Upstate New York, United States

Hotel Kinsley

Price per night from$283.48

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD283.48), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

The federal branch

Setting

Spirited Stockade

If you’re looking for a Hudson Valley escape, but don’t really dig the whole ‘plaid, antlers and pick-up trucks’ thing, meet Hotel Kinsley. A design-lovers’ dream, the sleek retreat in historic uptown Kingston was once the federal bank of New York. Its modish makeover is courtesy of interiors guru Robert McKinley, who splashed the high-ceilinged spaces with rich Farrow & Ball paints and filled the ravishing restaurant with European-café chairs, squishy velvet sofas and gorgeous greenery. First order of business? Head to the wood-panelled bar, order a Not Manhattan, and make a toast to bright lights in small cities.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A free cocktail or a glass of wine each in the bar on arrival (up to two a booking)

Facilities

Photos Hotel Kinsley facilities

Need to know

Rooms

42, including three suites, spread across four buildings.

Check–Out

11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Both can be flexible, subject to availability.

More details

There’s no breakfast served on weekdays, but book ahead for weekend brunch in the restaurant – the crowd-pleasing menu of bagels, buttermilk pancakes and burrata on griddled bread is popular with locals, too.

Also

All common areas are wheelchair accessible and there are ADA rooms on the ground floor.

At the hotel

Free WiFi, infrared sauna. In rooms: TV with Hulu and Netflix, Frette linens and towels, plug adaptors, bespoke Lake & Skye bath products and a mini Smeg fridge filled with treats.

Our favourite rooms

All the rooms are split between four buildings – 41 Pearl Street, 270 Fair Street, 24 John Street and 301 Wall Street – each with their own restored charm. But if you're planning a heart-quickening hike to the Kaaterskill Falls? You may want to plump for the Wall Street Suite – its enormous ensuite bathroom has a freestanding bath tub perfect for soaking sore muscles.

Spa

There’s a cosy spa area on the mezzanine floor with an infrared thermal sauna and a treatment room for massages.

Packing tips

Bring leggings – Kingston has more yoga and meditation studios than residents (we exaggerate. Slightly).

Also

As well as the whimsical watercolour mural in the restaurant, artist Happy Menocal hand-drew the hotel’s cheery font, cool crest and kooky characters who pop up on the branding.

Pet‐friendly

With notice, pooches under 75lbs are welcome for US$90 per stay; 15 per cent of this goes to ASPCA. There's a maximum of one dog a room, and they must be supervised. For same day arrivals, call ahead to confirm availability of a pet-friendly room. See more pet-friendly hotels in Upstate New York.

Children

All ages are welcome, but little Smiths aren’t particularly catered to. Ages 6 and over are allowed in the restaurant; extra beds or cots are available on request.

Food and Drink

Photos Hotel Kinsley food and drink

Top Table

The best seats in the house are on one of the burnt-orange sofas by the fireplace. It’s all very cosy and soporific, so you may need a nap afterwards (especially if you ordered the burger).

Dress Code

Think campfire chic in Grenson boots, a Faherty Brand shirt and a beanie you knitted yourself.

Hotel restaurant

The Restaurant at Hotel Kinsley’s ‘new American’ menu is a collaboration between Taavo Somer (of Freeman’s in NYC), Zak Pelaccio (of Fish & Game in Hudson) and Hotel Kinsley developer Charles Blaichman. The dining room’s understated glamour is enhanced by terrazzo floors, velvet couches in a warm shade of burnt orange and plenty of greenery. Two conversation-worthy artworks punctuate the walls – an original mural by artist Happy Menocal takes up an entire wall and a Barry Weinstein photograph of George Harrison surrounded by garden gnomes (it’s also the album cover for All Things Must Pass) hangs above the oversized fireplace. Inspired by grand European cafés, a shelf full of vintage art, posters and books runs around the restaurant – feel free to flip through one as you wait for your glass of organic wine.

Here, every dish is seasonal and local, designed to showcase the farm bounty of the Hudson Valley. Starters range from chickpea fries, creamy burrata and lamb meatballs; main courses include garganelli pasta with black truffle, bouillabaisse and a life-changing cheeseburger. To finish, order the blondie with salted-caramel praline.

Hotel bar

Pull up a bar stool (the seats are printed with heavenly Milanese fabric) at the wood-panelled Bar at Hotel Kinsley for a Four Corners Old Fashioned or a Big Pink. There’s even a full complement of ‘Not Tails’, like the Sober Curious and the No Thanks, I’m Driving. The full dinner menu is available to order at the bar.

Last orders

Breakfast is 7:30am to 10:30am daily. Brunch is available from 11am to 3pm on weekends, while lunch runs from 11am til 3pm on Thursday and Friday. Dinner is served from 5pm-9pm Tuesday to Thursday, 5pm-10pm on Friday and Saturday, and 5pm-8pm on Sundays.

Room service

There’s no room service, but with a mini Smeg fridge filled with artisanal goodies – we particularly appreciated the cutting board and knife for creating your own cheese board – you won’t go hungry after dark.

Location

Photos Hotel Kinsley location
Address
Hotel Kinsley
301 Wall Street
Kingston
12401
United States

Whichever building you’re staying in, you’ll check in at 301 Wall Street. You won’t find any pinstriped suits or bullish egos here – Kingston’s Wall Street is two hours north of the other one, lined with colourful townhouses, antique shops and cafés.

Planes

The nearest airport is Albany, a 50-minute drive from Hotel Kinsley, but you’ll likely be arriving at JFK, just over two hours away by car.

Trains

Take the Amtrak service from Penn Station to Rhinecliff, the nearest train station to Kingston. From there, it’s a half-hour taxi to reach the hotel.

Automobiles

There’s free private parking for guests two blocks north of the hotel at 57 Pearl Street. Or, use the metered street parking in uptown Kingston. Uber and Lyft are slowly arriving upstate, but don’t expect them in an instant – it can take between 20 to 30 minutes for a ride to arrive.

Worth getting out of bed for

History buffs should stroll to Kingston’s historic Four Corners, just one block from Hotel Kinsley. This intersection of Crown and John Streets is the only one in America where the buildings on all four corners – colonial Dutch houses – were built before the Revolutionary War. 

Also uptown is BSP, Kingston’s thriving concert and music venue, which occupies an entire block – there’s something happening on stage almost every night of the week, so saunter in to see live DJs, sing karaoke or catch a concert. For more high-brow happenings, Ulster Performing Arts Center on Broadway hosts classic-film screenings, plays and ballet performances.

For a taste of Kingston’s creative clout, visit the extraordinary artists’ community, The Lace Mill. The former factory building provides affordable housing for Kingston’s musicians, writers and artists, who often put on readings, exhibitions and talks in the gallery spaces.

Forgot your flannel shirt? It’s practically de rigueur in these parts, so hustle to Hamilton and Adams to browse its selection of rustic menswear, hoodies and hats. Homeware boutique Exit Nineteen is filled with tasteful tableware, novelty napkins and memorable gifts (we found something for everyone on our Christmas list). Hudson Valley native Rebecca Peacock crafts her one-of-a-kind jewellery pieces in her Catskills farmhouse. Her shop on Front Street is where you can stock up on delicate earrings, necklaces and bracelets that will have people asking where you got them from at dinner parties. And, even if you can’t fit the beautiful bouquets at Hops Petunia in your suitcase, you can still stock up on scents, salts, vases and candles at this tiny charmer of a shop on West Strand.

Then, it’s time to get outside and hit the 22 miles of perfect cycling, jogging or cross-country-skiing terrain that make up the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail – it winds along a former rail corridor and connects the Ulster County towns of New Paltz, Ulster and Kingston. Or, stay closer to home and plug into Kingston’s thriving wellness community by taking a class at the Yoga Lab or the Yoga House, beforing soothing tired muscles in the hotel’s infrared sauna.

Local restaurants

For breakfast, walk one block up Wall Street to Outdated Café, a vegetarian coffee shop in an antiques store where everything is for sale, from the mismatched coffee mugs to the retro school supplies and the chair you’re sitting on (they once had to ask a group to move because their table was sold). For breakfast, there are egg sandwiches, buckwheat pancakes and huevos rancheros; the health-conscious lunch menu is heavy on quinoa bowls and roasted-root salads. Another option for weekday breakfast is Village Coffee and Goods, a café in midtown with a community feel – you’ll overhear lots of ‘hellos’ and ‘missed you in yoga yesterday’ among the regulars – owned by two ex-Brooklynites (a common theme in Kingston). Here you can linger over artisanal coffee, use the super-fast WiFi and stock up on eco-friendly home goods.

On the Four Corners, Rough Draft Bar and Books is a bar-slash-bookstore with nightly events like quizzes, book clubs, readings and talks by local authors. Or, find a piece of Paris in the Stockade District at Le Canard Enchȃiné, a cosy bistro serving classic French cooking: garlic snails, trout amandine and onion soup.

Frill-free, garden-to-table restaurant Wilde Beest welcomes many Manhattanites who have made the trip especially – Chris Turgeon’s laid-back fine dining is just that good. Expect simple, often-single-ingredient plates like fried Brussels sprouts, cavatelli and pan-seared trout.

Local bars

At Kingston Standard Brewing Company, the focus is on home-brewed beers that pay homage to the town’s culture and history. In the summer months, sprawl out on the picnic tables underneath sail cloths on the porch. There’s a concise but crowd-pleasing food menu of sourdough pretzels, locally sourced oysters and deliciously buttery lobster rolls (NB: it’s currently only open from Thursday to Sunday). After a roam around the Rondout district downtown, nip into the adorable Brunette Wine Bar for a glass of small-batch wine. And, it turns out the owners of Exit Nineteen (that homeware store we just told you about) are multi-talented – they also own uptown’s sultriest cocktail lounge, The Crown. The moody, velvet-accented interiors were inspired by Parisian speakeasies. Ooh là là.

Reviews

Photos Hotel Kinsley reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this haute Hudson Valley hotel and unpacked their Hops Petunia vases and Exit Nineteen candles, a full account of their laidback Kingston break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hotel Kinsley in Upstate New York…

‘Dear Manhattan, it’s not you, it’s me. You may have movie-star good looks, soaring skyscrapers and irresistible energy, but lately I’ve been craving greenery, scenery and, um, a bedroom that wasn’t built for The Borrowers.’ If you’re breaking up with the big city (or maybe just need a little hall pass), let us play Cupid and introduce you to Hotel Kinsley in historic uptown Kingston. Just two hours north of New York City, the hotel is perfectly perched between the foothills of the Catskill Mountains and the banks of the Hudson River. Frette linens, heated bathroom floors and a Taavo Somer-helmed restaurant provide a soft landing for city folk, but there’s fresh air aplenty, adorably quaint streets lined with Dutch colonial houses and the type of family-run cafés where they’ll remember your name if you come two days running. We think you’ll get along famously.

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Price per night from $256.48