Lofty Ambitions: This 8,000-Square-Foot, 2-Storey Tribeca Penthouse Is Making Me Weak In The Knees

Steven Harris has been a professor of architecture at Yale University for more than 25 years (he also taught at Princeton and Harvard), and a little while back he opened his door to find a family who desperately wanted him and his firm to renovate their penthouse home which sat atop an old 1930s office building in Tribeca in downtown Manhattan. Fast forward to today and the final result is jaw-dropping to say the least. Renowned for his signature trademark of maximizing views and light, Harris designed the best views of the city into the kitchen, master bedroom, rooftop gym, and even the laundry room. It’s in these spaces where one will come face to face with the most breathtaking sight lines of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The wealthy family also gets to enjoy a double-height living space with an 18-foot-high window looking straight out to the iconic Woolworth Building, as well as a new glass-and-teak-beam rooftop pavilion that functions as a recreation room. The 2-storey penthouse uses up the 27th and 28th floors, and comes in at a whopping 8,000 square-feet. During renovations, the family purchased two other apartments in the building, which were both renovated prior to their temporary move-in, and are each now currently for sale. Oh, and those stunning floating stairs? Look closely and you’ll notice they’re made of ¾-inch-thick steel plates wrapped in leather. Be still my heart.

For more amazingness from the design mind of Steven Harris you can visit his firm at StevenHarrisArchitects.com. And for more great finds from the world of architecture be sure to visit Architecture on FEELguide. At the end of the post I’ve included a video produced by NOWNESS where architect Richard Meyer and famed graphic/industrial designer Massimo Vignelli discuss thier life long