Holland House Hotel Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, interesting place, historic remains

137-foot, 11-story Italian-Renaissance office building completed in 1891. Designed by Harding & Gooch as the 10-story Holland House Hotel, it was converted to offices after the hotel closed in 1920. Clad in limestone, it is seven bays wide on 5th Avenue, and 12 bays along 30th Street.

The 2-story base features a central entrance portico on 5th Avenue topped by an elaborate frieze and modillioned cornice. To either side are storefronts, which continue along 30th Street, alternating wide and narrow bays. The 3rd bay from the west has a round-arched secondary entrance. The stone piers have stylized capitals at the 2nd floor, where the narrow bays have single-windows and the wider bays have paired windows divided by stone pilasters with ornamented capitals. On Fifth Avenue, the 2nd floor has narrow single-window bays at the 2nd from each edge, with the others having paired windows. The base is capped by a dentiled cornice; on Fifth Avenue, the wider bays (except for the center one) bulge out at the cornice, with carved cartouches surrounded by foliate ornament, creating bases for projecting bay windows on the floors above.

On the 3rd-5th floors these bay windows have angled side panes around a center window, divided by stone pilasters. Carved spandrels decorate the spaces between the floors at each of these bays. There are also carved spandrels (with ornament including swags) on the 30th Street side, where the outer wide bays have double-windows divided by black metal mullions, and the middle wider bays have triple-windows with metal mullions. The openings in the narrow bay on both facades are outlined by stone surrounds with various wave, spiral or rope moldings. The wider bays on 30th Street are framed by projecting piers with small Corinthian capitals at the 5th floor, which is capped by a dentiled band course.

The 6th floor has round-arches over the projecting bays on Fifth Avenue and the triple-window bays on 30th Street, with molded architraves and stone lattice balustrades. The single-window bays here, as well as on the top floors, are similar to those below. The 6th floor is capped by a band course with a geometric pattern. At the 7th-8th floors, the wide bays have 2-story carved frames around the tripartite windows and spandrels, with the center window at the 8th floor being round-arched and rising above the two flanking windows, topped by an ornate carved architrave and keystone. Another dentiled band course sets off the 9th floor, which has evenly-spaced single-windows across both main facades. Between each window are carved panels. The 9th floor is capped by a green copper projecting cornice with modillions and dentils.

Above this cornice the 10th floor also has evenly-spaced windows with projecting piers between them, supporting a green copper band course with a geometric pattern. The top-floor penthouse, a later addition, has more and larger windows, with no ornament. The south elevation is clad in stone, but without the ornament adorning the main facades. It has a few bays of plain windows, but the green copper cornice above the 9th floor does wrap around to this elevation, as does the geometric band course at the 10th floor.

The ground floor is occupied by Intersections International, and Holland House beer hall, which dates to the opening of the original hotel in 1891.

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