Charles Mallory calls his new Mystic hotel a “handshake across the centuries.”That’s because it was in this small coastal town that his ancestor, another Charles Mallory, planted the first seeds of the shipping business that established the family’s prosperity.“He arrived here on Christmas Eve 1816 as a penniless sail maker,” Mallory said. ”And he became […]
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Charles Mallory calls his new Mystic hotel a “handshake across the centuries.”
That’s because it was in this small coastal town that his ancestor, another Charles Mallory, planted the first seeds of the shipping business that established the family’s prosperity.
“He arrived here on Christmas Eve 1816 as a penniless sail maker,” Mallory said. ”And he became a successful ship owner and shipbuilder, and a major player in the Mystic community.”
A portrait of his ancestor now hangs in pride of place at the check-in desk of the Delamar Mystic, a boutique luxury hotel built by Mallory’s Greenwich Hospitality Group on the campus of the Seaport Museum and the banks of the Mystic River.
“When this opportunity came up it just was so obvious that it’s the right fit,” Mallory said.
Mallory followed into the family shipping business right out of college. It wasn’t until 2000 that he decided to take a detour into the hospitality industry, buying a rundown property in Greenwich, which he turned into the Delamar Greenwich Harbor.
Since then the group has opened Delamar-branded hotels in Southport and West Hartford, as well as out-of-state in Traverse City, Michigan. Another location in Westport will be opening later this year.
Delamar Mystic’s three-story, 27,000-square-foot building has 31 rooms and suites, a 2,600-square-foot event space, and a separate guest cottage. The $20 million property opened for guests in February.
All the rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows with a water view, facing west over the Mystic River, and the interior leans heavily on a nautical theme. The design incorporates high ceilings and detailed millwork, as well as maps, murals and copies of paintings from the family collection.
A custom chandelier in the lobby features reproductions of glass deck prisms that were used in sailing ships.
Outdoor plans still under construction call for a pool, outdoor patio and event lawn with seating overlooking the river. An existing dock will allow for dock-and-dine access.
Each location in the Greenwich portfolio has an associated restaurant, run by executive chef Frederic Kieffer. At Mystic, it is La Plage, with 90 indoor seats and 100 outdoors. The oyster bar allows guests to choose from shellfish sourced locally and across the East Coast.
“Being here at the epicenter of the Connecticut oyster farming industry, there's no better location,” Kieffer said.
The menu relies on other locally sourced produce including from Mystic’s Seacoast Mushrooms, beef from Soeltl Farm in Salem and Stonington’s Bomster Scallops. Paying tribute to the area’s history of Portuguese immigrants, it also incorporates some influences like caldeirada, a typical fish stew.
The Mystic project has been a long time coming for the company. An RFP was first issued by Mystic Seaport in 2018, seeking to replace its Latitude 41 Restaurant, which then occupied the site at 105 Greenmanville Ave., with an upscale hotel as part of its strategic planning process.
Mallory has a long association with the Seaport. His grandfather was the first president of the museum, his father was chair of the board of trustees, and Mallory himself served on the board for many years. The Mallory family papers detailing the history of the shipbuilding company reside in the Seaport’s archive.
“There has just been an ongoing thread of connection,” Mallory said. “It was intriguing to me, the notion of trying to do something on a museum campus and having it really be a good thing for the museum as well as a good thing for the hotel, and how to blend their missions.”
The plans were finally approved in 2020, just days before the COVID-19 lockdowns. It wasn’t until mid-2023 that construction was able to start on the site. Other than the logistics of construction, Mallory says the pandemic also made financing the project considerably harder than he had anticipated. The funding finally came together partially with the help of two Connecticut institutions, Torrington Savings Bank and Essex Savings Bank.
The town of Stonington required the new construction not to exceed the modest footprint of the building that was originally on the site, which limited the size of the hotel.
“Would we have liked to have more keys, sure,” said Dixon Mallory, Charles’ son and director of business development for Greenwich Hospitality Group. “Because on busy days the incremental cost of having another room Is quite low. But 31 rooms is a boutique, intimate property.”
He says the limited size makes the event facilities all the more important in the business plan. The hotel has already booked 20 weddings, with the first to be hosted in June. Dixon Mallory also believes the hotel will be a good fit for corporate events and retreats, with its close proximity to Boston and New York, and access to Amtrak’s Northeast corridor via the Mystic train station.
“Not to use a sailing term, but Mystic has had a lot of wind at its back,” he said. “The food, beverage, the restaurants that are here now speak for themselves. The tourism that has followed has only grown in the last 15 years. And so being able to pick up on that momentum while also having it be a very harmonious tie to our family connections here — it’s hard to beat those two opportunities.”
