Before becoming The Chatwal New York and Lambs Club Restaurant and Bar, this iconic Stanford White-designed building was the epicenter of American for the 20th century. The building originally opened in 1905 as home to the prestigious Lambs, America’s first professional theatrical club. Organized in 1874 by a group of actors and enthusiasts, The Lambs occupied a series of rented quarters before settling at 44th Street. The American club took their name from a similar group in London, which flourished from 1869-1879, in the name of drama critic and essayist Charles Lamb.

Stanford White, a partner at prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White, was the original architect of The Lambs clubhouse. His design principles embodied the “American Renaissance,” as seen in his work on summer homes for the Astor and Vanderbilt families and such formidable structures as The Washington Square Arch, Madison Square Garden and the New York Herald Building.

For The Lambs, he designed a six-story, neo-Georgian brick building featuring a facade ornamented with ram heads. A boisterous grill room and billiard room were on the first floor, a banquet hall on the second floor and a theater on the third floor. The top floors provided space for offices and sleeping quarters, often utilized by members traveling to The Great White Way from Hollywood. The size of the building was doubled in 1915 when an addition was constructed on the west end of the building, a virtual copy of the original. In 1974, the building was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks and Preservation Commission.

Since the club’s founding, there have been more than 6,000 Lambs, with an elite roster reading like a Who’s Who of American theater and film: Maurice, Lionel and John Barrymore, Irving Berlin, Cecil B. DeMille, David Belasco, Charlie Chaplin, George M. Cohan, Douglas Fairbanks, John Wayne, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire, who was famously quoted as stating, “When I was made a Lamb, I felt I had been knighted.”

Pack for A Purpose:

Our Social Initiative Partner

We are proud members of Pack for a Purpose, an initiative that allows travelers like you to make a lasting impact in the community at your travel destination. If you save just a small amount of space in your suitcase and pack supplies for the projects we support, you’ll make a priceless impact in the lives of our local children and families. Please click here to see what supplies are needed for our project.

Children of Promise, NYC:

Our Local Charity Project

In the United States, 2.7 million children have an incarcerated parent. In New York alone, there are 105,000 children living under these circumstances. Children impacted by incarceration often face uncertainty and trauma from changing living arrangements, including moving from one caregiver to the next or being separated from their siblings. Beyond these stressors, children with an incarcerated loved one may struggle with the stigma and shame of having a parent in prison. At Children of Promise, NYC (CPNYC), the mission is to embrace children of incarcerated parents and empower them to break the cycle of intergenerational involvement in the criminal justice system.

CPNYC’s innovative model transforms the lives of children of prisoners through holistic support services offered in an empowering environment. Located in a Brooklyn community highly impacted by mass incarceration, the agency provides mental health services, one-to-one mentoring, academic support, arts education, family engagement, social justice initiatives and recreational activities for youth ages 6-18 and their caregivers such as single parents, grandparents, foster parents or extended family members.