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Life at the Top

NEW YORK’S MOST EXCEPTIONAL BUILDINGS

by Kirk Henckels and Anne Walker • Photography by Michel Arnaud

here’s a parlor game that sophisticated New Yorkers have been playing since the Gilded Age: What are the city’s best apartment T buildings? Before the turn of the twentieth century, the Dakota was an obvious answer; by the !"#$s the list had grown to include McKim, Mead & White’s Renaissance-style ""% and Starrett & Van Vleck’s ultra-soigné %#$ Fifth Avenue. &e Roaring Twenties witnessed the construction of some of the most luxurious apartment buildings ever designed: ’s extraordinary One Sutton Place South, '#$, '($, and ''% Park Avenue, and ")$ and %*( Fifth Avenue; Emery Roth’s monumental Beresford; and William Lawrence Bottomley’s -inspired River House. Now, more than !*$ years after the Dakota’s cornerstone was laid, the skyline features numerous new palatial residential buildings, including Richard Meier’s glass-walled Perry Street towers, Robert A. M. Stern’s !+ West, and Rafael Viñoly’s (*# Park Avenue, the city’s tallest apartment building to date. In a new book, Life at the Top: New York’s Most Exceptional Apartment Buildings, Kirk Henckels and Anne Walker, real estate and architectural insiders, chronicle the fortunes and features of ,fteen outstanding apartment houses, bringing them to life with evocative vintage photos of exterior and interior architectural details, as well as photographs of chic New Yorkers at home in their elegant abodes by the likes of Beaton and Horst. Accompanied by Michel Arnaud’s expressive photographs and newly commissioned -oor plans, Henckels and Walker tour some of the most beautiful in these buildings as they look today, designed

The Dakota

# $%& #'( D%)*#%, #'%# &#%+,-'./ 01-#+2(&3+( %0%2#4(,# '*+&( *, C(,#2%. P%2) West, that signaled the beginning of luxury apartment living in New York. Built by Singer Manufacturing Company tycoon Edward C. Clark in the early !556s, it was constructed at I a time when the Upper West Side was a relative no-man’s-land: remote, inaccessible, and undeveloped. When completed in !557, the Dakota occupied one of the highest points in the city—the West Side plateau. As its surroundings were entirely open, the apartments had expan- sive views of the entire island, from the Hudson to the East River, and the building was visible for all New Yorkers traveling up and down . “Probably not one stranger out of 8fty who ride over the elevated roads or on either of the rivers does not ask the same of the stately building which stands west of Central Park, between seventy-second and seventy-third streets,” the Daily Graphic proclaimed.9 Indeed, the Dakota represented something entirely new, especially in an area still rife with shanties and barren, unleveled 8elds. :e Ninth Avenue (now Columbus Avenue) ele- vated railway, established in !5";, connected the Upper West Side to lower Manhattan, and the new American Museum of Natural History had opened on Central Park West in !5"", but still the area was slow to develop because of its challenging and rocky topography. But, its pioneering location notwithstanding, the Dakota was remarkable: “the largest, most substantial and most conveniently arranged apartment house of the sort in the country.” < At a time when small apartment buildings were just debuting, the Dakota’s developer, Edward Clark (!5!!–!55=), was something of a visionary. A classically trained lawyer, he became associated with Isaac Merritt Singer, a rough-around-the-edges inventor who was seeking legal advice. With a keen business sense, Clark parlayed this connection into half ownership of Singer’s 8rm, the Singer Manufacturing Company, and built the business up to such a degree that Singer sewing machines became a household name. Clark accumulated a fortune and in the mid-!5"6s began to diversify his interests. Focusing on New

*00*&1#( Wood Ducks, !556, York real estate, he bought a number of blocks in the West >6s, by Arthur Nahl hangs above "6s, and 56s in the hope that “a new era in building [was] about a Kimbel and Cabus ebonized to commence, in which intelligent combined e?ort will produce cabinet decorated with Minton tiles and ceramics novel and splendid results.” He felt that the West Side “should by Christopher Dresser. be built so as to accommodate a great number of families, some

!" AMERICAN ART DECO

$is storied and glamorous triplex exudes the style and panache that infuses much of Bottomley’s +,,+-./0 Floor plan. %"&'s design for the building. Once the apartment of the architect and his wife, Harriet, the rooms $e duplex tower apartments at River House enjoy views in CHAMBER CHAMBER CHAMBER retain many of their exquisite original details, including his stylized stair railing, moldings, and pan- 13'3" × 18'4" 13' × 17'3" 13'9" × 19' all four directions. In addition eling. $e fact that architect I. M. Pei’s wedding took place in the living room in %"(! only adds to to the requisite entertaining CL CL rooms—including a loggia— the apartment’s luster—the Bottomleys o)ered the space to Pei’s *ancée, Eileen Loo, a friend of they have an ample kitchen CL CL their daughter’s. In more recent years, William So*eld of Studio So*eld overhauled the suite, hon- wing and seven bedrooms CL CL CL oring Bottomley’s design but also injecting that extra oomph to give the rooms a sumptuousness that upstairs. DOWN PASS. SERVICE ELEV. ELEV. exceeds its previous incarnation. Staying true to the Art Deco style of the building, he introduced new 102+3 An elegant curved stair

CHAMBER CL wrought-iron grilles that echo the stylized motifs in the lobby to conceal modern air-conditioning spans the three 4oors of the 16'8" × 17'

RIVER VIEW RIVER apartment. So*eld restored and HALL vents. And, to give the décor a cosmopolitan edge harking back to the sophisticated splendor of New extended Bottomley’s stair rail. York in the %"!'s, he covered walls in lacquer, embossed leather, mirrors, and hand-painted paper. Mid- CL $e stair runner was woven CL CL CL century furniture from Maison Jansen, James Mont, and the like comingle with custom So*eld pieces as one continuous piece on an in a succession of comfortable yet incredibly chic interiors with prime views of the East River. antique tapestry loom.

CHAMBER BOUDOIR CHAMBER 22' × 19'2" 18'9" × 15'3" 17'9" × 18'9" DRESSING ROOM 10'6" × 8'9"

RIVER VIEW

UPPER FLOOR

MAID’S MAID’S ROOM ROOM MAID’S MAID’S 9' × 11'6" 7'1" × 3'4" ROOM ROOM SERVANT’S KITCHEN 11'1" × 8' 11'1" × 8'5" HALL 12'4" × 14'4" CL CL CL 13'3" × 10'10"

MAID’S ROOM CL CL 10'1" × 8'3" CL CL

SERVICE PASS. PANTRY ELEV. ELEV.

LIBRARY CL 17' × 16'9" FOYER UP

RIVER VIEW RIVER 15'8" × 16'

DINING ROOM LOGGIA 27'4" × 17'8" 19'4" × 8'4" DRAWING ROOM 19' × 38'

RIVER VIEW

LOWER FLOOR

$%%$&'() A Venini chandelier hangs from the center of the vaulted +,$-) An abstract painting $-)/0)+1 A new stair +5062078 In the living room, the original paneling was conserved and ceiling in the tower room, which is primarily furnished with white- and by Friedel Dzubas adds rich connecting the 2rst three 3oors re*nished with an ivory waxed paint. Furnishings include an armchair brown-upholstered pieces. A vintage Tobia Scarpa cocktail table sits color to the room. of the apartment gave a sense and sofa by Maison Jansen and antique Japanese pieces, as well as a between a pair of George Smith sofas. *e arched window echoes the of continuity to the apartment pair of vintage bergères by Paul Follot upholstered in a hand-woven shape of the ceiling. when it was redesigned in 4556. silk. Lucien Freud’s etching Pluto Aged !" rests on the mantel.

THE BERESFORD !"# !!# RIVER HOUSE RIVER HOUSE !!"

by the talented hands of Henri Samuel, Robert Couturier, Piet Boon, Michael Life at the Top: New York’s Most S. Smith, Nathalie and Virginie Droulers, George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, Exceptional Apartment Buildings William So,eld, &omas Jayne, Charles Pavarini, Joe Nahem, Bunny Williams, by Kirk Henckels and Cullman & Kravis, Delphine Krako., Katie Ridder, Tom Scheerer, and others. Anne Walker From River House’s lawn overlooking the East River to %*( Fifth Avenue’s Photograpy by Michel Arnaud unrivaled view of Central Park, this is an insider’s look at life at the top. Hardcover with jacket More than *$$ color and black-and- white illustrations !+ specially commissioned -oor plans *#$ pages, "¼ × !# inches ISBN "'%-$-%)+)+-*($-+ US 2'+; CAN 2"+ November #$!'

Contact: Meghan Phillips #!#."*#.$)%% [email protected]

Please send tear sheets to: Meghan Phillips ABOUT THE AUTHORS !%! State Street Suite *$( KIRK HENCKELS is vice chairman of Stribling & Associates, the distin- Portland, ME $(!$! guished residential brokerage, and author of the authoritative Stribling Luxury or Report, devoted to New York residential real estate trends. [email protected] ANNE WALKER is the coauthor (with Peter Pennoyer) of ,ve architectural monographs, including Peter Pennoyer Architects (Vendome) and the recently published New York Transformed: !e Architecture of Cross & Cross (Monacelli).

MICHEL ARNAUD’s photography has appeared in the world’s best publi- cations, including Architectural Digest, Town & Country, House Beautiful, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue. His most recent books are Made to Measure: Meyer Davis Architecture and Interiors (Vendome) and Detroit: !e Dream Is Now (Abrams).