From a Harrison Street Penthouse’s Twin Living Rooms, You Can Watch the City Evolve

If you are a surgeon in the market for a Tribeca penthouse, and you have any intention on your next house-hunting jaunt of stopping by the Steven Harris-designed, 4,229-square-foot duplex at 7 Harrison Street currently on the market with Leonard Steinberg and Herve Senequier, of Urban Compass, for $25 million, you’d be well advised to bring along a pair of your very own surgical booties. That is, unless, you’d prefer to slip over your footwear the stretchy blue numbers the brokers keep on hand in the foyer of the four-bedroom condo for buyers coming in from the snowy streets.

But the penthouse does not evince anything that you might reasonably call egalitarian spirit, and we see no reason to share booties if it can be avoided, even if the buyer pool is rarefied indeed. And the place does warrant the use of proverbial kid gloves.

The upper level, which occupies the entirety of the eighth floor—an additional lofted three feet above what was until recently the roof of a seven-story building—opens onto a contiguous U-shaped space that flows from north living room into a formal dining accommodation and on to a second, south-facing living room that bleeds into the kitchen. The heated floors are of grey slab limestone; a fireplace sheathed in an artful mantle—ideal for leaning, Mr. Steinberg demonstrated—is set up for gas but can be converted to burn wood.

Floor-to-ceiling glass in enormous panes wraps the brightly lit space, which gives onto a landscaped terrace of more than 2,300 square feet looking north, south and east. In the dining space, just beyond the windows, lies a reflecting pool. Being able to see one’s outdoor space from inside is a lovely feature, Mr. Steinberg opined, particularly as people often don’t realize how rarely they’ll actually use it.

Also visible from the upper level, in various stages of completion, are the forms of some of Manhattan’s most vaunted new trophies in glass: The “Jenga” building, at 56 Leonard Street, Robert A.M. Stern’s 30 Park Place and 432 Park Avenue. “Quite literally, you have the re-imagining of the New York City skyline right before your eyes,” Mr. Steinberg said.

Downstairs, where the bedrooms are arrayed, things are warm and subdued. Unobtrusive white moldings line the ceilings and the views are of snowy neighborhood rooftops, water towers and fire escapes. The division in mood is a studied one, Mr. Steinberg said. Still, he noted, the seventh floor has only one other unit, which has been reserved in the event that the ultimate buyer wants to combine it with the duplex for freer range on his lower level, for a total cost of $34 million. Go big or go home, as they say—or do both, if you can swing it.