103 East 37th Street

 townhouse, apartment building

5-story Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1911. Designed by Foster, Gade & Graham for Augusta Bliss Reese, it is clad in rusticated limestone. The Reeses occupied this house through at least 1950, after which it was divided into two residences, and then in 1990 it was remodeled into offices for diplomatic use. It wasenovated again in 2009, and now has one apartment per floor.

The facade is treated as three parts, each separated by a shallow course of carved wave moldings. Polished wooden double-doors are approached by a shallow, broad set of three granite steps from the sidewalk, and are now set behind bronze-framed glass exterior doors. There are decorative cast-iron railings at the steps, and across the areaway to the right. The doorway features an elaborate surround with a heavily molded architrave, cartouche, and surmounting foliation, The secondary entryway at the right, at ground level, has a glass door and transom with metal grilles, and the window in the middle has a similar grille.

The upper floors have three bays of windows with voussoirs, bracketed sills with garlands below the 3rd-story windows, and elaborate cast-iron balconettes at the 2nd- and 3rd-story windows. The 4th floor is topped by a limestone roof cornice with heavy brackets and surmounting balustrade, and the attic floor consists of a mansard roof with three copper-framed segmental dormers. This is also a roof garden.