Exclusive | 995 Fifth Avenue - Museum Mile Elegance
The oversize living room, created by knocking down a wall, is brightened by windows facing toward the Met. Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
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A svelte eight-room simplex that blends classic Museum Mile elegance, European élan and the open-ended entertainment flow of a luxury downtown loft is poised to enter the market at $13.5 million.
Six years ago, the Extell Development Company completed the conversion of the former Stanhope Hotel, a 1926 Rosario Candela jewel box at East 81st Street opposite the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to 26 luxurious condop apartments — maintenance charges include rental fees for the building’s 150-year land lease.
The three-bedroom three-and-a-half-bath residence, No. 6S, which has monthly carrying costs of $18,173 and shares the sixth floor and a private elevator landing with just one other unit, underwent a further two-year renovation and personalization once the current sellers, Robert and Cécile Rosner, bought it as a sponsor unit in 2009 and commissioned the architect David McAlpin to customize it. After spending the previous decade in Paris, Mrs. Rosner said, the couple had wanted to return to the Museum Mile neighborhood, where they had lived before their stint in Europe, but preferred a pristine setting.
“We wanted a new apartment in a timeless building,” she said of their desire to create “a chic and sleek downtown sensibility in an iconic uptown setting.” The former Stanhope provided a perfect 4,357-square-foot blank canvas framed by the classical architecture they favored.
The 12-by-10-foot gallery, entered through double doors, was retained, but “for lifestyle reasons” they removed the interior wall that had separated the living and dining rooms, to create a large living room and library that share 41 feet of Fifth Avenue frontage brightened by three sets of six-over-six paned double-hung windows facing west toward the Met. Glass panels serve as transparent room dividers between the formal 18-by-27-foot living section and the more casual 18-by-14 library/entertainment area, whose southernmost window offers a glimpse of Central Park. The floors are bleached wood in a chevron pattern, and modern gallery lighting was recessed into the ceilings to highlight their collection of contemporary art.
A glass wall functions as an interior picture window that provides the unusual 25-by-13-foot chef’s eat-in kitchen with museum views. The glass separates yet does not isolate the front living spaces from the cooking space, which has an oversize matte stainless-steel tile floor, an immense black matte granite island, white Smallbone cabinetry, Sub-Zero refrigeration and wine storage, and Gaggenau appliances that include a steamer set into the granite countertop. A window faces east over the rear courtyard, and the sink is strategically placed in front of the glass wall that faces the library.
“It opens views to the museum and re-emphasizes the loftlike flow of the front of the apartment,” Mrs. Rosner wrote in an email from Paris, where the couple have an apartment.
An original fifth bedroom, or den, adjacent to the kitchen was repurposed as a formal dining room, and a marble powder room is reached from the corridor off the gallery.
A winding hallway with in-baseboard LED ambient lighting leads to the bedroom wing, where two smaller rooms were combined to create a spacious 25-by-10-foot guest suite, and there is a second guest suite with southern and western exposures. Both have marble baths. The hallway terminates at the sumptuous master suite, which has his-and-hers walk-in closets, a marble bath with an oversize glass-enclosed walk-in rain shower, and a south-facing picture window.
Sharon Baum of the Corcoran Group is the listing broker. Ms. Baum, who found the condop for the Rosners in 2009, said they decided to part with it because they have other homes in Florida, Paris, and Southampton, N.Y., and are refocusing their city priorities. Mr. Rosner is a president of Vestar Capital Partners, and Mrs. Rosner, who is French-born, is an interior designer.
“This apartment is in immaculate condition and impeccably decorated, in a building with wonderful service, and in a special neighborhood that speaks for itself,” Ms. Baum said. “Where else can you sit in your living room in the evening after the museum closes and the lights come on and have a bird’s-eye view of the masterpieces inside?”
Copyright © 2014 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission. Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times.
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