David Hotson Architect
SkyHouse is a penthouse occupying four floors at the summit of an early skyscraper in Lower Manhattan. Angel caryatids at the corners advertise its original role as the headquarters of the American Tract Society, a publisher of religious literature which constructed this building in 1896.
The American Tract Society building is one of the earliest—and one of the oldest surviving—steel framed skyscrapers in New York. It is the last survivor of a group of early skyscrapers, built across from City Hall to house competing publishers, which were the tallest buildings in the world at the time they were constructed in the late 19th century.
SkyHouse is a penthouse occupying four floors at the summit of an early skyscraper in Lower Manhattan. Angel caryatids at the corners advertise its original role as the headquarters of the American Tract Society, a publisher of religious literature which constructed this building in 1896.
The American Tract Society building is one of the earliest—and one of the oldest surviving—steel framed skyscrapers in New York. It is the last survivor of a group of early skyscrapers, built across from City Hall to house competing publishers, which were the tallest buildings in the world at the time they were constructed in the late 19th century.
The Skyhouse features a tubular slide portal, constructed from mirror-polished stainless steel, which emerges through a circular hole cut in the seamless sloping glass partition at the south end of the Attic.
Windows in the slide admit natural light from the dormer windows and provide fleeting vistas through the entire length of the penthouse.
To compete with the drama of the slide as it sweeps through the space and out the window to the stair, interior designer Ghislaine Vinas installed a startling mural, inspired by Michael Jackson’s Neverland, in the only vertical wall in the room. The saturated colors of the mural are fractured in the mirror polished facets of the slide, scatting patterns of color along the inner surface of the slide.
Windows in the slide admit natural light from the dormer windows and provide fleeting vistas through the entire length of the penthouse.
To compete with the drama of the slide as it sweeps through the space and out the window to the stair, interior designer Ghislaine Vinas installed a startling mural, inspired by Michael Jackson’s Neverland, in the only vertical wall in the room. The saturated colors of the mural are fractured in the mirror polished facets of the slide, scatting patterns of color along the inner surface of the slide.
