Amenity trends
When you seek serenity at home, there’s nothing more luxurious than padding down the hall to be pampered in your own hamam
It helps set up the kind of dollars per square foot we’d like from our buyers Instead of a plunge pool there is an ice room with a machine that makes snow you can spread on your body, and an enormous relaxation room where you can rest after these circulatory jolts. ‘Older cultures know how this helps you. This is a luxury you can’t have in your apartment.’
NEW YORK • At the Cast Iron House, a late-19th-century landmark in TriBeCa reimagined into 13 shiny white condos, you will find another flourish: a Turkish-style hamam, complete with a plunge pool and a deluge shower.
Farther west, another century-old landmark, 443 Greenwich St., which has been reworked by architecture firm CetraRuddy, also counts among its abundant amenities a glistening green glass-tile hamam that Nancy Ruddy, a principal with the company who was inspired by visits to Istanbul, described as “having a primordial feeling about it.”
Uptown, the hamam at the Halcyon, a glass tower at East 51st St., will sport tiers of heated marble. At 252 E. 57th, the not-yet-built undulating glass tower designed by SOM, with interior architecture by Daniel Romualdez, who has created interiors for Aerin Lauder, Tory Burch and Mick Jagger, there is another hamam-like space — in limestone, marble and porcelain tile. Instead of a plunge pool, there is an “ice room” with a machine that makes “snow” you can spread on your body, and an enormous “relaxation room” where you can rest after these circulatory jolts.
“Older cultures know how this helps you,” Ms. Ruddy says. “This is a luxury you can’t have in your apartment.”
Home, it would appear, is where the hamam is. At least for the superrich.
For along with the Olympic-size pools, children’s playrooms designed by experts in early-childhood development, basketball courts, demonstration kitchens, “great rooms” with fireplaces, curated libraries, guest rooms, full-size gyms, spinning rooms and yoga studios, the hamam has joined the amenity package of the luxury development market.
No longer solely relegated to basements, now the amenity with a view is its own proud category.
Ian Bruce Eichner, the developer of 45 E. 22nd St., which has five floors of amenities, including what he called the Upper Club — a demonstration kitchen, catering kitchen, living room and dining room on what will be the building’s 54th floor — likened his amenity strategy to a bank shot in pool.
“It helps us set up the kind of dollars per square foot we’d like from our buyers,” he says. “It’s kind of an equalizer. If you’re in a one-bedroom at the bottom of the building, you get the same amenities as the guy who paid $42-million for the top floor. I’m giving my prime real estate to an amenity space so I can get value from the bottom floors, too.”
Even the garages are gussied up. Not just private and mechanized, many have gated porte-cochères.
At 443 Greenwich St., Ms. Ruddy has designed the garage to look like Grand Central Terminal, with arched ceilings with Guastavino-style tiles. Even the parking bays are tiled.
In the last boom, says Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive of Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal and consulting firm, “the amenities seemed to be more smoke and mirrors: the valet, the concierge and the sommelier. It was more window dressing for the upfront sale. In tough times, if there’s a problem or a change in the market, these things can be cut.”
But now, “because land prices and construction prices are so high, every one of these projects needs to break a price record, so you reverse-engineer to make the project viable. You have to put in these amenities to justify the value of these record prices.”
Although the Cast Iron House just happens to be across the street from Aire Ancient Baths, a spa designed like a Roman bath, Jourdan Krauss, the building’s developer, and the architect were “adamant,” Mr. Krauss says, about making their own private hamam. (Clearly, a certain version of bath culture is having a renaissance. But you have to ask yourself, how comfortable would you be getting naked with your neighbours?)
“We live in this frenetic city; it’s mayhem,” says Mr. Krauss, explaining why his team had researched ancient bath culture and rituals. “I wanted to create an oasis.”
Over at the Greenwich Lane, the 10-building complex on the site of St. Vincent’s hospital, there are many, many amenities that include a chil- dren’s playroom designed by a company that creates children’s museums.
There is “a swimming pool that’s bigger than normal,” and a golf simulator but no basketball court and no bowling alley.
“That just never came up,” Mr. Lansill says of the bowling alley. “We did one in Downtown by Starck” — the Philippe Starck-designed condo in the financial district that was a touchstone of the last boom — “because there was this long, crazy tunnel” that was “the exact same length as a bowling alley.”
It was, Mr. Lansill believes, the first bowling alley in a condo, an opening salvo in what would become an amenity craze. “The trend now has been to more generously scaled, more meaningful amenities instead of just a list.”
Mr. Miller says his favourite thing to make fun of during the last boom was “the pet spa, which sounded like dogs lounging around the pool but was really a glorified slop sink in a closet in the basement somewhere.”
But this particular amenity has not only survived, it has also come up in the world. At the Pierhouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the pet wash is no slop sink. It’s a windowed lounge overlooking the park, with checkerboard tiles, outdoor furniture, lockers for treats, a coffee station and two professional dog showers.
“Essentially, it’s a really nice experience for both the animal and the owners,” Mr. Marvel says of the 350-square-foot space. What to call it? “I think it’s got to have a more descriptive name,” he says.
How about a dog hamam?