New owners proposed to modify fifth-floor addition previously denied by Landmarks. On March 16, 2010, Landmarks voted to deny a proposal to modify and legalize a one-story rooftop addition built without Landmarks’ approval at 12-14 West 68th Street in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. The building’s previous owners, Thomas Haines and Polly Cleveland, built the 506 square-foot, fifth-floor addition on top of a 1925-era studio building added to the rear of a Queen Anne-style mansion built in 1895.

Haines and Cleveland applied to Landmarks to legalize the addition. At an April 2009 hearing, architect Lester Evan Tour testified that he did not intend to bypass Landmarks when designing the addition. Evan Tour claimed that Buildings had failed to flag the property as landmarked, and that the plan examiners also missed the oversight. He argued that the addition was only minimally visible from the street and it related well to its host building and surroundings. Landmarks voted unanimously to deny legalization in June 2009. According to the Commissioners, the addition was too tall and made the rear building inappropriately higher than the main house. 6 CityLand 92 (July 15, 2009). (read more…)