Ralph Lauren Women’s and Home Flagship

The Ultimate NYC Flagship

Sitting comfortably on the corner of Madison Ave. and 72nd streets, the Beaux Arts-style mansion home to the Ralph Lauren Women’s and Home Flagship store could easily be mistaken for a structure erected in the early part of the last century. The reality is that the four-story, 22,000-square-foot building is a decidedly 21st-century creation. Clad in creamy blocks of Indiana limestone offset by delicate black ironwork and taking its design cues from the surrounding historic buildings, the structure avoids the pitfalls of imitation by simply being a new version of the real thing. Instead of prefabricated details, cornices and other ornate elements were carved by hand. Similarly, in the interior, high ceilings, a sweeping staircase, and Turkish marble floors convey that this is not so much a newly built store as a grandee’s palace transformed into one.