For a number of years, I lived a few blocks from the Four Seasons Hotel New York. At the time, a single night in an entry-level room cost about as much as my share of my apartment’s monthly rent, but I was happy to walk through its lobby and drink in its magic whenever I had a few minutes to spare.

The scene inside the 52-story monolith was unfailingly fabulous—the soaring onyx I.M. Pei lobby, an energetic ebb and flow through the revolving doors, and a buzzing crowd at Ty Bar, where the city’s elite would brush shoulders while clamoring for martinis.

The coronavirus outbreak, however, has changed things. Like many hotels and businesses around New York and across the country, the Four Seasons closed on March 20.

The following week, when Governor Cuomo called for hotels to provide rooms for medical personnel on the front lines of COVID-19, the Four Seasons was the first in the city to heed his call—they transformed the hotel into a near-medical-grade dormitory, providing rooms free of charge to healthcare workers. It was an enormous undertaking to create a safe and reliable space for those who had to commute long distances to work, or perhaps did not want to risk bringing infection home to immunocompromised family members.

The orders to re-open for medical personnel came directly from Ty Warner, the Ty Beanie Baby billionaire who owns the Four Seasons’ building, says hotel general manager Rudy Tauscher. Warner’s company, Ty Warner Hotels and Resort, is shouldering the expense. “We did not look left or right or care what other hotels in New York were doing,” says Tauscher. “We thought, ‘Let’s try this and see how far we can go.’”

Re-opening a hotel as grand as the Four Seasons, however, is a symphony of moving parts, says Tauscher. “Luckily, we have a very seasoned team,” he says. “But still, we had just closed the hotel and we had only about six days to open it up.” The hotel’s plans to welcome medical personnel were announced on Friday, March 27. The first guest checked in on April 2.

To turn five-star luxury into CDC-compliance, Four Seasons turned to Dr. Robert Quigley, senior vice president and medical director of International SOS, a medical and travel security services firm. “This is unprecedented,” says Quigley. “We’ve stripped down the entire hotel and simplified the access of these visitors in a matter of days.”