740 Park Avenue

740 Park Avenue is a luxury apartment building on Park Avenue in Manhattan, which has been the home to many wealthy and famous residents. The building also carries the address 71 East 71st Street.

History

An apartment previously belonging to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., currently owned by Stephen Schwarzman, when sold by Saul P. Steinberg in 2000, brought a price "slightly above or below $30 million," reportedly the highest price ever paid on Park Avenue. Rockefeller moved to the building in 1937.

The apartment house has 31 units, and has the highest ceilings and widest hallways on Park Avenue. The exterior of the building is clad with limestone. It was built in 1929, designed by Rosario Candela and Arthur Loomis Harmon, the design partner of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. The builder was James T. Lee, grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Life in the building is amusingly described in the New York Social Diary.

In 2005, author Michael Gross published a detailed book on the building and its history, 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building. According to Gross, builder Lee's daughter Janet Lee Bouvier and son-in-law Jack Bouvier took the final open lease (according to one account, for free), and their daughter Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis grew up there.

Famous residents

* Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (wife of John F. Kennedy), childhood home.
* David H. Koch, occupies an 18-room duplex on the fourth and fifth floors said to have been purchased in 2005 for $17 million.
* Ronald Lauder, businessman (son of Estée Lauder and brother of Leonard Lauder).
* John D. Rockefeller, Jr., lived from 1937 to 1960 in a 24-room, 12-bath duplex.
* Steve Ross, late CEO of Time Warner
* Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group (who bought it from Saul Steinberg for just over $35 million).
* J. Ezra Merkin, Hedge-Fund Manager (son of late businessman Hermann Merkin).
* Irene Bouvier, american actress and socialite
* John Thain, last chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch.
* Thelma Chrysler Foy, automobile heiress.
* Arthur and Joseph Santry, CEOs of Combustion Engineering.
* Vera Wang, bridal gown designer who inherited a 10th and 11th floor duplex from her father, C.C. Wang.

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Extended stay hotels

Extended stay hotels are a type of lodging with features unavailable at standard hotels. These features are intended to provide more home-like amenities. There are currently 27 extended stay chains in North America with at least 7 hotels, representing over 2,000 properties.[citation needed] There is substantial variation among extended stay hotels with respect to quality and the amenities that are available. Some of the economy chains attract clientele who use the hotels as semi-permanent lodging.

Extended-stay hotels typically have self-serve laundry facilities and offer discounts for extended stays, beginning at 5 or 7 days. They also have guestrooms (or "suites") with kitchens. The kitchens include at a minimum usually: a sink, a refrigerator (usually full size), a microwave oven, and a stovetop. Some kitchens also have dishwashers and conventional ovens.

Extended stay hotels are popular with business travelers on extended assignments, families in the midst of a relocation, and anyone else in need of temporary housing. Extended stay hotels are also used by travelers who appreciate the larger space a typical suite provides.

Residence Inn is credited with popularizing the "extended stay" concept. The chain was launched in 1975 in Wichita, Kansas by Jack DeBoer, and acquired by Marriott Corporation in 1987. As of April 2005, there were over 450 Residence Inn hotels in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Jack DeBoer has jumped back in the Extended Stay market developing a concept called Value Place.

Other upscale brands of extended-stay hotels, such as Staybridge Suites which is part of the InterContinental Hotels Group, have made this segment of the lodging industry one of the fastest-growing.

One of today's most popular long term lodging brands came from the merger of Extended Stay America and Homestead Hotels. Both these chains were already well established when they combined in 2004 to become Extended Stay Hotels with over 670 owned and operated properties nationwide.

Another worldwide hotel chain, Choice Hotels International, franchisor for name brands such as Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Sleep Inn and Quality Inn, entered the extended stay market with their MainStay Suites brand. They proceeded to acquire the Suburban Extended Stay hotel chain in 2005, making them a sizeable extended stay system with over 150 hotels open and under development.

In the United States, a popular low-budget extended stay chain is Intown Suites. The chain, which was founded in 1988, now has nearly 140 locations in 21 states, and is distinguised for offering weekly rates much lower than many other chain lodging companies in North America.

Extended stay concept is steadily spreading throughout Europe due to increase in the number of travelers and business people visiting every year. The concept was organized by Belgium Housing and the chain of hotels covers 42 countries of Europe including all the major cities of the continent.

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Apartment hotel

An Apartment Hotel (also Aparthotel and Apart-hotel) is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can 'check-out' whenever they wish.

The standard zoning definition, nationwide[where?] is:

"Apartment hotel means a building designed for or containing both apartments and individual guestrooms or rental units, under resident supervision, and which maintains an inner lobby through which all tenants must pass to gain access to apartments, rooms or units."

Apartment hotels are flexible types of accommodation; instead of the rigid format of a hotel room, an apartment hotel complex usually offers a complete fully fitted apartment. These complexes are usually custom built, and similar to a hotel complex containing a varied amount of apartments. The length of stay in these apartment hotels is varied with anywhere from a few days to months or even years. The people that stay in apartment hotels use them as a home away from home, therefore they are usually fitted with everything the average home would require.

Origins

Apartment hotels were first created in holiday destinations as accommodation for families that needed to 'live' in an apartment rather than 'stay' as they would in a hotel. The apartments would provide a 'holiday home' but generally be serviced. Later on these apartments evolved to be complete homes, allowing occupants to do everything they would at home, such as cleaning, washing and cooking.

Services and facilities

Essentially the apartment hotel combines the flexibility of apartment living with the service of a hotel. Many of the apartments take advantage of prime locations with panoramic views of cities seen through wall to ceiling windows. Suites usually include high quality finishes, broadband connection & interactive TV, servicing and integrated kitchen and bathroom. High quality leather sofas in the living area and king size beds bring the hotel experience to a whole new level. Those are the luxuries, they also come with the basics: satellite or cable TV, washer, dryer, dishwasher, cooker, oven, fridge, freezer, sink, shower, bath, wardrobes, all the furnishings to be expected in a luxury home. Self contained apartments usually provide kitchen facilities that travel residents are able to cook foods at their convenience

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