Everyone has a theme song. Mine is “I Love a Hotel” (sung to the tune of Harold Arlen’s 1931 “I Love a Parade”). In my travel writing days, I passed many a happy hour in haute hotels from Honolulu to Hong Kong. I’ve even stayed in hotels in New York City (although I live here) just for the joy of room service, fresh linen, and a marble bathroom the size of my apartment. But of all the hotels I have enjoyed, some of my favorites are those run by Tim and Kit Kemp. The Firmdale Group, their mini-chain of luxury boutique hotels in London, includes the Covent Garden, Soho, Haymarket, Knightsbridge, and Charlotte Street hotels and Number Sixteen. And now the Kemps are opening their very first hotel in the U.S. in lower Manhattan. The Crosby Street Hotel, in our very own SoHo, welcomes its first guest on September 29 (just 400 years after the arrival of a well known adventurer named Henry Hudson, who was also born in London).

The Kemps have made hotel history by combining sophisticated guest service, bed-and-breakfast congeniality, and quirky high style that manages to be whimsical and witty while maintaining a positive commitment to the plush, the posh, the cushy, and the cosseting. As a designer, Kit Kemp has one foot in the conservatories of English country houses and the other on the runways of Milan. And the Kemps manage to run their hotels as social gathering places without letting them degenerate to the level of fraternity parties on keg night. (You know who you are, you other, louche transgressing aggressively trendy hotels!!)

The new Crosby Street Hotel, between Prince and Spring streets, occupies a purpose-built 11-story building by Paul Taylor of Stonehill & Taylor. Foregoing architectural self-aggrandizement, the design respects the 19th-century manufactory vibe of downtown Manhattan—in a way that Richard Meier’s stunted glass boxes on the Hudson River do not. Built of brick, steel, and stone, the Crosby Street Hotel features industrial-style floor-to-ceiling window walls and a good dose of open-plan loft mojo. It’s nice to see a parking lot become a handsome building for a change, instead of vice versa. And it’s one of the first hotels in America to be LEED certified for its high level of green consciousness.

The Crosby Street, conveniently located for shut-up shopping, gallery hopping, or basic bopping around—as well as browsing at the Housing Works Used Bookstore & Café (one of Met Home’s favorite charitable institutions, which is just down the street)—has 86 rooms and suites on 11 floors, each of them unique, a Firmdale trademark. Crosby Street is competitively priced for its market niche, which is not inexpensive. Rooms begin at $495 per night and move on up to almost $4,000 for a really, really nice penthouse suite with a 360-degree view. Naturally the hotel comes equipped with all the latest electronic bells and gizmos, real art, a gym, screening room, and restaurant. Take a look at some of my favorite shots from the hotel, below:

How great are Firmdale hotels? Well, a stylish friend recently posted the following on Facebook: “I’m heading to London for a few days. Does anybody know of a really great hotel there?” Eleven people shot her an answer within the first three minutes, and, amazingly, ALL of them were Firmdale properties.

And the best news? Rumor has it the Crosby Street is the first of eight Firmdale hotels planned for New York City.

For reservations for the Crosby Street or any of the group’s London hotels, go to Firmdale.com. And pack light. You won’t be spending much time outside your room (CrosbyStreetHotel.com; or call 212/226-6400).