Tuesday, January 10, 2012

1107 Fifth Avenue Floor Plan Porn (Continued)

Y'all are in some floor plan luck today. Yesterday evening we received an email from a fine gentleman—let's call call Freddie Figurine—who thoughtfully forwarded a couple of scans of the original (if not particularly detailed) floor plans of Marjorie Merriweather Post's titanic and generously terraced triplex penthouse atop 1107 Fifth Avenue (at East 92nd Street) in New York City.

The children will recall that yesterday we (somewhat briefly) discussed the 10-room penthouse apartment at 1107 Fifth Avenue long owned by recently deceased European aristocrat Monique Uzielli and recently hoisted with great fanfare on the market with an $29,500,000 price tag.

The floor plans of Miz Post's mansion-sized penthouse were scanned from Andrew Alpern's 1987 book New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments With Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings. If you get all goose pimply over the floor plans for exceedingly luxurious New York City apartments, Mister Alpern's book is a must own tome. Your Mama has owned a copy since we were knee high to a grasshopper but as we're not at home in the Hollywood Hills but rather ensconced in the art-filled classic six pre-war pad of our pals Soozee-Q and Pretty Boy on the Upper West Side of Manhattan we didn't have access to our copy of the book to include the floor plans with yesterday's discussion.

The children can and should drool through the plan at their own speed but there are a number of features that we find worth noting: 20-plus prison cell-sized staff bedrooms plus half a dozen additional work rooms for valets and personal secretaries; a larder the size of a small bedroom on the main floor off the kitchen and extensive laundry facilities on the third floor larger than most Manhattan studio apartments.

We counted more than a dozen fireplaces, 9 bedrooms (some with private sitting rooms), at least 10 family bathrooms plus half a dozen or more in the various domestics quarters. The master suite alone comprised an entry vestibule flanked by his and her bedrooms, his with walk-in closet, bathroom and sleeping porch and hers with a second bathroom larger than most of the staff bedrooms, a balcony with park and city views, a large private sitting room, and a walk-in "gown closet."

Now then puppies, we're off into the near-freezing temps for lunch at Petrossian with a writer who pens intricate, exhaustively researched and dishy books on the (real estate) doings of the rich, famous and very powerful.

floor plans: New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments With Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings by Andrew Alpern

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just went from sporting wood to a 90 degree throbber!!

Anonymous said...

Watching Downton Abby last night, I think of the grand old English country houses with whole floors dedicated to servant's quarters and work spaces. The original Post/Hutton apartment is like a Manhattan version of the same grand estate. Live-in servants on call for everything. How civilized darling.

Anonymous said...

wow.

lil' gay boy said...

Fascinating to see the separation of the servants' quarters not only by sex but by function ––– not to mention their own separate corner in the laundry...

I'm assuming from the original plans that the third floor did not yet have balconies as they are labeled "tile roof". One can't imagining giving up such prime outdoor real estate to a service/childrens' floor.

Still, sad to say we'll not see the likes of these again...

Anonymous said...

No lurid porn feast is complete without a HOLLYWOOD MOVIE! And this one is NO EXCEPTION!

A film based on The New York Times feature "Mystery on Fifth Avenue," (link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/garden/12puzzle.html?pagewanted=all#)

which describes the "riddle-laden architectural renovation" by Eric Clough and architectural firm 212box of this triplex is in development by J.J. Abrams and expected out in 2013. Here are some additional links:

http://www.observer.com/2008/j-j-abrams-produce-nyts-fifth-avenue-mystery


and

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1248293/

Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Floorgasm

Anonymous said...

Is the 3rd floor of this plan the original layout of the $30m apartment in the previous post?

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you were going to meet Michael Gross...

Anonymous said...

mamma you always always outdo yourself! Viva the days of excess and over the top glamour with staff at every turn! Loves this! Now if only this triplex was available today and was done over in 2012 modern layouts while keeping true to the building's great history such as Ms. Tisch's recent redo in AD..... oh one can dream :)

Kisses

Anonymous said...

Marjorie Merriweather Post was a fascinating woman, so ahead of her time in so many ways. She also built Mar a Lago in Fl & her last home Hillwood is a treasure trove of Russian art in DC, that is a private museum.

Anonymous said...

This is one big and impressive bastard. I don't normally care for NYC apartments, but this is not your average place.

Anonymous said...

Whatever happened to the Post/Hutton fortune? Wikipedia says she was worth 5 billion but doesn't say at what date. She left a lot of her jewelry to institutions but her estate must have been far more than that. Her company became General Foods that was merged into Kraft, but I don't see any heir of hers holding much Kraft stock. Dina Merrill, her daughter, became an actor of sort but I never knew her to be super rich. Where did all the money go?

Anonymous said...

It appears that today's 3rd floor plans have the west side at the top where the original floor plans have the east side at the top. Today's living and dining rooms are the daughter's bedrooms in the original plans and the original laundry is now the bedroom and bathroom of the smaller apartment.

Anonymous said...

@6:29 The estate tax used to be much higher, for one thing.

Steve Mawson said...

What a great shame the once glorious multi-floor apartment was chopped up into several apartments. It lost all its character especially the skylight over the original mid-florr stairway. Shame. Even then money could not buy taste.

Anonymous said...

Doug: But good lawyers could have gotten around that. She left a Foundation, but from what I Googled it has assets of around 6 million which is peanuts. Doris Duke left more than a billion, as I recall, to her foundation. Mystery unsolved. Perhaps we should ask Dina Merrill. Anybody have her phone or email? LOL.

Anonymous said...

Thanks! Been wanting to see this blueprint for years. Now if someone can just get their hands on Mr. Trumps. Now that would be fabulous!

Anonymous said...

Marjorie's children 3 daughters were well provided for, I am not sure about stock, but she gave Mar A Lago to the US government, to be used as a Presenditial retreat, sadly because of its location between the ocean & the bay, it was not a secure location. She willed Hillwood in DC, with her massive & beautiful collections of fine French furniture, Russian art & Faberge to the Smithsonian. They were not thrilled that Marjorie stipulated in her bequeath, that they could never serve food or entertain in her Home. Hillwood than became a private museum & is still. The museum contains all her favorite collections, Marie Antoinette's desk & the crown Alexandra wore when she married Nicholas II, also holds the largest collection of Russian art outside of Russia. Marjorie donated all of her collections intact, because she wanted to share her passion for beauty, be it in furnishings or Art with all. There are two excellent biographies of her The American Empress by Nancy Rubin & the other title escapes me lol & I am not home to look for it!

Anonymous said...

The other MMP biography is Heiress by William Wright. Both very good books on a woman who knew how to live passionately & with great style. She also was an astute business woman in a time when women were not even allowed in the board rooms, even when they owned the company! She was behind the development of Birdseye, that brought freezers & flash frozen foods to the World. I am a fan & have been for a long time. One of my favorite possessions is a small picture that hung on her yacht The Sea Cloud, bought off eBay in 1998.

Anonymous said...

Now this to me in original form is what an $88 million plus NYC apartment should be.
Breathtaking.

Hautezone said...

Oh, how I would've loved to have been a 'fly on the wall' during those wonder years!

Someone call Tyler Perry... this is the 'Real Momma's House'!

I cannot wait to see the renovated property. I've been passing this building for years, with wonder. Thank you for the plan porn. Like milk "it does a body good"!

Anonymous said...

Incredible.

Anonymous said...

The story behind the Post/Hutton triplex is a fascinating one. If I recall, 1107 was originally the sight of their mansion. They sold the property to a developer on the condition that he reconstruct their mansion atop the building. The result was a 54-room triplex apartment; purportedly the largest ever built. It had a private carriage drive and entrance on the side street so the Post-Huttons didn't have to share a lobby or elevator with the commoners. If you stand across Fifth Avenue from the entrance to 1107 today, you can see the enormous 2-story window that looks out over the Avenue & the park. I believe that that window was at the end of the original entrance foyer which began toward the rear of the apartment, giving rise to a breathtaking entry that extended for nearly the entire depth of the building, culminating in that astounding window.

PS. If truly staggering floor plan porn is the order of the day, perhaps Mama, with her unparralleled connections, could secure us a copy of the floor plan for Vincent Astor's penthouse at 120 east End Avenue. If I remember correctly, it was the largest simplex apartment ever built in Manhattan (that was originally intended as an apartment, as opposed to a loft space which may be larger but was originally designed as industrial space); 10,000 sq. ft. surrounded on all sides by terraces! I believe it belongs to raider Asher Edleman (or it did at some point). Just a thought.....

Anonymous said...

Thanks for something worth posting. The typical celebrity real estate is usually bad and mostly laughable. Clearly difficult for the next following posts after these plans.

Anonymous said...

I believe this apartment provided the inspiration, at least in part, for the Renthal triplex in "People Like Us" by Dominick Dunne.

Anonymous said...

I too would love to see a floor plan for Vincent Astor's penthouse at 120 East End Ave. I'm not sure if they're out there though.