A Grand Hotel Recalls Its Roots

THE plan for condominiums at the St. Regis Hotel is small compared with the large-scale conversion at the Plaza Hotel to its north -- 59 of the St. Regis's 315 rooms are to become no more than 33 apartments. The change at the St. Regis, built in 1904 at 55th Street and Fifth Avenue, is a partial return to its original mission; it was conceived not for tourists but as an apartment hotel, a permanent residence for New Yorkers.

In the late 19th century, Fifth Avenue from 50th to 59th Streets was dominated by several great mansions built by the Vanderbilts. But the Astor family owned land in the area too, although they showed no interest in living there. In 1896, The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that John Jacob Astor had been considering building private houses on his property at the southeast corner of 55th and Fifth but because of the street's growing commercialization had decided to erect an apartment hotel.

Astor filed plans in 1901 for an 18-story apartment hotel on the corner, and early renderings show a design close to what was built, although with multiple limestone chimneys breaking through the mansard roof. The New York Tribune said that the picturesque mansard "will to a great degree overcome the box shape which so generally characterizes the high apartment house."

Published plans show nine one- and two-bedroom suites per floor. Photographs and descriptions indicate that the original corridors were finished floor to ceiling in richly figured marble, with bronze trim.

The $5.5 million building, named the St. Regis, came with hotel-like features and service. The lower floors held sumptuously decorated dining and lounge areas. The tearoom, since eliminated, was a long space topped with three leaded-glass domes and faced with marble and mirrors, as well as murals on the subject of the troubles of Psyche.

The limestone exterior is still one of the signature French Renaissance works in New York, a voluptuous design by Trowbridge & Livingston, who also designed the old J.P. Morgan & Company bank building of 1913 at Wall and Broad Streets.

The building, at the time tall for its neighborhood, opened in September 1904, after The New York Times had noted that resistance by the Vanderbilts and other householders had rendered it "a strife-breeding skyscraper." The Times editorialized that it was "high time some rational and legal regulation" was imposed on the new generation of tall buildings but added that the St. Regis had been built "on a scale of sumptuosity quite without precedent."

Indeed, the hotel's manager, Rudolph Haan, considered its elite reputation a sore point and complained to The Times in October about foolish stories that chambermaids carried room keys on strings of pearls. Such tales, Haan said, were "frightening away millionaires."

In 1906, George W. Maher, a prominent Chicago architect who worked in the Prairie style, commented on the St. Regis in a talk criticizing European influence on American architecture. As reported in The Record and Guide, Maher said: "There's nothing American about it. It's all French -- even its furnishings. A Frenchman put down in the lobby wouldn't know he had left his own country. It destroys Americanism in the Americans who stop there. Before they know it they are talking French and shrugging their shoulders."

The same year, the Russian revolutionary and writer Maxim Gorky toured the St. Regis and told The Times that "neither the Grand Dukes, nor even the Czar, have anything like this." From the context, it appears that Gorky, a devout Marxist, considered this a compliment.

The 1910 census records that the resident families included those of the piano maker Frederick Steinway and the mining heir Daniel Guggenheim. Most had moved from town houses in Midtown and lived with one or two servants. Their previous residences would have required a household staff of four or more.

The Plaza Hotel, built in 1907 at 59th and Fifth, had dozens of permanent tenants, some in custom-designed apartments, but it also catered to transient guests in a way the St. Regis originally did not. (After much controversy, Elad Properties, which owns the Plaza, is converting 457 of the hotel's 805 rooms into condominium residences, resulting in about 150 apartments.)

Astor died in the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912. A few days later, after the survivors had landed in New York, James Etches, assistant steward of the Titanic, appeared at the St. Regis bearing a scrap of paper and asked to see Florette Guggenheim, who had been staying with her brother-in-law Daniel since receiving news that her husband, Benjamin, had been lost.

According to The Times, Etches told the family that when he had last seen them, Guggenheim and his assistant had taken off their life jackets and put on evening clothes. "We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen," Guggenheim told the steward.

Guggenheim also had a message, which the steward had taken down on paper and relayed to the family: "If anything should happen to me, tell my wife in New York that I've done my best in doing my duty."

In 1925, the St. Regis installed stores along its Fifth Avenue front, and in 1927, Sloan & Robertson designed an addition on 55th Street that closely matches the style of the 1904 building. By the 1950's, the St. Regis had become a transient hotel. The Maxfield Parrish mural in the bar, depicting Old King Cole, was originally in another Astor hotel, the Knickerbocker, at 42nd Street and Broadway.

Last year, the owner of the St. Regis, St. Regis Hotels and Resorts, celebrated the hotel's centennial and announced that the 9th, 10th and 11th floors would be converted to condominium residences. The offering is to be made later this year, and according to a press release from the owner, units are to sell for $1.5 million to $7 million.

As at the Plaza, the new residents of the St. Regis will get one of New York's most distinctive buildings. But unlike the Plaza, where much of the original interior is intact, almost all of the St. Regis's interiors have been changed, sometimes many times.

On the ground floor, the area around the front desk -- with bronze, marble and mosaic -- and a small lounge to the east are among the few traces left of the St. Regis's 1904 interior.

Streetscapes E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com