page_title: 23 Beekman Place
section_title: Ownership
hierarchical_section_title: 23 Beekman Place / History / Ownership
caption_attribution_description: Promotional photograph for the touring production of No Time for Comedy, showing Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic in the library of their townhouse at 23 Beekman Place, New York City
context_page_description: 23 Beekman Place is the address of an apartment building located between East 50th and 51st Streets in the Turtle Bay neighborhood at the far east side of Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was re-designed by Paul Rudolph, an American architect and one-time dean of Yale University. It is one of the last of his projects still standing in the city.
  The architectural features of its four-level penthouse include a slender steel skeletal structure and a stepped succession of concrete panels, cantilevering over an existing older brownstone, large walls of glass with panoramic East River views, high ceilings, and open floor plans. The facades date to different time periods, but the cement on both of the facades is intended to coordinate upper and lower halves of the building.
  Rudolph was commissioned for the project, which later became his personal residency, and continued to work on the building until his death. Rudolph received negative feedback from residents of 23 Beekman Place—mainly from neighboring buildings, who did not want attention drawn to the area—which did not deter him from designing and building the addition, completed in 1982.
context_section_description: The land at 23 Beekman Place once was part of the country estate of James Beekman, a descendant of Dutch colonist Willem Beekman. The building originates from the 1860s and was owned by number of parties, including Beekman.
  Maria L. Higgins owned the town house in 1906, before it was separated into apartments, and sold it to Charles Schmid. One of these owners eliminated the stoop from the original structure and divided the townhouse into two apartments; Schmid and his family, and Roger Howson – later to be chief librarian at Columbia University – and his family, lived in the building in the 1910s. From 1922 until the 1950s, actress Katharine Cornell and her director-producer husband Guthrie McClintic lived at 23 Beekman Place, presumably having acquired it from Schmid. Prior to 1960, the building was converted to a Class A multiple dwelling; in 1960, it had four units, two on the first floor and one on each of three floors above.
  Rudolph was commissioned for the project in 1967 and purchased the property in 1976; he owned or controlled ownership of the property until his death in 1997.  The property was sold by his estate to Gabrielle and Michael Boyd in 2000. The Boyds had the building layout reconfigured in 2001 to provide two duplexes on the bottom floors, including the basement, still totaling four units. They sold the property to Rupert LLC in 2003, and, by 2004, architects Andrew Bernheimer and Jared Della Valle were commissioned to renovate the penthouse apartment in what they believed would be a style similar to what Rudolph would have wanted. Della Valle and Bernheimer received awards for their work on the apartment and referred to the apartment as a “laboratory for its designer” in New York magazine in 2006. The renovations to the interior were controversial because some thought it should not have been altered. Some of the renovations, however, were practical, such as the air-conditioning and the sprinkler system.
caption: Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic in the library of their home at 23 Beekman Place (1933)
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