810 Fifth Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 810 Fifth Avenue by Carter Horsley

810 Fifth Avenue is a very elegant, 13-story, limestone-clad, Italian Renaissance-style apartment building on the northeast corner at 62nd Street that has wonderful views of Central Park and Midtown because it is across from the handsome but low-rise Knickerbocker Club, designed by Delano & Aldrich. 

This building, which has only 12 apartments, was designed by J. E. R. Carpenter, the leading architect of luxury apartment buildings in the city in the early and mid-1920s. 

The building, which was erected by the Bricken Construction Company in 1926, was converted to a cooperative in 1941.

Bottom Line

One of the city’s grandest pre-war apartment buildings, it overlooks Central Park to the west and the Knickerbocker Club to the south.

Description

The building has an impressive side-street entrance with a large marquee and sidewalk landscaping. 

It has bandcourses above the first, the third, the fourth and the 12^th floors and quoins. 

It has a three-story rusticated limestone base and the second-floor windows have arched pediments.

Amenities

The building has a doorman and a concierge.

Apartments

The 12^th floor apartment has two bedrooms, a 47-foot-long living room with two wood-burning fireplaces facing Fifth Avenue, a 15-foot-wide gallery that leads to a 20-foot-long library and a 24-foot-long dining room across a hall from a 15-foot-long enclosed kitchen. The apartment also has a 15-foot-long laundry/family room and 15-foot-long staff quarters.

History

The building replaced two brownstones including one owned by Mrs. Hamilton Fish who became one of its first residents.

The building was once home to Nelson A. Rockefeller, who served four terms as governor of New York State and was Vice President under President Gerald Ford from 1974-1977. 

Rockefeller commissioned Wallace Harrison to design the penthouse and the floor beneath it and created a round dining room. Rockefeller filled the apartment with murals by Matisse and Leger and paintings by Picasso. 

When he divorced his wife, Mary Todhunter Clark, in 1962, she got to keep two of the floors in his triplex apartment and he moved to 812 Fifth Avenue and connected to his remaining floor at 810. A year later, he married Margaretta Fitler Murphy. The floors of his apartments in the two buildings were of different heights.

Other residents have included Richard M. Nixon, Felix Rohatyn, Charles Bronfman and David Geffen.

Location

The building is convenient to many world famous boutiques, excellent restaurants and schools.