Inside the 30-room party penthouse of Condé Nast
And I speak with the designer Michael Smith about having Condé's legendary ballroom wallpaper in his own NYC apartment!
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When I first moved to New York, it was my dream to work at a Condé Nast magazine. Thirteen years later, my goals may have changed, but my interest in Condé Nast hasn’t—partially because Condé, the man, created one of the most impressive apartments in New York City history.
Let me set the scene: 30 Rooms, a glazed terrace, and a fabulous ballroom (!) clad in 18th-century Chinese wallpaper, all designed by the incomparable Elsie de Wolfe. What else would you expect of the publisher of Vogue and Vanity Fair? The brightest minds in the city would clamor to get invited to the parties at the centerpiece of Manhattan’s café culture: Condé Nast’s palatial penthouse at 1040 Park Avenue.
Yes, Condé Nast was a real person!
Before the famous magazine publishing house, there was the man himself, Condé Nast, born at the height of the Gilded Age. In 1909, he purchased Vogue, then a relatively obscure fashion publication, which he catapulted into the spotlight alongside Vanity Fair and House & Garden to form the backbone of his eponymous company.
Nast became known for throwing exceptionally lavish parties with a tightly ruled guest list. The one through line? Everyone was a leading figure in society, culture, and the arts.
By the mid-1920s, Condé Nast was enjoying the height of his success, and he needed a new home to match. He was already living at 470 Park Avenue, and he just had to look a few blocks north to East 86th Street, where a new apartment house was under construction.
The Building: 1040 Park Avenue
1040 Park Avenue, on the corner of East 86th Street, was completed in 1925 by leading architects Delano & Aldrich. Each floor originally housed three apartments of 8, 11, and 12 rooms. An early sales advertisement for the building touted 8-room apartments costing $17,600 and 12-rooms $49,0001—absolutely wild considering how a two-bedroom at 1040 Park Ave is in contract for $2.25M right now.
There would’ve never been a penthouse apartment if not for Condé Nast. Like many other co-ops, the top floor of the 14-story building was intended for staff rooms, which could be purchased as extra space for the apartments below.
Condé Nast, like Marjorie Merriweather Post before him, envisioned a bespoke apartment in the new building. While construction was still underway, he proposed reconfiguring the top floor with its wraparound terrace into an entertainer’s dream and combining it with the 12-room corner apartment below to form a 30-room, 5,100-square-foot duplex2—one of the first, and largest, penthouses in the city3.