Rosario Candela buildings have defined some of New York City’s toniest neighborhoods — and a century later, his name remains every bit a selling point.
It’s hard to imagine that a single architect almost singlehandedly transformed Fifth Avenue from a boulevard of stately mansions to an unbroken wall of skyward manses. Italian-born Rosario Candela (1890-1953) accomplished just such a feat, both through his own commissions and the trends he’d set. Candela also gifted Park Avenue with a similar status during the building boom that emerged as the railroad tracks, then recently electrified, were decked over. And, he helped conceive of Sutton Place, expanding what had been a tucked-away row of brownstones into a larger enclave of luxury towers, four of which he designed.
“More than just an architectural story, Candela and his work represents a story of social and urban transformation,” said Donald Albrecht, who curated Elegance in the Sky, the 2018 Candela exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. “He actually designed more buildings on the Upper West Side, but the exhibition concentrates on the Upper East Side residences because of the New York elite who called them home, people like John D. Rockefeller, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Mrs. [Brooke] Astor.”
Candela — and the people who hired him — thought carefully about how to introduce a new way of living to their wealthy clients, as evidenced from their floor plans and marketing materials. “Their ads and brochures pointed out some of the advantages,” Albrecht says, “such as river and park views from high up and the organizational structure of the co-op itself, which was a fairly new concept at the time and allowed the owner to buy shares of their home while exercising control over just who their neighbors were. There’s that extra whiff of exclusivity. At the same time, they were showing potential buyers how the apartments still can feel like a house, with a clear separation between public and private spaces.”
With their steel construction and sheer massing, the towers brought another appeal: the sheen of modernity. While most of Candela’s buildings feature rather restrained exteriors, they also contain happy surprises. The red brick 41 Fifth, in Greenwich Village, includes Florentine-inspired motifs. And in a series of towers on Park Avenue, he fashioned elaborate terraced setbacks out of over-the-top compositions of pediments, pavilions, and bay windows that read, observes Albrecht, “like Italian hill towns in the sky.”
Above all, it was his masterful approach to space-planning that stood out most. “Typically, you walk into a spacious foyer that visually orients you to the main rooms — the library, the living room, the dining room — that come off of it,” Albrecht says. “Then there’s usually a separate corridor leading to the bedroom area.” Another characteristic innovation, continues Albrecht, was Candela’s “ingenious introduction of duplex and even triplex units into the mix.” Higher ceilings, thicker walls, larger windows — all were Candela signatures, too.
“There’s an urbanist quality to his life, as well as an architectural one,” Albrecht says. “A practical one along with an artistic one. Those fusions have had real and lasting impact on the shape of the city.”
“On the Upper East Side, few architects—even a century later—carry the cachet of Carpenter."
Licensed RE Salesperson
- Cathy Franklin
BY INHABIT EDITORS
From the private elevator landing, Apartment 12A opens to a typically expansive Candela entrance gallery, with the grand entertaining rooms clustered as spokes off the foyer and the bedrooms gathered in a separate wing. With 10-foot-plus ceilings, the library and the living and dining rooms are wonderfully proportioned and flooded with bright natural light from new oversized windows. Both the living room and the library have period wood-burning fireplaces, and all of the public rooms offer herringbone floors, built-ins, traditional moldings and millwork, and modern through-the-wall and central air conditioning. Bonus features in the four-bedroom, five-bath corner apartment include a large china and silver closet in the dining room, a butler’s pantry with lots of storage, a breakfast room with banquette seating off the windowed kitchen, an en suite staff room now used as an office, and laundry with a vented dryer. The corner primary suite offers four closets, south and east exposures and a windowed ensuite with a soaking tub, oversized shower, and dual vanities. Other amenities include a storage unit and a separate staff room located outside of the main residence. Completed in 1927, the distinctive brick and limestone-detailed Candela building at the corner of East 72nd Street offers the expected white-glove service as well as a newly renovated and expanded gym.
With its own separate entrance on Fifth Avenue as well as a second entry off the lobby, this maisonette at 834 Fifth Avenue offers the best of townhouse living with all the comforts, security and amenities one expects in a prized white-glove Candela masterpiece. It’s hard to imagine a better, more convenient location: between East 64th and 65th streets in the heart of Lenox Hill, with 50 feet of frontage directly on Fifth and Central Park literally at your doorstep. The enormous 5,000-square-foot co-op features three bedrooms on the upper floor, two full bathrooms, and one marble-clad powder room. The corner primary suite offers a pair of dressing areas and an elegant marble bathroom. Just off the elegant entry gallery, the public rooms include a wood paneled library with a fireplace, a 32-foot living room looking over Central Park (with another fireplace), and a square formal dining room made for entertaining. At the back of the home, you’ll find the eat-in kitchen, a butler’s pantry, and a laundry room. Winning architectural details include the original sweeping Candela staircase, high ceilings, coat closets, a private elevator landing on the upper level along with two staff rooms and a back staircase to the kitchen. The apartment has its own storage and wine cellar as well as full access to the 1931 building’s amenities — attended elevators and lobby, a doorman, and a fitness room.
Once the grand ballroom of the old Stanhope Hotel, this wildly spacious 8,360-square-foot apartment on the 16th floor has the kind of scale and volume you just don’t see in New York. The nine full bathrooms are the size of bedrooms, and most of the eight bedrooms could double as small apartments. Add in the nearly 10-foot coffered ceilings and the astounding 70-plus linear feet of frontage on Fifth Avenue and Central Park and you’ve got a delightful apartment indeed. With a mix of black-stained oak and black antique stone tile flooring along with all-white walls and ceilings, the apartment lives and feels like a stylish painting in shades of black and white. The views are astounding — out across Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and with cityscapes in every direction. Custom-designed by JANGEORGe Interiors, the private elevator in the full-floor condop (a co-op with condominium bylaws) opens to an expansive 42-foot great room with a formal dining room and a den/sitting room in the corners on either side. What a great space for entertaining as well as art display. The south-facing primary features oversized windows that flood the retreat with natural light, a wood-burning fireplace, an office, and dual marble-clad spa baths and dressing areas. The double-windowed chef's kitchen by Smallbone of Devizes has both a center island and a large dining table. Amenities in the 1926 Candela building include a spa and health club, bike and stroller storage, a 24-hour doorman and concierge, and a billiards room. A large staff suite apartment in the Stanhope is available for separate sale.
740 Park, 6-7C
770 Park, 2C
Residence 5AD at Candela's 40 West 67th, completed in 1928. The 10-story tower lies between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.
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765 Park Avenue, 12A
775 PARK | CO-OP | 4 BEDS | 4.1 BATHS
834 Fifth Avenue, MAIS/A
CO-OP | 3 BEDS | 2.1 BATHS
995 Fifth Avenue, 16
CONDOP | 8 BEDS | 9.1 BATHS
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Located on a gorgeous block between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, 40 West 67th Street offers 40 apartments spread across 10 floors. Flooded with bright natural light, the seamlessly combined and fully renovated 5AB has four en suite bedrooms and a handsome powder room. One of the bedrooms is now a sitting room/den with a TV. From the windowed foyer, you step into side-by-side living and dining rooms, each with working fireplaces, window seats, and leaded Grisaille stained glass windows. The open kitchen offers a center island, Caesarstone countertops, a walk-in pantry, a service door, and Sub-Zero and Viking appliances. All of the bathrooms have windows, and fixtures by Lefroy Brooks and Dornbracht. Other winning architectural details include a tucked-away home office, lots of built-in bookcases, new double-hung, and double-paned windows throughout, along with a neutral color palette, and period hardware, sconces, and hardwood floors. The building is half a block from Central Park and two blocks from Lincoln Center.
40 West 67th Street, 5AB
CO-OP | 4 BEDS | 4 BATHS
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Represented by The Cathy Franklin Team.
Represented by The Carrie Chiang Team.
Represented by Douglas J Albert, Brian G Rice, and Rob Jackson
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ROSARIO CANDELA (1890-1953).
Marketing materials for 3 East 77th (c.1928), a collaboration with Grand Central architects Warren & Wetmore, showcase a variety of smart floor plans — something Candela was famous for.
Represented by The Deborah Grubman Team.
