41 Bond Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 41 Bond Street by Carter Horsley

The refined building in a bluestone suit at 41 Bond Street in NoHo is the latest addition to one of the city’s most spectacular blocks.

While its "pin-stripes" are horizontal rather than vertical, this very elegant building sedately, and very nicely, fills a gap on this cobblestone block that was already noted for its architectural distinctiveness.

Although brownstone has long been the relatively fragile façade of choice for much of the city's townhouse inventory, this 9-story building's bluestone may appeal to the city's well-to-do blue-bloods of financial wizardry. 

The 7-unit building was developed in 2010  by DDG Partners, which took over the project in 2009 from Adam Gordon, the owner of 54 Bond Street, and it was designed by DDG Design.

Bottom Line

41 Bond Street is an understated but very impressive new take on a small, boutique residential building that covers its modernity with a light bluestone traditionally sculpted.

Description

The Bond Street façade is distinguished by its bluestone facing that also covers the protruding window surrounds that also contain flowerboxes.

The building has a small entrance marquee, but a substantial and very impressive rooftop overhang.

The modern rear façade is a feature it shares with 25 Bond Street, one of the block’s larger and more prominent buildings because of its unusual street frontage that conjures a deconstructed Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in its formal, stony whiteness.

The 11-foot-high entrance door at 41 Bond Street is made of antiqued white oak and leads to a 14-foot-high lobby whose floor is handcrafted bluestone and is highlighted by a bluestone concierge desk and sculpted seating.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour doorman/concierge and a card access security system.

Apartments

Each of the seven apartments has private elevator entry, 11-foot ceilings, 7 1/2-inch plank oak floors, radiant heating and 45-foot-long "great rooms" with angled 33-foot-long balconies facing south and three-sided fireplaces.

The bluestone is also used around the balconies' doors on the outside and on the inside.

The Chef's kitchen includes Carrara marble countertops and an Ann Sacks Carrara marble backsplash. Artisan cabinets feature solid wood frame with lacquer panels and under cabinet recessed lighting. Appliances include Evolution disposal, fully integrated 36" Gaggenau refrigerator, freezer and ice maker, Wolf 36" six-burner duel-fuel range with concealed fully vented Miele hood, Miele dishwasher, and Sharp drawer microwave.

Master bathrooms have Carrara marble slabs and a Pietra Cardosa vanity with Kohler Kathryn sink, a free-standing soaking tub, a walk-in shower and a private water closet room with Toto Carolina II water closet.

Apartments also have washers and dryers, multi-zone heating and cooling, and window boxes with integrated irrigation systems.

The apartments have entrance galleries that measures 16 feet by 5 feet and lead to the great room in the rear and three bedrooms and a master bath in the front.  The balconies are 33 feet long.

The duplex penthouse has a 47-foot-by-6-foot terrace facing Bond Street and two bedrooms and the "great" room on the lower floor and a 21-foot-by-12-foot solarium on the upper floor that also has a 24-foot-by-11-foot rooftop garden.

History

In June, 2007, Adam Gordon, a self-service-storage magnate, purchased the property at 41-43 Bond Street for $7.7 million and the ornate and very handsome Bouwerie Lane Theater at 54 Bond Street on the northwest corner of The Bowery for $15 million.

He then commissioned Steven Harris, the architect who designed his townhouse at 92 Jane Street, to design a new building at 41-43 Bond Street with shutters on its front façade and a very modern glass and metal rear façade.

Mr. Harris's design for 41 Bond Street called for a limestone façade distinguished by its traditional-looking, metal window shutters on the second through the seventh floors. The design also called for a deep overhang above the set-back top floor to create shadows like a cornice although it does not extend beyond the building line. In addition, the building's elegant design called for a very thin glass canopy that would protrude about 8 feet in front of the building and be hung from rods that diagonally attached to the building's façade.

Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Steven Byrns said he thought that the "hovering overhang is great" and suggested that perhaps the windows and shutters would be shorted somewhat in width to expose more of the limestone façade. Mr. Byrns suggested that the building was perhaps "too jewel-like, a little too refined and tailored in the details," and said it was "headed in the right direction."

Commissioner Joan Gerner said that the design was "really exquisite and a wonderful exercise" in a modern interpretation of traditional architecture although she suggested that perhaps some limestone could be inserted beneath the canopy and above the ground floor windows.

Commissioner Roberta Brandes Gratz said it was a "really terrific building" and that she loved the material and shutters.

DDG bought the site in 2009, however, and decided on a new design by its own design group to clad its front with blue stone that it had used as a façade material at 24 Warren Street that was extensively renovated with an "all-glass cornice." 

An earlier project by the same developers and architects is Luquer 3, a group of three new townhouses surrounding a 19th Century convent in Carroll Gardens that won the 2007 Chamber of Commerce's Building Brooklyn Award for best multi-family project in Brooklyn. Luquer 3 is distinguished by the very dramatic roof canopies on either side of a more conventional cornice on the street façade and by the sunken gardens and bold façades at the back of the building.

Joseph A. McMillan Jr. is the chief executive officer of DDG Partners and Peter G. Guthrie is chief creative officer and head of design and construction.

DDG Partners' other projects include the residential buildings at 233 East 17th Street, which is near Stuyvesant Park and is known as Landmark 17, and 7 Essex Street, which overlooks Seward Park.