Tasteful Friends - Today I Give You Rosario Candela's 1930's 834 Fifth Avenue, NYC

"Rosario?" Shouldn't she be in the maid's quarters?

Cozy

Gorgeous. My fave DL NYC property evah, OP.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

DL being a gossip site, of course there is dirt to be spilled.

Yet more...

More visuals, this time video.

^ A former stewardess with exceptional taste.

For all its grandeur (both building and apartment) Gutfreund apartment couldn't get anything near asking ($120 million).

If 834 Fifth were a condo where just anyone could buy in, then maybe things would have been different. But for UES co-ops like this building only a select few are going to pass muster.

It looks a bit stuffy & cramped

It's a great building and one of Candela's better (in terms of architecture, not just prestige of address or $.) It makes good use of something Candela does elsewhere in the very correct Italian Renaissance body of the building crowned with a setback top that hets complicated, pulling and pushing at symmetry in favor of something balanced but not bilaterally symmetrical. (One of my favorite things about the building is the 64th Street elevation, way up, the magnificent oversized and double height round-arched window that spans the 11th and 12th floors. That's the space I covet.)

The duplex apartments are grand, but past sales listing show the difficulty of decorating them on the right scale.

The internal zoning of bedrooms, public rooms, and service areas is excellent in this building. In 7A/7B, you could lock the doors to the bedroom wings and have a huge party in the public spaces; half the guests would never know that they had never set foot into a huge part of the apartment. The service mezzanine floor and series of kitchen and service spaces nicely isolates the non-family part of the apartment, and there are spaces like the small bedroom adjacent the foyer on the 7th floor perfect for a working office, part of the secondary bedroom wing for children or guests.

Correction: Apartment above is 7A/8A.

For my more modest needs and tastes, 7B at a fraction of the cost of 7A/8A would do very nicely. It's a single level of course, and much smaller, but has all you need and more for a two-bedroom apartment in New York. I prefer the Italianate spareness to the architectural details.

The icy cool yellow in the living rooms (photos #1 and #2 — note the museum guard's chair in photo #2) is off-putting, but that's very easily fixed. Architecturally it's lovely and nothing is finished in some dreadful designer's vision of Venetian plaster or ultra-high-gloss finish, or papers that would need a jackhammer to dismantle them.

The monthly maintenance costs are $33,923?!?!!! That is INSANE. Not to mention that for USD53 million you can actually get something bigger, with a considerable amount of land and thus, a proper garden... In fact, you could easily get that for less than 5% of this apartment's cost! This is just crazy... Some people truly have more money than sense.

R13

Can assure you many residents if not most of 834 Fifth do have country homes or estates. Some more than one...

This was true back in 1920's, 1930's, etc... and still is today.

Rich heartland of UES (from Fifth to Park avenues, maybe Lexington in spots) virtually becomes a ghost town in summer. Everyone closes their homes in town and departs for Long Island, Westchester, upstate New York, Italy, France, UK, etc...

We saw this also when covid hit NYC. Again that area joined many other parts of Manhattan that virtually emptied of residents. People fled to their country homes or estates, and remained until rather recently. Some (like NPH, Jimmy Fallon, etc.. ) have decamped to their country properties permanently.

R13

Believe me when I tell you residents of 834 Fifth Avenue are playing on levels rest of us can only dream about.

Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Druckenmiller have a collection of homes all over USA.

"The buyers are multibillionaire ex-hedge fund mogul Stanley Druckenmiller and his wife Fiona, who already own the larger house next door, purchased from Wallis Annenberg in 2017 for $36 million."

Who's Who of 834 Fifth Avenue residents.

I would love to see what Wendi Deng’s apartment looks like.

It's RILLY tacky

Bing Crosby's son Harry lives in one of the maisonettes in the building and he's on the co-op board. He's very picky about who is allowed in.

834 Fifth Avenue, Apartment "b" Maisonette

Digital archives from Columbia University contains tons of real estate goodies. This includes original sales brochures of pre-war apartment buildings.

From such marketing and sales materials we can see original floorplans which is rather nice IMHO. Many pre-war grand apartments suffered from being chopped up into smaller units as fortunes of building changed. Happily as times changed people began assembling units to put things back to original configuration much as possible.

Further north on Fifth Avenue at 960 a maisonette once belonging to Sister Parish came on market last year.

This stunning one bedroom apartment was owned by late Mario Buatta who moved in after Sister Parish. Who else would have the nerve to tamper with Ms. Parish's work?

Dolly Lenz got the listing (who else?), and unit was sold about one month after being listed. However StreetEasy still lists things as "sales pending", this over one year later (sale was back in May of 2020).

Got things muddled. Mario Buatta only redesigned that maisonette at 960 Park, it wasn't his residence.

That maisonette at 960 Fifth was former home of Susie Mackie of race horse fame. Patricia Altschul, of Bravo’s “Southern Charm, got it after Sister Parish.

R19

"Mr. Crosby’s maisonette, which can be entered from the lobby or the street, is described as “very grand” by brokers who have seen it, with “very comfortable servant’s quarters” and a “beautiful staircase.” Facing Fifth Avenue, at 64th Street, it just lacks the privacy that upper-floor apartments have. The 5,000-square-foot home was put on the market several months after Ms. Johnson passed away in March 1996. The maintenance is just over $5,000 per month."

I always like maisonettes, the neither fish nor fowl hybrid of apartment/house, with their own advantages and disadvantages.

Thanks R20 and R21 for the link to the original promotional plans. Interesting to see how variable the plans are, and also how good Candela was at both floor plans and at reckoning the interior plan with the external facades — the windows falling regularly within the main rooms, symmetrically, not the let-them-fall-where-they-may effect of Emery Roth at the San Remo, for example, where the edge of a window falls hard in one corner and comparatively miles off the corner in another in same room, same wall, or doors to major rooms fall disconcerting in corners or two-thirds into the length of a wall . It's a real trick to balance a plan with an exterior, but Candela makes it look easy here.

Not many photos of the courtyard/garden, but I found these from a landscape contractor for a recent renovation of the space. It's a bit underwhelming, in size and plantings and details, but any patch of green in the center of a building in NYC is a luxury I suppose. Its understatement seems to extend to no seating furniture — wouldn't want the old blue hairs to mill about all day talking about what color pills they take and gossiping about lobby comings and goings.

I believe Sister Parish's maisonette at 960 Fifth Avenue was her penultimate Manhattan residence. Her final home was a maisonette at 920 Fifth Avenue which had been owned by Gloria Swanson. Sister liked it because it had what she thought was a private garden. It did and was, but not included as part of the sale and she had to purchase it separately from the apartment.

Those fuckers at 960 Fifth Avenue were BEASTLY to me after my dear wife, Sunny inexplicably fell into that coma at our place in Newport. I couldn't stand it any longer and had to move out.

[quote] Dolly Lenz got the listing (who else?),

She's a cunt !!!!

I may like maisonettes, but the ex-Sister Parish place at 960 Fifth is terrible, an example of how to fuck up the unfuckupable, a double-height room, in this case by making it look as though someone removed a floor from a coventional space and called it done. And Mario Buatta besides being ridiculous even by the measure of decorators was a mean-spirited fucker and deeply untalented. He had no idea what to do with the space and it showed. His usual Laura Ashley vomit, only in bigger flowers.

All love for "The Prince" aside, it's a very awkward apartment architecturally.

R30

That garden comes complete with disguised rat bait station in first picture. It's to right of statue and looks like a rock. You see them all along Fifth, Madison and Park avenues, and side streets to Lexington avenue.

After Third once in Yorkville they just leave bait boxes uncovered. *LOL*

Just a with Central Park West buildings along Fifth and side streets fight a constant battle with rats. The park itself is full of them, which is fine as it is their natural habitat.

[quote] I may like maisonettes, but the ex-Sister Parish place at 960 Fifth is terrible, an example of how to fuck up the unfuckupable, a double-height room, in this case by making it look as though someone removed a floor from a coventional space and called it done.

It’s not double height but a mirror on the ceiling.

Thanks, R32. Stupid of me to not open the photo, and stupid to have once know this and forgotten. Better for the architecture, but hideous the mirrored ceiling.

Thanks for posting this OP, it is far more than a "Tasteful Friends" headline. Honestly, I had no idea what the interior of an apartment, co-op, maisonette, triplex, however you want to describe it looked like on the inside.

Extraordinary.

The complexity of the plumbing and electrical for the building! Honestly, just try to comprehend how each of those spaces have to be connected somewhere behind the walls and under the floors so everything eventually makes it to the sere system.

And fireplaces? Honestly, how do the flu systems work and why aren't there fires?

Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale. Tasteful Friends threads are restricted to individual properties, and preferable only those for sale.

Med nurse at facility where R35 is confined must be late doing her rounds.

R34

Consider nearly all pre-war (and for long time afterwards) multi-family housing was heated via steam or hot water, there is the trick of dealing with all that piping as well.

See some apartments have those cutouts for through wall AC. Wonder if any units at 834 Fifth have central air.

Never mind, did a bit of research and it seems building does allow installation of central AC. Absence of those awful window units tells one either apartments have been retrofitted with central air, or make do with through wall units.

Would someone please tell me what a "living room" is?

I grew up with sitting and drawing rooms, and my mother and grandmother had their morning rooms. My parents would meet with individuals or small groups for morning visits, social or business, in a downstairs sitting room. Anything in the afternoon or evening would be in one of the drawing rooms. Mother also had an upstairs sitting room for more-private talks with family or friends.

Is a living room what some people called a "parlor" or now call a "lounge" (both of which seem pompous)? Or is it what I've heard called a "family room"? We had a game room so would that be it? OR did people in the USA say "living room" to seem humble? The rooms in the photos look mostly like sparsely furnished drawing rooms.

[quote] And fireplaces? Honestly, how do the flu systems work and why aren't there fires?

The flues were dedicated ones and set side by side encased in thick brick walls. In most large apartments, there were only one or two actual fireplaces with the remainder of the rooms having only decorative chimney pieces with a sealed recess to hold the grate, etc.

R38

Living room came into being around late 1890's or so as middle class began owning homes in great numbers.

Prior to this in homes of wealthy and most others there were a series of room defined by use: parlor, dining room, drawing room (name comes from *with* drawing room), morning room, sitting room...

Middle class homes weren't often vary large, maybe two rooms downstairs and two upstairs plus a bath. Front parlor was used for mostly formal occasions like laying out the dead, receiving callers/visitors, but was often left unused otherwise. Children were confined either to kitchen or their rooms/nursery.

As nature of living changed middle classed turned idea of front parlor to "living room" which became de facto center of most homes for family life.

In United States and elsewhere architecture changed as well in terms of home design.

All this being said plenty of middle and upper middle class homes well into 1970's and beyond still reserved their living room for formal occasions.

Growing up our living room was off limits. There was family/rumpus room in finished basement (complete with television, bar, fridge...) or you went to your bedroom. Dad had his den/office/study, and that was it. Only when there was company, major holidays, or some equally grand event did our living room see any action. The kitchen was probably most used room by family, close friends, etc...

Robert Klein put his his duplex at 920 Fifth Avenue up for sale back in 2015. Who knew being a comedian paid so well.

For those who moan about NYT articles being paywalled...

R30

Leave Mario Buatta alone. He came from a nothing background (born and raised on Staten Island, NY of all places) to great heights in interior decorating.

Buatta and Parish were tasteless hacks. That's why MY decorator was Ted Garber. The White House never looked better than it did under my reign, um, my husband's two terms. And Ted was very good about not asking where the money came from. I rewarded him by letting him and his fagfriend spend one night in the White House. They promised me they didn't have the AIDS, so I thought, why not.

Don't forget about me Ms. Reagan.

R45 Who geeves a fuck about dah Chreestmas stuff and decorations?