Built in 1912 as a millinery factory — one of the hatmaking workshops that once defined this stretch of West 38th Street in the Garment District — the building that houses the Refinery Hotel carries its industrial past with genuine conviction. The facade's Gothic-inflected terracotta ornament, visible in the images in crisp limestone-colored relief, gives the eleven-story structure a vertical energy unusual for a manufacturing building of its era. When the property converted to a hotel in 2012, the interior design team at Stonehill & Taylor preserved that mood rather than softening it: the vaulted bar downstairs, framed by full-length forest-green drapes and lit by cage lanterns, has the atmosphere of a private club that has been in continuous operation for decades. The 197 guestrooms maintain a consistent palette of dark walnut millwork, wide-plank ebonized floors, and brass fixture detailing — mid-century American workshop furniture interpreted as hotel furnishings, the desks and bedside tables suggesting a habitual rather than transient domesticity. Large-format abstract paintings in deep indigo hang in several room configurations, giving each space a singular focal point without veering into gallery affectation. Above it all, the rooftop bar and terrace — furnished with bistro tables, wrought-iron seating, and terracotta-cushioned lounge sofas amid planted greenery — frames a view straight up Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building visible just blocks north, confirming the hotel's quietly advantageous position at the center of Manhattan's working fabric.

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