of the HoxFriends program.

Locally sourced ceramics and artwork and book collections curated by Williamsburg residents make the rooms feel more like a Brooklyn home than a hotel.

The hotel’s three restaurants offer additional well-designed spaces where visitors and locals alike can hang out: Klein’s, the main restaurant; Summerly, a rooftop bar and restaurant; and Backyard, a more casual outdoor mezzanine restaurant. "We’ve two working wood water towers in Backyard," North says. "They display the Rosenwach logo and match the other water towers in the neighborhood."