Former Cypriot Consulate & UN Mission | consulate / consular section / consul residence, diplomatic / foreign mission / representation

 consulate / consular section / consul residence, diplomatic / foreign mission / representation

6-story diplomatic office building originally completed in 1860s as a 4-story townhouse. In 1909 it was enlarged and renovated by H. F. Huber & Co., a high-end interior decorator firm, to plans by architect J. H. Freedlander. Freedlander apparently made a conscious attempt to slip the Huber Building discreetly among its high-toned brownstone neighbors. The new facade is clad in white marble; the ground floor has two entrance behind iron gates and a central plate-glass show-window. The overall design is a curious melding of Beaux Arts residential architecture, including a delightful Juliette balcony, above two unabashedly commercial floors. Here large show windows—especially the aquarium-like expanse of glass at the 2nd floor—gave Huber & Co. exceptional sunlight and exposure. The 3rd-4th-floor windows are grouped together in 2-story surrounds with scrolled keystone topping the 4th-floor openings. Two flagpoles project from above the Juliette balcony's wrought-iron railing at the 3rd floor, and there are fluted spandrel panels between the the floors. The attic floor has much shorter windows; above it all is a picturesque if unexpected Mediterranean overhanging roof of green tile supported by copper brackets.

By mid-century the showrooms of H. F. Huber & Co. had been replaced with the offices of manufacturers of less elegant goods. In 1952 the Dunmore Company, makers of Dunmore power tools, was here. Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, at a time when modernization was brutalizing the delicate facades of turn-of-the-century buildings, the Huber Building remained unscathed. In the 1970s Fann-Temp employment agency did business here.

In the 1990's the building was purchased by the Government of Cyprus to house its Consulate General to the United Nations.

hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015036009473?urlappend=%3Bseq...