Live In The Same Fifth Avenue Building As Designer Ralph Lauren

When it comes to taking recommendations on subjects of luxury and style, who better to consult than the mastermind behind one of the world’s top fashion brands? Ralph Lauren.

There’s no need to question, therefore, whether this New York apartment will live up to your standards, or to fret over its status. It’s already got Ralph Lauren’s stamp of approval.

Discover 1107 5th Ave, New York City

It’s fair to say that Ralph Lauren is a big fan of this New York property. He’s already lived there for four decades. And when he and his wife Ricky decided to up and move in 2022 they only moved a few flights up… to another apartment, in that very same building.

Dating back to 1924, this property on the coveted corner of Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street was built by George A. Fuller Company on the site of cereal heiress Mahorie Merriweather Post Hutton’s mansion (which she shared with her second of four husbands EF Hutton) and designed by WK Rouse and LA Gladstone. The developers successfully convinced Hutton to sell her mansion, in turn recreating her former home on the building’s top three floors and fitting her original interiors to the new penthouse.

The crown jewel of Carnegie Hill, Ralph Lauren first moved into the building around four decades ago. In his memoir, Ralph Lauren: A Way of Living, the designer wrote of his apartment: ‘I remember the first time I visited the Guggenheim. Walking into that white, soaring space, away from the noise of the city, had a powerful effect on me. When Ricky and I found our apartment on Fifth Avenue, not far from the museum, I had that feeling in mind. We wanted it to feel more like a loft, totally open and clean and with a focus on city views. I wanted a downtown loft, but uptown on Fifth Avenue.’

Describing it as he and his wife’s ‘real first home’, he explains that he wasn’t looking for glamour, he just had the ‘simple, almost primitive desire to have a kind of freedom – room for our three children to race around in, room to take stock of ourselves and to discover who we really were and what we wanted’. He adds that he needed ‘open space and serenity’, doing the apartment up in white and natural materials to provide sensory relief after a long day of looking at colour swatches. ‘Part of that peacefulness came from the view of the sky,’ he says, ‘the Central Park Reservoir, and watching the lights coming on all over Manhattan at the end of the day.’

The original apartment was done up by late interior designer Angelo Donghia, but after three decades of residency and with their children moving on and out, the Laurens decided to complete a gut renovation of the buildings in 2012. ‘Thirty years after we moved in, when our lives changed after the children were off on their own, we decided to start all over again,’ says Lauren. ‘Of course, there were those moments when we asked, “What have we done?” But the changes were subtle and important.’

He explained that the newly renovated apartment felt larger and more modern. ‘There’s a flow and a comfort I like better now. It’s about the windows, and the light that comes in from the park. In the evening, with candles lit, it’s almost like an event – but just for the two of us.’

Inside The Home

Though neither Ralph Lauren’s former (nor current) apartments are up for grabs, you can live in the same building as the iconic designer. This 10-room apartment spans the entire ninth floor of 1107 Fifth Avenue, with views stretching across Central Park, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and George Washington Bridge.

Complete with four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a library, kitchen/breakfast area, 24 ft gallery entrance, oversized living room, formal dining room and home gym, the best views come from the primary suite. The corner bedroom stretches across 27 ft of Fifth Avenue, offering western park views and northern views of the nearby Jewish Museum.

Though you may not bump into Ralph Lauren in the elevator – they’re all private – you can show off your polo shirt collection on the communal fully furnished roof garden. Though we can’t promise he’ll be impressed by your obvious attempts at flattery.

On the market for $12.5m. Find out more at johndwood-international.com

Where Else Does Ralph Lauren Live?

Bedford, New York

When he’s not in the centre of New York City, Ralph Lauren’s primary residence is a vast country estate called Oatlands in Bedford, New York. Built 1919, this Norman-style stone mansion spans over 250 acres and 17,000 sqft of living space. Taking drives north of NYC, Lauren discovered what he considers to be ‘one of the most beautiful parts of America’. Combining rurality and sophistication, he chose the home for its feeling of ‘genteel shabbiness’.

Montauk, New York

The designer also owns a home in the coastal town of Montauk on Long Island. He explains that he was 25 when he first came out to the Hamptons and always dreamt of a home where he could feel that same simplicity and peace. After renting a few properties around the area, he bought up a ‘charming shingled saltbox house in East Hampton, right on the ocean’. More recently, he swapped it out for a house in Montauk. Built in 1940 by an architect who had worked with Frank Lloyd Wright, Lauren explains: ‘It had such integrity, constructed to follow the contours of the land. The low ceilings and warm wood gave it a modern kind of cosiness.’

Ridgway, Colorado

As well as his New York properties, Lauren also owns a 17,000 acre ranch in the San Juan mountains of Colorado. He always knew he didn’t want to build a new house in the area, but to find an old one. He recalls: ‘Someone told me about a 100-year-old barn on a large piece of property looking out at the San Juan Mountains. I remember so well the morning Ricky and I went to look at it: the light on the meadows and striking the barn. We immediately knew this was where we wanted to live.’ 

Montego Bay, Jamaica

Outside of the States, Lauren owns a holiday home in Jamaica – the perfect spot to make it feel like summer all-year round. After many holidays there, he moved into a romantic old villa on the highest point of Round Hill, a resort overlooking the Caribbean. ‘We called it High Rock,’ he recalls. ‘It had a spirit and a glamour that harkened back to the days when Grace Kelly, Noël Coward, the Astaires, Errol Flynn and Ian Fleming wintered there – there was a timelessness that we loved. Surrounded by a jungle of trees and flowers, it was our own Garden of Eden.’