As an icon of old-school refinement for more than a hundred years, The Plaza has been a central player in the city's social life. Not only is it a tourist destination and the backdrop for countless movies, but also home to one notable girl named Eloise who lived there as a permanent, albeit fictional, guest. For the first time in its history, though, you can be an owner at The Plaza and not just a guest. After a four-year, $400 million renovation, it reopened in early 2008 with 182 "Private Residences" in addition to 282 traditional hotel rooms. Of the hotel rooms, 152 can be purchased as "Pieds-á-Terres," for part-time occupancy (up to 120 days per year) and full-time profit sharing.

On the outside, The Plaza remains the posh 20-story French Renaissance-style fortress it always has been. The original 1907 white-brick façade, the historic entrance on Fifth Avenue, and the chateau-like mansard roof designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, who also designed the Dakota across Central Park, are still there. Inside the historic Oak Room and Palm Court have been carefully restored. The main difference is upstairs, where Costas Kondylis & Partners and Gal Nauer, the architects for the conversion, have transformed many of the best former hotel rooms on the north and east sides of the building into one-, two-, and three-bedroom condominium apartments, with a handful of larger penthouses scattered among the building's historic eaves. The residences have a separate entrance and lobby at One Central Park South and the exclusive use of a large, landscaped garden court. They will also have direct access via personal flat-screen monitor to the hotel's famous your-wish-is-our-command concierge service, so that even owners will feel like guests.