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The Carlyle Hotel had its very own real-life “Eloise” twins
New documentary puts the spotlight on famed hotel's history
The Carlyle Hotel, it turns out, was home to its own real-life “Eloise” twins.
Marilise Flusser and Suzanne Matthau, both 74 years old, are featured in a new documentary titled “Always at the Carlyle” about the Upper East Side hotel’s 87-year history, the New York Post reported.
The sisters lived in the hotel at 35 East 76th Street for 18 years while their father served as its manager and president. The two are actually memorialized in the bar’s murals, which were created by “Madeline” author and illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans.
“When I come in here I feel very entitled because it’s my house,” Flusser said.
The twins’ father, Robert, took over the Carlyle in 1944. But the Great Depression took some of the glitz and glamour off of the hotel, which was mostly deserted at the time.
That changed with the opening of the Bemelmans Bar in 1947 and the Cafe Carlyle in 1955, both of which drew deep-pocketed guests and brought some glitz back to the property.
Bemelmans apparently got 18 months free rent at the hotel for redoing the bar.
“My mother used to laugh and say, ‘He took a long time doing the bar because he wanted to stretch out the time he could stay here,’” Flusser said. [NYP] — Rich Bockmann