Welcome to the Archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. The purpose of this online database is to function as a tool for scholars, students, architects, preservationists, journalists and other interested parties. The archive consists of photographs, slides, articles and publications from Rudolph’s lifetime; physical drawings and models; personal photos and memorabilia; and contemporary photographs and articles.

Unless otherwise noted, all images and drawings are copyright © The Estate of Paul Rudolph and The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. Please speak with a representative of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation to get permission to use any drawings or photos. Drawings, sketches and other materials produced by Rudolph’s architectural office at the Library of Congress are maintained there for preservation, but the intellectual property rights belong to the Paul Rudolph Estate and Ernst Wagner, founder of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

LOCATION
Address: 810 Fifth Avenue, 11th Floor
City: New York
State: New York
Zip Code: 10065
Nation: United States

STATUS
Type: Residence
Status: Built; Destroyed

TECHNICAL DATA
Date(s): 1969
Site Area:
Floor Area: 4 beds, 3.5 baths; 5,000 s.f.
Height:
Floors (Above Ground):
Building Cost:

PROFESSIONAL TEAM
Client: Gardner Cowles Jr. and Jan Cowles
Architect: Paul Rudolph
Associate Architect:
Landscape:
Structural:
MEP:
QS/PM:

SUPPLIERS
Contractor:
Subcontractor(s):

Cowles Residence

The project consists of the interior remodeling of an existing unit on the 11th floor of 810 Fifth Avenue.
Built in 1926, the 13-story building was designed by architect J.E.R. Carpenter and has only one apartment per floor. Former residents of the building include Nelson Rockefeller, William Randolph Hearst and Richard Nixon before he became President of the United States.
Rudolph designs the residence as a showcase of their art collection, which includes major works by Picasso, Stella, Twombly, Lichtenstein, Dine, Malliol, and Warhol, as well as their taste in interior decorators, including Mark Hampton.
In the Living Room, white couches are arranged into cubicles on a magenta carpet. A Frank Stella painting hangs on one wall, opposite a smaller Dan Christensen painting.
In the Dining Room, curved walls painted in aubergine rise from plum carpeting. Red-lacquered chairs with wheel-shaped seatbacks surround glass-topped tables with lucite and stainless-steel bases by Albrizzi. A Picasso gouache hangs on one wall, and Morris Louis' 1961 painting "Number 11" is flanked by white Sung vases. Andy Warhol's "Silver Liz" and "Jan Cowles" (a portrait series of Ms. Cowles) hang on nearby walls.
In the Library, a leather seating area curves into a wall of bookshelves. A French card table is surrounded with rose-leather captain's chairs. A 1967 Roy Lichtenstein painting hangs on a far wall. Objects on the bookshelf include a T'ang Dynasty horse sculpture and a collection of Czech glass.
In a bedroom, Andy Warhol's silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe and flowers hang on the walls. Below a Marilyn Monroe portrait is a small fireplace, next to which stands a wooden Scandinavian sculpture and a small black modernistic table holding a pair of glass vases. Cloth French blinds cover a narrow ceiling-height window, and a curved white couch sits on one side of the room.
The bathtub in the Master Bath is sunk into the white shag-carpeted floor. A white vanity table extends the length of a fully-mirrored wall. The far wall is covered in small round mirrors, framing a large lithograph, "Red Bathrobe" (Jim Dine, 1969). The barrel-vaulted ceiling is covered in silver reflective wallpaper.
The residence is featured in the October 1971 issue of Vogue with photographs taken by Horst P. Horst
Gardner Cowles Jr. dies at age 82 on July 8, 1985.
The residence is listed on March 19, 2018 for $24 million USD by Stribling & Associates and Brown Harris Stevens.
On January 5, 2019, Thomas Peterffy and Lynne Wheat purchase the unit for $22 million USD from the Estate of Jan Cowles.
On August 14, 2019 Peter Pennoyer Architects files a demolition and construction permit application to do a gut renovation of the residence.