Rosewood CEO Sonia Cheng on her private members’ club and why people are yearning to get back to normal life

Carlyle & Co is ‘something that Hong Kong doesn’t have’, says Sonia Cheng, granddaughter of billionaire New World Development founder Cheng Yu-tung

The timing might not seem ideal – both with its intimate environment and nostalgic American vision – but she says people are looking to reconnect

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Sonia Cheng, CEO of the Rosewood Hotel Group, says she saw the opportunity to create something that Hong Kong doesn’t have with the members’ club Carlyle & Co. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 7:15am, 11 Aug 2020Updated: 12:52pm, 11 Aug 2020

The first time Sonia Cheng Chi-man stayed at The Carlyle hotel on New York’s Upper East Side was when she was thinking of buying it around a decade ago. She was doing her due diligence and was intrigued by its history: John F Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood stars and various royals had all graced its rooms. She also loved its elegant dynamic. “There was just a sense of magic,” she says. “It’s very much a New York institution. You sense the energy, the mystique.”

At the time she was part of New World Hospitality – an offshoot of Hong Kong property giant New World Development, established in 1970 by her grandfather Cheng Yu-tung – which was in talks about acquiring Rosewood Hotels & Resorts. The Carlyle, built in 1930 and owned by Rosewood since 2001, was part of the deal.

In July 2011, New World Hospitality paid US$229.5 million for the company and, two years later, changed its name to Rosewood Hotel Group. Cheng, 39, is its CEO.

Last year, she opened the group’s flagship, the Rosewood Hong Kong, on a part of the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront in Kowloon that New World Development now terms a “district” and has named, in an unexpected old-world homage, Victoria Dockside.

The Rosewood Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.

On a recent afternoon on the 55th floor of the flagship hotel’s building, Cheng is revealing a new concept. This is billed a global exclusive – just the two of us, socially distancing over tea, no PR reps, no team – but it isn’t about the hotel. It is the unveiling of a separate venture called Carlyle & Co, a private members’ club that takes its inspiration from the Manhattan hotel’s magic and will be launching in Hong Kong with the intention of becoming an international brand.