The Hotel Belleclaire (also the Belleclaire Hotel) is a hotel at 2175 Broadway, on the corner with West 77th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Constructed between 1901 and 1903 as one of several apartment hotels along Broadway on the Upper West Side, the Belleclaire was one of the first large buildings designed by architect Emery Roth. Its design incorporates elements of the Art Nouveau and Secession styles. The hotel is a New York City designated landmark.
The hotel building is 10 stories tall. Its facade is largely made of red brick with ornamentation made of limestone, metal, and terracotta. The limestone base is two stories high and contains a main entrance on Broadway; above the base, the building contains light courts facing north and south. The hotel's exterior includes a curved corner facing both Broadway and 77th Street, as well as a two-story mansard roof with arches. The hotel originally contained several ground-floor amenity areas for guests, each designed in a different style, although most of these spaces were demolished in the mid-20th century. The upper floors originally were divided into apartments with one to three rooms each. These apartments have been rearranged over the years into 262 guestrooms.
The hotel was developed by Albert Saxe, who had previously hired Roth to design another building on the Upper West Side. The hotel formally opened on January 12, 1903, and was originally an upscale apartment hotel, with several operators during its first two decades. The Belleclaire's ground-story rooms were replaced with shops in the 1920s, and the hotel had lost its high-class reputation by the 1930s. Following a series of modifications in the mid-20th century, the building started to physically deteriorate due to a lack of maintenance, and the Belleclaire became a single room occupancy hotel. Amid an increase in tourism to New York City, Shimmie Horn began operating the hotel in 1999 and renovated it into a boutique hotel. As of 2014, the hotel is operated by Triumph Hotels.
Site The Belleclaire is located at 2175 Broadway, at the southwest corner with 77th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It occupies the eastern end of the city block bounded by Broadway to the east, 77th Street to the north, West End Avenue to the west, and 76th Street to the south. The hotel has an alternate address of 250 West 77th Street. The land lot covers . The building has frontage of on Broadway and on 77th Street, and it measures long along its southern lot line. Nearby buildings include the Astor to the south, the West End Collegiate Church to the west, and the Collegiate School and the Apthorp to the north.
Before European colonization of modern-day New York City, the site was part of the hunting grounds of the Wecquaesgeek Native American tribe. After the British established the Province of New York, the area became part of the "Thousand Acre Tract", owned by several English and Dutch settlers, in 1667. The land between 73rd and 77th streets was part of the estate of Cornelius Dyckman Jr. and remained in the family through the end of the 18th century. While the Manhattan street grid was laid out as part of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the neighborhood remained undeveloped through the late 19th century; the section of 77th Street west of modern-day Broadway remained unpaved as late as 1890. Developers began erecting large apartment buildings in the area by the end of the 1890s.
Architecture The Hotel Belleclaire was one of the first buildings designed by Hungarian-American architect Emery Roth, who, at the time of the hotel's construction, worked for the firm Stein, Cohn & Roth. It contains elements of the Art Nouveau and Secession styles. This contrasted with other large buildings in the area at the time, such as the Ansonia and the Dorilton, which were designed in the Beaux-Arts style. The Belleclaire's design also contrasted with both Roth's earlier Saxony apartments, which contained flatter ornamentation, and his later work, which was usually designed in the Italian Renaissance style. Architectural writer Paul Goldberger of The New York Times wrote that, in the design of the Belleclaire, "it is clear that the architect, who was under 30 when the building was designed, was still seeking style with which he could feel fully comfortable".
Facade The Belleclaire is 10 stories tall. At the time of its construction in 1903, the Belleclaire was considered an early skyscraper. Despite his unfamiliarity with skyscraper technology at the time of the hotel's construction, Roth quickly learned how to design high-rise buildings after designing the Belleclaire. The hotel contains two light courts facing southward, as well as a recessed courtyard facing northward. This effectively divided the Belleclaire into five wings: three facing south and two facing north. The northeastern corner of the hotel building, at Broadway and 77th Street, contains a rounded tower, and the southeastern corner of the building is also curved.
The facade is largely made of red brick with ornamentation made of limestone, metal, and terracotta. This contrasted with later buildings by Roth's firm (including the San Remo), which generally contained buff-brick and limestone facades. Both the Broadway and 77th Street elevations of the facade are divided horizontally into three sections: a two-story base, a six-story midsection, and a two-story capital. the third through seventh stories are largely clad with brick; and the ninth and tenth stories form a mansard roof. The southern and eastern elevations are largely clad in plain brick and contain windows; the southern elevation is a party wall abutting another building.
Base The base is clad with rusticated blocks of limestone. On Broadway, the original windows at ground level are recessed within elliptical arches and are designed in the Art Nouveau style, with curved mullions and muntins. The Broadway elevation also contained two double-height arches; one arch was the main entrance, while the other led to a restaurant. The main entrance was relocated to 77th Street in the 1920s when the more valuable Broadway frontage was converted to storefronts, but it was restored in 2018. Both arches are topped by copestones and flanked by an engaged column on either side, and there are leafs carved into the soffit of each arch. These engaged columns support pilasters that flank these bays on the upper floors. There was originally a balustrade above each entrance. The second story contains asymmetrical, rectangular sash windows, with twelve panes on top and three on the bottom.
Upper stories
The third through seventh stories comprise the central portion of the facade and are largely clad with brick. On the fourth story, there are stone spandrels and a horizontal band course above the windows. The Broadway elevation is divided vertically into six bays. In the four central bays, the third and fourth stories have rectangular windows, while the fifth through seventh stories contain arched windows. The two outer bays are flanked by stone pilasters (which depict Native American heads and pendants) and contain oriel windows on the third to sixth stories, as well as an elliptical arch at the seventh story. Above the seventh-story arched windows, the pilasters in the outer bays are connected by round arches made of stone. The eighth story contains rectangular windows; between each set of windows are two brackets, which support a balustrade above. The ninth story contains a brick facade with rectangular windows, while the tenth story is placed with a mansard roof and contains dormer windows. The two outermost bays have double-height arches.
The 77th Street elevation is made of similar materials to the Broadway elevation, but the courtyard divides the 77th Street elevation into two sections. The courtyard is a polygonal space with chamfered corners, flanked by wings facing 77th Street on either side. Within the courtyard, three bays of windows on each story face 77th Street. A one-story entrance pavilion was built within the courtyard in the 20th century. To the east of the courtyard (on the left, as seen from across the street) is a two-bay-wide wing flanked by pilasters. To the west (right) of the courtyard is a three-bay-wide wing; the two outer bays are flanked by stone pilasters, while the center bay includes an oriel window and a seventh-story elliptical arch. A curving metal rail is installed above the western wing. The corner of Broadway and 77th Street was originally topped by a cupola, which was removed in the 1950s.
Features When the hotel opened, the ground story contained public rooms and hotel offices, while the upper stories contained apartments. The New York City government had approved the use of steel-skeleton superstructures in 1894, less than a decade prior to the Belleclaire's construction, and so the hotel was one of the city's earlier buildings with a steel skeleton. The Belleclaire was intended as a "fireproof" structure; as such, a steel wall rose the entire height of the building, adjoining an enclosed emergency stairwell. The hotel contained a refrigeration plant with ice boxes on each floor, as well as three power generators. There was a rooftop garden overlooking the Hudson River, which originally hosted vaudeville performances for guests. The Belleclaire also originally had a collection of paintings valued at $40,000 (). Two passenger elevators, a freight elevator, and a mail chute served the entire hotel.
Public areas Originally, a portico of large marble columns led to a rotunda and offices at ground level. A corridor ran the entire length of the ground level, and several rooms led off this corridor, each designed in a different style. These included a Louis XV-styled women's dining room; an Italian Renaissance-styled palm room; a Moorish-style private dining room; a Flemish-style cafe; a billiards room; and a library. The palm room had marble walls and a large glass dome, while the library contained a collection of literature curated by two local publishing houses. There was a writing room, as well as a men's cafe with stock tickers; The New York Times wrote in 2003 that the tickers were "the equivalent of today's wireless Internet access". The ground floor also contained space for a florist, a cigar store, a newsstand, telephones, and telegraph offices. In the mid-20th century, most of the public rooms were demolished to make way for retail.
By the 2000s, the Belleclaire did not have any public rooms except for its check-in desk. The lobby was restored to its original design in the 2010s. The lobby contains wood-paneled walls; near the elevators, pieces of marble are set into the wall. The lobby is divided into two sections and contains a bar and open seating areas. The main part of the lobby contains a full-height cabinet with Roth memorabilia, as well as a freestanding lobby. The elevators and seating areas are separated by glass display cases with typewriters and other artifacts from the early 20th century. The walls also contain carved wooden doors, as well as wall panels with photographs of other buildings that Roth designed. In addition, the lobby contains a glass skylight measuring high, which once illuminated the palm room before being covered by a black dropped ceiling. , the ground story contains a restaurant and an adjacent cocktail lounge.
Rooms