Pack your bags!
Brooklyn Heights’ historic Bossert Hotel will — hopefully — make its long-awaited return as a high-end lodging this winter when an Argentinian hotelier takes the reins.
Fen Hotels, which runs dozens of hotels across Latin America and a handful in the United States, will be the operator of the landmarked Montague Street hotel and hopes to have the building once known as Brooklyn’s Waldorf-Astoria back open for business sometime during winter 2016, a company rep said.
Fen recently opened another hotel called the Dazzler Brooklyn at Flatbush Avenue Extension and Tillary Street Downtown, and is marketing the Heights venture as the Esplendor Bossert.
Real estate developers David Bistricer and Joseph Chetrit bought the now-106-year-old Bossert in 2012 and have since been restoring the 14-story building once known as Brooklyn’s Waldorf-Astoria back to its former glory.
A spokesperson for Bistricer initially denied the companies had settled on an operator, but did not return requests for comment after being asked to then explain the Esplendor Bossert website, brochure, and mentions in numerous Spanish-language news articles, and a New York City tourism report.
The developers originally planned to have the 280-room hotel open last year, but have since pushed the launch date back numerous times, leaving hotel fans champing at the bit to see inside — so much so that when this paper ran a story on the restoration last March, numerous people mistakenly called and e-mailed us asking to book a room.
Lumber magnate Louis Bossert originally built the hotel in 1909, and the ritzy accommodations became best known for hosting the Brooklyn Dodgers’ celebration for their 1955 World Series win over the Yankees.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses purchased the property in the 1980s, and used it to house visiting church members as well as a number of permanent residents until Bistricer and Chetrit purchased the property three years ago.
