The Touraine, 132 East 65th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 132 East 65th Street by Carter Horsley

The handsome Touraine apartment building at 132 East 65^th Street on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue was completed in 2013 by Toll Brothers. 

The 15-story building has 22 condominium apartments. 

It was designed by H. Thomas O’Hara.

Bottom Line

A boutique condominium apartment building with few apartments at a prime Lexington Avenue location near very good public transportation and convenient shopping.

Description

The building has a three-story rusticated limestone base, setbacks at the 12^th and 13^th floors, a bandcourse at the 11^th floor and a mansard roof.  

The building has an arched, two-story-high entrance on the sidestreet with a large, curved, glass marquee that leads to a large, double-height lobby with a broad, curved staircase and large chandelier.

Amenities

The building has a concierge, a library, a wine cellar, a gym, a bicycle room, a large, landscaped roof deck with a fireplace, cold storage, personal storage and a package room.

Apartments

Kitchens have Calacatta marble countertops, Gaggenau appliances and Sub-Zero refrigerators. 

Apartment 2C is a one-bedroom unit with an entry foyer that leads past an enclosed kitchen to a living/dining room. 

Apartment 2A is a two-bedroom unit with an entry foyer that leads past an enclosed kitchen to a living/dining room. 

Residence A on the third through the tenth floors is a three-bedroom unit. 

Penthouse 4 is a four-bedroom unit that has a large entry foyer that leads to a 22-foot-wide living room/parlor that opens onto an 18-foot-long living/dining room next to an  enclosed 12-foot-wide kitchen with an island and an 11-foot-wide eat-in area. 

Penthouse 1 is a duplex with a large entry foyer that leads to a 13-foot-long guest room, a 15-foot-square living room with a fireplace with sliding doors to an 18-foot-long family room and an 18-foot-long dining room that is next to an enclosed 12-foot-kitchen with a 12-foot-long bay-windowed eat-in area on the 14^th floor and four bedrooms on the 15^th floor.

History

The 65th Street site was formerly occupied by a 5-story building that was erected in 1870 and designed by F. S. Barus. It was then given a stucco façade in 1922, which was designed by George Schmitt. Toll Brothers eventually took over the site.

An article by Joanne Kaufman in the December 23, 2011 edition of The New York Times said that when Toll Brothers took over the site, the previous developer had planned to call the building Olivia as “a tribute to his daughter.”  

David Von Spreckelsen of Toll Brothers was quoted in the article as stating that “We were not going to continue with that name,” adding that “We were going to do what we typically do, which is to use the address, but it had the ‘A’ in it, which was weird.” 

“When they were free-associating,” the article continued, Mr. Von Spreckelsen said, they thought of Lucien Lagrange, the French-born architect who had designed the building’s façade. Accordingly, the Toll corporate office came up with a Gallic-infused list that included Angoulême and Marguerite - as well as Touraine, ‘which has a nice spelling and looks good in print,’ Mr. Von Spreckelsen said. ‘It sounds foreign in a good way.’ Eh bien, the Touraine.”