Barbizon 63

Barbizon 63
(2007)
Former names	Barbizon Hotel for Women
Etymology	Barbizon artistic movement
General information
Type	Condominiums (mixed residential and commercial)
Architectural style	Italian Renaissance, Late Gothic Revival, and Romanesque
Address	140 East 63rd Street
Town or city	New York, NY
Country	United States
Coordinates	40°45′52″N 73°57′58″W / 40.76444°N 73.96611°W / 40.76444; -73.96611
Construction started	March 1927
Completed	February 1928
Opened	October 31, 1927
Renovated	1980–1984 (converted to mixed-gender hotel) 2005 (converted to condominiums)
Cost	$4 million (1927)
Technical details
Floor count	23
Floor area	175,623 sq ft (16,315.9 m2)
Grounds	13,136 sq ft (1,220.4 m2)
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Palmer H. Ogden, Everett F. Murgatroyd
Barbizon Hotel for Women
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
New York City Landmark No. 2495
NRHP reference No.	82001186 [1]
NYCL No.	2495
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 29, 1982
Designated NYCL	April 17, 2012

Barbizon 63 (formerly the Barbizon Hotel for Women and the Melrose Hotel) is a mostly residential condominium building at 140 East 63rd Street, at the southeast corner with Lexington Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The 23-story hotel was designed by Everett F. Murgatroyd and Palmer H. Ogden in a blend of the Italian Renaissance, Late Gothic Revival, and Islamic styles. From 1927 until 1981, it was a women-only residential hotel. The Barbizon is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a New York City designated landmark.

The facade consists of salmon-colored brick, with limestone and terra cotta decorations, and is divided into a three-story base, a 15-story shaft, and a five-story tower. The building contains numerous setbacks, as well as a light court to the east, and the upper stories contain large arched windows. When the Barbizon was built, it contained various amenities for its residents, including a gymnasium, private library, solarium, swimming pool, and Turkish bath. Generally, men were only permitted to enter the ground-level stores, the double-height lobby, and the mezzanine-level recital room. The upper stories originally contained 655 bedrooms, which were eventually downsized to 306 hotel rooms, then to 66 condominiums. The modern-day condominium building contains a three-story Equinox Fitness club at its base.

The Allerton Hotel chain, headed by William Silk, developed the Barbizon on the site of a synagogue that dated from the 1870s. The hotel opened on October 31, 1927, and initially catered to women who worked in the arts. The building was sold twice in the 1930s and was profitable by the end of that decade. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, the hotel hosted numerous clubs, and entities such as Mademoiselle magazine, the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School, and the Ford Modeling Agency rented rooms there. After the Barbizon's occupancy rate began to decline in the 1970s, the hotel was refurbished. The Barbizon was sold three times between 1979 and 1981, and it started accepting male guests on February 14, 1981. The hotel underwent further renovations in the 1980s, during which it was sold twice more. Metromedia acquired the Barbizon in 1995 from Ian Schrager, partially renovated it, then sold it back to Schrager in 1998. The Berwind Property Group bought the hotel in 2001 and renovated it further before converting the building to condos between 2005 and 2006.