Robert A. M. Stern On His Definition Of Luxury And The Most Expensive Home Sale In U.S. History

What do rock star Sting and billionaire investor Ken Griffin have in common? They both bought properties in record-breaking buildings designed by the famed architect Robert A.M. Stern.

New York’s real estate market had a peculiar start to 2019, with sales volume slipping for homes listed for $5 million and under, but rising in the $20 million and up market, according to a first quarter report from the brokerage Douglas Elliman. Regardless of what’s happening to everyone else, however, Stern and his architectural firm, nicknamed RAMSA, are on a roll.

In addition to Griffin’s recent purchase of a $238 million penthouse in RAMSA’s 220 Central Park South, the most expensive home ever sold in the United States, four of the 10 priciest deals in 2018 were in its buildings.

The top two of the year were both in RAMSA’s 520 Park Ave., with one penthouse selling for $73.8 million and another for $62 million. Over at 15 Central Park West, a penthouse went for $50 million, and another was bought for $56 million in its Tribeca development at 70 Vestry St. Additionally, after selling their apartment in 15 Central Park West for $50 million (and earning a $20 million profit, according to government records), the aforementioned Sting and his wife Trudie Styler moved up the street to join Griffin in 220 Central Park South, though it’s unclear how much the celebrity couple paid for their new digs.

When asked in a recent interview how he’s able to attract New York City’s wealthiest buyers, Stern said he understands the true definition of luxury. “The word ‘luxury’ is used so promiscuously in the world of real estate that it’s almost a joke, but our are apartments and our buildings are truly luxurious,” he explained.

The 79-year-old award-winning architect founded RAMSA in the 1960s and started his career building homes in vacation areas like Hamptons and parts of New England. His portfolio is now international, with both residential and commercial projects. It includes several Walt Disney developments in Florida, the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas, and some of the tallest residential towers in New York City. Stern is also an academic, having authored several books and served as the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1999 to 2015.

Among his smaller projects is the 14-story condo at 70 Vestry. Its exterior is clad in French limestone carved from a quarry 200 kilometers outside of Paris, the first of its kind used for a residential project in New York. Several of his other buildings, including 220 Central Park South and 15 Central Park West, have private motor courts, where residents can unload kids and groceries before a service parks their cars.

Stern said his interiors are carefully thought-out as well, with windows that are placed and sized specifically to leave wall-space for collections of paintings, along with high ceilings, and baseboard and crown moldings that give a historic feel.

“Those details resonate with people, whether they are aficionados and buffs in architecture or just people who are living there or visiting,” Stern said. “They feel them, they sense them.”

Among the other most notable aspects of Stern’s work is his classic aesthetic. His buildings resemble those from the 1920s and 30s, setting them apart from the avant-garde projects around the city, like 56 Leonard from Herzog & de Meuron and Via 57 West from Bjarke Ingels, that use cubes, pyramids and other shapes to defy physics and challenge the rectangular norm.

Not everyone wants to stay inside the box, however, and the next generation of architects sometimes regard Stern with the same feeling the youth often have toward their pragmatic elders.

“Younger architects still pronounce his name with a hint of condescension, leaning slightly on those courtly middle initials,” wrote New Yorker architecture critic Justin Davidson in a November 2013 feature on Stern. But the seasoned architect has witnessed various phases of rebellion over the last six decades and said he’s had no desire to participate.

“If you break the tradition every week, it’s not really a tradition anymore, it’s more of an architectural temper tantrum,” Stern explained. “I like to make my buildings look like people have seen similar buildings before, to build up a culture of form, not tear a culture of form down.”

That being said, like a parent watching the next generation of teenagers experiment with art and fashion, he regards the current experimentation with a mixture of amusement and respect. “The house of architecture has many rooms, there’s room for everybody,” he said.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.