Caudalie, the vinotherapy spa started at Château Smith Haut Lafitte in Bordeaux, is opening a new centre in the Plaza Hotel in New York.
The 15-room spa opens on the first floor of the hotel in mid November 2007. The Plaza, at Central Park South and Fifth Avenue, is a national landmark where the Beatles and Truman Capote stayed, among other celebrities.
The hotel has been undergoing a complete conversion. When it reopens, it will contain 180 deluxe condominium apartments and 152 hotel rooms available to the public.
The spa will include most of the same facilities as the flagship operation in Pessac Leognan in Bordeaux, such as a crush Cabernet scrub and Sauvignon massage. It will be ‘especially good for city girls who want a quick glow,’ Caudalie co-owner Mathilde Thomas, daughter of Florence and Daniel Cathiard of Château Smith Haut Lafitte, told decanter.com.
‘We will probably do lunch hour peelings and facials with grape extracts, and fresh grape manicures and pedicures. They are very popular with Americans,’ she added.
Plans for a New York-based spa started two years ago. The American market is Caudalie’s first market abroad, said Thomas, who is based in Paris with her husband, Caudalie co-owner Bertrand Thomas.
‘The Plaza considers itself the chateau of New York City, so this is a perfect match,’ she said.
Caudalie has opened spas in Taiwan, the Sonoma Valley in California, Piedmont in Italy, and most recently, in 2006, at the Marqués de Riscal hotel in Rioja.
Written by Panos Kakaviatos
