Richard Nixon ate here and so did a lot of other people. The dining room sat 18, comfortably.
Now, the 6,400-square-foot penthouse at the top of 1 Sutton Place South is empty. The 17-room, full-floor apartment–with four maids’ rooms, a servants’ hall and 6,000 feet of wraparound terrace–was put on the market recently for $15 million.
It is one of New York City’s legendary apartments; most upper-end sales agents know it, at least by reputation.
The elaborate palazzo has a brace of 40-foot drawing rooms (one with a coffered ceiling and skylight), white marble floors, 18th Century gold-and-ivory door frames and an “estate condition” kitchen.
It was last owned by Janet Annenberg Hooker, the heiress and philanthropist, who died late last year at 93. Before that, it was owned by Winston Guest, the polo player, and his wife, C.Z., the garden columnist.
C.Z. Guest, reached at her home in Palm Beach, Fla., said the apartment was “the most magnificent in New York City,” but added: “It was not an apartment for a normal family. We lived on one side, and my son, Alexander, lived with Nanny on the other side.”
The Guests sold the apartment to Mrs. Hooker, sister of Walter Annenberg, the communications magnate, in 1963.
When 1 Sutton Place was built, in 1927–it was designed by Cross & Cross and Rosario Candela, architect for many of Park Avenue’s most lavish apartment houses–the penthouse was owned by Guest’s mother, the former Amy Phipps. (Her father, Henry Phipps, a partner of Andrew Carnegie’s, developed the building.)
