While Kingston was hunkered down for the pandemic and other hospitality businesses were clinging to the tenuous lifelines of outdoor dining and drinks to go, Uptown real estate investor Charles Blaichman was quietly building out a new type of hotel — 42 rooms spread across four historic properties dotting the tree-shaded side streets of the city’s Stockade District. Now the Hotel Kinsley is looking to boost its profile and make its mark on the city.

“All of these people thought the Hotel Kinsley was just one building,” said Nan Potter, a veteran Kingston realtor who works closely with Blaichman. “They had no idea about the others. I thought why not show them off?”

On Wednesday, Potter and hotel staffers did just that with a walking tour of the Kinsley properties, hosted by the Kingston Uptown Business Association. Along the way, the parade of the curious, which included Mayor Steve Noble and City Historian Taylor Bruck, got a chance to absorb the Hotel Kinsley’s design-forward ethos. It’s an approach which emphasizes unique settings in each room, and buildings tied together with common elements like flat-screen TVs mounted on antique looking art easels and color schemes matching the hotel’s crest.

“It’s a comfortable, luxurious and well-designed place for people to experience Kingston and all of the arts, culture and history that we have here,” said General Manager John Menne. “And also the wealth of natural beauty in the region between the Catskills and the Hudson River.”

The heart of Hotel Kinsley stands on the corner of Wall and John streets in the solid-looking former Bank of New York building that was most recently headquarters for the Tonner Doll Company. Inside, there’s a snug low-ceilinged bar done in blonde wood and a reception desk situated in a former bank vault, complete with a massive steel door. The Kinsley headquarters also hosts a restaurant designed by Studio Robert McKinley where sunlight filters in through windows set high above the dining area, giving the place a sheltered and intimate feel. Upstairs, checkered carpets pass through halls done in dark wood with brass light fixtures on the wall illuminating a collection of artworks. The rooms themselves vary in size and layout, but include common features like retro-looking Tivoli radios, Smeg mini-fridges and gleaming white ceramic bathtubs set on Carerra tiles.

The same unique-but-familiar design concept applies to the smaller mini-hotels in the Kinsley constellation. The same sage green used to paint the wainscoting at the Kinsley property at 270 Fair St. adorns the window frames at the 13-room location at 41 Pearl St. Shag rugs in each room share a designer and theme. Rough-grained linen wall coverings pop up in each of the four Kinsley locations.

Other elements, however, are unique to the individual properties. At a suite of former law offices turned Kinsley satellite, hand-hewn wooden beams and a brick chimney are the dominant design elements, while grooves worn into the stairs by 200-odd years of traffic attest to the building’s 19th-century origins.

At 270 Fair St., the rooms are a little smaller and at an average peak weekend rate of $329 per night a little cheaper than other Kinsley offerings. But the historic building also features a spa, sauna and gym, as well as a cozy conference room with a wall of unfinished wood and a lounge-like setting. On Pearl Street, a grand staircase leads guests upstairs from a long, narrow, comfortably appointed common area featuring an iconic Janis Joplin portrait and a small library.

The Kinsley remains a work in progress in an industry that emerged from the pandemic into a critical labor shortage. Menne and his crew are still trying to work out how to deliver room service fresh and hot from the hotel kitchen on Wall Street to the mini-hotels and they’re still trying to figure what to do with a small carriage house at the Fair Street site. But with all four locations up and running and the city’s tourist economy showing no signs of slowing down, the Hotel Kinsley has officially checked in to the city’s hospitality scene.