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About William Beaver House, 15 William Street
This 47-story condominium apartment building in the Financial District is distinctive for its unusual façade of dark gray and yellow bricks and for its initial marketing campaign of a tuxedo-clad beaver, the building's mascot, holding a martini glass.
An early rendering for the project indicated that stylistically the building falls into the "racing car/flying cab/Fifth Element" category of spirited but elegant mayhem.
Tsao & McKown is the architectural firm for the project.
The yellow bricks cascade partially down the facade from the top in random fashion. The base of the building is covered in ipe, a reddish-brown wood.
The building, which contains 319 apartments, was developed by SDS Investments, of which Tamir and Alex Sapir and S. Lawrence Davis are principals, and Andre Balazs, who developed the Mercer Hotel, 40 Mercer Street in SoHo and One Kenmare Square.
The project is known as the William Beaver House because it is located at the intersection of William Street and Beaver Street. It is across the street from Delmonico's.
SDS Investments acquired the site from the Manocherian family for about $90 million.
The building has 10 duplex "townhouses" with terraces, three penthouses with terraces, 48 custom furnished units as well as many studio, one- and two-bedroom units.
Apartments have 9-and-a-half-foot-high ceilings, eight-foot-high windows, Burmese teak floors and washers and dryers.
The building has an outdoor dog-walking garden, a 30-person combined screening room and disco lounge with lavender chaise "cinema beds" and wet bar, and a Penthouse Sky Lounge with catering kitchen and private dining room and sun deck.
The lobby entrance has a see-through ceiling supporting a glass-encased, lighted outdoor Jacuzzi that is part of a second floor amenity center. The notion of looking up at people sitting in a Jacuzzi as one enters the building at the bottom has amused some posters on some websites.
The amenity center will also have a 60-foot lap pool, outdoor basketball court with bleachers, a squash court, a gym and handball and tetherball courts.
The building, which opened in 2008, has a driveway paved with the same marble used in the lobby, which has a large, oval, sunken "conversation pit" with fireplace, and the lobby is open to the public and offers prepared foods.
Kitchens have sliding backsplashes that conceal the faucet and sliding butcher-block panels that conceal the sink or cooktop.
Apartments have bathrooms that open fully into the bedrooms.
Mr. Balazs was quoted in an article by Steve Cutler in The Real Deal as saying that "We wanted to back off of an all-glass building and make it contextual, yet fun and somewhat distinguished at the same time."
An article by Julie V. Iovine in The New York Times quoted Mr. Balazs as saying "If you have children, go to Battery Park City."
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