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The House Known as 101 by Glenn O'Brien | 14th March, 2015 | Prime Properties

As glamorous as those who called it home, a timeless icon designed by one of the most famous architects in America. Glenn O’Brien on the only townhouse in Manhattan to have a nickname, owned by the US designer Halston whose parties transformed it into a legend. Only for Gunter Sachs to then take up residence.

In the 19th Century New York City was filled with private houses, and we knew about life in them from reading Edith Wharton, but as the 20th Century was drawing to a close, such homes were few and far
between as most brownstones and even the grand mansions of the Upper East Side had been divided up into apartments.

As Gunther Sachs remarked, the whole concept behind 101 was – and remains – enormously avant-garde.

In the early Seventies I got a first glimpse of how the elite once lived when a friend of mine, a Ph.D. student at Rockefeller University, happened to be given lodging by Bobo Rockefeller who lived in a palatial 10,000 square foot home at 13 East 67th Street, with 19-foot ceilings, a swimming pool and squash court. That townhouse now belongs to the artist Jeff Koons. At the time, such a place seemed like an anachronism, right out of “The House of Mirth”. Antique private residences in Manhattan were an extraordinary luxury. New private houses were practically unheard of, but they did exist. In 1974 America’s most prominent fashion designer, Halston, bought an extraordinary 1966 townhouse designed by Paul Rudolph for real estate attorney Alexander Hirsch and his partner Lewis Turner. Its design was so unusual for Manhattan; it almost looked as if it had landed on the Upper East Side, not built there.

Paul Rudolph loved the fact that simple materials are used, yet the feeling is of great luxuriousness because of the space.

As a member of Andy Warhol’s considerable entourage at the time I attended parties at the large but sleek house that epitomised both the visionary modernism of the architect Rudolph and classicist minimalism of the designer Halston. Located at 101 East 63rd Street, it was a bold anomaly on a block of antique townhouses, looking much more like a Bauhaus sculpture than any mansion, a composition of brown glass rectangles framed in black steel I-beams – a Mondrian in the most muted tones.

On entering the house one passed through a gallery and descended stepped platforms into a huge, triple height sunken living room. Halston made this room into the perfect modernist party space, elegantly furnished for the sort of free form lifestyle one imagined the jet set lived, with dark grey carpet and ultrasuede sofas – white walls and the off-charcoal palette yielding to the bright Warhol colours of the Warhol portraits of Halston and Liza Minnelli. It was a place for lounging, posing, dancing and posturing. It was utterly elegant and clubby chic, as if Studio 54 had been remade strictly for its VIPest VIPs. The entire north wall was glass, looking out on to a Japanese-style greenhouse garden. Originally it was planted with tropical plants, echoing the potted palms indoors. Later the tropicals were replaced with a bamboo forest.

Halston professed that at first you want to change everything when you move into a house like this. But the house is such a work of art you end up giving into it.

A rather dizzying set of banister-free steps ascends to the upper floors, cantilevered from the walls, while a smaller set of vertical steps ascends to a stack of bookshelves and a door to the back garden. Another thrilling feature was a catwalk through the upper reaches of the living room, leading to a back bedroom, traversing which might induce vertigo in all but the most intrepid. A photo by Bob Colacello shows fearless models Sterling St. Jacques and Pat Cleveland daringly dancing there in Playboy bunny ear masks. The original occupants of the house were, like Halston and the architect, confirmed bachelors and the risky design seemed to imply “adults only, please.” In recent years glass has been added to make the approach to the back bedroom far less daunting. A mezzanine overlooking the living room led down a corridor of closets to Halston’s own double-height second floor suite, a minimalist space dominated by a king-sized bed, ultrasuede draped, in front of a large mirror – the only other décor being stacked books and flowers. In 1990, shortly before his death, Halston sold “101” – named after the house number – to industrialists Gunter Sachs and Gianni Agnelli. Sachs eventually bought out Agnelli’s interest and often used the house as a photo studio. He left the house essentially the same, although he removed the dark carpeting and stripped the floors down to polished oak. And where Halston had the master bed backed by a huge mirror, Sachs replaced the mirror with a Warhol portrait of Brigitte Bardot, the ultimate sixties sexpot who was his second wife. I have been lucky enough to visit two other Paul Rudolph houses in New York: the Paul Rudolph and Ernst Wagner Townhouse 246 East 58th Street, which Rudolph designed and built from 1989 to 1994 and which now houses the Paul Rudolph Foundation; and the Paul Rudolph Townhouse at 23 Beekman Place, which consists of four apartments including Rudolph’s own penthouse. While neither of these properties offers the scale of the house Halston called “101”, they demonstrate Rudolph’s mastery of urban living, particularly his use of natural light and ventilation.

Rudolph is often referred to as a “brutalist” for his dramatic concrete buildings, but his early work in Florida, designing homes and public buildings has led critics to hail him as an innovator of “green architecture.”

Rolf Sachs remembers what a special architectural jewel 101 was in the eyes on his father.

On 58th Street and on Beekman Place, light and air from outside flow through the spaces, bringing the outdoors inside. Extensive use of glass and Plexiglas, even in flooring, creates an expansive spaciousness and makes for more interesting parties. “101” features air circulating windows front and back, while retaining complete privacy, and the massive glass back wall of the house. Even though Rudolph had designed the house seven or eight years before Halston arrived, its second life bore his full imprint as Halston hired Rudolph to help him make it more, well, Halston.

Rudolph’s handful of urban townhouses translate his career-long dialogue with the environment into an urban context, just as his famous Milam Residence in Jacksonville, Florida, or the many homes he designed in the Sarasota area, maximised their tropical oceanside environment. Whether he designed for sunny beaches or the canyons of Manhattan, Rudolph harmonised a home with its site without compromising privacy or diminishing flexibility. As much as any modernist or contemporary architect, Rudolph understood the ascendance of form over formality and the importance of facilitating a free and easy life with adaptable spaces. Rudolph anticipated the lifestyles of the future – mixing work and play, multi-tasking, blending night and day, and making space for the improvised, the unexpected and the creative spark. He knew that some buildings inspired freedom, daring and maybe even a slight tendency to party. GOB

Contact:

New York City (US), Engel & Völkers New York Real Estate LLC, licence partner of Engel & Voelkers N.Y., LLC
Tel. +1 (212) 956 48 23 E-Mail[email protected]

 

IssueGG Magazine 02/15
City/CountryNew York/ U.S.
PhotographyMark Seelen
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