Lotte New York Palace Hotel is a luxury hotel in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at the corner of 50th Street and Madison Avenue. It was originally developed between 1977 and 1980 by Harry Helmsley. The hotel consists of a portion of the Villard Houses, built in the 1880s by McKim, Mead & White, which are New York City designated landmarks and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also includes a 51-story skyscraper designed by Emery Roth & Sons and completed in 1980.
The Villard Houses, arranged in a U-shaped plan, consist of three wings surrounding a central courtyard on the east side of Madison Avenue. The houses' center wing serves as a lobby, while the south wing serves as an event space. Behind the Villard Houses to the east is the modern skyscraper addition. , the hotel has 909 rooms and suites. The top floors of the skyscraper are known as the Towers, which consist of 176 luxury units. Among the units in the Towers are four ornate triplex suites, each with their own decorations, as well as four other specialty suites.
The Helmsley Palace Hotel opened in 1981 and was operated by Helmsley until 1992. As part of a bankruptcy proceeding, it was sold in 1993 to the Sultan of Brunei, who completely renovated the hotel and Villard Houses. The government of Brunei took over the hotel from the royal family in 2009. Northwood Investors, an American real estate investment firm, bought the hotel from the government of Brunei in 2011 and renovated it. The hotel was sold again in 2015 to Korean luxury hotel operator Lotte Hotels & Resorts, which renamed it the Lotte New York Palace Hotel.
Site The hotel is located in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, bounded by Madison Avenue to the west, 51st Street to the north, and 50th Street to the south. The hotel's land lot is L-shaped and contains a 55-story skyscraper, along with most of the Villard Houses to the west. The lot, carrying the address 455 Madison Avenue, has a frontage of on Madison Avenue and on 50th Street, and it covers . The northernmost of the Villard Houses is on a separate land lot at 457 Madison Avenue. Nearby buildings include Olympic Tower, 11 East 51st Street, and 488 Madison Avenue to the northwest; St. Patrick's Cathedral to the west; and 18 East 50th Street and the Swiss Bank Tower to the southwest.
Description , the hotel has 909 rooms and suites, which are divided into 822 guest rooms and 87 suites. There are 72 rooms specifically designed for guests with disabilities.
Villard Houses
The Villard Houses were erected as six separate residences in a U-shaped plan, with three wings surrounding a central courtyard on Madison Avenue. The south wing consisted of a single residence at 451 Madison Avenue. The north wing consisted of three residences at 457 Madison Avenue and 24–26 East 51st Street. The center wing was a double house at 453 and 455 Madison Avenue. The facade is made of Belleville sandstone, which largely lacks ornamentation. Each house consists of a raised basement, three stories, and an attic topped by a cornice. The ground story of the center wing also includes five arches, which lead to the lobby.
The courtyard measures wide between the north and south wings and is deep. It is flanked by two square posts with ball decorations above them. These posts are connected by a scrolled arch made of wrought iron. A Florentine-style lamp is suspended from the wrought-iron arch. Originally, the courtyard had a fountain surrounded by a circular driveway. The driveway had been arranged to allow horse-drawn vehicles to enter the courtyard easily. During the construction of the Palace Hotel in the 1970s, a marble and granite medallion was placed in the courtyard. The courtyard was renovated in 2013.
Lobby and surrounding spaces The modern main entrance, through the former center wing of the Villard Houses, consists of a grand staircase down to the main hotel lobby. This central flight is flanked by two flights that lead up to the mezzanine of the hotel's skyscraper section. A red Verona-marble fireplace by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is preserved at the mezzanine, directly opposite the entrance from the courtyard. Underneath the grand staircase is a bar called Trouble's Trust, named after the trust fund that belonged to the dog of Leona Helmsley, the wife of the hotel's original owner Harry Helmsley.
Some of the interior spaces from the Villard Houses are preserved in the modern hotel. The south wing of the houses contains the Gold Room, a space with a vaulted ceiling that originally served as a music room. There are two lunettes by John La Farge, as well as a balcony formerly used by musicians, in the Gold Room. Since 2019, the room has operated as a bar called the Gold Room during the evenings. During mornings and early afternoons, the room operates as part of a restaurant called Villard.
Skyscraper The skyscraper portion of the New York Palace Hotel was designed with a bronze-colored aluminum and glass facade. The skyscraper cantilevers partially over the houses but rests on its own foundations. It was constructed as a rectangular slab rising . The structural system was designed by Cantor Seinuk. Of the 909 units, 176 are in the Towers portion of the hotel, spanning the 41st through 55th floors. The remaining 733 rooms span the ninth through 36th floors.
A lobby extending between 50th and 51st Streets was included as part of the Palace Hotel's skyscraper portion. Pomme Palais, which serves pastries, is in this part of the hotel. The mezzanine level above the lobby contains a 25-seat wine lounge named Rarities, which is open by appointment only. Rarities is also open to members, although membership fees were $15,000 per year . Additionally, when the eastern section of the Villard Houses' north wing was demolished in the 1970s, one room was reconstructed on the third floor of the Palace Hotel.
The Towers The Towers was created during a renovation in the 1990s. The rooms are accessed by their own lobby and elevators. The suites consisted of 39 one-bedroom units; four triplex suites each covering across three stories; and the Metropolitan Suite, taking up what was previously the living space of the hotel manager. The four triplex units, as well as four additional single-story units, comprise the hotel's Royal Suite Collection and are each designed and branded separately.
All four triplexes have their own elevators and rooftop terraces. Two of the triplex suites are known as the Champagne and Jewel suites. According to a sales and marketing director for the hotel, these suites were often occupied by business and political leaders and their families. The Champagne Suite has a marble floor, a double-height "Grand Parlour", a tasting lounge, and a terrace with a fireplace and hot tub. The Jewel Suite has a double-height chandelier made of crystals, a set of "jewel boxes", a grand parlor with 15-foot-tall windows, a fireplace, and a garden on the terrace. The other two triplex suites, the Madison Avenue Penthouse and the Park Avenue Penthouse, were refurbished in 2020. The lowest level of either of these triplexes contains a living area, overlooked by a second-story balcony. The third story of these suites has the terrace as well as a media room and a fireplace.
The single-story suites in the Royal Suite Collection are known as the Hästens Ultimate Sleep Suite, Empire Skyview Suite, Manhattan Skyview Suite, and Imperial Suite. The Hästens Ultimate Sleep Suite was renovated in 2019 as part of a partnership with Hästens; it has three beds, a combined living/dining room, a kitchen with a wet bar, and an informational exhibit on the Hästens brand. The bed in the master bedroom, reportedly the only one of its kind in the world, was valued at $200,000. As part of the Hästens partnership, the company also placed its beds in the other three suites. Each of the Skyview suites has a living room, dining room, kitchen, entertainment area, gym, and private library. According to the hotel's website, the Imperial Suite is decorated in gold and taupe and has a foyer, living room, dining room, master bedroom, and two guest bedrooms.
History The six Villard Houses were commissioned in the 1880s by Henry Villard, then the president of the Northern Pacific Railway. The houses took six years to build. They served as the family residences of several prominent New Yorkers through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the late 1960s, Random House had just moved out of the northernmost house at 457 Madison Avenue, while the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York owned all of the other houses. In 1968, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Villard Houses as official landmarks, preventing them from being modified without the LPC's permission. The Archdiocese of New York bought number 457 in early 1971 and moved out of the entire complex two years later. At the time, the archdiocese said it hoped to find a lessee for the Villard Houses rather than sell them.
Planning and construction
Initial plans
In early 1974, the archdiocese was negotiating to sell developer Harry Helmsley the air rights above the Villard Houses. Helmsley planned to build a 50-story glass tower designed by Emery Roth & Sons. The transfer of air rights would allow the tower to be taller than would be usually allowed. The rear portion of the Villard Houses' center wing would need to be demolished, as well as part of a 1909 addition to the south wing. The arcaded entrance to the Villard Houses' center wing would be walled off. The north and south wings would remain unchanged and would not be part of the hotel. The LPC scheduled a meeting to discuss the plans in December 1974 because any alterations to the houses needed the agency's permission. One witness at the meeting was Villard's own great-grandson, shipping executive Vincent S. Villard, who testified that he wanted the "architectural gems" to be preserved. The commission demurred on approving Helmsley's plan at that time. Architectural writer Ada Louise Huxtable said the proposal was "a death-dealing rather than a life-giving 'solution'". By late 1974, the archdiocese had leased all of the Villard Houses to Helmsley for 99 years at around $1 million per year.
In January 1975, the LPC approved Helmsley's hotel proposal in principle but objected to some elements of the design. Roth's original plan had called for vertical travertine marble piers rising the height of the tower, which would be connected at the top by arches. The LPC requested that the curtain wall be designed less conspicuously. Though the houses' interiors were not protected as landmarks, the agency also asked Helmsley to consider preserving the interiors, which were planned to be demolished as part of Roth's plan. Helmsley had asked the firm Kahn & Jacobs to create an alternate design; his decision to commission two competing designs was unusual within the architectural community. The original iteration of the hotel plan entailed demolishing the Gold Room in the south wing, to which Community Planning Board 5 objected. A Helmsley-Spear vice president said the hotel's plans included a lobby on a lower elevation than the Gold Room and that, due to the slope of the site, the room would have to be demolished to make way for the lobby.