{"id":317540,"date":"2025-11-27T23:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/317540\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:02:09","slug":"robert-am-stern-architect-dubbed-king-of-central-park-west-dies-aged-86-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/317540\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert AM Stern, architect dubbed \u2018King of Central Park West\u2019, dies aged 86 | New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert AM Stern, an architect who fashioned the New York<\/a> City skyline with buildings that sought to invoke pre-war splendor but with modern luxury fit for billionaires and movie stars, has died at the age of 86.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cThe King of Central Park West\u201d by Vanity Fair, Stern was credited with designing 15 Central Park West that, in 2008, was credited as being the highest-priced new apartment building in the history of New York.<\/p>\n

With roughly $2bn in sales it was also considered the most lucrative apartment block in the world and an homage to an earlier era of classic architecture in the city of the 1920s and 30s. The exterior was covered with more than 85,000 pieces of limestone.<\/p>\n

Hedge-fund managers, financial tycoons including Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, tech entrepreneurs including Steve Jobs, and celebrities such as Bono, Sting, Denzel Washington, and sports commentator Bob Costas called it home.<\/p>\n

Stern bucked the trend for modernist glass condominiums by the likes of Richard Meier, and again for the later fashion for ultra-tall \u201cshadow-makers\u201d. He chose instead to make old fashioned new again \u2013 the \u201ctraditional modern\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my breakthrough,\u201d the 84-year-old architect told the New York Times<\/a> of 15 Central Park West in an interview for his obituary, adding that he did not use a computer and drew everything by hand.<\/p>\n

15 Central Park West, designed by Stern. Photograph: Sandra Baker\/Alamy<\/p>\n

The backers behind Central Park West, the Zeckendorf family, had figured out \u2013 said Vanity Fair <\/a>\u2013 \u201cthat nothing appeals to people, particularly rich people, like something new that doesn\u2019t look too new\u201d. The building featured the classic layouts of old money Park Avenue apartments, along with screening rooms, copper-domed rotunda-lobby, a 75-ft pool and a waiting room for chauffeurs.<\/p>\n

At the peak of his career, Stern, who was born in Brooklyn, ran a 300-person architectural firm and produced encyclopedic volumes on the city\u2019s architecture and served as dean of the Yale School of Architecture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became an architect because I loved the buildings of my city, New York, and imagined one day that I would make ones like them. The New York of my youth is to this day the principal subject of all my work in architecture,\u201d he wrote in 1981.<\/p>\n

Stern also designed beach club resorts for Disney World in Florida, and his firm did the master plan for the infamous Disney \u201cnew town\u201d of Celebration. He had wide range, designing the George W Bush Center in Dallas, the Museum of the American Revolution and Philadelphia\u2019s 58-story Comcast Center.<\/p>\n

Small and with a high-pitched voice, Stern wore pocket squares, worn with suede loafers, butter-yellow socks, and chalk-striped bespoke suits. Modernism was not among his interests. \u201cMany Modernist works of our time tend to be self-important objects, and that\u2019s a real quarrel that I have,\u201d he told<\/a> the New York Times in 2007. \u201cBuildings can be icons or objects, but they still have to engage with the larger whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not considered avant-garde because I\u2019m not avant-garde. But there is a parallel world out there \u2013 of excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert AM Stern, an architect who fashioned the New York City skyline with buildings that sought to invoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-317540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}