With glass and steel towers dotting every street corner, New York has never seemed more like an urban jungle. Design, it seems, has only gotten more futuristic, leaving a shiny, metallic city in its wake that feels worlds apart from what it was even decades ago. Yet, a small number of developers are beating to a different drum. As the towers get glassier, these luxury real estate titans are grabbing hold of the craftsmanship of the past, where textured stone, handmade brick and skilled masonry techniques helped create some of the city’s most beautiful and iconic buildings. Let’s take a deeper look at some of these up-and-coming, yet throwback buildings that are offering a different type of lifestyle.
150 Wooster
150 Wooster is an extremely rare ground-up development on one of the last remaining lots in Soho’s Cast-Iron Historic District. The boutique 8-story condominium contains just six expansive lofts, including a duplex penthouse, starting at 4,270 square feet and $12.995 million. Five of the six homes offer private outdoor spaces. The building’s contemporary masonry façade references the neighborhood’s landmark prestige and is clad in imported Danish brick, handcrafted and stamped using 19th century techniques, and framed by piers of rustic Indiana limestone that accentuate large uninterrupted expanses of glass. At the 7th floor, the facade transitions into precision cut steel paneling and cornices that take classic Soho as a point of departure. 150 Wooster was developed and designed entirely in-house by KUB, a firm based in Soho. CORE’s Emily Beare is leading sales and marketing for the project, which is slated to launch sales this fall with construction wrapping up shortly after.