Harperly Hall

41 Central Park West

Harperly Hall is a fabulous Arts and Craft style Central Park West apartment building located on 64th St. 

The structure was listed as a contributing property to the U.S. federal government designated Central Park West Historic District in 1982 when the district joined the National Register of Historic Places.

Henry Wilhelm Wilkerson, the building's architect, and a group investors purchased the property at the northwest corner of 64th Street and Central Park West in 1909.

The original group included Wilkerson, Mary Bookwalter, a decorator, Dwight Tryon, an artist, Wallace Irwin, a humorist and concert manager Loudon Charlton.

According to the corporate papers they filed their goal was to build a cooperative "suitable for artists' studios."

The building was named after a manor house in County Durham, England, the Wilkerson's ancestral home.

By March 1910 construction on Harperley Hall was nearing completion, the building represented the first housing cooperative in the Central Park West area.

The building officially opened in 1911 with 76 apartments.

In December 2007, Pop-Singer Madonna, a long time resident sued the co-op's board of directors in New York Supreme Court citing they were blocking her from purchasing an additional 7th floor apartment.

In April 2008, Madonna purchased the 7th floor unit for an Estimated $7 million Dollars.

Harperly Hall at 41 Central Park West was designed by architect Henry W. Wilkerson.

Wilkerson's design is unique from the typical apartment building design of the day.

Wilkerson, who had little experience designing apartment-houses, used the Arts and Crafts style liberally, throughout the structure.

Though the building is cast mostly in the Arts and Crafts style, a rarity for New York City, it does contain elements of the Neo-Italian Renaissance style.

The facade is brown brick with a limestone base and terra cotta trim.

The bricks, rough and mottled, are laid in "undulating lozenges" on the face of the building.

This forms a "carpet-like" texture which gives the building a handmade character. Glazed tiles highlight the surface where they provide colorful displays of gold, turquoise and green.

The glazed tile work is most likely the work of ceramicist Henry Mercer.