I.M. Pei

Paris in the springtime is lovely, but for the blossoming female members of the world’s most famous families, autumn will do just fine. After all, that’s when the famed Le Bal Crillon des Debutantes is held, and the singer Phil Collins was among the celebrities in the French capital—17-year-old daughter Lily in tow—to attend the extravagant affair. “Tonight I'm no-one, not a singer, just an emotional dad," Mr. Collins told the AFP. “This great ball is a wonderful tradition."

Among the other young ladies with good heels and better names who “came out” at the Hotel Crillon were Kathleen Kennedy, the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy; Olivia Pei, granddaughter of architect I.M. Pei; Brazilian soccer phenom Pelé’s goddaughter Gemima MacMahon; Tatiana Mountbatten, great grandniece of the deceased viceroy of India; and Maria Abou Nader, the neice of former Lebanese presidents Amine and Bachir Gemayel. (Last year, as reported by Page Six, the daughters of James Mellon III, real estate maven Janna Bullock and actress Kristin Scott Thomas made their debuts at the same event.)

 

Today, Saint Vincent Medical Centers announced that I.M. Pei’s firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners has been chosen to design Saint Vincent’s new Greenwich Village hospital. The internationally renowned architect will be teaming up with Philadelphia-based Ballinger, a firm known for its healthcare design, according to a press release.

According to the release, the new hospital at 12th Street and Seventh Avenue will be “a technologically advanced, green institution that will provide top-notch healthcare to New York residents and businesses from Midtown Manhattan to the Battery.”

Founded by I.M. Pei in 1955, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners has been involved in some monumental design projects over the years including the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the expansion of the Louvre in Paris.

Full release after the jump.  read more »

This week, Manhattan Transfers profiled Howard Ronson's newest apartment in the Berwind Mansion, which had been listed for $9,495,000*.

The insane floorplan (click below) draws a glorious picture of the "clandestine mezzanine bedrooms, built for a previous owner by the I.M. Pei Group."

'They're totally camouflaged; you have no idea they're there,' [the broker] said. 'Just like you have no idea that behind a door, there's a full stainless-steel kitchen, or behind another door, there's a full onyx powder room.'

...Indeed, mirrors hide the one-person elevator and spiral staircase that lead to those mezzanine bedrooms. Likewise, wood paneling in the rotunda hides the clothes closets.

Thus the floorplan has wonderful phrases like "DRESSING ROOM / ROTUNDA," and other hidden goods. (The best room, though, is the golden "LIVING ROOM / BALL ROOM.")  read more »

UPDATE: The sale was registered in public records today, and the price was an even $8.5 million. - Max Abelson