Four Buildings With Winter-Ready Firesides

While cozying up in front of a roaring fire might be an activity most associated with snowy cabins and country inns, fireplaces, both private and public, are also becoming beloved amenities in urban condominiums. 

The following buildings, from San Francisco to Manhattan, practically beg you to kick your shoes off, pour a mug of hot chocolate (or mulled wine), and make merry as you watch the flames dance and glow. 

555 West End Avenue

Once upon a time, this Beaux-Arts castle on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was a Catholic school, but today it’s a 13-unit condominium building that includes the Terrace Penthouse, a 2,200-square-foot duplex that boasts nearly 3,000 square feet of private outdoor space. Inside, the star of the show is the double-sided, marble-clad gas fireplace. On wintry evenings, there’s no better spot from which to watch snow falling on nearby Riverside Park. 

The Avery

If what you’re after is a fireplace with a vantage point for surveying the City by the Bay, you won’t do much better than The Avery. Designed by Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture, the 56-story tower in San Francisco’s financial district offers some of the city’s most coveted views. Each penthouse unit contains a stone fireplace with an elegant hearth, set adjacent to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. 

The Centrale

The Centrale is where the 21st century meets the 1920s: the sleek exterior, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, is glass and steel with distinctly art-deco accents. The interior amenities, too, are totally modern with a touch of old-fashioned glamour. In the building’s Club Room, residents and their guests can relax in front of a roaring fire in the floor-to-ceiling fireplace, flanked by a custom ceramic art wall and windows that look out over Midtown Manhattan, making it the perfect spot for an after-dinner cocktail. 

Thirty Park Place

Thirty Park Place comes with quite a pedigree—not only was it designed by the legendary architect Robert A.M. Stern, but it sits atop the Lower Manhattan outpost of the Four Seasons Hotel. At the center of each of the building’s penthouse living rooms is a Saint-Tropez French limestone gas fireplace with plenty of space for gathering ‘round on wintry nights to laugh, tell stories, and—since the Four Seasons is involved—order a round of cocktails and snacks from room service.