How A Former School Gymnasium Became An $18 Million Penthouse

It’s been dubbed the “Solarium Penthouse” with its 19 foot arched ceiling in the main living room, but it could bring back a few memories for alumni of the Catholic St. Agnes Boys High School. Developer Cary Tamarkin purchased the Upper West Side school from the Archdiocese of New York for $50 million in 2014 and turned these former halls of learning into 13 boutique condos that went on the market late last fall.

The grandest of them all is the $18 million 3-bed, 3.5-bath penthouse inside the school’s former gym which comes with an entire wall of windows, skylight, and many other clerestory style windows in the three bedrooms. The metallic ridged ceiling in the great room is painted a bright white to lessen the industrial feeling the room used to have and touches such as the window seat and white oak plank floors make it feel more like a home than a basketball court. It’s also rare to find a penthouse on the ground floor, but when you do it comes with a 500-square-foot walkout terrace with low border wall to define the space. 

Behind the massive window is the kitchen space with cabinetry handcrafted from white fumed oak by artisan Christopher Peacock and a few luxury touches such as a refrigerator drawer, under counter wine storage, a dual-fuel range by Wolf, two dishwashers and Lefroy Brooks fixtures. A walk-in pantry behind where the action takes place is part of the design but it makes you wonder if this is where they kept all the gym equipment. Developers kept things almost Shaker-level sparse, which makes sense when you have such large rooms to design around. Adding ornate details to a big room means you have to add a lot of them for consistency’s sake and it can quickly take on a cluttered look.

Here’s a glimpse of the master bedroom with all those arched windows and its ceiling halfway between a coffered and trey design.

The master bathroom comes with a shower and digitally-controlled steam room, Calacatta Gold marble, radiant-heat floors and Toto Neorest smart toilet in private water closet.

The monthly fees are $5,744 which include the building’s workout center, 24-hour doorman, private storage (both climate-controlled and not), bike room, stroller valet and a community party room with a wet bar, pool table, dartboard, lounge chairs & large-screen TV.

For more information on the penthouse at 555 West End Avenue, check out the page on Stribling who has the listing with agent Alexa Lambert.

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