Alex Ohebshalom, 36

Those seeking to be seen on a night out in a luxury destination don’t typically mind when all eyes tend to focus on them. But in the Portrait Bar, the exquisite cocktail haven inside New York’s new, award-winning Fifth Avenue Hotel, those eyes — peeking from an array of portraits and artwork adorning a wood-paneled, darkly lit lounge — attest to the exacting detail, and love of artistic opulence, that has made hotelier Alex Ohebshalom a true up-and-comer. 

Part of a city real estate family behind Empire Management, Ohebshalom took a family-owned office property in Midtown with a rare pedigree as a Gilded Age mansion and turned it into one of the city’s hottest destinations. Split between the restored mansion, a landmark McKim, Mead & White building, and a new tower built on the property, the hotel has been heralded since opening its doors in 2024. A private martini ritual, delivered to your door, and the 700-piece art collection on display speak to Ohebshalom’s obsession with old-school touches that engage guests. 

“It’s definitely a high-tech but low-touch environment where everything is happening effortlessly,” he said. “It’s very anti of the moment right now. We’re trying to bring people back to this very romantic, very humanistic, more present way of being in the world.”

He quarterbacked the restoration and operations of the hotel under his own Flaneur Hospitality label. Ohebshalom claims it took a “football team” of people to realize his vision for the property as well as a decade of development efforts and debates with the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Now, he’s working on building a brand, with three openings in the works this year. 

Like all good flâneurs — sophisticated nomadic wanderers — this one has extensive travel plans. 

“I’m trying to really disrupt what the Hiltons and Marriotts and Hyatts and and Four Seasons do,” he said. “I’m putting all my chips in the basket of independent, highly curated, very special one-offs that are going to win the luxury segment.”