Lotte New York Palace Hotel (New York City, New York)

 hotel, skyscraper, movie / film / TV location, Modern (architecture)

564-foot, 51-story International-style hotel completed in 1981. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, the tower rises on its own foundations, but has been partly cantilevered over the east wing of the Villard Houses, rising over the courtyard of the hotel complex. The target of commercial interest and a landmark since 1968, the Villard Houses (451-457 Madison Avenue, 1883-1886), a group of six brownstone private mansions were sold by the archdiocese of New York to the Helmsley Corporation in 1974 (the hotel was originally called the Helmsley Palace Hotel).

The developers used the air rights of the old mansions to build the staggeringly contrasting Helmsley Palace Hotel (later New York Palace) in 1980. Originally designed with a travertine facing and vertical strip-windows with arches on top, the facades were actually changed to a curtain wall of bronze-anodized aluminum and dark-bronze glass. The complex consists of two distinct groups of buildings, spanning almost a full century and incorporating 963 guest rooms. The hotel itself has an entrance from the east end of the courtyard, as well as from the 50th and 51st Streets. It was sold by the Helmsleys and renamed The New York Palace in 1992. Lotte Hotels & Resorts, an owner and operator of luxury hotels based in Seoul, South Korea, agreed to a deal acquiring the hotel for $805 million in 2015.

In 1882, Henry Villard, a railroad financier, created six private brownstone townhouses in a U-shape surrounding a courtyard on Madison Avenue. The architectural firm created the houses in the neo-Italian Renaissance tradition, after the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. The street fronts are all unified by the bold (rusticated) stonework of the basement and first floor with smooth wall surfaces (ashlar masonry) for the floors above. A stone band course signalizes each floor at window sill level, there are quoins at the corners, and a projecting cornice effectively crowns the entire composition, with a low-sloped red tile roof.

The 3rd-floor windows, handsomely enframed, are reminiscent of those of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, while some of the 2nd-floor windows display striking individual balconies carried on console brackets. The north and south doors facing the courtyard are complemented, in their elegance, by the welcoming arched loggia on the east side. The central portion, Nos. 453-455 Madison Avenue, contains five graceful arches on the ground floor and paired windows of the three upper floors. There are smaller attic windows at the top floor. The entrance to the courtyard is between two square uprights surmounted by balls between which a graceful arch of scrolled wrought-iron is bridged to carry the central lantern.

What was once the Villard mansion’s carriage entrance on Madison Avenue is now Lotte New York Palace’s Courtyard. During the restoration of the hotel, the Courtyard was redesigned to incorporate motifs from the flooring of several 15th-century Italian cathedrals. A 2-story lobby joins The Villard Mansion with the newer tower building of the hotel.

The starkly contrasting tower is a north-south oriented slab. Below the curtain wall, the ground floor on 50th Street is clad in rusticated stone to match the mansion, framed in black granite with a gold border. Glass entrance doors are covered by a large metal canopy, illuminated on the sides, with two projecting flagpoles above the ends. A smaller, 6-story wing is attached to the east end, with an entrance to the underground parking garage, and a glass curtain wall above. The ground floor on 51st Street is similar, except for having a more elaborate canopy with modillions and dentils, and a rounded glass top; the black band framing polished red granite instead of rusticated stone; and a small storefront being cut into the left side. There is another 6-story wing at the far east, with a loading dock at the ground floor.

The interior was decorated by Champalimaud Design. Its lobby's stairs were used as a filming location for S1E8 of the Starz Network series "Power Book II: Ghost".

www.lottenypalace.com/