This $29 Million NYC Penthouse Is Hidden in the Sky

In 2011, architect Barry Rice was hired to design a brand-new building at 40 East 72nd St., a block and a half from New York’s Central Park. There was one catch: The building it was meant to replace was landmarked, and the 1928 brick facade had to stay. “We demolished the building behind the facade, but we kept the facade itself,” said Rice, whose New York-based firm did a similar conversion in Brooklyn Heights two years earlier. “But the interesting thing is that when you keep a facade, it creates limitations on what you can do.”

Windows had to match the existing plan, for instance; ceiling heights were prescribed by the 1928 layout; and, even though the developer, Axia Realty, was allowed to build above the existing structure, the sight-line from the street had to remain the same. This was achieved simply, by setting the added floors back from the street, so that passersby would look up and see nothing but brick, then sky.