The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission was talkin’ to Robert De Niro — but he turned a deaf ear to orders to fix the illegal penthouse atop his super-swanky Greenwich Hotel, The Post has learned.
More than a year after De Niro was sent back to the drawing board to modify the TriBeCa structure — which was built without approval from the LPC — the star’s business partners and architect team was slated to appear last Friday before the commission to explain the delay in bringing the penthouse into compliance, sources said.
Photos taken by The Post in June 2008 and last Friday show virtually no change in the penthouse.
De Niro had previously told the LPC that, among other things, he would finish the penthouse façade with material consistent with the detailed brick used on rest of the building’s exterior.
“We don’t really know what the cause for the delay has been,” an LPC spokeswoman said last week.
At a June 2008 meeting, LPC members called De Niro and his architect, the Rockwell Group, on the carpet, noting that the penthouse was 1,100 square feet bigger than the design the commission approved back in 2004. The LPC was particularly upset with the higher, steeper roof line, which makes the structure bulky enough to be seen from street level.
Stylistically, it doesn’t fit in with the industrial-style rooftops in the neighborhood, LPC members argued.
De Niro and his team acknowledged they didn’t get approval for the revisions and chalked it up to “mistakes.” They pleaded for retroactive approval and argued that the structure was part of a new building and not an addition to an existing building.
But the LPC told De Niro to come back with a roof plan more in keeping with TriBeCa’s architecture.
Last month, a Rockwell flack told the Tribeca Trib newspaper that the firm’s architects are not working on a redesign.
The commission has not publicly set a deadline for De Niro but could go so far as to order the penthouse torn down, at an estimated cost of more than $1.5 million.
Citing “the ongoing application process,” LPC’s spokeswoman said she couldn’t confirm whether members met with De Niro’s team last week.
Reps for Rockwell, De Niro and his hotel partners didn’t return calls.