It would be easy enough to lure many New Yorkers to Pocketbook Hudson with its design, fashion, and art credentials alone.
The Hudson Valley’s newest hotel, which opened this past October, was designed by Charlap Hyman & Herrero, the sought-after architecture and design firm that recently won the Smithsonian Institution’s Design Award, and that counts Aesop, Juilliard, and Emily Ratajkowski among its clientele. Housed in a renovated 19th-century pocketbook factory that was originally a textile mill, the 46-room hotel is alive with contemporary art. Creative touches—like sculptural lamps and cooled lava-like mirrors that look like portals to another realm—are everywhere, warming up the industrial space.
And it doesn’t stop there. The muted lime-green robes in the rooms? They’re Eckhaus Latta. The restaurant uniforms? Colbo. At Kasuri, one of three shops in the hotel, you can even shop brands like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Comme des Garçons. “So many of the things that you, in New York, would be running all over to find,” Sean Roland, one of the owners, tells me. He and his partners thought: “We could have that all here.” When I visited, I saw no fewer than three actors, one comedian, one author, and one indie fashion designer. It felt like the place to be, and also a bit like a dream.
If I were to recount that dream, it would go something like this: One weekend in April, I went up to Hudson, where an old factory rose above the landscape of houses like a brick fortress. This was the hotel. Inside, it felt like a museum, roomy and full of art and metal. There was a club in the basement with speakers made by the founder of Etsy. I had dinner at the hotel’s New Argentinian restaurant, Ambos (which loosely means “yes to both,” and is also the name of the building’s former owner, Eleanor Ambos, a famous interior designer who used the 70,000 square foot space to store antiques). I watched the flames dance in the live-fire kitchen. I had an excellent margarita—real lime juice, not too sweet—and smoky, tender steak with waffle fries, plus a trio of tiny gelato scoops whose flavor made up for their size.
But the real dream—and the heart of Pocketbook—is in the building across its courtyard, away from the rooms, the bar, the restaurant, and the shops. It is The Baths, the hotel’s new spa, which is currently open to guests and will open for day visits in May.
To get there, you cross the grass courtyard and enter a small lobby, where you sign in with the staff, and they switch out your shoes for bath slippers. As you enter, there’s a changing room with cubbies for your things. Turn the corner, and you’re met by a white-tiled scrubbings and shower station that opens up into the thermal pool area, an open space with a 40-foot vaulted ceiling and wooden beams overhead. The brick walls glimmer, lit by wall sconces and shimmering reflections of the water. Windows dot the walls, letting in a flood of light. The pools feel oriented inward, toward each other, in a way that reminded me of a Quaker meeting house. The space does feel almost church-like in its stillness and serenity.
The Baths were designed by an in-house team of Caitlin Baiada, Mary Keena Frisbee, and WangShui, led by Nancy Kim, who tells Vogue that the team envisioned the Baths as “a place to welcome sensory immersion and dissolve the boundary between self and environment.” (They took inspiration from iconic spas from around the world, including the 7132 Hotel’s thermal baths in Switzerland, Fosso Bianco in Italy, and the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.)
Within the 6,000-square-foot space, there are three pools: a 100-degree saltwater pool with sea salt from Amagansett; a 104-degree pool with timed jets, and a 55-degree cold plunge. To start the bathing circuit, you go to the scrubbings station, where you can exfoliate while sitting on custom rubber stools by Rich Aybar that look like honey.
Any leftover worries from my week seemed exorcised from my body as I floated in the saltwater pool, staring up at Stephanie Shiu’s crystal sculpture, which hangs like strings of starlight from the 40-foot ceiling. Sun streamed in from the large windows, and I thought: You could float here and watch the light change for hours, like a baby entranced by a new sensation.
The philosophy of the baths is centered on the healing properties of thermal water, and the idea that “healing is relational,” says Remy Maelen, the director of wellness, whose interdisciplinary care practice Goodwitch shares this approach. Maelen prioritizes the personal in the spa’s offerings, which are straightforward: A massage or facial, both 90 minutes. For the treatments as well as the movement classes offered in the space, guests can read about the individual practitioners on the team and their unique approaches to the work.
“A lot of the time ‘wellness’ is synonymous with luxury in our culture, and it always means exclusion,” Maelen adds. At Pocketbook, the goal is to invite people in however they can. To that end, they offer community days in which Hudson Valley residents can buy half-price day passes to the baths for $30. With movement classes, which can include “a strength class that culminates in a creative free-write session, dance classes, a group shaking practice, and sensory plant meditations,” according to the team, you can choose your own level of exertion and participation.
When I visited, I had a massage with Madeleine and a facial with Jeanine. Both gently calibrated the treatments to my needs, and made me feel comfortable enough to voice them in the first place. (Also worth noting: The background music was not your average lo-fi, gentle strumming, or birdsong. I think I heard Air’s “Ce matin-là”). They also gave me time to look at the products they use—a selection of natural, mostly local products, including oils from Apis Apotheca and a probiotic tonic from Beautiful Dyrt, plus herbal tinctures and a CBD-infused balm by Maelen, which she makes in her nearby studio. I sipped a diluted tincture meant to help me unwind, feeling a bit metaphysical, along for the ride.
My biggest takeaway, however, was something far simpler. When I told Madeleine that I am often hunched over a computer, she gave me suggested movements to do, one being a bit of a mental tongue-twister that involves stretching out my arms and rotating my wrists. As I settled back into reality at the office on Monday, I snuck off to a corner and did my little movements—taking a piece of Pocketbook home with me.
