The Story
On March 23, 1880, Leopold Schepp, who made his fortune drying and shredding coconut for the American market, bought five old buildings at the corner of Duane and Hudson Streets and hired Stephen Decatur Hatch to replace them. The plans grew from eight stories to ten, a red-brick composition of Romanesque Revival arches and neo-Grec detail that originally carried a corner mansard tower, lost to a 1927 renovation. Inside, some 150 workers processed shipments of 300,000 to 500,000 coconuts at a time from Central America, steps from Duane Park, the 1797 triangle, the city's second-oldest public park, that anchored Washington Market's butter, cheese, and egg trade.
After Schepp's death in 1926 the building cycled through shoe wholesalers and publishers before its upper floors became co-op lofts in 1981, a decade ahead of the Tribeca West Historic District's designation. Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini kept a loft here, and from 1987 to 1996 David Bouley ran his namesake restaurant at street level, making the corner a destination twice over.
The Penthouse
PHDE runs across the top as a duplex, four bedrooms and three baths in 3,321 square feet, the main room anchored by a 30-foot wall of exposed brick and lit from above by skylights. A dedicated office doubles as a gym, and the proportions are drawn for entertaining at scale. Outside, 824 square feet of private space steps up to a roof garden, with the park and the low Tribeca rooftops spread below.
