455 West 20th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 455 West 20th Street by Carter Horsley

The very handsome , 4-story, Gothic-style “West” building at 455 West 20^th Street on the campus of the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea is one of the city’s oldest continuously inhabited public buildings. 

In 2013, it was converted to 8 condominium apartments by The Brodsky Organization, which also added 14 new condominium apartments in a new, “Annex” building adjacent to it on the site of the seminary’s former tennis court. 

The new buildings are connected by a handsome, recessed, two-story-high glass-court.

Beyer Blinder Belle was the architect for the conversion and Alan Wanzenberg did the interiors.

Bottom Line

An historic and handsome complex that is part of the Chelsea Square full-block General Theological Seminary in the heart of Chelsea.

Description

The renovated West Building, which was erected in 1836, has a façade of hand-laid blocks of gray mica-flecked Manhattan schist with thick stone buttresses on the corners and walls that in some places are two to three-feet think.

Ceiling heights range from 8 ½ feet to about 19 feet under the steeply pitched roof.

The restoration of the West Building includes replacement of exterior windows matched to the original profiles and restoration of the hand-carved wooden traceries that overlaid the windows on the second floor.

The new “Annex” building is a 6-story structure with a one-story brownstone base and a façade of pale orange brick with cast stone lintels and stills and “expressed” bay windows on 20^th Street.

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, a part-time building manager, porter service, private storage, bicycle storage, and a fitness center.

Apartments

Four of the apartments in the West Building have gardens.

All of the buildings in the West Building have wood-burning fireplaces.

One of the duplex garden apartments in the West Building has two bedrooms, a 19-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 386 north-facing patio.

Residences C on third and four floors in the West Building have are one-bedroom units with a 19-foot-long living room next to a pass-through kitchen.

Residences E on third and fourth floors in the West Building are three-bedroom units 2,572 square feet and 21-foot-long living rooms with fireplaces.

Residence B on the third floor in the West Building is a three-bedroom unit with an 18-foot-long living room and a pass-through kitchen.

History

The land under Chelsea Square was donated to the seminary in 1817 by Clement Clarke Moore, the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which is also known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Location

The buildings front on 20^th Street and back on Chelsea Square, the seminary’s full-block campus between 20^th and 21^st Streets and 9^th and 10^th Avenues. 

The Brodsky Organization erected another residential building, the 53-uinit Chelsea Enclave, on the block at the eastern end a few years before this project.  It also converted and sold a 38-unit apartment building that had been owned by the seminary on 20^th Street across from the square.