The school raised its average test scores last year two and a half levels in math and one and a half in reading.
"We are going to have one and one half levels of retail with about 24,000 to 30,000 square feet of space and one and a half levels of parking for 250 to 260 cars," Mr. Brown said.
In 2002 the city agreed to sell the building to the Museum of Arts and Design, which is squeezed into three and a half levels at 40 West 53rd Street.
But the designer tackled the challenge with the same panache he showed in later commissions, including in Miami and Istanbul, creating a home with 350 square meters, or 3,767 square feet, on three and a half levels and a 200-square-meter garden.
The next incarnation of the 13-room house, which has two and a half levels of grand public space designed for entertaining, as well as three terraces and a roof garden, and which is near the United Nations, will probably serve a diplomatic purpose.
For students with relatively high writing levels (i.e., 7, 8, 9 and 10), their holistic scores were higher by one to one and a half levels.
Seven entries indicated that pain was reduced by one level and 5 entries indicated a pain reduction of one and a half levels.
The aesthetic of the two-and-a-half-level enterprise (including a basement piano bar) is speakeasy-meets-farmhouse chic, all wood and marble and romantic lighting.
Ms. Martin said she has learned to love the more whimsical elements of their three-and-a-half-level home, like the wardrobe and those support beams that support nothing.
OK, this baffles me, on two-and-a-half levels.
The house, which totals 450 square meters, or 4,845 square feet, is a huge open space on two-and-a-half levels, and nearly every room is visible from almost any vantage point.
