The Siren
High-note highrise
The Wurlitzer off Woodward
Can you hear that? A delirious tangle of jazz notes, a girl band jauntily recalling a break up through layers of crackle, amiably discordant dance tracks: these are the songs of the Siren, a hotel that’s turned the volume back up in downtown Detroit’s 1923 Wurlitzer Building (where pianos, organs and jukeboxes were made and played). Hoteliers Ash NYC rescued the Italian Renaissance Revival marvel from the demolition crew and looked to its glory days while decorating. Swagged velvets, grandiose antiques, fringing and tassels, heavyweight chandeliers and a bar pinker than Miss Piggy’s wardrobe – and just as fun – have redoubled the glam. While purposeful partnerships – with a record store, karaoke bar, barber, artists and more – and conceptual and casual dining have captured the city’s soul.
Facilities
Rooms
106, including eight suites.
Checkout
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
More Details
Rates don’t usually include breakfast: grab-and-go pastries and coffee at the Siren Café or sit-down specials at Ash Bar.
Also
All public areas are accessible and eight of the guestrooms.
Fitness Center
Free Internet Access
Laundry
Pet Friendly
On-Site Restaurant
At the Hotel
Rooftop, vinyl bar and shop, barbershop, piano-karaoke bar, garden courtyard, boutique, café, charged dry-cleaning service, ice-machine and ATM in the lobby, free WiFi. In rooms: flatscreen TV, selection of bottled cocktails and gourmet snacks (turkey jerky, candy bars, nuts, granola) American Medicinal Arts bath products.
Our Favourite Rooms
The rest of the hotel might be frilled up to the gills, but rooms are kept relatively simple, with just a handloomed throw there, a small vintage picture there, and perhaps a spray of flowers. Although jazzy red, blue or green terrazzo makes the bathrooms pop. However, if you do want a to-the-maximalist space, choose the Penthouse, which has an enormous bird sculpture, deep-pile rugs, velvet chaises, and a chandelier. Or one of the duplex suites (Parlor or Chamber), which have adequate fringing, frippery and strokable fabrics, plus some ‘oh, Canada’ views.
Spa
There’s no spa, but gents can get a little TLC thanks to ‘cultural emcee’ Sebastian Jackson, founder of the Social Club, which aims to bring the camaraderie and community feel back into barbershop grooming. He built his first salon using timbers from blighted Detroit homes, distributes hair clippings to local parks to use in fertiliser, and sells ‘anti-racist’-branded clothing, but above all, he’s good for a natter. Get settled in one of the two retro seats he’s set up here and learn a lot about Detroit then and now as you get a trim or classic straight-razor shave. And, guests can use their key to enter the YMCA gym next door for free.
Packing Tips
Just have your boy bring in the steamer trunks and hat boxes… If you can resist surfing on the old-time-y luggage cart then you’re a stronger person than us. However, if you’re staying in one of the lower category rooms, they can be on the snug side and a little lacking in storage, so give the boy a break and pack a weekender.
Also
The hotel boutique is a seriously curated space where you can buy cult books and magazines from B_KS@, limited-edition photo prints by Detroit artist Bill Rauhauser, fragrances, jewellery, clothing and apothecary potions.
Children
The hotel has packaways and bunk rooms, but the fun is all adult.
Gallery
Food & Drink
Top Table
Slide onto the pistachio-green banquette under the hand-painted mural at Ash Bar.
Dress Code
Dial it down for laidback Ash Bar, then all the way back up for the Candy Bar where things get much sillier.
Hotel Restaurant
A new restaurant to replace Albena is in the works, but closed for now. In the meantime, Ash Bar does comfort food but elevated enough to make it feel grown up. The grilled cheese comes gooey with walnut pesto, the steak frites is slick with compound butter, the cheeseburger comes with all the classic trimmings… The whole menu, the Detroit ephemera lining the walls and the hand-painted mural pay homage to the city’s industrial heydays, adding an old-school ambience to the space. And, downstairs the Siren Café has trays of tempting pastries – best washed down with a stirring mug of joe from Populace Coffee of Bay City.
Hotel Bar
‘Come on Barbie, let’s go party’ has rarely rung truer than at the Candy Bar, which is where you’ll find the pneumatic dollface when she needs to get out the dream home for a bit and pound a few pink martinis. You enter past a pink-velvet curtain, settle into a rosé-hued booth, crossing a blushing checkerboard floor; everything – the panelling, the palm-tree struts holding up the corners, the marble tabletops – is a shade of cotton candy, and the disco ball and conspicuous chandelier glamorously presiding over a semi-circlet of bar serve an extra helping of froth to this giddy concoction. As for drinking, think pink: the Oaxaca Sunrise with mezcal and watermelon and Ruby Sour with vodka Aperol and raspberries both come up rosy. And at fabulously throwback Sid Gold’s Request Room (open on weekends) – entered from the alley behind the hotel – budding power balladeers can belly up to the piano and belt out karaoke classics. And, the hotel has partnered with beloved West Village gig venue Paramita Sound (right next door), a bar, cafe and venue resonant with city noise: the bellow of a Wurlitzer organ; Motown soul, jazz and rhythm and blues; techno and new beats. Stop, look and listen – grabbing a drink and some vinyl as you go – and see who’s taking to its stage.
Last Orders
The Siren Café serves from 7am to 4pm and Ash Bar from 3pm (9am on the weekend) to 10pm. The Candy Bar wraps things up at midnight in the week, at 2am Friday and Saturday.
Planes
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is a 25-minute drive from the hotel.
Trains
Detroit’s Amtrak Station is a 10-minute drive as the crow flies, along Woodward Avenue. The high-speed Wolverine trains travel to Chicago, Michigan and Ann Arbor, or the QLine tram will take you north. The People Mover, an elevated monorail that goes in a loop through the city, can be caught at Broadway Station, pretty much on the hotel’s doorstep.
Automobiles
Well, this is Motor City, and it’s a sprawl, so some wheels will make life much easier for you. If you plan to stay downtown – and there are distractions for days – you can rely on the People Mover; but once you leave its loop, transport is limited. The hotel offers valet parking for $42 a night, or the Z Park Garage is very close by.
Worth Getting Out of Bed For
Where do we start? Detroit – AKA Motor City and ‘the D’ – has lived many lives and had whiplash turns of fortune. A French fur-trapping colony and key stop on the underground railroad for refugee slaves, it’s survived fires, race riots and bankruptcy while also being a titan of industry thanks to Henry Ford, and birthed several major musical zeitgeists due to the juggernaut that was the biggest black-owned label Tamla Motown, and the Belleville Three, who propelled techno and afrofuturism forward. Not to mention scuzzy rockers MC5 and Alice Cooper, weirdniks the White Stripes and giving Eminem plenty to rap about. Its play-it-safe motto ‘We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes’ could be copied and pasted onto various events, but, from ‘ruin porn’ and Robocop’s prescience, it’s very much back in business and the Siren is central to the action. If there’s not a show playing at Paramita Sound, head down the street to the very grand Opera House, Fox Theater, or the Gem Theater, known for its quirky stagings. Close by you have Ford Field for football (go Lions!), Comerica Park for baseball (go Tigers!), and Little Ceasar’s arena for ice-hockey (oh my). Alongside the hotel’s highly ornate skyscraper, there are plenty of striking structures to tour in the ‘hood: the Penobscot Building, Guardian Building with its cathedral-esque frescoed ceilings, One Woodward (built by Minoru Yamasake, architect of the World Trade towers), and the Detroit Masonic Temple, a Gothic beast saved from closure by none other than Jack White, where you can tour its shrines and lodge rooms, bowl or catch a gig. Get schooled with stops at the Motown Museum (AKA Hitsville USA) and the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History, and get to know the art scene that put the city back on the map. A few blocks away you’ll find the Lisa Spindler Studio, David Klein Gallery and the Library Street Collective, and the Detroit Institute of Arts is further north, or you could wander the Grand River Creative Corridor where graffiti artists have been given free rein. Crow Manor is a lively arts collective who throw offbeat parties (Crownival is quite the ride), and the McNamara Terminal Light Tunnel is trippy as hell. If you must do some urban exploring, you could try the now-slightly-less Grande Ballroom, or St Agnes Church – but you didn’t hear it from us, it’s a dangerous and legally shady pastime. Intead, why not just grab a drink and relax to some music; art deco club Cliff Bell’s is in keeping with the Siren’s vintage allure and its jazz is finger-clicking good, Deluxx Flux’s searing neons might bring on a seizure or an awesome night but it’s worth risking it, and the UFO Factory is gleefully fun with dance parties and karaoke. Walk off your hangover through Belle Isle Park, a – um – beautiful island with a beach, aquarium, conservatory, museums and more.
Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt
This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .
