Cartier Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 interesting place, 1905_construction, commercial building, jewelry store/shop, watch repair/sales shop

6-story Neo-Renaissance commercial building originally completed in 1905 as a mansion for Morton F. Plant. Designed by Robert W. Gibson, it sits at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street. Jeweler Pierre Cartier acquired the marble and granite mansion from the Plants in 1917, in exchange for $100 in cash and a Cartier double-stranded natural pearl necklace valued at the time at $1 million. Cartier contracted William Welles Bosworth to convert the mansion as his new store, with show-windows on the ground floor.

The 52nd Street facade is dominated by a handsome decorative architectural feature composed of an ornately carved balcony, supported by heavy console brackets at the 2nd floor with four fluted Doric pilasters rising two floors above the balcony and supporting the low pitched triangular pediment. The ground floor is rusticated, as are the edges of the facade. There is a central round-arched entrance, flanked by two bays with display-windows, and slightly-recessed ends with two additional bays of larger display-windows. The display-windows have rounded upper corners and are lined with green marble and iron. A metal service door is discreetly set low into the east end of the ground floor.

The 2nd-floor windows at the four end bays and the center bay are flanked by Corinthian columns resting on a low balustraded wall. The two bays flanking the center bay have smaller openings, with simple moldings and cornices. They are topped by carved panels with wreaths and ribbons. A rounded pediment with modillions and dentils tops the central 2nd-floor window, and the outer bays have flat cornices with modillions and dentils. The 3rd-floor windows have smaller cornices carried on narrow brackets, and the two smaller bays are topped by elaborate carved bands with cartouches, set between the capitals of the fluted pilasters.

At the 4th floor, there is an oculus window within the main pediment, which is lined with dentils, and on either side are three window openings with simple moldings and cornices. All of the windows on the lower four floors have sloped red canvas awnings, larger at the ground floor. The 5th-floor attic windows (designed as 2x2 square grids) are ingeniously set in the profusely decorated frieze just below the rich modillioned cornice and the building is crowned by a balustrade at the roof line.

The 5th Avenue facade follows the same design, but without any pediments. It is three bays wide, wide an extra-wide middle bay at the ground floor that has a central entrance between display-windows. In place of balustrades, the 2nd-floor balcony has a wrought-iron railing, with three projecting flagpoles.

The arched window pediment in the center reflects the proportions of the entablature, a great use of scale. The aggressive center projection is exquisitely balanced by the robustness of the second story windows on either side. From second story up to fourth, the window treatments appear to dematerialize until all that remains is a projecting lintel. The whole facade is filled with movement.

The neighboring 6-story Holbrook house, at 4 East 52nd Street, now conjoined with the Plant house, was designed by C.P.H. Gilbert, and also completed in 1905. Cartier now occupied both houses as a joined structure. To connect the two during renovation, they had to adjust the height of entire floors so they would match up. The house at 4 East 52nd was built for Edward Holbrook, next door to another pair of mansions he had just had constructed at Nos. 6 & 8 East 52nd, both designed by Gilbert and completed in 1902 (now replaced by a low wing of the Olympic Tower to the south). Holbrook had originally intended to erect at 14-story apartment house at the lots, but later changed his mind and downsized to building the first two houses. The mansion at No. 4 was to be his personal residence.

It is clad in limestone. The lower two floors have a wide middle bay and narrow end bays with plate-glass windows. At the ground floor, the east bay has a recessed metal-and-glass door, and the center bay has a recessed middle section with another door. All the windows have transoms. Light fixtures top the end bays at the ground floor, and the middle bay has a modest glass-and-metal canopy with a clock face on top. The 3rd & 4th floors have three bays of single-windows with full surrounds; there are keystones at the 3rd-floor windows, and each has a sloped red canvas awning. The 4th floor is capped by a modillioned and dentiled stone cornice with end brackets. A tall copper mansard rises above, with three peaked dormers.

Holbrook didn't stay in his new mansion for long. In June 1907 he sold the 30-foot wide house to James B. Duke, President of the Tobacco Trust, who in turn sold it to Harry James Luce and his family in 1909. Cartier, Inc. purchased the house in 1927, and Pierre Cartier converted the mansion to L’Alliance de Francaise de New York—a school offering classes in French and French literature. Dr. Leon Vallas, a professor of the Sorbonne, was brought in to direct the school. The school shared the mansion with the French Chamber of Commerce. The French Chamber of Commerce would remain in the house through the war years. In 2000 Cartier did a renovation of both the Holbrook and the Plant mansions. The two buildings were internally connected, making No. 4 an extension of the retail store. While the first two floors of the Holbrook mansion have been extensively altered for commercial use, the upper floors retain the integrity of C. P. H. Gilbert’s handsome design.

The building was renovated during a two and half year renovation, completed in 2016 by Beyer Blinder Belle with French architect Thierry W. Despont.

stores.cartier.com/en_us/united-states/ny/new-york/653-...
s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/0271.pdf
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086591750&v...