Sutton House (Manhattan)

Sutton House
Sutton House in 2024
General information
Type	Housing cooperative
Architectural style	Modernist
Address	415 East 52nd Street
Town or city	New York, NY
Country	US
Coordinates	40.75534°N 73.96423°W / 40.75534; -73.96423
Construction started	1954
Completed	1956
Inaugurated	February 1956
Technical details
Floor count	19 (building C) and 12 (A and B)
Lifts/elevators	7
Design and construction
Architect(s)	John M. Kokkins and Stephen C. Lyras
Architecture firm	Kokkins & Lyras
Main contractor	Kolyer Construction Corporation
Awards and prizes	1998 "New York's Top Ten Residences" by The Cooperator Magazine.
Other information
Number of units	289 (original)
Website
Sutton House, Inc

Sutton House is a three-building residential cooperative with a private garden at 415 East 52nd Street on the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The building was designed by John M. Kokkins and Stephen C. Lyras in the modern style and was built by Kolyer Construction Corporation, originally as a luxury rental building managed by Douglas Elliman and owned by seven owners, including Kokkins, Lyras, Greek executive Manuel Kulukundis. The 19-floor building C faces East 53rd Street, and is technically therefore part of the Sutton Place neighborhood, while the 12-floor buildings A and B face East 52nd Street. Constructed between 1954 (when the building plot was acquired) and 1956, Sutton House was developed to be a "Symbol of town Living for Perfectionists"", per its marketing brochure found at Columbia University New York Real Estate Brochure Collection.

In 1998, Sutton House was picked as one of "New York's Top Ten Residences" by The Cooperator Magazine, side-by-side with 1185 Park Avenue, 300 East 74th Street, The Ardsley, The Boulevard, Castle Village, The Chateau, Hudson Tower Condomunium, Kensington Lofts, and The Oxford.

The French restaurant Le Périgord, owned by Georges Briget operated at Sutton House from 1964 until 2017.

Site

George Youle (Spring Valley) Farm and Edmund Seaman Farms split the current Sutton House block in 1815

Sutton House is located at 415 East 52nd Street on the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The 19-floor building C faces East 53rd Street, and is technically therefore part of the Sutton Place neighborhood, while the 12-floor buildings A and B face East 52nd Street.

As of 1815, the Sutton House area was farmland. According to The Iconography of Manhattan Island Volume 6, Block 1364, which is where Sutton House Lies, was split diagonally between the Edmund Seaman Farm and the George Youle Farm, also known as Spring Farm.

By 1879 a stoneyard had been developed and a planning mill had been erected where currently build C stands, facing E 53rd street, while townhouses faced 52nd st, in the area still owned by the descendants of Edmund Seaman. The 1891 map shows the planning mill replaced by a building owned by Consumers Ice Co, and the stoneyard still active, at the site of building C.

In 1930, the Sutton House site continued occupied by townhouses facing 52nd St, and by the Knickerbocker Ice Company ice house facing 53rd Street. Given that the Knickerbocker Ice company closed to the public in 1924, the area was not being used when construction started in 1954.

Architecture

Sutton House was designed by John M. Kokkins and Stephen C. Lyras in the modern style and was built by Kolyer Construction Corporation, originally as a luxury rental building managed by Douglas Elliman. The 19-floor building C faces East 53rd Street while the 12-floor buildings A and B face East 52nd Street. Sutton House was developed to be a "Symbol of town Living for Perfectionists"", per its marketing brochure found at Columbia University New York Real Estate Brochure Collection.

Sutton House Panorama, 52nd Street Entrance, building A on the left, C on the back, B on the right

Form

The three buildings are connected by a T-shaped glass walled lobby, approached through a landscaped entrance, facing 52nd St on the south. Open areas between the buildings are private parklike setting. The complex features a 2-story 160-car garage facing 53rd street, for easy access from FDR Drive, and totals 290 apartments, from suites to 5-bedroom penthouses. Most of the apartments feature balconies, and some include fireplaces. Sutton House is a white brick building designed in the modernist period, a style share with the contemporaneous Manhattan House, which regained popularity in the 2010s.

Sutton House's lobby and ground floor were described by the New York Times in 1956 as "landscaped", not "decorated". The public space design was done by Virginia Conner Dick, a prominent interior designer and a furniture designer. According to the Times "The indoor-outdoor effect of the lobby and the glass-enclosed corridors connecting the building's three sections are achieved with large plantings near the large windows facing the private garden".

Façade

The facade is made of white bricks. Sutton House was the first of many buildings designed by Kokkins & Lyras using white bricks in their exterior between 1956 and 1959. The building entrance is at 415 E 52nd St, with the restaurant space at 405 E 52nd St, and two offices also open towards E 52nd St. The building service entrance is at 420 E 53rd Street, with the Sutton House Garage entrance to the east. The building was built with air conditioner outlets on every room, and window space for air conditioners, so they could be at the center of the room. The building is going through a conversion from window air-conditioners to PTACs, as can be seen on the images. Balconies are present at most apartments, and terraces on the top floors of all three buildings. Buildings A and B have 2 elevators each, one reaching the basement, while the larger building C has 3 elevators, one reaching the basement and the lower basement towards the garage.

• 
  Sutton House Building A
• 
  Sutton House Building B
• 
  Sutton House Building C

Apartments (original floor plan)

Sutton House Original Building Plan

Building A

Building A has five apartments per floor, A through E, on floors 2 to 9, where apartments B, C and D have balconies. Floors 10 and 11 have four apartments, including a terrace on the 10th floor for apartment D. The twelfth floor, the penthouse floor, has three apartments, all with terraces.

• 
  Floors 2 to 9
• 
  Floors 10 and 11
• 
  12th floor penthouse

Building B

Building B has six apartments per floor, A through F, on floors 1 to 9. The first-floor apartments are connected to the main lobby through a lounge with windows toward the B–C garden. On floors 2 to 9 apartments C, D and E have balconies. Floors 10 and 11 have five apartments, with balconies in apartments B, C and D. Apartments A and B on the 10th floor have terraces. The twelfth floor, the penthouse floor, has three apartments, all with terraces.

• 
  1st Floor
• 
  Floors 2 to 9
• 
  Floors 10 and 11
• 
  12th floor penthouse

Building C

Building C has thirteen apartments per floor, A–G and H–N, on floors 1–9. The first-floor apartments are connected to the main lobby through a corridor with windows on both sides, defining the border of the A–C and B–C gardens. On floors 2–9 apartments G, and H have balconies. Floors 10 and 11 have twelve apartments, with balconies on apartments G, and H. Apartments D, E, K and L on the 10th floor have terraces. The penthouse floor on floor twelve has nine apartments. Apartments E and F have balconies. All apartments other than A on this floor have terraces. Building C tower, floors 13 to 19, has three apartments per floor. On the thirteenth floor, all apartments have terraces.

• 
  1st Floor
• 
  Floors 2 to 9 (left side)
• 
  Floors 2 to 9 (right side)
• 
  Floors 10 and 11
• 
  12th floor penthouse
• 
  Floors 13 to 19

Lobby and amenity spaces

The ground level has a lobby connecting the three buildings, each with a different sub-lobby. The garage was built to support 160 vehicles at 53rd Street. The garage continues to operate. Sutton House Lobby contains windows facing the internal and external gardens, and feature floor to ceiling mirrors. Sutton House has a kid's playroom, a modern gym/health center, bicycle storage, and three East River-viewing rooftop decks.

• 
  Sutton House entrance garden
• 
  Sutton House garden between buildings A and C
• 
  Sutton House garden between buildings B and C

History

Dec-1955 Sutton House ad

Sep-1955 Sutton House ad

Development and rentals

In 1954 a group of 7 individual investors, including Kukkins, Lyras, and Kulunkudis, bought the parcels necessary to purchase the land to build Sutton House. Construction happened between 1955 and 1956, with the building designed by John M. Kokkins and Stephen C. Lyras and built by Kolyer Construction Corporation.

Initial starting rental prices (see ads)

Rooms	September 1955	December 1955
2	$145.00	$155.00
3	$180.00	$215.00
4.5	$267.00	$275.00
5	$442.00	$385.00

As the table shows, there was higher initial demand for 2, 3 and 4 room apartments than for the 5 room tower penthouses during the Sutton House initial sales release. The building was rented and managed by Douglas Elliman.

Sale to Alex DiLorenzo Jr and Sol Goldman

In November 1964, Chatham Associates purchased 76% of Sutton House, leaving 26% in the hands of Kulukundis. At that point in time, Kulukundis, once a shipping magnate, was already bankrupt. The purchasing company, Chatham Associates, was only a front for Alex DiLorenzo Jr., Sol Goldman's business partner.

Kulunkudis and Anthony Scotto ownership

With DiLorenzo's death in 1975, Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo III (who inherited 74% of Sutton House from his late father), decided to split the old business partnership... with a coin flip. That said, there was a serious difference of opinion between the two about the value of Sutton House... which made Sutton House be sold in its entirety to Michael Kulukundis, for more than $7M. And with that, as of June 1979, Sutton House belonged entirely to Michael Kulukundis. Later in 1979, as the New York Times reported during the trial of Anthony Scotto, the American New York mobster and labor union racketeer in the Gambino crime family, it become public that Kulukundis had sold 13% of the corporation owning Sutton House for $26, while this portion of the building had been assessed to be worth $6.1M, and to have been sold to Mr Scoto for $7.1M in May 1978. On November 16m 1979, Mr Scotto sold his interest in the Sutton House Corporation.

Becoming a cooperative

Given the sponsor's financial and legal situation, on January 8, 1980, a cooperative initial offering plan was put together, and in 1981, Sutton House was converted from a rental building into a cooperative. Per the initial offering plan, renters interested in becoming shareholders were to pay $97.50/share. This put a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom 1250sqft apartment at the cost of $90,187.5. At the same point in time, a typical 2-bedroom apartment in Sutton Place costed $265,000 to $550,000.

Notable tenants

• Alex DiLorenzo III, son of Alex DiLorenzo Jr and partner of Sol Goldman, lived in the building in the 1970's.
• Aline Meyer Liebman, artist
• Carol Alt, model and actress
• Dorothy Bell Lawrence, a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 8th D.) from 1959 to 1963
• Earle I. Mack, businessman and former United States Ambassador to Finland.
• Edward Eager, American lyricist, dramatist and writer of children's fiction
• Georges Briguet, who ran the Lé Perigord restaurant at Sutton House, among other restaurants in NYC, and lived in the building from 1964 until his death in 2022.
• Judy Sheindlin (known professionally as Judge Judy) and husband Jerry Sheindlin lived in apartment 4CC from 1997 until 2005. Judge Jerry assisted in getting the building's CofO modified to allow a gym
• Keith Richards, from the Rolling Stones, who rented before the building was a coop, and used to have jam sessions at all hours
• Phil Rizzuto, baseball player for the New York Yankees (1941–1956), and elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
• Ralph G. Gulley, architect, founder and first dean of the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
• Richard C. Casey, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, lived in apartment 12HC from 2006 until his death.

Critical reception

In 1998, Sutton House was picked as one of "New York's Top Ten Residences" by The Cooperator Magazine. Sutton House was hailed for its three rooftop decks with views of the East River, its glass-enclosed lobby designed with marble floors and wood paneling, overlooking the gardens in front of the building and the courtyard in the center of the complex. Its glass-enclosed walkway from the lobby to the center building, behind the courtyard, was also praised, as well as its health club, on-site garage, basement storage, package room and a 24-hour doorman and concierge. The building was also praised for having apartments featuring European kitchens, hardwood floors, washers and dryers, marble bathrooms and lots of closets, also for many units with balconies or terraces with East River views. And all that with a relatively low maintenance cost, especially when compared to similar buildings in Sutton Place and the surrounding neighborhoods.