Bretton Hall, Manhattan

Bretton Hall, Manhattan is a twelve story residential building at 2350 Broadway (Manhattan) from 85th Street to 86th Street in the Upper West Side of New York City. It was completed in 1903, as the Bretton Hall Hotel, billing itself as the largest hotel uptown. The architect was Harry B. Mulliken, of Mulliken and Moeller, who also designed the Cumberland Hotel, Thomas Jefferson Hotel and the Spencer Arms Hotel on Broadway, the Hotel Lucerne on Amsterdam Avenue at 79th Street, and the Van Dyck, the Severn, the Jermyn and the Chepstow, all apartment buildings on the Upper West Side.

In the early 1980s, an organization called Artists Assistance Services rented out apartments in the Bretton Hall to people in the arts, with the unusual proviso that they would have to share the use of the space with a "cultural activity" such as a karate class.

Present time
Formerly a residential hotel, currently the red brick and limestone building has 461 rental apartments. It has a large stainless steel marquee and a four-step-up entrance with a disabled ramp side approach. It is without a garage, sidewalk landscaping, health club, or roof deck. Bretton Hall employs a doorman and features ornamental balconies and other architectural attributes. Its fenestration is haphazard. Its facade exemplifies Beaux Arts architecture, yet it lacks the elaborate cornice it originally had. It was lost many years ago. Architect John C. Calderon has redesigned the parapet in red brick with stone put down in alternating stripes. The restoration of the building cost $1,000,000.

Business transactions
The 86th Street Company received the unimproved property from Le Grand K. Petit with a mortgage of $90,000 on it. A building loan of $1,250,000 at 6% was secured from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on March 10, 1902. Afterward the 86th Street Company mortgaged the property for $1,365,000 at 6%, due October 1, 1903, to the General Building and Construction Company. John R. & Oscar L. Foley leased Bretton Hall to Anderson & Price for twenty-one years for a price of $2,394,000, for Irons & Todd, who comprised the Seaboard Realty and 86th Street Companies.

Hotel apartment
When it opened in late 1903 the basement and deckhouse apartment hotel was fireproof and equipped with an electric plant and six elevators. The structure contained 187 suites, 506 rooms, 231 baths, and 385 toilet rooms. It fronted Broadway for 205 feet and 85th Street for 100.11 feet. Its rear measurement was 204.4 feet. Plans for Bretton Hall were filed on June 7, 1902 with an estimated cost of construction to be $1,550,000.

The New York Produce Exchange Bank opened a branch at the Bretton Hall Hotel in November 1903. They leased offices in the edifice for a period of ten years for an annual rental between $2,500 to $3,500.