The William Hotel

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6-story hotel originally completed as a pair of 4-story rowhouses in the 1850's. They were joined and rebuilt in 1905 to a design by C.P.H. Gilbert. The double house was later converted for use as a private club (Williams College's The Williams Club) by Shreve & Lamb. The building's appearance still suggests its origin as two houses, one wider than the other. The club relocated in 2010, and the building was converted to an extended stay hotel called The William. Originally located on Madison Avenue between 39th and 40th Streets, The Club served as a place for Williams alumni to convene and socialize. In 1924, The Club relocated to a twin brownstone residence on 39th Street and are now located in a shared modern clubhouse with Princeton University.

Both facade are clad in red brick with limestone trim, above limestone parlor floors and English basements. The west part of the main facade is three bays wide. The east bay contains the entrance (located centrally to the joined facade), atop a grey stone stoop with wrought-iron railings. The doorway is framed by paneled pilasters, and there is a black canvas awning sloping down over the stoop. To the right of the stoop are two round-arched windows in the heavily rusticated basement. The parlor floor has two windows with stone surrounds to the right of the entrance. All three bays at the parlor floor are topped by cornices carried on slender scrolled brackets (slightly wider at the entrance). The three upper floors have stone surrounds at the windows, which grow progressively shorter at each floor. The projecting sills have small double brackets, and the windows are topped by lintels with delicate engraved foliate designs surmounted by cornices.

A vertical stone band with similar designs separates the west section from the narrower east section of the facade. At the basement and parlor-floor levels, this section has three windows with iron bars. At the top of the parlor floor four console brackets support a stone balcony and iron railing at the base of the next floor. This floor has a large triple-window framed in stone and topped by a cornice. Two narrow stone band courses underline the top two floors, each of which has a pair of single-windows. A unified roof cornice with stone modillions and frieze and a black metal cap crowns the lower roof line. Above, there are two new set-back floors, painted dark-grey and with large modern windows. The western elevation is faced in dark-grey-painted smooth stucco, and has three bays of paired windows.

www.thewilliamnyc.com/