Bretton Hall

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153-foot, 13-story Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1903. Designed by Harry B. Mulliken, it opened as the Hotel Bretton Hall. The three main facades are clad in red brick and limestone above a 3-story rusticated limestone base with a grey granite water table. The long west facade spans 15 bays, with a central entrance accessed by a small set of steps from the front and ramp from the left, both with wrought-iron handrails. Recessed in the segmental-arched entryway are glass-and-iron double-doors and sidelights below a transom. The south sidewall of the entry portal has a window and glass door opening into the storefront in the next bay to the south. The entrance is covered by a curved, grey canvas canopy. The storefronts to the north and south of the entrance both have plate-glass show-windows with large keystones. The rest of the ground floor to the south has larger metal-and-glass storefronts. To the north there is a narrow show-window with a keystone, a metal-and-glass storefront with an awning and a sideways set of steps and ramp in front, another narrow show-window, and two segmental-arched bays for the commercial space at the north end, one with double-doors and the other with windows.

The piers slightly project around the three central bays, extending up to a stone balcony at the base of the 3rd floor. There is a tripartite window in the middle bay, and wide single-windows in the other two, segmental-arched at the 2nd floor, recessed between the piers and above the ground-floor storefronts. There are wrought-iron railings at the bases of the two outer recessed bays; behind and above there is elaborate carved ornament in the form of escutcheons, swags, and pendants below the rounded sills. The 2nd-floor windows in these center bays are framed by handing bellflower pendant surrounds, with wrought-iron railings across the bottoms of the windows, and large keystones on top. The piers at the 2nd floor have narrow vertical panels with interlocking chains and bellflowers. The 3rd-floor balcony has four stone posts with bellflowers, between which are wrought-iron railings. The center window at the 3rd floor has a splayed lintel with a short keystone, and the flanking bays have elaborate surrounds of carved fruit with keystones and scrolled brackets at the ends supporting stone cornices above. The center bay has oversize brackets with shells, acanthus leaves and other ornament, supporting a stone balcony at the 4th floor. The the outside of the center three bays, each end has a bay with narrow paired windows, followed by a single-window, a tripartite window, another single-window, and two end bays with double-windows. Except for the paired windows, all have splayed lintels with keystones, and a modillioned band course runs above the 2nd floor. There are banded surrounds at the 3rd floor (except for the paired windows), and another band course capping the base.

On the upper floors the outer two bays are flanked by projecting stone quoins, the center bay is framed by banded quoins with angled inner edges, and the narrow paired window bays are clad in rusticated limestone with quoined edges. The center bay has off-set double-windows, with the iron mullion separating a wider north pane and narrower south pane. The balcony at the 4th floor has a stone front wall with carved ornament and a pair of large urns on top of the ends. Between each floor in this bay (up to the 9th) are ornamented iron spandrel panels with stone moldings below and stone sills above that are topped by wrought-iron railings. The exception between the 5th & 6th floors, where there is a shallow balcony instead, above an escutcheon between fruit garlands. The window format at the 8th & 9th floors changed to tripartite as well, with the 9th-floor bay segmental-arched and framed by oversized acanthus-leaf brackets below escutcheons and above hanging pendants, supporting an iron balcony at the 10th floor. The bay on either side of the center bay has stone surrounds at the 4th floor, with bellflowers, keystones, and escutcheons, below shallow stone balconies at the 5th floor with ornamented stone front and side walls. All of the other single-windows (in all the single-window bays) and the double-windows have splayed stone lintels with keystones and bracketed stone sills, with stone bands connecting the sills at the outer bays and next-to-center bays, and at every other floors in the other bays. There are 3-sided, projecting bay windows in the tripartite bays, framed in cast-iron, with iron spandrels featuring medallions and torches. At the 9th floor the projecting windows end at these two bays, replaced by a segmental-arched tripartite window below a large escutcheon and elaborate floral and foliate ornament, framed by projecting stone pilasters with more carved ornament, supporting iron-and-stone balconies at the 10th floor. These balconies, like the one at the center bay, have stone end posts with balusters in between. The single-window bays at the 10th floor have stone pilasters with bellflowers, and more projecting floral ornament across the stone lintels. The paired-window bays have larger bellflower pendants on the sides, topped by large, console-bracket-like forms. These are also seen on the columns of quoins framing the outer bays. A band course sets off the 11th floor. All of the window bays on the 11th-12th floors are framed by quoins, and quoins divide some of the piers as well. They windows all have stone surrounds with keystones, and bellflower pendants reappear on the rusticated stone bays with paired windows, between the 11th & 12th floors. The prominent original roof cornice has long since been removed. Architect J.C. Calderon redesigned the parapet in red brick with stone put down in alternating stripes. A much smaller mechanical floor is set back behind the main roof line.

The south facade on 85th Street spans nine bays, with double-windows at the 2nd & 3rd floors in the east end bay. Above the base the east end bay has 3-sided, projecting bay windows in cast-iron framing, matching those on the west facade. The other bays have wide single-windows (some divided by vertical mullions in the 2nd bay from the east), with narrower windows in the 3rd bay from the east and the 2nd bay from the west. The ground floor has storefronts at both ends, and two bays with service entrances in between, topped by segmental-arches with metal infill and vents. The 2nd and 3rd floors largely match the simpler bays on the west facade, but the 3rd floor is clad in beige-painted brick with stone banding. The west end bay and the bay next to the east end bay are framed by stone quoins. The windows on the upper floors have bracketed stone sills and lintels with keystones and impost blocks. A stone band course sets off the 10th floor, with a broader one below the 11th. There are stone surrounds with quoins at the 11th-12th floors, with keystones and other ornament similar to that on the west facade.

The north facade on 86th Street is a repeat of the south facade, only without one of the narrow bays. The ground floor has six segmental-arched bays, the outer two wider, all with keystones. They have plate-glass storefront windows below metal panels, except for the 2nd bay from the west, which has metal infill. The rear, east-facing facade is clad in plain red brick. There are two deep light wells dividing the building into three wings, the interior of each lined with bays of single- and double-windows. The east face of the south wing has one bay of single-windows, and the other two wings have three bays.

The building contains 312 apartment units. The east end of the ground floor on 85th Street is occupied by Elea restaurant, and Han Dynasty restaurant. Along Broadway the ground floor is occupied by French Roast restaurant, Belleclaire Cleaners, Nailology Spa, Broadway Chemist pharmacy, Toscana Shoe Repair, Ernesto's Jewelry, Broad Nosh Bagels, and a Citibank branch.