April 23, 2024
Kristin Hunt/for PhillyVoice
Society Hill Hotel on Chestnut Street is planning to reopen in mid-May after months of renovations. Owners Mike Cangi and Brian Linton have been documenting work on the 192-year-old building on Instagram.
A 192-year-old hotel will reopen in just a few weeks — as long as nothing else breaks or springs a leak.
The Society Hill Hotel, ironically located in the heart of Old City, is aiming to relaunch on the weekend of May 10, just in time for Mother's Day. If it hits that goal, it'll mark the end of nearly a year of renovations, surprises and snags, all in the service of transforming the charred old building into a boutique destination.
"We do seem to be having set backs with construction that may push that day back," Renee Rowlett, the hotel's general manager and executive chef, acknowledged via email. "Fingers Crossed all goes according to plan! I still need to hire a staff and finalize the menu."
When Mike Cangi and Brian Linton bought the 301 Chestnut St. property for $2.3 million last year, the hotel was shuttered and still damaged from a 2021 fire. (It had also weathered scathing Yelp reviews when it was open.) The pair, who founded the sustainable clothing brand United by Blue, envisioned a high-end hotel with a cafe and whiskey bar that preserved some of the building's history, to open by January or February 2024. But the timeline shifted as the crew discovered hidden tunnels and leaking walls, all documented on Cangi and Linton's @findingbrotherlylove Instagram account.
"This is an absolute mess," Cangi says in one video posted April 5, as water pools into a bucket on a window ledge and Bishop Bullwinkle's "Hell to Da Naw Naw Naw" plays. All four floors of the building had started dripping, the caption explained, exposing problems with the facade.
Rowlett says the leaks have since been fixed. More recent postings show progress to the "decor phase" inside the hotel's 15 guest rooms. Cangi and Linton's last video, shared Monday, shows the business partners testing out the remote for one of the room's newly installed bidets.
The hotel was originally built in 1832 and was also an oyster cellar, print house and stock brokerage at various points in its history. (Instagram detectives are now speculating that it might also have been a Prohibition-era speakeasy or Underground Railroad stop, based on a secret tunnel Cangi and Linton discovered that winds under 3rd Street.) Though it is not yet taking bookings, its waitlist is now open.
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