This article is part of our special design section on retrofitting.
When the Beaufort was built on West 57th Street in the early 20th century, it was intended to provide living and working space for artists, one of several buildings of this type constructed in Manhattan at the time. Large, two-story rooms on the north front of the building were designed as art studios. Sixteen-foot-tall bay windows let in the uniform northern light prized by painters and sculptors, and behind them are single-story living spaces.
But on a recent afternoon, interior designer Stephen Sills said he was thinking less about artists and more about art buyers when he set out to decorate one of those units. This space is now a one-bedroom show apartment in a luxury condominium called Parc Beaufort. And Sills had hung collages, paintings and prints seemingly haphazardly on the warm walls of a combined living and dining room, as if they had been installed over time by an imaginary resident.
“I imagined a fictional person from Los Angeles or Dallas who could have an apartment in the building for a weekend getaway,” he explained of the chunky elm table, crinkled curtains of ocher performance taffeta, and sectional sofa upholstered in purple twill. “If they went to auctions or galleries while they were in town, they might buy a piece and start collecting.”
Sills added, “The exterior of the building is so beautiful. I wanted to incorporate a romantic story into the interior.”
In fact, the project, which houses a 14-story beige brick and limestone landmark, is a response to the glass condo towers that have sprung up in the area in recent years. The plan is to have a more boutique feel than the contemporary Insurgents, with significantly smaller units and less stratospheric prices.
“It’s like a hybrid, it’s the old with the new,” said Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants, who keeps an eye on residential real estate in New York and is among those who have wondered whether old-school co-ops might be making a comeback as luxury condos fall out of favor.
But even when the building was first constructed in 1907, it was hardly intended for starving artists.
The Beaufort was built at 140 West 57th Street alongside its nearly identical neighboring building at 130 West 57th Street, both designed by the architectural firm Pollard & Steinam, which specializes in so-called “art studio” buildings. The West 57th Street twins were built on the south side of the block between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, with the wide east-west corridor providing maximum exposure to the studios. The buildings fit into the then-thriving arts district, which included Carnegie Hall just steps away and the Art Students League a block west.
It was a time when the city’s population was exploding, Manhattan’s development was progressing, and wealthy New Yorkers were still getting used to the idea of living in apartment buildings rather than single-family homes. It was believed that the art studio buildings would help them adjust to the new way of life.
They were founded as cooperatives, a financial arrangement that then became popular in New York, in which residents held shares in the properties. Because cooperatives required a significant investment—a down payment and subsequent installment payments—they were considered a more elite form of multifamily housing, as opposed to overcrowded tenements for the poor.
And the lookalikes on West 57th Street were certainly pretty, with large cast-iron eaves and geometrically decorated window frames.
Inside the Beaufort were ten apartments with high-ceilinged studios that allowed artists not only to create works but also to exhibit them to potential clients. The spacious units were replaced with more modest units. The building also offered early 20th century amenities. For example, there was a central vacuum system so residents or their housekeepers could insert a hose into a wall opening to remove dust and dirt.
Indeed, as intended, the Beaufort attracted artists – including the opera singer Beniamino Gigli and the sculptor Ernest Durig (he was best known for forging drawings by Auguste Rodin) – as well as lawyers and stockbrokers.
The building’s first major change occurred in 1944, when the apartments became rental apartments, and that was essentially the state of affairs when Macklowe Properties purchased it in 1981.
The developer was planning the future Metropolitan Tower on an adjacent site and soaked up the air rights over the Beaufort so he could send his angular black glass building even higher into the sky. For a time, the company had plans to redesign the Beaufort using the same shiny material.
Fortunately, this affront never happened, and when the city declared the building a landmark in 1999, the exterior was protected forever. But inside there were changes of a different kind: Macklowe bought out the last tenants and converted the building into offices with the help of MdeAS Architects. Brian J. McCarthy, an interior designer, had one built using a former studio that Architectural Digest described as “a calming world of order and grace.”
The Feil Organization, which acquired the Beaufort in 2009, wavered for years over whether to keep the offices or jump on the luxury condo bandwagon.
The pandemic finally settled the matter: As remote and hybrid work patterns took hold, companies gave up space and the office market collapsed, Feil joined other developers in converting offices into apartments – which, in Beaufort’s case, means returning the building to its original use.
MdeAS has returned to the property to work with Sills on the $45 million project. An exterior renovation, currently underway behind scaffolding and construction netting, is restoring the cornice that was removed years ago; This time it is made of lighter aluminum and painted gray to match the window frames.
Inside the gutted interior, there is currently a tangle of wires and cables in the lobby. Sills said the room will have a coffered plaster ceiling over a burgundy marble and brown sandstone floor. The vacuum gizmo and other circa-1907 features are long gone; 21st-century condo amenities—gym, lounge, and rooftop deck—will soon take their place.
According to Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, which is handling the sales, well over half of the 47 units in the building will be one-bedrooms ranging in size from 700 to 1,100 square feet and priced between $1.3 million and $2.5 million. There are also studios (approximately $1 million), two-bedrooms ($2.8 to $3.4 million), and three-bedrooms ($4.5 to $4.6 million).
Miller predicted potential buyers would find those prices attractive. “It’s like a return to the luxury focus of new development from before excess,” he said. The smaller units, he added, make sense for the Midtown location, which tends to attract a transient population. (Sills suspected this when he decorated the model unit as a pied-à-terre.)
Former studio apartments, whose ceilings reach 19 feet, are likely to be among the most desirable. “All these beautiful duplexes,” said Dan Shannon, managing partner of MdeAS. “Who wouldn’t want to live there?”