The James New York - NoMad

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151-foot, 12-story Beaux-Arts hotel completed in 1904. Designed by Harry Allen Jacobs, it opened as the Hotel Seville. The Madison/29th Street facade has a 2-story rusticated limestone base, red brick and white terra-cotta trim; and 3-dimensional sculptural ornaments, such as rounded copper bays, cartouches and large 3rd-floor panels with foliage and lion heads. Additionally, with the original main entrance on 29th Street, Jacobs and Graves were able to build impressive, public rooms on the east side, overlooking the prestigious Madison Avenue.

The original building spans six bays on 29th Street, with four main bays on Madison Avenue, and a 1-bay chamfered corner at the northeast. The 3-story base features rusticated limestone on the ground floor and basement, with red brick banded by limestone on the 2nd & 3rd floors. The 29th Street entrance (in the 4th bay from the corner) is up a short set of steps, framed by one squared pillar and one rounded Corinthian column on each side. These support an entablature with a dentiled cornice. The other 1st-floor bays have round-arched openings with stone balustrades, rounded black canvas canopies, and scrolled keystones supporting rounded stone balconies with wrought-iron railings on the 2nd floor. The two exceptions are the bays nearest the chamfered corner, which both have large, ornate, square frames of grey-green cast-iron around a tripartite window group.

The balconied 2nd-floor bays have stone surrounds with keystones, as do the 3rd-floor bays, which have smaller Juliet balconies. Large cartouches with lions' heads decorate the piers between each bay at the 3rd floor. On 29th Street, the 2nd-floor western bay's windows has been partially filled in and replaced by a small bathroom window, and on the Madison Avenue 2nd & 3rd floors, similar small bathroom windows are inserted just to the left of the 2nd-to-southermost bay. Ornate console brackets support a modillioned cornice above the 3rd floor, which has a round-arch at the corner.

The 4th-10th floors are red brick with wide, keyed limestone surrounds around the corner bay, with small narrow windows on each side. There are narrower keyed stone surrounds at the center and end bays on both facades as well, each of which has dark-green copper projecting windows bays, with rounded copper cornices above the 5th & 8th floors, and pointed copper hoods above the 10th floor. The other bays have stone-framed windows with projecting, bracketed sills and lintels. There is additional one columns of small bathroom windows on the east facade, and two more on the north facade. The 10th floor is capped by a cornice, with scrolled brackets at each of the keyed stone surrounds of the copper bays.

The top two floors are also red brick, with 2-story limestone surrounds at the windows and carved stone spandrels. Between each bay are ornately carved vertical panels. A dentiled band course lined with console brackets supports a green, modillioned roof cornice. The south elevation, above the adjoining 2-story entrance annex, is clad in red brick, with a central light court. There are two bays of regular windows and one bay of smaller windows on each wing, with angled, copper bay windows on the interior walls of the light court.

Two years after completion of the original building, architect Charles T. Mott was commissioned to construct an 11-story west-side addition that would stretch the hotel from East 29th Street to East 28th Street. Simplifying the grandeur of Jacobs’ original design, Mott’s addition includes two bays of the same type of projecting copper windows facing 28th Street. In between is a bay stone-framed windows like those on the other facades. The base matches the details as well, with the cartouches, brackets, and other ornament.

The Seville's fortunes began to decline in the mid-century, but in 1985 it was sold and in 1987 a complete renovation was completed. It was renamed the Carlton Hotel. In 2003, David Rockwell was brought on to introduce a multi-tiered effort to return the Carlton to the splendor of its former years. The $60 million plan included the development of acclaimed restaurant Country, and Café at Country with world renowned Chef Geoffrey Zakarian. In addition, they embarked on a full hotel refurbishment and redesign led by David Rockwell. A domed glass window, possibly the work of L.C. Tiffany was restored by Patrick Clark in the bar area.

A new 2-story, stone-faced annex on Madison Avenue was also built, serving as the main entrance, with an atrium with cascading waterfalls greeting guests in the lobby. The entrance annex is faced in rusticated limestone above a black granite water table, with a grand segmental-arched opening featuring recessed doors and a suspended metal-and-glass canopy. Above the canopy are two flagpoles. The 2nd floor has a large, shallow-arched opening of three windows, with the stone coping capping the roof line also arched over the center. The ground floor is occupied by Scarpetta restaurant and Bar Bordeaux in addition to the lobby areas, with Bourke Street Bakery on 28th Street. The annex has since been separated from the hotel to become an independent tenant.

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