Kiehl's Flagship Store (New York City, New York)

 store / shop, interesting place

5-story and 4-story Federal-Style/Neo-Grec buildings originally completed separately. The shorter northern building at 109 Third was built in 1837 as a Federal-style row house, and since 1851 served as the original Kiehl's building, with the company later expanding into space in the neighboring building as well. The Kiehl's company was founded as an old-world apothecary in New York’s East Village neighborhood, called Brunswick Apotheke. It acquired the Kiehl's name in 1894 when pharmacist John Kiehl purchased the apothecary. Mr. Irving Morse, John Kiehl’s apprentice, took over the business and expanded the offerings to a full-service pharmacy in 1921.

In 1924 Kiehl’s became one of the first companies to proudly list ingredients on its product labels — even before the U.S. government mandated it — to help customers make more informed and confident purchasing decisions. Aaron Morse, Irving’s son, took over the family business in 1961, followed by his daughter Jami Morse Heidegger in 1989, who ran it together with her husband, world-cup champion skier Klaus Heidegger. In 2000, after customer demand becomes overwhelming, Jami Morse Heidegger sells Kiehl’s to Cosmair, the American licensee of L’Oréal that will later become L’Oréal USA, for an estimated $180 million.

The Neo-Grec south building at 105 Third Avenue was completed in 1879. Designed by M. Fornachen, is clad in red brick, with a black cast-iron storefront on the ground floor facing the avenue. It has an entrance at the north end, and another, angled entrance at the chamfered southwest corner. The upper floors on the west facade have two single-windows in the middle and a slightly-wider single-window to each side. They have white stone sills and lintels, peaked and with small inscribed roundels at the 3rd floor. A dark-green metal fire escape runs down the middle two bays, and the 4th floor is topped by a dark grey-green cornice with wide panels and small brackets. It is surmounted by a metal railing and a 5th-floor penthouse consisting of wood-planked "cabins" and terrace space.

The south facade along 13th Street has the edge of the storefront at the west end, with a single iron column supporting the upper part of the storefront and the upper floors above the chamfered corner. To the right is a low window with a large lintel, and then two smaller high-set windows. Continuing east the ground floor has a set of tall paired windows (now filled by metal louvers), the entrance to the residential upper floors, and then two more sets of tall paired windows. A basement areaway fronts most of the ground floor, with iron fencing. A small stoop crosses to the entrance, which has wood-and-glass double-doors below a green canvas clamshell canopy, framed by stone pilasters and topped by a stout stone entablature. The upper floors have a single-window bay above the doorway, with two bays of paired windows to the east. To the west are two more paired-window bays, and two single-window bays. The sills and lintels match those on the west facade, and there is a fire escape near the east end. The cornice above the 4th floor continues across this facade as well.

The shorter building at 109 Third Avenue has a ground floor of green marble. There is a central glass door flanked by a pair of display windows, at at the north end is a smaller metal service door. The 2nd-3rd floors are clad in red brick and have large studio windows. The 3rd-floor window is fronted by a shallow, curving, bowed balcony railing, and is topped by a shallow rounded pediment. The 4th floor, above a dentiled green metal cornice, is a near-vertical metal mansard with two dormer windows.

www.villagepreservation.org/2011/03/11/brunswick-apothe...