4/10 Rating
I stayed at the Ace Hotel years ago and loved it. It is a lovely old building that was beautifully renovated. It was tasteful, comfortable. I decided to return on a recent trip, though it's now "The Maverick Hotel by Kasa".
The good: A lot of the good work that was done on the Ace Hotel is untouched. I liked having a passcode lock on the door rather than a key card.
The bad: Almost everything else. It's a hollowed out experience that feels like your lovely hotel room is housed in storage locker facility.
The booking process make you feel like you're a pinata. The standard credit card hold is made to feel extra extractive so you'll pay a non-refundable fee, the common courtesy about asking for early check-in has been monetized.
The lobby that was once convivial is now a cordoned off bar. As a guest, you won't just wander in for a drink. There's no front desk staff, just a self-check in kiosk with someone on a laptop nearby in case it breaks. Or at least there was when we walked in. No one was ever there again after that.
When we texted support (yes, that's how you get help if you need it) at 1:20 am about the guest next door screaming at his girlfriend and pounding furniture. We got a dismissive response saying "noise levels weren't exceeded in the unit". I replied saying I didn't care about "noise levels", I couldn't sleep with them yelling and I was worried it would escalate to violence, but no one replied again until 4 am (fear not, they notified their Trust and Safety Team!), long after the situation had resolved and we had gone back to sleep.
Housekeeping never came during our three-day stay. No fresh towels, no sheet changes, nothing. We drank the two complimentary cans of water on day one and new ones never took their place.
Kasa has taken a hotel with history and personality and turned it into a filing cabinet for bodies. They've kept the lovely building while eliminating the staff, the service, and anything resembling hospitality. If you, like me, have gone back to hotels in response to the decline of AirBnB, I've got bad news for you.
Two stars for the architecture and interior design, and that's generous.