211 Elizabeth Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 211 Elizabeth Street by Carter Horsley

This extremely handsome, 7-story, red-brick, residential condominium building at 211 Elizabeth Street in the southwest corner at Prince Street is one of the handsomest in SoHo and NoLiTa.

The developer is 16 Prince Street LLC, of which Robert A. Siegel is president and Peter Manning is vice president. Mr. Manning is producer of "Sideman," which won a Tony Award.

Roman & Williams, of which Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch are the principals, is the architectural firm for the project, which has 15 apartments.  Roman & Williams have done work for the Royalton Hotel, 40 Mercer Street and the Standard.

Bottom Line

"Fabrizio" is one of the most thoughtful and intelligent posters at WiredNewYork.com and he made the following comment there about this building May 11, 2009:

"Of all the super fabulous new buildings that we've seen here over the past few years: this is my favorite...I'd buy here."

Description

The new building has a masonry façade that is attractively proportioned with a strong fenestration pattern, a cornice and an interesting roof-line with five tall chimneys of staggered heights.

 The first floor is painted black and contrasts nicely with the masonry above that is very nicely partitioned and proportioned.

Amenities

The building has an attended lobby, a full-time superintendent, a fitness center, bicycle storage, a landscaped roof terrace and dedicated private storage.

Apartments

Apartments, which are described on the project's website as "bespoke homes," have wood-burning fireplaces and 9-foot-high, multi-paned, glass doors that separate the living and dining rooms. Floors are walnut herringbone parquet and the website states that 'the baseboards, casings, windows and doors are trimmed in Roman & Williams' favorite high gloss black oil point by Fine Paints of Europe.

Kitchen cabinetry is framed in walnut and painted by hand with high gloss black paint and counters are rendered in Danish oiled wood. Kitchens have Sub Zero refrigerators and Viking ranges, dishwashers and wine coolers.

Bathroom walls, floors and vanity tops are Calacatta gold marble.

Some of the one-bedroom apartments have an angled entrance gallery with powder room that leads to a kitchen and dining area and then into the living room and the master bedroom and master bathroom.

The north apartment on the second floor has 1,688 square feet and a very unusual layout in which the living room has six sides with openings to the gallery, the dining room and another gallery that leads to the master bedroom.

History

The developers originally planned to incorporate parts of an existing brick warehouse on the site into the project but it proved to be unstable and Mr. Siegel told Jake Mooney in the July 25, 2008 City Room Blog of The New York Times that "it was actually not as nice as this."

In that article, Mr. Siegel said the intent was to be "evocative" and to avoid "fake historicism."

"Stephen Alesch, co-founder of Roman and Williams with his wife, Robin Standefer, said that on a scale of one to 10, most brick buildings constructed in the city in the last 50 years score a 1 in terms of design complexity. On the same scale, he said, his firm's design for 211 Elizabeth Street is about a 6. For reference, he pointed to the northwest toward the Puck Building, on Lafayette Street, which he said would score a 10. Besides that building, a former printing facility that is now an event space, he said another high mark would go to the American Thread Building, on West Broadway in TriBeCa."