Soho Grand Hotel | 2,055 followers on LinkedIn. The hotel that made SoHo grand. | Welcome to Soho Grand, Manhattan’s first luxury downtown boutique hotel. Soho Grand was founded in 1996 by Leonard Stern – a New Yorker who noticed downtown NYC had been devoid of hotels for over a century, and thus developed a pioneering vision in what is now the city’s most sought-after neighborhood: SoHo. Today, Soho Grand continues to be an integral part of the neighborhood’s fabric, standing alongside world-renowned art galleries, boutiques and restaurants.