The Landmarks Preservation Commission today approved by a vote of 7 to 2 a plan by the Chetrit Group to turn six mid-block brownstones at 110-120 East 76th Street into three, double-wide single-family houses with setback, two-story roof additions.

In January, the commission indicated it did not like the first plan for the buildings, especially roof-top additions that would have enlarged them significantly.

The buildings are across the street from Lenox Hill Hospital and were designed and built in 1885 by Augustus Hatfield for the developer John J. Macdonald. They are modest three story structures over basements designed in the Neo-Grec style, with incised foliate ornament on the window surrounds. Other historic features of the buildings, like the stoops, have been removed, painted over, or disfigured by neglect.

Lenox Hill Hospital purchased the buildings over a number of years, owning all of them by 1976. In 1989 the hospital proposed to turn them into a sports medicine center designed by architect James S. Polshek. Although the adaptive reuse proposal was approved by the Landmarks Commission, it was never executed. The buildings appear to be completely vacant, although until recently some space was used for offices.

Macrae-Gibson is the architectural firm for the project, which calls for gutting and altering the buildings and their facades. The proposed altered three residences would have about 18,000 square feet each, which an article at Curbed.com by Joey Arad in January said were described by a preservationist testifying against the project as "bloated McMansions."

The revised plan makes the brownstone design of the individual buildings in the row quite similar whereas in the earlier design the center building would have had a limestone facade.