After nearly a decade of staunch local opposition, this NYC building is revealing its luxury apartments — and is still receiving complaints

A little building has caused a big stir in Carnegie Hill.

After nearly 10 years, due in part to staunch opposition from local activists, the conversion of the historic 1143 Fifth Ave. into luxury rental apartments was finally unveiled Wednesday — and is still receiving complaints.

While lacking the ornate details found nearby, like the cherub angels on Emery Roth’s 1200 Fifth, the mostly nondescript Neo-Federal low-rise at No. 1143 represents a unique period in New York City’s real estate history.

The original structure, built in 1921 by another famed architect, J.E.R. Carpenter, was limited to seven stories due to a brief, but controversial, Carnegie Hill zoning law that capped new construction at 75 feet. The building was formerly owned by the French Consulate before investor Jean Claude Marian bought it for $36.4 million in 2013.

Sitting across from Central Park, it’s sandwiched between two larger buildings — 1140 Fifth, at East 95th Street, to the south, and 1148 Fifth to the north — providing the varied-height aesthetic Carnegie Hill is known for.

Though an eighth-floor penthouse was constructed in the 1990s, the Landmarks Preservation Commission responded with a hard “no” when Stephen Gallira, a builder and owner’s rep hired by Marian, proposed adding two more stories in November 2015. Three applications later, Gallira received approval in May 2016 to add one floor.

“The first proposal was this very bulky and tall extension, which would have changed the entire character of this low-rise building,” said Nuha Ansari, executive director at Friends of the Upper East Side. She called 1143 Fifth “a little gem enclosed between these two taller buildings.”

Additions to historic buildings are tricky, she admitted. Preservationists want to keep a building’s original character while, at the same time, making the different time periods distinguishable.

But Michelle Birnbaum, president of Historic Fifth Avenue, doesn’t share that school of thought.

“I wasn’t happy with the initial presentation and I’m not happy with the final iteration,” Birnbaum said. The penthouse is too large, the new windows don’t match the old ones, and the color of the top of the building is a harsh contrast, she said.

“I’m not pleased,” Birnbaum added.

Gallira said he’s well aware of the backlash but believes Carpenter would appreciate the transformation. After all, he noted, it was the architect himself who led the fight to change the 1921 zoning capping building heights at 75 feet. The law was repealed in 1922 following a lawsuit filed with the New York State Supreme Court.

“He was a developer,” Gallira said of Carpenter. “He was doing the 150-foot buildings three at a time as soon as he got the law repealed.”

Looking back, Gallira chuckled at the time and effort he put into what should have been a small project. He cared about preserving its historic character enough to hire Judith Saltzman, a well-known New York preservationist, but still struggled to please the LPC, he said.

“It was torture,” Gallira said of trying to secure approvals. “[The initial design] took me two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in 15 minutes, it was all thrown in the garbage.”

When Gallira finally received all the needed green lights and permits, which took three years total, he met his next obstacle: COVID-19. The project faced the same hurdles the pandemic posed for all developers in the city, including supply chain holdups taking two years to deliver the high-end materials Marian wanted for the building’s finishes.

Construction was tricky, too, Gallira said. Since all they had to preserve was the facade, he decided to take apart the entire rear of the building and rebuild it from scratch. The only problem was that getting a crane to the back of the building was impossible.

Instead, his crew erected a steel structure to hold up the facade before disassembling the rest of the building brick-by-brick. They rebuilt it by hand, carrying everything down to the steel beams through the front door.

When the team dug down to expand the foundation, they encountered an underground stream, the same pesky water that Carpenter struggled to work around in 1921.

“I said, ‘let’s do what J.E.R. Carpenter did in 1920,’” Gallira recalled. “We did this with the same means and methods that you would use to build a building a hundred years ago.”

The results include six full-floor, 2,000-square-foot two-bedroom apartments, each with 65 square feet of private outdoor space.

The units have finishes like marble bathrooms with heated floors, stacked washer/dryers, and zoned heat and air conditioning. They’re equipped with motorized window shades, surround sound and Fios internet, too.

The building’s crown jewel is the 3,200-square-foot penthouse boasting 1,080 square feet across three terraces with unobstructed views of the sunset.

One can soak in the tub while peering out at Central Park from the primary bathroom and “the kitchen is filled with light,” Gallira said. “It’s a very pleasant place to be.”

Rent for the lower apartments starts at $18,000 a month, while the penthouse is listed for $35,000 a month. Amenities in the building include an elevator and a part-time doorman.

A representative from the LPC did not respond to a request for comment.