810 Fifth Avenue

Overview

The building is on the northeast corner of East 62nd Street, across the street from the Knickerbocker Club. Designed by J. E. R. Carpenter for the Bricken Construction Company, it was built in 1926 on the site of a house owned by Mrs. Hamilton Fish. It is a 13-story, limestone-clad building in Italian Renaissance-palazzo style. It is one of the most expensive addresses in the city.

The building contains only 12 apartments: a ground floor maisonette, 10 full-floor apartments, and a multi-floor penthouse. Each full-floor apartment has 5000 sqft of space, four bedrooms and four servants' rooms. The elevator opens into a private entrance foyer on each floor. Every apartment has windows overlooking Central Park. The detailing of the exterior in "elegant... limestone-clad, Italian Renaissance-palazzo style" is carried into the lobby, which features bronze torchieres and an elaborate carved plasterwork ceiling. The New York Times once speculated that 810 might be the only apartment building in the city to have "more employees than apartments."

Notable residents

Nelson Rockefeller lived in a triplex apartment with his first wife Mary Todhunter Clark. The 30-room apartment was renovated for the Rockefellers by Wallace Harrison and decorated by Jean-Michel Frank.February 27, 2008 Rock It Like A Rockefeller, https://realestalker.blogspot.com/2008/02/rock-it-like-rockefeller.html With his first wife, Rockefeller lived at the three top floors at 810 Fifth Avenue. After his divorce and marriage to Happy, his ex-wife kept the two top floors of the triplex apartment, while Nelson and Happy kept the 12th-floor apartment. The apartment was expanded by purchasing a floor of 812 Fifth Avenue, with the two spaces connected via a flight of six steps. Rockefeller and his second wife used the entrance at 812 Fifth while his first wife entered through 810 Fifth.

In 1963, former Vice President Richard Nixon bought an apartment in the building.

In 2000, the building's board of directors turned down an application by Gary Winnick to buy the former Nelson Rockefeller apartment. Notable residents have included Felix Rohatyn and former Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas. David Geffen moved into 810 in 2006 but moved to 785 Fifth Avenue in 2010. Hedge fund manager William von Mueffling has also been a recent resident.

References

References

1. "810 Fifth Ave. In Lenox Hill".
2. Rozhon, Tracie. (October 14, 1999). "A Rockefeller Fixer-Upper". [[The New York Times]].
3. Alpern, Andrew. (1992). "Luxury Apartment Houses of Manhattan: an illustrated History". [[Courier Dover Publications]].
4. Appraising the Most Expensive Apartment Houses in the City, Dorothy Kalins Wise, New York Magazine, May 20, 1968, pp. 18-26.
5. (January 16, 2000). "Rockefeller Penthouse Suffers a Pricy Blow; Co-op Nixes Renovations". The Observer.
6. Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, pp. 110-111.
7. [https://web.archive.org/web/20020222033442/http://thecityreview.com/ues/fifave/fif810.htm Carter B. Horsley, The Upper East Side Book]
8. Schumach, Murray. (March 18, 1968). "Presidential Politics Yields to Privacy At Apartments of 3 Candidates Here; WHERE PRIVACY ECLIPSES POLITICS". The New York Times.
9. "The Upper East Side Book: Fifth Avenue: 810 Fifth Avenue".
10. Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 112.
11. [https://realestalker.blogspot.com/2008/02/rock-it-like-rockefeller.html February 27, 2008, Rock It Like A Rockefeller]
12. "The Nelson Rockefeller Apartment, 810-812 Fifth Avenue".
13. Arnold, Martin. (March 30, 1968). "NIXON CONSULTS WITH GOV. AGNEW; Meets Rockefeller Supporter Here in Bid for Liberals". The New York Times.
14. Toy, Vivian S.. (February 25, 2010). "Geffen Buys Fifth Avenue Co-op for $14 Million". [[The New York Times]].
15. David, Mark. (2008-02-27). "Rock It Like A Rockefeller".
16. Lewis, Christina S. N.. (2007-08-04). "Rudin Sells Retreat". The Wall Street Journal.