March 7, 2018 By Hadley Keller Architectural Digest
By now, all New Yorkers are familiar with this refrain: Hudson Yards is the next hot neighborhood. The onetime rail yard in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan is being rejuvenated with buildings by the likes of Rockwell Group, SOM, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro and transformed from a restaurant desert to a hot spot for foodies and mixology enthusiasts. Well, now that future is more of a reality, as one of the area’s first new restaurants opened to the public yesterday. Legacy Records is a hip restaurant/bar/lounge inside a—you guessed it—onetime record company studio that is now Henry Hall, Manhattan’s upscale rental building outfitted by none other than the showman designer extraordinaire Ken Fulk. In keeping with Fulk’s desire to “live like Eloise in a hotel,” developer Eric Birnbaum (of Imperial Companies)enlisted Delicious Hospitality, the team behind New York’s beloved Charlie Bird, to create a restaurant concept befitting the building’s sense of hip elegance. Working in tandem, Birnbaum, Fulk, and Delicious’ Robert Bohr, Ryan Hardy, and Grant Reynolds created a multilevel concept that bridges the building’s residences with the restaurant in a series of spaces that marry Fulk’s sense of over-the-top elegance with the Delicious mentality of laid-back comfort. Take a tour with the creators below.
“When we first purchased this land back in 2013, Hudson Yards was still really just on the drawing board,” recalls Birnbaum. “I thought, if we wanted to do this building, we didn’t want it to just be another typical residential building.” Instead, he envisioned the same hotel-like experience that captivated Fulk as a kid, where residents and visitors could eat, sleep, play, and relax, but without any of the stuffier trappings of the older hotel models. Birnbaum’s own epiphany came while he was having a drink at New York’s Bowery Hotel, and thought he’d like to capture that same sense of energy.
As for how Birnbaum came to work with Fulk? “I went to the Battery in San Francisco, and I thought, Whoever did this is who I need for my project.” Enter Fulk, who completed the cool members club in his hometown in 2013.
“It’s been a labor of love and a true collaboration,” says Fulk of the process. In the main dining room, the designer used a glossy green (reminiscent of his 2017 Kips Bay dining room) to enliven the ceiling and offset the neutral tones on midcentury-style teak chairs and grass-cloth walls. The lights are from Urban Electric Co.
In true Fulk fashion, the smaller spaces—like the bathroom of the restaurant, shown here—act as jewel boxes of color and texture.
The back bar on the building’s second floor features a red take on the downstairs ceiling treatment with lighting by Urban Electric Co. “What we wanted to do was to take a big space and divide it into more digestible areas that were related, but each had their own identity,” explains Delicious Hospitality’s Ryan Hardy. The tables are by Reliquary Studio.
An eye-catching mural by San Francisco artist Chris Lux (based on his interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s I Want You album cover) presides over another bar area on the second floor. This one overlooks the Henry Hall lobby.
Another masterful Fulk bath: the powder room off the private dining area, which is swathed in blue croc and lit with brass sconces.
In the wine and cocktail lounge, padded banquettes give a sultry vibe.