Lever House

Architect: Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill (SOM)
Developers: Brookfield Properties and WatermanClark

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Accurise Consulting's managing partners Berkay Baykal and John Mouzakitis both worked in different capacities providing management and scheduling services for the comprehensive restoration of Lever House, one of the most influential buildings in New York City and the first all-glass curtain-wall commercial high-rise in the world. Lever House neighbors Accurise's New York headquarters and is a constant reminder of the positive impact the firm has on the built environment.

Completed in 1952 and designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Lever House redefined the commercial office building and set a new architectural standard that was studied and copied in cities around the world. Its 21-story slab, lifted above a public plaza on slender columns and wrapped entirely in green-tinted glass, established the vocabulary of modernist corporate architecture for the second half of the twentieth century.

The restoration, completed in 2023 under developers Brookfield Properties and WatermanCLARK, brought SOM back to the building seventy years after the firm first designed it. The work modernized the landmark in full. Rebuilding the public plaza in cast-in-place concrete matched to the original 1950s paving, returning the lobby to its mid-century elegance, and replacing core building systems to improve air quality and energy performance while preserving the historic architecture. The third floor was reimagined as The Lever Club, a 15,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor hospitality and event space giving tenants access to outdoor amenities rarely found in Park Avenue office towers.

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