It has a swimming pool in the basement, a private cinema and a triple-height ballroom, which, in typically extravagant fashion, Winner used as his bedroom.
About 20 years ago, Ms. Rivers bought a 5,190- square-foot duplex condominium, with a garden, atop a newly converted 42-foot-wide 1903 mansion in the East 60s just off Fifth Avenue, and set about restoring the space, including what had once been the double-height ballroom.
Highlighting its features of ballroom height ceilings, the 128 seat main stage theater and flexible 75-seat second stage.
Before reaching his teens, he located his father, stationed with the US army in Washington, a reunion that led to regular visits to New York, where he discovered the Savoy Ballroom at the height of the swing era.
"I want to engage the question - in a non-arrogant, open-hearted manner - how can we make 'Strictly Ballroom' soar to new heights?" Mr. Luhrmann said.
The main ballroom is a double-height space, with a dropped ceiling of openwork design, perhaps of the Art Deco period.
Born Robert Weisser in Pittsburgh, he moved with his family to Gary, Ind., where he was recruited to partner women at a ballroom dance studio because of his height, 6 feet 2 inches.
Following last weekend's incredible show from the dizzy heights of the legendary Blackpool Tower, it's ballroom business as usual, as Strictly Come Dancing returns back home to the studio.
The moon is almost half the height of the stage, and for some reason is visible (indeed dominant) throughout the ballroom third act.
More than half of the hotel's floor area, including the ballroom, was built below ground so that it would conform to Washington's strict height limit.
