| One Sutton Place South | |
|---|---|
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| General information | |
| Type | cooperative |
| Location | New York,New York, US |
| Coordinates | 40°45′24″N73°57′37″W / 40.7568°N 73.9604°W /40.7568; -73.9604 |
| Current tenants | approx. 42 to 60 |
| Construction started | 1927 |
| Completed | 1927 |
| Technical details | |
| Structural system | Skyscraper |
| Floor count | 14(42 apartment units) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Rosario Candela |
| Architecture firm | Cross and Cross |
One Sutton Place South is a 14-story, 42-unitcooperative apartment house in theEast Midtown neighborhood ofManhattan,New York City, overlooking theEast River onSutton Place between56th and57th Streets. One Sutton Place South contains the residences of diplomats, titans of industry, and media executives.
The building was designed and completed in 1927 byRosario Candela andCross and Cross for the Phipps family.[1]
The building is topped by a penthouse, a 17-room unit that has 5,000 square feet (460 m2) of interior space and 6,000 square feet (560 m2) of terraces that wrap entirely around it; the penthouse was created originally forAmy Phipps as a duplex. When her son,Winston Guest, the polo player and husband of garden columnistC. Z. Guest, took the apartment over, the lower floor was subdivided into three separate apartments, one of which was occupied by designerBill Blass. The Guests lived on one side of the penthouse and one of their sons, Alexander, lived on the other side for several years. The Guests sold the apartment in 1963 about the time that their daughter, socialiteCornelia Guest, was born. The apartment was then acquired byJanet Annenberg Hooker, the philanthropist who died in late 1997 and was a sister ofWalter Annenberg, the communications magnate and art collector. The apartment was put on the market in early 1998.
A portion of the property behind One Sutton Place South was the subject of a dispute between the building's owners and theNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Like the adjacent park, part of the rear garden at One Sutton Place South is cantilevered over theFDR Drive, a busy expressway at Manhattan's eastern edge that is not visible from most of Sutton Place. In 1939, city authorities took ownership of the property behind One Sutton Place South by condemnation in connection with the construction of the FDR Drive, then leased it back to the building. The building's lease for its backyard expired in 1990.[2][3] The co-op tried unsuccessfully to extend the lease, and later made prospective apartment-buyers review the legal status of the backyard and sign a confidentiality agreement.[4] The question of ownership came to a head in 2003 when the state's Department of Transportation began rehabilitation of FDR Drive between 54th and 63rd Streets and threatened to tear up the garden to fix the deck.[5] In June 2007, the co-op sued the city in an attempt the keep the land,[4] and on November 1, 2011, the co-op and the city reached an agreement in which the co-op ended its ownership claim to a smaller section of land sitting atop the deck only, with each side contributing $1 million toward the creation of a public park on the disputed portion.[6]
Residents have includedHenry Phipps Jr.,Amy Phipps,John Phipps,C.Z. Guest,Winston Frederick Churchill Guest,Bill Blass,Consuelo Vanderbilt,Bradley Martin Jr.,Helen Phipps Martin,Charles H. Sabin,Pauline Sabin,Juliet Pierpont Morgan Hamilton,Alexander Morgan Hamilton,Walbridge Smith Taft,Edwin & Sarah Russell (nee Spencer-Churchill),Lady Sarah Consuelo Spencer-Churchill,Gertrude Robinson Smith,Marietta Peabody Tree,Carolyne Roehm,Scott Bessent,Patricia Kennedy Lawford,Anne Cox Chambers,John Fairchild, publisher ofWomen’s Wear Daily; and actressSigourney Weaver.[7]