Hiss & Weekes (Philip Hiss and H. Hobart Weekes, active early 1900s) is the New York firm responsible for The Belnord (1908–1909) at 225 West 86th Street — the full-block Italian Renaissance Revival apartment building whose interior courtyard is among the largest of any residential building in Manhattan and which set the architectural ambition of the Upper West Side luxury inventory of its era. The 175-unit original Belnord program was, at completion, the largest apartment building in the world; the 2019 condominium conversion preserved the building's defining architectural character (limestone exterior, ornamental cornice, the central courtyard) while modernizing the apartment interiors. The firm's broader portfolio includes the original Gotham Hotel (now The Peninsula New York, 1905) at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street — a parallel Beaux-Arts commission that established their reputation in upper-tier Manhattan commercial and residential work.
Biography
