Carter's Review

From the outside, the Baccarat is a 50-story, mixed-use tower at 20 West 53^rd Street that looks like a tall, slim, mid-block tower on a low base.

Its form is simple and a bit routine, but one should regard it, however, as a jewel case for its interiors are quite dazzling.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Starwood Hotels, which is headed by Barry Sternlicht, it contains 61 residential condominiums above 114 hotel rooms.

Tony Ingrao was the interior designer.

Bottom Line

A large bronze wall with craquelure in a lounge that recalls the incised front yard walls at 40 Bond Street and a free-standing elliptical bathtub between two rooms, lots of Baccarat chandeliers and a long bar in the style of the John Sloane Museum in London with masked busts and “skyed” objets d’art are some of the dazzling highlights of the building’s interiors.

Description

The lower three floors of the building’s base is highlighted by vertical mullions and three canopies.

The double-height lobby has sumptuous dark wood paneling in between extremely impressive, fluted, dark marble pilasters that make the entrance columns at 740 Park Avenue look rather pale, and a dazzling Baccarat-glass wall behind the concierge desk.

The 610-foot-high tower is setback from the base.

Elevators have smoked oak French paneling.

The north and south tower façades are nicely articulated with inset grooves between the floors and the side façades have angled window surrounds that give the tower a lot of dimensionality.

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, a concierge, a fitness center and swimming pool, a garage, a courtyard, outdoor entertainment space and a lounge.

Apartments

The duplex penthouse has 5 bedrooms and 7,351 square feet with a 417-sq.ft. terrace.  The double-height living room has a wood-enclosed cylindrical column.

Apartment B on the 26^th through the 30^th floors is a two-bedroom unit with 1,843 square feet and a 29-foot-long great room with an open kitchen.

Apartment B on the 33^rd through the 43^rd floors is a two-bedroom unit with 1,625 square feet and an entrance gallery that leads to a 25-foot-long living/dining room next to a 13-foot-long kitchen with sliding door.

Apartment B on the 20^th through the 22^nd floors is a one-bedroom unit with 1,203 square feet with an entrance gallery that leads to a 22-foot-long living/dining room next to an enclosed 7-foot-long kitchen.

History

The Baccarat tower replaces the low-rise Donnell Library that was built in 1950 and designed by Aymar Embury II and Edgar I. Williams. 

In his August 13, 2009 “Streetscapes” columns in The New York Times, Christopher Gray wrote that the Donnell “had a façade of Spartan simplicity, about as warm as a jail cell.”

Mr. Gray noted that John D. Rockefeller Jr. wanted to extend Rockefeller Plaza at Rockefeller Center to this site but the21Club at 21 West 52^nd Street “stood smack dab in the middle of the route and refused sell.”

In 2007, the New York Public Library announced plans to sell the Donnell to Orient-Express Hotels for $59 million, a plan that would replace the library with an 11-story hotel that would be connected to the 21 Club, which it owned.  That plan collapsed however.

Location

The building is across the street from St. Thomas Episcopal Church, the Museum of Modern Art and the site of Jean Nouvel-designed mixed-use tower and it is flanked on its site by metal-paneled 666 Fifth Avenue and the black monolith of the CBS Building.