Parc Vendome
Circa 1929-1932 // ARCHITECT: Farrar & Watmaugh // BUILDER: Henry Mandel
The Parc Vendome is actually a pair of buildings connected at Ninth Avenue, one facing south over 56th Street (333-353 West 56th Street), and the other facing north over 57th Street (340-350 West 57th Street) — with a shared common garden between them. Each building has a pair of entrances and dual addresses. The 57th Street building is 19 stories and the 56th Street building is shorter with 11.
As the name implies, the building was created in an elegant French style with beautiful casement windows, grand copper-clad Mansard roofs, and stone balustrades topped with large classical urns. This complex has always been one of my favorites — a rare prewar condo — with great amenities in an incredibly convenient midtown location just a short walk from Columbus Circle. The elegant style of this building harkens back less to the apartment buildings of the era, but more to the hotels of the time which actually this makes sense considering the developer was known for his residential hotels. The large complex strikes me as the “Parisian” answer to London Terrace located 23 blocks south and, in fact, was built by the same developer.
Here the architecture is a bit fancier, and the apartments larger on average, than anything downtown. The buildings are mostly made up of studio and one bedroom units, but the size of these “bachelor” apartments range from 600 square feet for a typical studio and up to 1,200 square feet for one bedrooms. There are some larger terraced apartments at the top with stunning set-back terraces. Naturally, there have been combinations over the years that have created larger units.
WHAT A BUYER CAN EXPECT TO PAY: A large one-bedroom will cost around $1.3M, but it is the size of a typical two bedroom.
Hello! My name is David Lubell. This is my personal blog, a forum for me to talk about my passion for prewar buildings in NYC and related subjects. If any views are expressed here, they are mine, unless clearly presented as coming from someone else. You can read a little bit more 
Your March 15 report on the Parc Vendome indicates architect undetermined. The real estate sales listing for 350 West 57 St Penthouse A indicates Emery Roth. Do you think this is correct? I enjoy your information very much. I am also a fan of Tudor homes having been raised in Rockville Centre NY and is known locally as ‘Tudor City’. I have been living in a Blum brothers building near Sutton Place for many years. Keep up your reports.
Thanks for your email.
I am very happy you enjoy my website, Prewar Passion.
I am quite familiar with Rockville Centre, having visited a college friend there numerous times. The older homes are very charming, and the Tudors indeed abound.
With regards to the Parc Vendome, I doubt it was designed by Emery Roth for several reasons. First, stylistically it is way too French to be a Roth work. It just doesn’t look like anything he ever did, especially the big Mansard roofs. Second, the apartment configurations just don’t seem like Roth’s either – the rooms are actually too big for studio and one bedrooms – which Roth frequently designed in addition to his larger apartments. This of course may be dismissed as an objection, as he may have been commanded to design oversized rooms by the oversized ego of Mandel, the developer. Third, in the book by Steven Ruttenbaum, “Mansions in the Clouds – The Skyscraper Pallazi of Emery Roth”, the Park Vendome is not mentioned, nor have I ever heard it called a Roth building. Fourth, buildings designed by Roth have cache, and if it really were his design, it would be constantly mentioned.
Ergo – in my opinion, despite being a fabulous work of 1929 architecture, the agent for that penthouse was making things up.
Best,
David
Christopher Gray’s online archive says it’s Farrar & Watmough, but the year of the building permit is 1930.
I love using that archive to figure out architects for the buildings i like, in part because it’s not always easy to find them so it requires some work, especially when you look for midblock buildings. You can find it here:
http://metrohistory.com/dbpages/NBsearch.lasso
You can find this building if you search for “330 w 57″ in the “building address” field.
In general, you need to use “w” instead of “west”, “e” instead of “east”, “st” and “ave” – full words will yield no results. Also, you need to try street numbers in the vicinity of the buildings’ street number, since the buildings are listed by the number of the individual lots they occupy, or something of the sort (of course, they occupy more than one lot. So this building is listed as “330-360 w 57″; if you look for 340 or 350 w 57, you won’t find it. But this is what makes it fun!). For midblock buildings there sometimes are no numbers, but instead I think it’s the number of feet from the closest avenue, together with the side of the street the building is on! (For example, “s s” for “south side”). That did take me a while to figure out.
Oh, yes, and I love your site!
Thanks for your comment, and your research advice!
I really am happy that people are finding the site enjoyable, I like getting the feedback.
I have been on Christopher Gray’s site, and he has been on my site as well.
If you get a chance, and are on Facebook, you can “like” my page there. http://bit.ly/GUZKZK
Stay in touch.
Best,
David