The Crown Building has watched the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street since 1921. Aman keeps apartments at the top of it, and two of them have pools.
The lift is the tell. Aman New York runs a dedicated bank for its Homes, past the hotel floors to the top of the Crown Building. The doors open onto an apartment with an open-plan living room, a working fireplace and a full kitchen. Twenty floors below, Fifth Avenue carries on without you.
The building earned the address. It went up in 1921, and in 1929 it gave the Museum of Modern Art its first home. The crown at its peak is gilded and lit after dark. Aman restored the whole thing and opened above the flagship stores in 2022, with Jean-Michel Gathy handling the interiors.
The Homes
One-, Two- and Three-Bedroom Homes sit on the upper floors. The largest takes the entire 24th storey, 585 square metres with an office, a movie room and a bathtub shaped like a sofa. A Three-Bedroom on the 19th floor looks straight up Central Park. The smallest still runs to 107 square metres, which in Midtown is a serious apartment.
Two come with pools. The Three-Bedroom Home with Pool opens onto a private terrace where an infinity edge and a hot tub hang above Fifth Avenue, the park filling the view north. The Two-Bedroom version lines its pool along the 57th Street skyline instead, with woven chairs and clipped planting between the water and the glass.
Courtesy of Aman — The Two-Bedroom Home's terrace pool over 57th Street, Aman New York
A front door twenty floors above the shop windows.
The Splendid EditThe house
Downstairs the hotel holds 83 suites, among the largest in the city, each with a working fireplace and a deep soaking tub. The 14th floor is the social heart. Arva cooks Italian, Nama keeps Japan's washoku tradition, and the Garden Terrace stays open all year under its own canopy.
The spa takes three floors, 2,300 square metres with an indoor pool, a hammam steam room, a banya sauna and a cold plunge terrace. Novak Djokovic put his name to a detoxification programme here. Below street level there is a Jazz Club with red velvet curtains and a grand piano.
Home stays come with small print worth reading. Breakfast at Arva or in your own kitchen, butler service, house cars for anything within twenty blocks, and a standing bar of signature bottled cocktails, wine and spirits at no further charge. A resident chef can be hired for the length of a stay.
The verdict
Manhattan hotels sell proximity. Aman New York sells distance, measured in floors. Take a Home with a pool, let the butler stock the bar, and watch the evening light drop down the glass towers from your own terrace. The city looks better from the top of the crown.
The Splendid Edit on Aman New York, the Crown Building, Fifth Avenue. Suites from approximately $3,000 per night; Homes on application. Book through aman.com.
Photography courtesy of Aman — Aman New York, the Crown Building