Domenico Vacca Club (New York City, New York)

 clubhouse, apartment building

9-story residential building/clubhouse completed in 1915 as an apartment building. Designed by Wallis & Goodwillie, it is clad in red brick above a 2-story white stone base. The building was sold in 2013 and briefly renamed The Branson, and then in 2015, the owners began leasing it around the remaining rent-stabilized tenants to Italian designer Domenico Vacca. The Club markets itself as “the first ‘civilized’ members only private club.” It contains a 4,000 square foot bar/club space, a private rooftop deck, a cafe, a barbershop, and a beauty hair salon. More notably, Vacca’s new 8,000 square foot flagship store comprises two full floors. Seeming to invoke its Branson past, however, the Club also provides 30 “long term stay residences”–aka apartments–to its members.

The base has eight bays with double-height openings for plate-glass windows, wider at the end bays. The west end bay has the entrance for the residences on the upper floors, and the east end bay the entrance for the DV Club, both with glass doors. Storefront show-windows are located in between, and on the 2nd floor.

The upper floors have four middle bays flanked by smaller, narrow windows, and end bays set apart from the center section. The 3rd floor has round-arched openings in the six main bays, with stone infill at the arches above the double-windows. Each has a scrolled keystone with a stone band course running above them, decorated by a Greek fret-motif. The other floors have square-headed double-windows with stone sills. The top floor is set off by a broad band course, with projecting stone balconies with balustrades. Above the balconies, the windows have full stone surrounds surmounted by cartouches and other carved ornament. The facade is crowned by a projecting stone cornice with dentils, modillions, and carved patterns in the soffit.

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