A Palatial Owner’s Duplex in the 1926 Ritz Tower

The large room 45 feet long has a ceiling which can be an imported antiquity and terraced doors on three sides.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

The developer of Ritz tourA 1926 cooperative at the corner of 57th and the park did not give itself the penthouse on the 41st floor – then the highest residence in the city. Instead, he chose floors 19 and 20, where the building intervenes inward, with space for a terrace on three sides. Designed by Emery Roth, the king of pre-war elegance, the Ritz tower obtained a more soft architects modification Carrère and Hastingswhich has covered the exterior with cartridges, rollers and ballot boxes. The owner’s terrace has a huge obelisk, and it was Thomas Hastings who personally designed The interiors around a large room 45 feet long, which he transformed into a medieval room with a little Italian Palazzo. (A Juliette balcony with columns and arches look at the piece of a gallery on the second floor.) The ceiling comes from a XVIIth century Venetian palace, According to the listAnd the terrace can be seen through lead windows and spotted doors of stained glass, some with images of masks and medieval -style angels. There is a wood fireplace, and wooden floors could Also Be hand -made antiques: hand -carved wooden ankles cover nails holding plates of old trees.

The view in the large room towards the north, towards an alcove with a wood fireplace. The embellishment is typical of Thomas Hastings, who designed the interiors of his client, the developer of the Ritz tower.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

The rest of the apartment is more like a university club, with three wood studies – three – one in maple and two in rare pear wood. The integrated shelves are withdrawn, so a curious reader can have a narrower view of a title. It is a fairly good clue that the apartment was designed for a man of letters. Arthur Brisbane Started as a journalist known for a spare and simple style. It has become one of the most popular and most well -remunerated newspapers of its generation, with unionized columns simply entitled “Today” and “The Week”. The latter ran in 1,200 newspapers, especially on the first page of the titles managed by his boss, the publisher William Randolph Hearst, who then joined his star on two of the Hustles on the side of Brisbane. First of all, Brisbane sniffed the local papers dying, would buy them himself, the Hearst-Iify and sold them to his boss. When Hearst entered real estate, building an Empire from top to bottom 57th Street, Brisbane followed, and they joined for flashy projects, including the Ziegfeld Theater.

At the southern end of the large room, a passage leads to a library where you can easily imagine William Randolph Hearst and Arthur Brisbane Scotch Scotch.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

But with regard to the corner of the 57th and Park, where the families of old arguments had low and stony residences, Brisbane has come out alone, buying them over the years and tapping the Ritz-Carlton to associate with him during his first residential tower of the hotel (at that time, a proven concept). In 1926, when the building opened, the lower floors had traditional hotel rooms. The higher apartments, however, were built without kitchens, because their owners could just as easily call for room service. And the personal Brisbane suite was the only one to have a private elevator and the only one to have a kitchen.

The over -the -counter coffee cans add a dose of reality to a fantastic apartment.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

The Ritz tower Drew of famous residents Almost from the start. There were actresses (Greta Garbo and Deborah Kerr), bankers (James Seligman and George Gustav Heye), and children of famous families (Rockefellers and Hearst’s own son). The building became cooperative in 1955. And when Neil Simon visited a mentor there, Simon swore one day. finally possessed three units.) The first owners were in trouble to Cooking on hot platesBut most have now added kitchens and many have combined the most tiny to one and two rooms in the past in trophies. In 2015, Clive Davis owner Five units. Charles Cohen, real estate magnatebought six to create a spread of 7,500 square feet, then bought Luxury fashion brands To complete the retail trade below. Although the building has become cooperative, it has kept the hotel equipment and the costs reflect it (the monthly interview is $ 20,381).

But the poor and rich Brisbane has never done enough to repay the mortgage of $ 4 million. In 1928, he sold his interests – including the duplex – in Hearst, who lived in the old rooms of his journalist with his mistress, Marion Davies, according to The 2002 report which pointed out the address.

Heller in 1977, surrounded by chairs and antiques similar to the style of furniture and art in the apartment now.
Photo: Don Hogan Charles / The New York Times / Redux

The legs rather, a art dealer Who was early to buy Pollocks and Rothkos, bought the duplex after sold an apartment on Central Park West in 1975 that he had filled with modern furniture and major works of art. Then his tastes seem to develop: in 1977, the New York Times reported on The new “passion” of modernist for antiquities. “It is annoying to love French furniture from the 18th century,” said Heller to the journalist. “Here I am, raised on modern, falling in love with Louis XIV, regeneration and Louis XV.” This change of taste could have led him to an apartment designed by the Hastings educated by Paris. Or not. “My father liked to move a lot,” said Woody Heller, now a commercial-real broker, who remembered a kind of Eloise Childhood, with hotel staff at hand. “It was a wonderful and full service to live,” he said. Property recordings to show The Hellers were here in 1983 and 1984, and the next owner had come In 1987. The art and furniture on the list seems to correspond to what Heller had collected at the time – French regency furniture, Asian antiques – but his son said that he would have been unusual for his father to leave art. “We would not have left it all late unless they are real – but it tends to specialize in things that were not real.”

Asian antiques flank the windows on the terrace of the large room.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

Other hands could go back to the Brisbane era because they should probably be removed via Crane. (Competitors include a carpet the size of the large massive room and a solid marble table.) The owner sells these two rooms as well as “the English Regency tables, the chairs, the office and the lamps; personalized deangelis sofas; Inlaid marble table; Illustrations and sculptures from around the world, ”according to the list.

At the southern end of the large room 45 feet long, there are integrated shelves in the same dark maple as a formal study behind them.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

Behind the formal library, above, the doors lead to a bathroom and a more private office, where Brisbane could have led business. The current owners have transformed it into a media room.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

The doors (on the left) can be antiques and drive to the northwest corner of the terrace, with a view to Central Park.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

On the other side of the alcove in the large room is a dining room with Solarium style windows which can be lit from behind on the terrace. The room connects to the kitchen – the only one built for all the upstairs units in 1926, when the building opened with the hotel services below.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

A romantic view of the large room. Gothic columns and arches are typical of the Beaux-Arts style for which Thomas Hastings was known.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

A thin passage of the gallery leads to rooms and a den.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

On the other end of the gallery, a primary bed and a bath have their own wing. The room is 15 by 20 feet. The woodwork hides four cupboards.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

Speeds the row of billionaires of the oversized bathtub in the main bathroom.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

The room at the other end of the gallery opens onto a family den, with a room on each side.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

One of the rooms.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

Another bedroom upstairs has private access to a staircase to the kitchen, which makes it likely to have been designed for staff.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images

A fourth room is below the library which is now staged as a media hall and has an integrated office.
Photo: Eytan Stern Weber / Evan Joseph Images