Ritz Carlton Residences

The Ritz Carlton Residences at 50 Central Park South is the most private building in this collection: 11 residences in a 33-floor tower, meaning fewer than one unit per three floors on average. The building was the St. Moritz Hotel when Emery Roth designed it in 1930, and Millennium Partners converted the upper floors to private residences in 2002. The result is a building where the service-to-resident ratio is extraordinary — the full Ritz Carlton hotel infrastructure (La Prairie Spa, concierge, private car, daily housekeeping, in-room dining) serves only 11 private households.

Because of its small unit count and older conversion, each residence at the Ritz Carlton has been individually designed, often multiple times over. The Jeffries duplex on the 30th and 31st floors has 15-foot ceilings on the upper level, a 500-square-foot formal dining room, a kitchen with seven windows overlooking Central Park, and dual dressing rooms totaling over 800 square feet. Residence 28 — designed by Thomas Pheasant (AD100) — has a Poggenpohl kitchen with honey-toned marble, Miele/Viking/Sub-Zero/Gaggenau appliances, a custom art dehumidification system, and automated lighting, shades, and AV throughout.

The building's beamed ceilings (characteristic of 1930s construction), generous proportions, and Central Park frontage of up to 102 feet create design conditions that only a historic building of this era can offer. No new construction building on Billionaires' Row can provide the particular quality of volume, beaming, and park-frontage depth that the St. Moritz building's original architecture provides.

With only 11 residences, client introductions at this address are the most intimate in New York. Residents know each other. The design register must respect this community context: nothing ostentatious, everything exceptional.