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53 West 53, rising directly above the Museum of Modern Art, was designed by Jean Nouvel. Thierry Despont was responsible for the initial interior design. Humbert & Poyet thus entered a space with a clearly defined architecture, where a glass facade opens the apartment to Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. This is the first show apartment created by the studio in New York. The project combines the achievements of three generations of French designers – the structural expression of Nouvel, the elegance of Despont, and the contemporary approach of Emile Humbert and Christophe Poyet.

In the grammar of ultra-luxury real estate, location has long been the dominant variable. The address as thesis statement. 

The view is the closing argument, the interior its punctuation; a finishing layer applied long after the location has been set and ground broken with concrete and glass.

Emil Humbert and Christophe Poyet do not accept this logic.

Founded in Monte Carlo in 2008 and shaped by the sensory rigour of the South of France, Humbert & Poyet has spent nearly two decades constructing a counter-argument in rooms: that design is not a reflection of a property’s value, but a generator of it.

Their portfolio spans private residences and hospitality worldwide – from Beefbar's Milan and New York concepts to Belmond's Coquelicot barge – with new F&B interiors for Mandarin Oriental Paris currently in development. 

Key to this value generation are interiors that have a material intelligence and emotional choreography that transfixes a person in space. Design in their hands is alpha.

53 West 53 is the sternest possible test of this sensibility. Jean Nouvel’s diagrid tower – one of Manhattan’s most structurally uncompromising buildings – presents conditions that most designers would treat as a brief to neutralise. 

Humbert & Poyet treated them as a composition to inhabit; from the angular floor plates bisecting rooms at angles, to the floor-to-ceiling glass offering a skyline so commanding it threatens to make the interior disappear. Residence 69 is the result. 

The four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom residence spans nearly 6,000 square feet, but its impact comes less from scale alone than from the way its interiors are composed. Humbert & Poyet approached the home as a series of connected spaces, using contrast, texture, and material detail to create a more layered sense of arrival. The entry hall is intentionally darker and more enclosed, setting up a transition into the brighter living areas beyond.

The Humbert&Poyet design studio once again reaffirms its ability to seamlessly navigate the international design stage, marking a significant debut in U.S. Real estate. Conceived by the Monegasque duo, the “Residence 69” project stands as a testament to their extreme adaptability and mastery in engaging with Manhattan’s luxurious verticality. Specifically, the aim is to balance the relationship between exterior and interior, reconciling the tower’s structural audacity with a sense of domestic intimacy. 

Perched sky-high across the entire 69th floor, the 5,772-square-foot residence unfurls within a perimeter of floor-to-ceiling glazing punctuated by the tower’s prominent diagrid. Uninterrupted views stretch across Central Park, the Hudson and East Rivers, and downtown along Park Avenue. “For a European, this kind of Manhattan apartment is almost like a film set,” Humbert says, describing the commission as a “dream” that also posed scintillating creative challenges. “We’re used to working in historic buildings, so this level of glass and exposure pushed us to reinvent our approach.” The task at hand became about orchestrating a lavish interior with enough visual punch to hold its own alongside Nouvel’s architectural derring-do—and present an artful vision for cosmopolitan living befitting the worldly clientele courted by 53 West 53rd.

What do you get when you combine French architecture and design with the sophistication of Midtown Manhattan and the Museum of Modern Art? You get the condominium building at 53 West 53rd Street — more specifically, the nearly 6,000-square-foot definition of elegance that is Residence 69. 

The top residential sale to hit records was in Midtown. A sponsor unit at Pontiac Land Group’s 53 West 53rd Street — next to the Museum of Modern Art — sold to an LLC for $12.8 million. It spans about 4,100 square feet and has four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms. The sale breaks down to roughly $3,100 per square foot. Douglas Elliman’s Renee Micheli, Jade Chan, Frances Katzen , and Michelle Griffith had the listing.

Perched on the 69th floor of 53 West 53, the landmark tower designed by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Jean Nouvel, a model residence featuring interiors from Thierry Despont was recently unveiled. Conceived by Humbert & Poyet, the model apartment introduces a clear position on living at height, treating its art collection as part of the architecture and giving the interior a presence that can stand up to the skyline outside.

With their modernist French flair that is well recognized in the world of luxury travel and hospitality, Humbert & Poyet has finally made its mark on the U.S. design scene.

When architecture and design duo Emil Humbert and Christophe Poyet accepted the challenge to design a collector’s residence inside New York City’s diagonal modern shrine to high-end living, 53 West 53, they first pondered the monumental nature of the project. Designed by French icons Jean Nouvel and the late Thierry Despont, the property soars 1,050 feet over bustling Midtown Manhattan and the Museum of Modern Art.

At 53 West 53rd, the wine vault is designed by revered French architect Thierry Despont; residents can purchase space, and an octagonal, double-height wine room nearby can be used for tastings and private suppers. 

Demand for luxury property is sky on New York's Billionaires' Row. Paula Newton gets a tour of a $20 million listing in the building 53 West 53rd and gets a sense of what's driving high-end sales.

At 53 West 53 ($3.35 million to $64.7 million) in Midtown Manhattan, residents enjoy “hidden door” access to 53, an Asian concept from Altamarea Group located beneath the Museum of Modern Art’s new extended wing. The building also offers wine and sake tastings led by the restaurant’s wine director, Nikki Ledbetter, in a room designed by Thierry Despont with gold leaf ceiling accents. For those who are socially tapped out, meals can be transported to residences through the building’s central core.

Sales of luxury homes in Manhattan jumped in November, countering fears that the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor would drive out wealthy residents.

Buyers signed contracts on 176 homes in Manhattan priced at $4 million or more in November, up 25% from the 141 deals inked the month prior, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman. That included condos at The 74 on the Upper East Side and at 53 West 53rd St. on Billionaires’ Row, which were purchased for roughly $24 million each.

Buyers inked deals for 19 homes in the borough asking $4 million or more between Nov. 24 and Nov. 30, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly report. The total was down from 29 contracts signed in the previous period, but it beat the decade norm of 17 pending deals logged during the holiday week. A sponsor unit at 53 West 53rd Street, asking $23 million, was the priciest to snag a signed contract in the holiday week. The condo spans 3,700 square feet and has three bedrooms and three bathrooms and features views of Central Park. 

“In our experience, many New Yorkers who relocated to Florida during the pandemic soon realised they missed the energy and culture of the city,” says Renee Micheli, sales director at 53 West 53, a Jean Nouvel-designed 82-floor Midtown tower above MoMA which recorded NYC’s highest-value sale — $46mn — for the first week of October. “Our data shows that nearly half of all Floridian real estate investments in New York last year, about $141mn, went into high-end properties.”

A hefty deal is in the works at a condo tower next to the Museum of Modern Art.

Unit 65 at 53 West 53rd Street, asking just under $47 million, was the priciest Manhattan home to land a signed contract last week, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly report. 

The home has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It also features a corner great room and views of Central Park. Amenities in the 161-unit tower include a concierge, fitness center, lap pool and golf simulator.

If you’re a billionaire in the Big Apple, you don’t need to share an iconic view with the masses. You can be hundreds of feet above everyone else in this sky-high, 7,455 sq ft penthouse, on the 78th and 79th floors of 53 West 53.

The 82-storey building designed by Jean Nouvel with interiors by Thierry Despont, takes in a tick list of NYC’s most recognisable landmarks, including the Chrysler Building, One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Center, while Central Park unfurls beneath you. It all comes with a $64.73 million price tag.

Further uptown, 53 West 53, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel with custom interiors by Thierry Despont, is home to 145 light-filled units and the contemporary Asian restaurant 53 NYC. The eatery’s wine director, Nikki Ledbetter, says she hosts a dedicated contingent of regulars from the building, many with whom she works one-on-one as part of her job.

This sprawling unit in the 82-story tower soaring above New York’s Museum of Modern Art is seeking a buyer. Located within 53 West 53 at 53 W. 53rd St. — the spiked, supertall condo building that was completed adjacent to MoMA in 2020 — residence 17B offers over 4,200 square feet of starchitect-designed indoor space, plus an 800-square-foot private terrace, according to Robb Report. 

The so-called “manor above the MoMA” is appropriately decked out with museum-quality finishes throughout, including soaring 10-foot ceilings and wall-to-wall windows with motorized solar shades. Other highlights include the windowed breakfast room, which opens up to a custom kitchen that’s equipped with polished statuary marble countertops, a marble backsplash, back-painted glass cabinetry, Dornbracht fixtures, and top-of-the-line appliances. There’s also a windowed study off the great room that provides access the terrace.