The Conservators:

Residence Interiors: Robert A.M. Stern Architects

Public Spaces Décor: Rafael de Cárdenas | Architecture at Large

Courtyard & Garden: Hollander Design Landscape Architects

Architect of Record: BP Architects

Historic Preservation: Page Ayres Cowley Architects

Historic Architect: Hiss & Weekes

Developer: HFZ Capital Group “The Belnord is the grandest of New York’s 20th century, full-block courtyard apartment buildings. I have long admired it, and it’s an incredible privilege to play a part in its reinvention.”

ROBERT A.M. STERN

Robert A.M. Stern, Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Ziel Feldman, HFZ Capital Group

3 9 INTRODUCING THE BELNORD

13 A SENSE OF ARRIVAL

27 THE RESIDENCES

43 THE COURTYARD

47 A REMARKABLE NEIGHBORHOOD

59 THE CONSERVATORS The Belnord was conceived in 1908 as the largest and most luxurious apartment house in the world. 6 The Italian Renaissance–style palazzo, with a pair of magnificent, gated and guarded arched entryways, occupies a full city block. Pedigree and the thrill of the new. Grandeur and intimacy. The romance of the past blended seamlessly INTRODUCING with state-of-the-art innovation. Your own 22,000-square- THE BELNORD foot private park with the pulsing West Side all around it and immediate access to the myriad delights of the By Michael Gross city. The Belnord is your personal palazzo in the center of everything.

MIDWAY BETWEEN Central Park and Riverside Park, at the cen- ter of the vibrant Upper West Side, The Belnord is a masterpiece reimagined.

One of the greatest turn-of-the-century residences, The Belnord is a designated local and national landmark reborn as a contempo- rary icon reflecting the city’s most glorious epoch. A home that blends the inimitable quality and exuberance of the Gilded Age with the boundless, innovative spirit of life right now. In the words of HFZ Capital Group’s Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman, “It’s the best of all possible worlds, a village in the city, with a spe- cial sense of place and pedigree.”

9 The Belnord was conceived in 1908 by H. Hobart Weekes, who had Luxury was The Belnord’s defining characteristic, inside and out. recently set out on his own after a dozen years with the renowned Its courtyard was lit by ornamental wrought-iron lampposts. A architectural firm, McKim, Mead & White. It would be Weekes’ working fountain at its center was made of Italian marble. Beneath masterpiece, immediately heralded as the largest and most luxuri- it, heating and ice-making plants were sunk in excavated bedrock ous apartment house in the world, described as “perfection itself” twenty feet deep. Hallways boasted mahogany newel posts and by New York’s leading real estate periodical, Record and Guide. handrails, gilding, oak trim, and marble tesserae mosaic floors.

There is an Italian Renaissance–style palazzo with a pair of mag- “It is as if floors out of an old country mansion had been transport- nificent, gated and guarded arched entryways painted with sgraffi- ed and converted somehow into suites for this great building,” Re- to frescoes of seraphim and lit by hanging lanterns. It occupies an cord and Guide raved. entire city block bounded by West Eighty-sixth and Eighty-seventh Over its 110 years, The Belnord was always home to artists, intel- Streets, Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway. Its grand scale was lectuals, publishers, and aristocrats, as well as leading figures in echoed in details large and small. fields as diverse as finance and the opera, movies and film, litera- The Belnord’s base of rusticated, light gray Indiana limestone is ture and journalism, and local hospitality and international shipping. handsomely decorated with European-style terracotta panels, elab- orate design elements and a stunning assortment of extra-large windows, all with classic weighted sashes, including copper-clad bays in many apartments. The Belnord was built around a vast 22,000-square-foot landscaped open courtyard, its own verdant pri- vate park.

Six separate lobbies tucked within that courtyard obviated the need for long, shared hallways and guaranteed discretion as well as con- venience for residents, allowing them to drive right to their doors. By use of the courtyard and expansive rotunda, sixteen elevators whisked families, their guests and belongings home. There were only, and still are, two to three apartments per landing, and both the outer and interior walls were so thick they ensured unprece- dented levels of privacy and calm.

10 A SENSE OF ARRIVAL

“ELEGANCE IS RESTRAINT,” Yves Saint Laurent once said. The grandest of the grand Upper West Side apartment houses, palatial, beautifully proportioned, The Belnord is as clean, austere, ageless, and modern as its limestone sisters elsewhere in Manhattan. It retains its special distinction as a cosseting, private haven in the midst of its vibrant, lively Upper West Side neighborhood. Standing across West Eighty-sixth Street to admire its façade, one can easily imagine it was once a ducal palace. But its reinvention, while subtle and respectful, has also been well-considered, well-executed, and thorough for today's homeowner. Entering The Belnord is an experience in itself. Its historically reso- nant, gilded wrought-iron gates send a subtle signal that something special and rare lies within. Through those gates, just past the elegant, new guardhouse, residents and guests alike enter a vaulted porte cochère decorated with original frescoes and arabesques.

Residents and visitors alike are greeted with grandeur and opulence the moment they approach The Belnord. Its elegant guardhouse and gated porte cochère are simultaneously imposing and welcoming. 15 The entryway, decorated with arabesques and sgraffito frescoes of seraphim, and lit by elegant hanging lanterns, 16 gives a first tantalizing hint of the wondrous private courtyard beyond. One of the most important aspects of the reinvention of The Belnord is the reconfiguration of the courtyard’s circular driveway. Originally designed for horses and carriages, it has been widened to allow two SUVs to easily pass each other, with clever, unobtrusive pull-offs that enable several residents at a time to park just steps from their canopied lobby doors for easy loading and unloading of passengers and belongings. A second vaulted passage onto Eighty-sixth Street is reserved for exiting vehicles.

From your elevator lobby, regard a view unparalleled in New York, of a private oasis arrayed around the original fountain, with evergreen hedges, shade trees, flowers, and elegant seating. 19 The Belnord can be seen as a collection of six buildings, with its separate entrances for different lines of apartments, but the Eighty- sixth Street lobby plays a special role as the place where all visitors are greeted by a building concierge behind an elliptical bronze and mirrored desk, evoking the sort of welcome expected in the grandest European hotels. The 1908 lobby’s classical refinement has now been enhanced with elegant sconces, a hanging fixture, subtly recessed panels finished in high-gloss lacquer, and new, Nero Marquina marble flooring accented with Statuarietto White marble. Every detail is designed to serve as a frame to heighten appreciation of the building’s historic elements and brighten the transition from the street to the wonders within. This is classic style reinvented for modern urbanites.

The Eighty-sixth Street lobby is enhanced with subtly recessed panels and Nero Marquina marble floors, accompanied by 20 Statuarietto White marble base molding, designed to accentuate the transition from the street to the wonders within. Now, begin the passage from your house into your home, through the circular ground-floor residence lobbies, one in each corner of the courtyard, or the Eighty-seventh Street lobby, another discrete residents-only entrance, complete with its own concierge. Sharp and clean, with gold-leaf accents, lacquered panels, back-lit pilas- ters, and Nero Marquina marble floors and trim, all these lobbies dramatize The Belnord’s signature blend of past and present. Pass into the dramatic elevator lobbies, then rise in one of the new, cerused-wood-paneled passenger elevators, with their marble floors and glass-and-bronze trims, up to your own pri- vate landing.

Every detail, from the sightlines and framing of elevator lobbies to the restored staircases with wrought iron and mahogany trim, has been reconsidered and refined. 23 Typical landings have two—and no more than three—black-lacquered residence entrances, completing the cinematic three-stage progres- sion of the narrative of your arrival someplace truly unique, where history blends seamlessly with the boldly contemporary. This is the magic of the collaboration between Robert A.M. Stern, architec- ture’s leading post-modernist, and visionary, contemporary interior designer Rafael de Cárdenas. Their layering of the modern onto the historic is perfectly balanced. The white-crystalline-lacquered landings, with their irreplaceable classical marble-mosaic floors, are washed with natural light from windows offering alluring courtyard glimpses.

Elevator landings blend past and present with their white lacquer surfaces and historical mosaic marble floors. 24 Strategically placed windows tempt the eye with natural light and glimpses of the outdoors. T H E RESIDENCES

THE BELNORD’S ORIGINAL APARTMENT LAYOUTS—most floor-through, except in the dramatic corner residences—have been reinvented and opened up to allow easy appreciation of the building’s impressive breadth, scale, and volume. The visionary Robert A.M. Stern Architect’s acute understanding of classic layouts and contemporary interiors has allowed those original floor plans to be both simultaneously and completely rethought to meet the needs of the modern homeowner. At The Belnord, your domain seems to stretch to the limits of your imagination and beyond, with expansive views from room to room, to the outdoors, cityscape and sky. 29 The Belnord’s great rooms are designed to enhance and meet the many needs of modern lives. Whether you’re entertaining or enjoying an intimate moment with friends or family, they are the great stage on which your life plays out.

Lofty ceilings, wide oak floors, sun-washed vistas, and sprawling dimensions characterize rooms 30 that are spacious, flexible, and easy to make your own. Open and spacious kitchens designed in one of two palette options by Molteni, shown in cerused oak, are gracious rooms designed for more than cooking and eating; they are easily adaptable for any occasion. 33 Both the white lacquer kitchens, shown, and those with cerused oak cabinetry, on preceding page, 34 feature Calacatta Gold marble countertops, many with center islands and state-of-the-art appliances. The Belnord’s master bathrooms are rooms you’ll want to show off, designed to awe, to comfort, to calm, to flatter—and to be perfectly functional. All master bathrooms are finished with Siberian White marble slabs and platinum-finish Dornbracht fittings and hard- ware. They are as grand as the building that contains them, and as thoroughly modern as its reimagining. Many showers are windowed, and tubs often have expand- ing exterior views. Flush mirrors hide bathroom cabinets over spacious double vanities.

Master bathrooms are large and lavish, with features such as double vanities, freestanding tubs, separate showers, and rich platinum-finish fittings. 37 The master bathrooms are richly appointed sanctuaries for rejuvenation and relaxation, featuring honed Siberian White marble 38 slab walls and floors and custom-designed Molteni vanities by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. The graciously designed powder rooms are dignified and welcoming with immaculate attention to detail. The finishes include polished Nero Marquina marble walls and floors, polished nickel fixtures and Snow White marble inlays. 41 THE COURTYARD

THE BELNORD’S MOST ALLURING, and rarest, amenity is the one hiding in plain sight, both outside and yet within the boundaries of your home. Across from each of the residential lobbies, glory in your own private Palais Royal, the granite-block-paved courtyard, now reborn as the impeccably landscaped garden of a great house. It is a vast outdoor room for reflection, complete with clipped evergreen and boxwood hedges, scattered shade trees, carefully tended beds of ground cover, zinc-finished aluminum planters filled with flowering plants, and elegant seating, all centered on The Belnord’s original fountain.

43 Renowned landscape architect Edmund Hollander has redesigned The Belnord’s interior courtyard, the largest in the world when the building first opened. 45 A REMARKABLE NEIGHBORHOOD

THE UPPER WEST SIDE is a cultural cornucopia, as well as one of New York’s most refined and elegant residential neighborhoods. It is sought after not only for its unique access to Manhattan’s two largest parks—Central Park and Riverside Park—but for its diverse and significant architecture. Its large landmarks include the performance showcases of Lincoln Center and the American Museum of Natural History, with its Rose Center for Earth and Space, and the New-York Historical Society. But it is equally blessed with innovative restaurants and an extensive array of stores, ranging from glamorous boutiques to independent specialty shops. Situated at the epicenter of the vibrant Upper West Side, The Belnord is equidistant from Central Park and Riverside Park. 49 With Central Park (left and right) and the Hudson River (below) just minutes away, residents of The Belnord have quick access to the best outdoors experiences to be found in New York City.

BETWEEN TWO PARKS

Central Park is, of course, a renowned landmark of (with more than a dozen playgrounds); exercise, (the park landscape and urban design, a verdant man-made offers baseball, basketball, handball, roller hockey, tennis, garden, studied and imitated all over the world. With skating, kayaking and canoeing); dog-walking; and its huge lawns, stunning vistas, playgrounds and sports solitary contemplation. facilities, riding, bicycling and running paths, and countless nooks and crannies, it’s a source of endless In recent years, the Hudson River Greenway, running enjoyment in all seasons. through Riverside Park along the Hudson River, has become the most popular bicycle path in the United For four miles along the Hudson River from 72nd Street States. And just a few blocks south of The Belnord, the to 155th Street, Riverside Park—another creation of 79th Street Boat Basin is a nautical escape from the city, Central Park’s co-creator Frederick Law Olmsted— with its marina and multilevel outdoor café right on the is also a scenic landmark, as well as a place for children, busy waterway.

50 Central Park is a living landmark and world of wonders that never ceases to surprise and delight. Here is the entrance to its famous Bethesda Terrace and Fountain. 53 THE CITY AT YOUR DOORSTEP

Residents of The Belnord also have quick and easy access Besides The Belnord’s private gym, the immediate to cultural and culinary delights and some of the best neighborhood boasts local branches of Soul Cycle public transportation options. You’ll never get tired of and the popular Equinox fitness centers. And if your the Upper West Side, but it’s also easy to get anywhere favorite exercise is shopping, the Upper West Side offers in the city. everything from the world’s best department stores to a plethora of the sort of insider cult-favorite specialty shops The neighborhood around The Belnord offers a delightful that are an endangered species elsewhere in New York, array of restaurants and food shops, from gourmet to but still thrive on the streets and wide boulevards around ethnic. Don’t miss Barney Greengrass, as much an Upper The Belnord. West Side landmark as The Belnord, and just across Culture, cuisine, and community are all moments Amsterdam Avenue. But don’t stop there. Slightly farther south, there’s the Time Warner Center, a away from The Belnord. Above, the Hayden few minutes’ ride away on Columbus Circle; it boasts not Sphere at the Rose Center for Earth and Science, Kids enjoy the nearby Strong Museum’s Playground of only world-class shopping, five-star restaurants, and a and opposite, a chef at work at Masa, and the Fun, Kidville, Little Gym, and the Children’s Museum of sprawling Whole Foods Market, but also the off-campus American Museum of Natural History. Manhattan. Jazz at Lincoln Center, one of the city’s most vibrant entertainment venues.

54 Lincoln Center, opposite page, is home to (from left to right) the David H. Koch Theater, the Metropolian Opera House, the Lincoln Center Theater and David Geffen Hall. Across Broadway, Daniel Boulud’s Bar Boulud is one of the neighborhood’s many gourmet destinations, and, below, Pier i Cafe is renowned for its Hudson River views.

Lincoln Center is a New York City cultural landmark and an Upper West Side hub of activity. First conceived in 1956, its campus hosts eleven resident arts organizations including the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the Juilliard School, the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, the Chamber Music Society, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival, and Lincoln Center Theater on its sixteen-acre campus.

57 THE CONSERVATORS

BEHIND THE BELNORD IS AN EXTRAORDINARY team of deeply experienced and highly creative all-stars in the fields of real estate development and design, all working at the peak of their powers to create an extraordinary experience in living within this unique masterpiece of urban architecture. Each is a leader in his or her field. We are proud to introduce them to you.

59 Clockwise from left: Four Seasons Residences Thirty Park Place, NYC 15 Central Park West, NYC Superior Ink, 400 West 12th Street, NYC The Brompton, 205 East 85th Street, NYC

Residence Interiors ROBERT A.M. STERN ARCHITECTS (RAMSA)

No one knows the New York apartment house better The firm’s buildings in Manhattan include the than Robert A.M. Stern Architects. The firm, known for record-setting 15 Central Park West for Zeckendorf its commitment to quality and its deep understanding of Development, Superior Ink for Related, 20 East End history, has a stellar reputation for creating residences for Avenue for Corigin, and 30 Park Place, Four Seasons New York’s most discerning homeowners. Private Residences New York Downtown for Silverstein Properties. HFZ’s Feldman says he chose the firm for The firm’s founder and Senior Partner Robert A.M. The Belnord because “Stern had already re-envisioned Stern, architect, teacher, and writer, served as Dean of pre-war luxury, but not in an existing building. His the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016. His pedigree and his vision convinced me he’d be its perfect passion for New York City’s architecture and urbanism caretaker.” And renewing The Belnord was a challenge is documented in his renowned five-volume New York Stern and his Partners could not resist. book series. Stern led the firm’s design work on The Belnord together with his Partners Paul Whalen and Sargent Gardiner.

60 Clockwise from left: Private Residence, Greenwich Village, NYC Private Residence, Greenwich Village, NYC Glebe Place, Chelsea, London The Greenwich Lane, 155 West 11th Street, NYC

Public Spaces Décor ARCHITECTURE AT LARGE / RAFAEL DE CÁRDENAS

Rafael de Cárdenas, a native New Yorker, studied fashion at the Rhode Island School of Design before starting his career as a designer for Calvin Klein’s men’s collection. Switching to architecture, he earned a Master’s Degree from UCLA in 2002. In his first post-graduate job, he worked on a team that was one of six finalists in the competition to replace New York’s World Trade Center. In 2004, he joined the design and production studio Imaginary Forces as its creative director, working for corporate clients like BMW and Home Box Office. Two years later, he opened his own design studio, Architecture at Large, tackling projects large and small, from exhibition spaces, retail stores, and hotels and restaurants to private residences and custom-designed furniture for an international clientele. Rafael de Cárdenas and his design firm are responsible for the décor of the public spaces at The Belnord.

63 Clockwise from left: English Country House, Gibson Beach, South of England Courtyard & Garden Gibson Beach, Sagaponack, NY On the Bluff, Southampton, NY City Courtyard, NYC HOLLANDER DESIGN / EDMUND D. HOLLANDER

The award-winning firm led by Edmund D. Hollander, which is redesigning The Belnord’s courtyard, has earned a plethora of awards and an unassailable reputation for ecologically conscious design with its work on projects ranging from residential estates and gardens and horse farms, to golf courses, public parks, and historic landscapes in environments as diverse as New York City, Long Island’s North Shore Gold Coast, the Hamptons, the Caribbean, Europe, and China. For The Belnord’s courtyard, Hollander says, he sought to evoke “a feeling, an ambience and almost a different time.”

64 Private Residence, Upper West Side, NYC Corbin Building, Financial District, NYC

Architect of Record Historic Preservation BP ARCHITECTS / PAGE AYRES COWLEY FERNANDO PAPALE ARCHITECTURE / PAGE AYRES COWLEY

BP Architects and its principal Fernando Papale are architects specializing in both PACA is a full-service architectural firm specializing in the design, reinvention historic preservation and new construction, making BP Architects a proper fit as and restoration of historic buildings. It is the fourth iteration of a firm founded the executive architect at The Belnord. Papale, a native of Buenos Aires, in 1887 by Charles A. Platt, who designed buildings and gardens for families Argentina, started his first design firm at age 23, and has taught the history of like the Astors, Roosevelts and Rockefellers. Cowley, a specialist in historic architecture at the University of Buenos Aires. He moved to New York in 1996, preservation and open space and city planning is expert at working with the and worked in several architecture firms before opening one of his own. Papale public and private agencies responsible for historic structures. She has worked has extensive experience in historic renovation and high-end residential projects. on churches, museums, theaters, historic rail and subway stations, monuments, residences, and commercial buildings in the last three-plus decades. Cowley was first retained to restore The Belnord’s masonry and metal ornamentation in 2009, and has remained with the project ever since.

67

Clockwise from Left: The XI, 76 Eleventh Avenue, NYC The Marquand, 11 East 68th Street, NYC One Madison, 23 East 22nd Street, NYC The Bryant, 16 West 40th Street, NYC

Developer HFZ CAPITAL GROUP

HFZ Capital Group is a Manhattan-based real estate increasingly important projects in New York. None was as investment and development company formed in 2005, challenging, or would prove as rewarding, as The Belnord, with broad and deep experience in both residential which PMG acquired in October 1994. and commercial properties. One of the most active and influential developers of luxury condominiums in The Belnord had been designated as an individual New Manhattan, it has in excess of ten million square feet York City landmark almost three decades earlier, making of Manhattan real estate under management or in its preservation and restoration a requirement for the development, including over 2,500 residences. new owners. It was, says Feldman, “a diamond in the rough.” But he saw its sparkle, hidden beneath decades But the numbers don’t really tell HFZ’s story. It is unique of wear, so after PMG sold it and Feldman left the in balancing a reverence for restoring and preserving partnership to form HFZ with his wife, Helene, “I was historic buildings of grace and refinement with its always wistful,” he says, thinking about “what could expertise in creating brand-new, architecturally significant have been.” So in 2013, HFZ bought The Belnord in properties in collaboration with renowned architects and order to convert it into a unique luxury condominium, designers. Combining myriad historic qualities with state- a precious jewel to be shared with a select group of of-the-art innovation, The Belnord epitomizes HFZ’s discerning home buyers. expertise in both innovation and preservation. “There are only a handful of buildings like it,” says HFZ’s Founder and Chairman Ziel Feldman has been Feldman, “and none of them are condominiums. The part of The Belnord’s story since 1994. Ten years before cost of erecting a building like this new is prohibitive,” that, he began his career in real estate as an attorney but restoring the West Side’s crown jewel to a modern and investor. In 1991, he co-founded Property Markets version of what it had once been was an irresistible Group (PMG) to buy and restore valuable but neglected challenge, and an opportunity as important as the properties. As PMG became a force in real estate building itself. nationwide, with holdings in hotel, resort, residential, commercial, and recreational properties, it also took on

69 Project Credits

Author: Michael Gross is the New York Times bestselling author of two books on luxury apartment houses in New York, 740 Park, about that famous 1930 cooperative, and House of Outrageous Fortune, about the Robert A.M. Stern– designed 15 Central Park West, the first great 21st century condominium. Gross is also the Editor-in-Chief of AVENUE and avenuemagazine.com and a Contributing Editor of Departures

Images: All images, design and text by DBOX, unless noted. Page 48-49: Upper West Side, photo, ©Evan Joseph, 55 above: Chef Masa, courtesy Masa, 60 right: 15 Central Park West, courtesy Robert A.M. Stern Architects, 60 top left: The Four Seasons Residences, Thirty Park Place, NYC, courtesy Robert A.M. Stern Architects, 60 middle left: The Brompton, NYC, courtesy Robert A.M. Stern Architects, 63 left: Private Residence, Greenwich Village, NYC, courtesy Architecture at Large/ Rafael de Cárdenas, 63 top right: Private Residence, Greenwich Village, NYC, courtesy Architecture at Large/ Rafael de Cárdenas, 63 middle right: Private Residence, Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, courtesy Architecture at Large/ Rafael de Cárdenas, 63 bottom right: The Greenwich Lane, 155 West 11th Street, NYC, courtesy Architecture at Large/ Rafael de Cárdenas, 64: English Country House, South of England, courtesy Hollander Design, 65 top left: Gibson Beach, Sagaponack, NY, courtesy Hollander Design, 65 top right: On the Bluff, Southampton, NY, courtesy Hollander Design, 66 bottom: City Courtyard, NYC, courtesy Hollander Design, 66: Private Residence, Upper West Side, NYC, courtesy BP Architects, 67: Corbin Building, Financial District, NYC, courtesy Page Ayres Cowley Architecture, 69 top right: The Marquand, 11 East 68th Street, NYC courtesy of Wordsearch, 69 bottom left: The Bryant, 16 West 40th Street, NYC courtesy of Miller Hare Sales Gallery 225 W. 86th Street New York, New York 10024 212 875 0225 [email protected] thebelnord.com

Exclusive Marketing & Sales Agent Douglas Elliman Development Marketing

thebelnord.com

The complete offering terms are in an offering plan available from the Sponsor. File No. CD16-0128. The artist representations and interior decorations, finishes, appliances and furnishings are provided for illustrative purposes only. Sponsor makes no representations or warranties except as may be set forth in the Offering Plan. Sponsor reserves the right to substitute materials, appliances, equipment, fixtures and other construction and design details specified herein as provided in the Offering Plan. All dimensions are approximate and subject to normal construction variances and tolerances. Square footage exceeds the usable floor area. Sponsor reserves the right to make changes in accordance with the terms of the Offering Plan. Plans and dimensions may contain minor variations from floor to floor. Sponsor: Belnord Partners LLC, c/o HFZ Capital Group, 600 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022. Equal Housing Opportunity.