- An apartment or dwelling situated on the roof of a building.
- A residence, often with a terrace, on the top floor or floors of a building.
- A structure housing machinery on the roof of a building.
- A shed or sloping roof attached to the side of a building or wall.
- Sports. The sloping roof that rises from the inner wall to the outer wall surrounding three sides of the court in court tennis, off which the ball is served.
[Alteration of Middle English pentis, pentace, a shed attached to a wall of a building, from Anglo-Norman pentiz, penthouses, from Old French apentiz, penthouse, from apent, past participle of apendre, to belong, depend, from Medieval Latin appendere, from Latin, to hang, suspend. See append.]
WORD HISTORY The word penthouse goes back to Latin appendere, "to cause to be suspended." In Medieval Latin appendere developed the sense "to belong, depend," a sense that passed into apendre, the Old French development of appendere. From apent, the past participle of apendre, came the derivative apentiz, "low building behind or beside a house," and the Anglo-Norman plural form pentiz. The form without the a- was then borrowed into Middle English, giving us pentis (first recorded about 1300), which was applied to sheds or lean-tos added on to buildings. Because these structures often had sloping roofs, the word was connected with the French word pente,"slope," and the second part of the word changed by folk-etymology to house, which could mean simply "a building for human use." The use of the term with reference to fancy apartments developed from its application to a structure built on a roof to cover such things as a stairway or an elevator shaft. Penthouse then came to mean an apartment built on a rooftop and finally the top floor of an apartment building.
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of anapartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.
History The idea of a penthouse apartment was born in the 1920s, called “The Roaring Twenties”, when economic growth brought a construction boom to New York City, the heart of the American economy. The high demand for living in urban areas and the wealth of Americans led to luxury apartments on the top floor or floors of a building. One of the earliest penthouse apartments in the city was publisher Conde Nast’s duplex penthouse at 1040 Park Avenue.
The original 1923 plan for the building provided three units on each floor with additional maids’ rooms on the roof, but in 1924 the building’s upper spaces were constructed to provide a grand duplex for Nast. Connected by a staircase to the rooftop entertaining salons, the corner unit at the top floor was redesigned to be private family quarters. The whole unit was decorated in the French manner by Elsie de Wolfe. Completed in 1925, Conde Nast’s duplex penthouse was used for many lavish parties, which were made famous as much by guest lists as by the entertainment.
Architectural definition In architecture, the term penthouse is used to refer to a structure on the roof of a building that is set back from the outer walls. These structures do not occupy the entire roof deck. High-rise buildings will often have penthouse structures enclosing mechanics such as those in an elevator machine room. While European designers and architects long recognized the potential in creating living spaces that make use of rooftops and suchsetbacks, in US cities, exploitation of these spaces began in earnest in the 1920s. It was a matter of news when the development of a rooftop apartment at the Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park was announced in 1923, and this was followed by rapid development of luxury penthouse apartments in the following years.
Penthouse apartment at the top of a building on the Upper West Side, New York City. When used as private outdoor terrace spaces, setbacks can allow for significantly larger and more protected spaces than cantilevered balconies. Due to the desirability of this outdoor space, buildings may be designed with such setbacks on more than one of its uppermost levels, to allow apartments on several levels to feature such terraces. Not all penthouses have such terraces, but they are a desired feature.
One such space may be divided among several apartments, or one apartment may occupy an entire floor. A penthouse apartment / condominium may also provide occupants with private access to the roof space above the apartment, instead of, or in addition to, terrace space created by an adjacent setback. [edit]Location and size Penthouse apartments have not only the advantages of a regular apartment such as security and convenient location but also all those of a house such as size and design. Similar to apartments, penthouses are usually located in the heart of busy cities yet offer a sense of being situated far away from or above noisy and crowded urban life. Such locations provide easy access to hotels, restaurants, malls, and schools. Overcoming the issue of small space in regular apartments, penthouses are usually large.
Design Penthouses also differentiate themselves by luxurious amenities such as high-end appliances, finest materials fitting, luxurious flooring system, and more. Features not found in the majority of apartments in the building may include a private entrance or elevator, or higher/vaulted ceilings. In buildings consisting primarily of single level apartments, penthouse apartments may be distinguished by having two or more levels. They may also have such features as a terrace, fireplace, more square footage, over-sized windows, multiple owner suites, den/office space, jacuzzi, and more. They might be equipped with luxury kitchens featuring stainless steel appliances, granite counter-tops, breakfast bar/island, and more.
Trump Plaza Penthouse View Jersey City Penthouse residents often have fine views of the city skyline. Access to a penthouse apartment is usually provided by a separate elevator. Residents can also access a number of building services, such as pickup and delivery of everything from dry cleaning to dinner; reservations to restaurants and events made by building staffers; and other concierge services.
Penthouse with swimming pool For example: the top floor penthouse of Robert A. M. Stern’s 15 Central Park West 20-story apartment building in New York has the following amenities:
Set on a rooftop terrace, the penthouse has a view of the midtown skyline and at its feet is the whole geometry of Central Park.
Penthouse ceiling was constructed to be thirteen and half feet high. Windows were made to be as high and wide as they could. Each section of the penthouse was furnished by unique materials.
For the entrance gallery: marblefloors and parchment panels framed in mahogany.
For the library: Brazilian rosewood. For the dining room: Venetian stucco. For the master bedroom: reeded plasted. For the kitchen: Jaguar-green lacquer, bamboo, and textured glass. For the interiors of the fireplaces: long, narrow 19th-century bricks imported from France.
This penthouse has a very sophisticated technology system. An anemometer was installed on the roof to measure wind speed so the terraces’ canvas awning can be retracted and does not get ripped off the penthouse’s exalted façade. Moisture sensors were used detect a leak, automatically sending an e-mail to the building managers.
Temperature sensors, strapped to pipes, send an e-mail when the temperature deviates by as little as a single degree from what the client has set it at. The ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui plays a key in some penthouse designs, and is believed to improve the flow of interior and exterior spaces of buildings and landscapes.
Cultural references Penthouse apartments are considered to be at the top of their markets, and are generally the most expensive, with expansive views, large living spaces, and top-of-the line amenities.
Accordingly, they are often associated with a luxury lifestyle in popular culture. In the theme song to Green Acres, wealthy, sophisticated Manhattanite Lisa Douglas (Eva Gabor) sings, "I just adore a penthouse view...". Publisher Bob Guccione named his magazine Penthouse, with the trademark phrase "Life on top".
Nicolas Cage's character, the very wealthy Jack Campbell, in the movie The Family Man, lives in "Penthouse C" in an apparent fictitious luxury high-rise apartment building in New York City. In 2010, Harrison Ford put his New York penthouse for sale.
Those wishing to market or otherwise inflate the prestige of a particular apartment may use the term.
The term penthouse is sometimes applied to apartments that are no different than others in a building, other than being on one of the uppermost floors.
The terms sub-penthouse or lower penthouse are used to describe apartments below the top of a building, when the term penthouse or upper penthouse is reserved for the uppermost floor.
source: wikipedia.org, American Heritage Dictionary
