The Study at Yale stays relevant through old school hospitality
Since 2008, the boutique hotel across from the Yale School of Art on Chapel Street has remained a place where faculty, visiting scholars, students and their families return year after year.
At the opening of The Study at Yale in 2008, founder Paul McGowan described his new hotel as “a bit European, a bit eclectic, a bit traditional, a bit contemporary — but really about Yale, too.”
McGowan had wanted to create a purposeful gathering place that connects guests to life at the University just a block away. Seventeen years later, that vision has come to life and endured.
McGowan told the News in an interview in August that he credits the hotel’s resilience to an “old school” approach. Through the Great Recession, a global pandemic, and an industry dominated by commodification, The Study has remained consistent with its original aesthetic and intellectual values. That consistency, McGowan believes, is an important strategy against the financial and political pressures facing higher education today.
“We stay relevant by being in service to the campus, not just existing beside it,” McGowan said. “Travel trends come and go, but the desire for enrichment is timeless, just like the university journey. We invite guests to slow down and know a place the way you pursue a degree: not by rushing through, but by absorbing, engaging, and building connections that stay with you long after you leave.”
From its founding, The Study has supported and reflected Yale culture. A 2008 News article on the hotel’s opening mentioned a “bookish study” of plush leather chairs and reading lamps, Yale-blue walls, and Yale Music School tunes playing in the lobby.
In 2025, stepping into the lobby, guests now pass a mini gallery lined with paintings by a Yale Art School alum before entering a living room-style study lounge featuring a bookcase of Yale faculty and alumni publications, including bound editions of the News from the 1960s. In the corner is a small cafe serving coffee along with “Class of 2029” cookies to welcome the University’s newest students to campus.
Anthony Moir, the hotel’s general manager of seventeen years, told the News that staying relevant means keeping up with the calendar of the university. Mid-August was busy with freshmen moving in, followed by second and third year students the following week.
“We prepare for everyone’s schedules,” Moir said. “We accept packages, answer questions about shops and stores — whatever families need.”
Standing in front of the hotel with her mother one Sunday morning in August, sophomore Ella Cross told the News that her family keeps coming back to stay at The Study. “Even when I’m not staying here, I’m still able to come and sit here because they allow Yale students to get coffee and sit in the lobby if we need to study,” she said.
Building lasting relationships is the key to the hotel’s business strategy. “Over the years, we’ve cultivated exceptional loyalty with long-term guests who consider us part of their Yale experience,” McGowan said. “Hospitality, at its best, carries a true sense of place and connection.”
Connection and loyalty are how the hotel measures its success. Still, the hotel’s director of brand marketing, Katie Wilson, acknowledged that online ratings matter because they influence guests in today’s travel industry. “High ratings is not our end goal but it’s the result of the hospitality that Anthony and his team offer,” Wilson said.
With its ‘old school’ hospitality, The Study at Yale currently holds the highest ratings of a four-star Yale hotel on multiple online platforms, including TripAdvisor and Hotels.com.
Building on the success of Yale, McGowan has since opened Study hotels near three other university campuses, including the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins University.
This article was written for the Yale Daily News’ 2025 Summer Journalism Program for high school students.