525 Lexington Avenue

525 Lexington Avenue (also FOUND Study Turtle Bay; formerly the Shelton Hotel, Shelton Towers Hotel, Halloran House, and the New York Marriott East Side) is a student dormitory and former hotel building at 525 Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 34-story, building was designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon in a classical style and was developed by James T. Lee, grandfather of First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. It was constructed between 1922 and 1923 as the Shelton Hotel, an apartment hotel. The Marriott East Side, one of several large hotels developed around Grand Central Terminal as part of Terminal City, became a New York City designated landmark in 2016.

The building contains setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution; at the time of its construction, the Shelton was quoted as the world's tallest hotel. The first two stories of the facade are clad with limestone, while the upper stories are faced with grayish-brown brick, interspersed with terracotta and limestone trim. When it opened, the hotel featured numerous amenities similar to those in a clubhouse, such as a gymnasium, a bowling alley, Victorian-style Turkish baths, a swimming pool, a barber, squash courts, and billiard tables. The upper stories originally contained 1,200 rooms, which was decreased to about 650 rooms in the late 1970s, as well as outdoor terraces on the 15th and 31st floors. The Shelton Hotel was widely praised by architectural critics upon its completion. Its design has been cited as an influence for that of other structures, such as the Empire State Building.

Lee acquired the site in 1922 from the International Sporting Club, which had unsuccessfully attempted to build a clubhouse there. The hotel was completed in January 1924 as a men-only hostelry and opened to women later that year; it attracted tenants such as Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe. The New York Life Insurance Company acquired the hotel in 1935, and the Knott Management Corporation took over the hotel's operation, buying it in 1946. The hotel was sold multiple times in the 1950s. Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Jr. bought the hotel in the 1960s and leased it to Stanley Stahl planned to build a skyscraper on the site in the 1970s but canceled its plans after several holdout tenants refused to relocate. The contractor Edward Halloran acquired the hotel in 1976 and renovated it into the Halloran House, a Howard Johnson's hotel. Marriott Hotels & Resorts took over the hotel in 1990 and operated it until 2020, when the hotel closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hawkins Way Capital and Värde Partners bought the building in early 2023 and renovated it into a student housing facility, FOUND Study Turtle Bay, which opened that September.

Site

525 Lexington Avenue is on the eastern side of Lexington Avenue, on the southeast corner with 49th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It sits on the western portion of a city block bounded by Lexington Avenue to the west, 49th Street to the north, Third Avenue to the east, and 48th Street to the south. The hotel occupies an irregular land lot with an area of ; the eastern portion of the lot extends southward to 48th Street. The site has a frontage of on Lexington Avenue, on 49th Street, and wide on 48th Street.

525 Lexington Avenue wraps around another building at the northeast corner of 48th Street and Lexington Avenue (which was completed around 2009), and it abuts a public plaza to the southeast. When the Shelton was constructed, the corner lot contained a three-story brick building, which was destroyed in 1939. The hotel is across from 277 Park Avenue to the southwest, the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel and 299 Park Avenue to the west, the Waldorf Astoria New York to the northwest, and the Lexington Hotel NYC to the south. The Shelton was part of "Hotel Row", a collection of hotels developed along Lexington Avenue in the early 20th century. The surrounding section of Lexington Avenue from 42nd to 52nd Street did not experience significant development until the late 19th century, when row houses and tenements, made of brick and brownstone, were developed in the area.

Architecture

525 Lexington Avenue was designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon, who went on to design the Empire State Building and 500 Fifth Avenue. The hotel was originally known as the Shelton, an apartment hotel, and was developed by James T. Lee, grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The hotel contains elements of the Lombard Revival style, although Harmon wanted to avoid clear allusion to any specific architectural style, saying that "the masses of such modern buildings have no architectural precedence". Christopher Gray of ''The New York Times'' wrote that Harmon "covered the mass with irregular yellowy-tan brick, roughened as if centuries old, and for details, drew from Romanesque, Byzantine, early Christian, Lombard and other styles." The hotel's developer described the building as being designed in a "North Italian Romanesque or Early Christian" style.

Form

The hotel building contains setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution; it was one of the first major hotels in New York City to be developed after the resolution was enacted. At the time of its construction, the Shelton was also quoted as the world's tallest hotel; modern sources cite the hotel as being 387 feet (118 m) tall, although a source from 1932 gave an alternate height of . The building is variously cited as being 31, 32, 34, or 35 stories tall. This discrepancy arises from the fact that the hotel's floor numbering system does not have a thirteenth floor, as well as the fact that there is a three-story mechanical penthouse above the primary 31-story roof. Including the penthouse, the hotel has a total of 34 floors.

According to art historian Anna C. Chave, Harmon preferred that the hotel's setbacks "be boldly articulated in architectural form, not camouflaged by ornamentation". To maximize the size of the public amenity space, the lowest two stories of 525 Lexington Avenue occupy the entire site. On the first 15 stories of the hotel, a wing runs south to 48th Street from the center of the main structure's southern elevation. The wing on 48th Street contains a setback on its rear above the first story, as well as on its front above the second story. At the 3rd story, the eastern elevation sets back into an elongated light court, giving the building a roughly U-shaped plan. The northern elevation on 49th Street and the western elevation on Lexington Avenue also have light courts, which are shallower and are flanked by projecting pavilions. Another light court exists on the eastern elevation.

The hotel has further setbacks at the 15th and 21st floors; the main roof is above the 31st floor. To comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, the top stories of the hotel only occupy one-quarter of the entire lot. The hotel is topped by a set-back penthouse with a pyramidal hip roof.

Facade

All four elevations of the hotel's facade are visible from the street and are accordingly decorated. The first two stories of the facade are clad with limestone. The upper stories are faced with grayish-brown brick, interspersed with terracotta and limestone trim. The third through 14th stories, and the 16th to 30th stories, have windows that illuminate guestrooms inside. The 15th and 31st stories are designed in a different manner because these stories originally contained amenity areas.

The facade is divided vertically into multiple bays, which alternately project from the facade or are recessed from it. On the upper stories, projecting bricks were arranged both in vertical lines and in random patterns. Harmon, seeking to emphasize the hotel's height, avoided including horizontal lines in the hotel's design where possible. The facade's design followed the principle of entasis, bulging slightly outward so as to not give the impression that the hotel was sagging, The lower stories were sloped slightly inward, further emphasizing the building's height. The original design was modified significantly in 1935. The modern-day facade, which dates to a 1977–1978 renovation, is similar to the original design but has additional doorways and windows.

Base

The 49th Street and Lexington Avenue elevations of the facade have double-height arcades at the base. The Lexington Avenue facade contains a loggia of five arches in the center of the facade, as well as a glass-and-metal canopy that curves outward. The arches are flanked by pedestals with lion heads, which support Corinthian columns. Above the columns are impost blocks, which contain depictions of readers and athletes carved in relief, as well as molded archivolts and gargoyles. In addition, a cornice with corbels runs horizontally above the second floor, topped by a parapet that contains reliefs of masks. The three center archways lead into the lobby and are surrounded by doorways with Renaissance-style arabesques. There are arched niches in between each of the center doorways. On the second story, each of the five center bays contains a pair of arched windows.

The Lexington Avenue entrance is flanked by three-bay-wide projecting pavilions. The first story originally had rectangular window openings, though one window in each pavilion has since been replaced by a doorway. The southernmost bay of the south pavilion contains an entrance with a projecting granite doorway. At the second floor, the center bay of each pavilion contains a pair of arched windows and a balcony supported by brackets (these bays originally contained French windows). The other bays have simple rectangular windows on the second floor, above which are relief panels with scrolls and wreaths, which are inset into the facade. A cornice, with corbels shaped like masks and flowers, runs above the second story of each pavilion. Over the years, objects such as air-conditioner openings, storage cabinet, a security camera, and flagpoles have been added at the base.

The 49th Street facade is similar in arrangement to that along Lexington Avenue, with a recessed arcade flanked by pavilions. The arcade is six bays wide; the westernmost bay of the arcade contains an entrance. There are awnings above the first-story windows in each bay of the arcade, and a low iron railing runs in front of the arcade's first-floor windows. Above the first story, the arcade contains are chevron patterns consisting of light and dark stone. The eastern pavilion contains square-headed windows on its mezzanine level, while the windows on the first and second story have been sealed. A stone balustrade runs above the arcade's second story and is decorated with quatrefoil tracery.

On the 48th Street wing, the southern elevation is clad with limestone in multiple hues. At the first and second stories, the facade of the wing is divided into three bays; the center bay is divided into four windows, while the side bays have two windows each. On the first story, the center window is topped by a lunette, and there is a door in the westernmost bay; all of the windows have tracery and stone mullions. The wing's second story contains a terrace recessed behind the windows on that story. The main section of the building, closer to 49th Street, contains arched windows on its southern elevation at the second story; these windows originally illuminated the hotel's library. A concrete-clad annex, consisting of the first story and mezzanine, extends into the courtyard at the hotel's southeast corner; this annex contains ventilation grates and HVAC equipment on its roof.

Upper stories

On the upper stories, some of the brickwork and the majority of the windows have been replaced, and the facade also contains openings for air-conditioning units. Along 49th Street and Lexington Avenue, on the 3rd through 14th floors, the facade contains random projecting bricks scattered amid the windows. The projecting brick patterns were arranged so as to "avoid any effect of a pattern", according to ''Architecture'' magazine, although they repeat at three-story intervals. The center bays alternately project from or are recessed into the facade; these bays vary in depth by . On the 15th story, the outer bays contain arched corbel tables, as well as parapets with inlaid rhombuses, above which are pergolas and brick-and-glass structures. On that story recessed center bays contain arched corbel tables, and the projecting center bays contain round balconies; above the 15th story windows, there are rosettes made of terracotta. There is a parapet at the 21st story with arched corbel tables, corbels, and chevrons; this parapet has been repaired over the years.

On the 21st to 30th stories, the bays alternately project from or are recessed into the facade. The recessed center bays contain smaller windows than the projecting bays and are topped by arched corbel tables. The corners of the building contain colonettes with fiberglass griffins, which are intended to resemble the original griffins. The 31st story is a double-height space with both projecting and recessed bays; the recessed bays contain double-height arched windows, while the projecting bays contain projecting bricks. At the 31st story, the center bays also contain projecting gargoyles, while the outer bays contain small attic windows. In addition, the roofline of the 31st story contains grotesques of bears, which appear to be holding amphorae.

The upper stories of the 48th Street wing's southern elevation are designed very similarly to the corner pavilions on Lexington Avenue and 49th Street. The wing's eastern elevation and part of the western elevation are also visible; these elevations consist of plain brick walls with windows. At the 15th-story setback is a brick parapet with limestone coping, as well as a brick pavilion with a hip roof. The eastern and southern elevations of the main building also contain plain walls, which are visible from 48th Street and from Third Avenue. As with the other elevations, some of the brickwork and windows have been replaced; in addition, some windows on these elevations have been sealed. Several steel trusses span the light court on the eastern elevation, and the 15th story also contains a bridge across the light court, connecting the northern and southern wings.

Interior

When it opened, the hotel featured numerous "club" amenities, such as a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a Victorian-style Turkish bath, a swimming pool, a barber, squash courts, and billiard tables. The hotel contained six passenger and two freight elevators. In contrast to the Shelton's exterior, which was distinctive for its time, the interior was similar to that of other contemporary large hotels. As of 2016, the hotel had a gross floor area of . The hotel's amenities included a fitness center measuring ; meeting space totaling ; and the 525LEX Restaurant and Lounge.

Public rooms and amenities

The Shelton's public rooms were largely designed with early Italian Renaissance elements, except the wood-paneled rooms, which were influenced more by English architecture. The sub-basement contained the pool, clothing-storage, and boiler rooms. The basement contained a mezzanine surrounding the pool, as well as a Turkish bath, bowling alley, barber shop, and servant's rooms. The pool's mezzanine was decorated with multicolored tile. By the 2000s, the original swimming pool had been drained and divided into three sections, although a ladder remained in place at one corner.

At ground level was the kitchen, grill, and dining room. The entrance lobby on Lexington Avenue connected with an office to the south, a baggage entrance and women's lounge to the north, and a lounge to the east. The restaurant was originally located in the 48th Street wing, while the grill was placed behind the elevators to the east. The kitchen was at the far east end of the hotel, behind the grill. A grill and café was added on the 49th Street side of the ground level in 1935. The grill and café contained entrances from 49th Street and Lexington Avenue; the grill was designed in a 17th-century style, while the café had a semicircular mahogany bar. In addition, there was a dining room accessed from Lexington Avenue. Most of the original interior has been heavily modified over the years, but some remnants of the original design remained in the late 2000s, including a stair hall next to the lobby.

On the second story was a suite of three rooms facing Lexington Avenue: the reading room to the north, the lounge in the center, and the game room to the south. The billiard room was on the north end of the elevator lobby, and two west–east corridors ran across the second floor, The corridor on the north side of the second floor led to various card rooms and dining rooms, while the corridor on the south side connected to the library and dining rooms. The hotel's library reportedly contained over 12,000 volumes. By the 2000s, the hotel also had 19 meeting rooms.

The hotel contained a solarium and open terrace on the 15th floor. The solarium was placed above the rooftop terrace on the southern wing. The center of the 15th story contained two "baronial suites", with paneled living rooms that contained fireplaces, as well as private porches and sunroofs. The 15th-floor setback also contained open-air terraces for tenants. The top story, was devoted to a gymnasium and three squash courts; there was also a gallery for exhibition matches. By the 2000s, the squash courts had been replaced by the hotel's fitness center. The roof contained a penthouse for tanks, elevator machinery, and other equipment.

Guestrooms

The hotel originally had either 1,100 or 1,200 bedrooms, approximately two-thirds of which had their own bathrooms. The third to 14th floors largely consisted of single rooms, but the corners of these stories had two-bedroom suites. Above the 15th floor, the Shelton had ten floors of bedrooms. A ''New York Times'' article from 1928 cited the hotel as having 1,169 guestrooms and 600 bathrooms. By 1954, three of the hotel's stories (comprising a total of 180 rooms) were used as offices.

By the 2000s, the hotel included 646 rooms, which were composed of 629 standard rooms and 17 suites. After the 2007 renovation, Oyster.com wrote that the average room was , enough to accommodate a king size bed, chair, desk, and side table. In addition, the guestrooms were decorated in a yellow, mustard, or scarlet palette, similar to other Marriott hotels, while the bathrooms had granite alcoves for toiletries. By 2016, the hotel had 655 guestrooms.

History

The construction of Grand Central Terminal began in 1903 on the site of Grand Central Depot, following a fatal crash in the Park Avenue Tunnel, the only approach to the depot, the preceding year. Grand Central Terminal opened on February 2, 1913. Passenger traffic on the commuter lines into Grand Central more than doubled in the years following the terminal's completion. The terminal spurred development in the surrounding area, particularly in Terminal City, a commercial and office district created above where the tracks were covered. Terminal City soon became Manhattan's most desirable commercial and office district. A 1920 ''New York Times'' article said, "With its hotels, office buildings, apartments and underground Streets it not only is a wonderful railroad terminal, but also a great civic centre." The Shelton was one of several hotels developed in Terminal City, along with other hostelries such as the Barclay, Commodore, Roosevelt, and Biltmore.

Meanwhile, during the early 19th century, apartment developments in the city were generally associated with the working class. By the late 19th century, apartments were also becoming desirable among the middle and upper classes. Between 1880 and 1885, more than ninety apartment buildings were developed in the city. Apartment hotels in New York City became more popular after World War I, particularly among wealthy people who wanted to live luxuriously but also wanted to do some of their own housework, such as cooking. Developers of apartment hotels sometimes constructed developments to bypass the Tenement House Law, which prevented new apartment buildings from being taller than 150 percent of the width of the adjacent street. Apartment hotels had less stringent regulations on sunlight, ventilation, and emergency stairs but had to contain communal spaces like dining rooms.

Development

The International Sporting Club (ISC) had announced plans in December 1919 for a sporting arena and clubhouse at the southeast corner of 49th Street and Lexington Avenue. The existing buildings on the site had been demolished by 1921, when the ISC's founder disappeared with a large proportion of the club's assets. Subsequently, in January 1922, a judge scheduled an auction for the site, and James T. Lee acquired the plot the same month. Lee initially planned to develop a 15-story apartment hotel for men on the ISC site.

The Shelton Holding Corporation, headed by Lee, announced in March 1922 that it would build a 30-story apartment hotel instead. The hotel was to be known as the Shelton Club and was one of several hotels in New York City being developed at the time with a combined 6,000 rooms. Lee intended for the Shelton to be a high-end apartment hotel, describing it as "equal in appointments to the Yale Club" building at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue. Residents would rent the apartments monthly, rather than staying overnight or signing long-term leases. Work on clearing the site had started by May 1922, after S. W. Straus & Co. placed a $4 million bond issue on the hotel. Harmon filed plans for a 31-story hotel on the site later the same month at an estimated cost of $3 million to $5 million.

Lee wanted to offset the hotel's relatively high construction costs by increasing the building's height, which in turn would allow him to rent the apartments to more people. Furthermore, the higher construction costs of the top stories would be counterbalanced by the high rents that the upper-floor apartments would attract. According to ''Architecture'' magazine, the utility costs for a 1,200-room hotel were only slightly higher than those for a 600-room hotel, and the various public rooms were also supposed to attract guests, Construction of the hotel itself commenced in August 1922. The Shelton was partially open by late 1923 and had been completed by March 1924. Following the Shelton's completion, other hotels in the area, such as the Lexington and Waldorf Astoria, were also constructed.

Early operation

1920s to 1940s

As a bachelor hotel, the Shelton originally catered solely to men. In September 1924, the hotel announced that it would admit women after the vast majority of the hotel's tenants voted in favor of it. According to ''The'' ''New York Herald, New York Tribune'', although many of the residents favored retaining men-only clubrooms, "when it came to the hotel dining rooms, salons and the library and card rooms they missed the dash of color". The first female guests checked into the Shelton that October, and the hotel's 75-foot-long swimming pool opened the next month. The swimming pool hosted the Hotel Shelton Dolphins, a women's swim team, and it was also used for meets by the AAU Women's Swimming Association. After five companies established the Continental-Leland Corporation in 1925, the Shelton became the flagship hotel of the corporation; James T. Lee was the president of the corporation. Hughes & Hammond placed a $4 million, ten-year mortgage loan on the hotel in 1928; this mortgage loan replaced a $4.25 million bond issue that was placed circa 1924.

The Knott Management Corporation took over the Shelton Hotel's operation in March 1935. That September, the Knotts announced a $65,000 renovation of the hotel, which would be designed by Charles F. Winkleman. As part of the project, the Pompeiian room (which had been the hotel's café) was converted into a lounge, and the lounges on 49th Street were converted into a grill and cocktail room. In October 1935, the New York Life Insurance Company took over the Shelton at a foreclosure auction, bidding $300,000 and assuming the hotel's $3.64 million mortgage. The Knott Corporation managed the hotel on behalf of New York Life, and it operated an entertainment venue at the hotel, the Shelton Corner.

The Shelton remained popular in the 1940s, when it hosted civic meetings and other events. The hotel's advertisements praised its amenities, the affordable prices of the restaurant's meals, the live music at the Shelton Corner, and the proximity to Grand Central Terminal. Guests could pay nightly or weekly fees to use the rooms, or they could sign long-term leases. The American Contract Bridge League also hosted tournaments at the Shelton, where a contract bridge club had leased a 15th-story lounge. In March 1946, the Knott Corporation bought the building from New York Life through the Charles F. Noyes Company for $3.35 million. The Noyes Company then arranged a $3 million mortgage for the hotel. Knott converted some space on the 15th floor to offices in the late 1940s, renting the space to tenants such as a wedding planner, the publisher Public Relations Society of America, and a photography company.

1950s and 1960s

The Knott Corporation sold the hotel in April 1951 to Louis Schleifer, at which point the hotel was assessed at $4 million. Schleifer took title to the building in August 1951, with plans to keep it as an investment, and Joseph Wolf became the hotel's manager. Schleifer leased the hotel in March 1952 to Herbert R. Weissberg of 523-527 Lexington Inc. for 21 years at $500,000 per year. Less than a year later, in February 1953, Lawrence A. Wien bought the hotel from Schleifer. The Fink brothers acquired all of the stock in the Hotel Equities Company, which had a long-term lease on the building in August 1954. The Finks planned to spend $500,000 on renovating the hotel, including the pool, baths, gymnasium, lobby, dining rooms, assembly rooms, and guestrooms. By then, Buster Crabbe operated the hotel's swimming pool and health club, and about three stories of the hotel had been converted to office space. The ballroom was closed in December 1956 and turned into a laboratory for color-film processing company Authenticolor.

Jay and Arthur Wells, representing Wells Television Inc., signed a contract to buy the hotel's lease in April 1957. The next month, they hired a syndicate led by Sidney Bressler to operate the hotel, which was renamed the Shelton Towers. Vic Tanny leased the hotel's pool in early 1958. Westchester County judge George A. Brenner, one of the investors who had leased the hotel, spent large sums of money on renovating the Shelton Towers but was unable to obtain more funding. New York County district attorney Frank Hogan indicted Brenner on charges of forgery in January 1959. Hogan claimed that Brenner had leased the hotel for 14 years with plans to renovate it, obtain a 75-year lease, and resell it to a large hotel chain. The district attorney's office accused Brenner of trying to submit a falsified certificate, worth $250,000, at a Westchester bank in an attempt to receive a loan for the hotel. The Shelton Towers' manager, convicted forger William M. Singer, was detained in connection with the case.
Brenner, Singer, and their former secretary Norma M. Bucher all pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges in early 1960;
Singer and Bucher were sentenced to between 18 and 24 months in prison,
while Brenner was sentenced to between four and seven years.

The S. T. Hotel Corporation (which held the Shelton Towers' lease) decided to sublet the hotel in December 1959 to Max Klein's Shelton East Corporation, which planned to renovate the hotel. By the 1960s, according to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the hotel "was increasingly regarded as passé". Wellington Associates, led by Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Jr., bought the hotel in the 1960s. Wellington Associates received a $2.3 million first mortgage loan for the hotel in 1965 and a $1.5 million second mortgage the following year. Goldman and DiLorenzo received a $12.5 million, five-year mortgage loan for the Shelton and two nearby plots in 1968. The hotel's swimming pool and gym, operated by Shelton Health Clubs, saw 2,000 customers per day by the late 1960s. In addition, the hotel's ground level contained a nightclub until 1967; originally known as La Vie en Rose, the club was renamed Casa Cugat in 1958 and Basin Street East in 1959.

Proposed redevelopment

Skyscraper plan

By October 1965, Goldman and DiLorenzo had acquired five smaller structures and a parking lot on the same block, with plans to redevelop the site. Goldman and DiLorenzo eventually acquired the entire block, covering . The partners had initially leased on the west side of the block, including the Shelton's site, to Stanley Stahl

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