In November 2016, the Chelsea Hotel was sold to a group of wealthy investors for $250M — a tidy sum for the 250-room edifice. At $1M per room, the notoriously dingy artist’s squat fetched a price surprisingly on par with New York’s most opulent hotels, like the Waldorf-Astoria ($1.4M per room), Park Hyatt ($1.8M), Baccarat ($2M) and Four Seasons ($2.4M).

Of course, the Chelsea Hotel wasn’t always the object of hifalutin real-estate speculation. It was built as an affordable artist’s co-op (one of the first in New York City) by writer and architect Philip Hubert.

Hubert, a disciple of utopian thinker Charles Fourier, was largely responsible for pioneering the “co-op” housing model in the 1880s. He wanted to create a new type of dwelling that would address two of 19th century New York’s most chronic problems—affordable housing and social isolation.

Hubert’s first co-ops (called “Hubert Home Clubs”) were modelled after Fourier’s “grand hotels”, and replete with communal spaces. The Chelsea had many, including a shared lobby fireplace, a “roof promenade… dining rooms… frescoed sitting room… billiards room… corridors eight feet wide where residents could meet and linger comfortably in conversation”. Residents could enjoy more square footage here than in a private brownstone (the most common type of New York residence at the time) and the shared kitchens and heating systems cut down on costs too.

However, while Hubert had intended for his first co-op building to address “the poor man’s comfort”, most of the rooms were snatched up by middle- and upper-class New Yorkers. This was the great fear of Fourier, Hubert’s utopian idol, who believed that communities needed scholars and artists (not just well-to-do bourgeoisie) in order to thrive. While the bourgeoisie kept their communities financially stabile, scholars and artists would cater to the community’s “psychological and spiritual needs”.

Fourier envisioned a community where workers, scholars and artists intermingled — all sharing in domestic duties, but having the freedom to pursue their creative whims as well.

Fourier believed such a community would proliferate unlike any other in the history of mankind, saying he “would not be surprised if a full-fledged [grand hotel] produced a Milton or Molière every generation.”

Fourier’s “grand hotel” concept (also known as a “phalanstery”)

After a string of successes with his early Home Clubs, Hubert set out on his most ambitious (and utopian) project to date: the Chelsea Hotel.

Like Hubert’s other co-op buildings, the Chelsea would have multiple stories, grand communal spaces, and a mix of long-term and short-term housing (the circulating cast of characters kept things interesting for long-term residents.)

Two things in particular distinguished the Chelsea from all of Hubert’s other co-ops. First was its scale: the Chelsea would be the largest residential structure in all of New York. The second (and most important) difference was the building’s artist-friendly design.

Opened in 1884, the Chelsea featured a variety of apartment styles, with sprawling twelve room flats for its wealthy residents and smaller, affordable ones for its resident artists.

Of the eighty original apartments, fifteen were set aside as artist’s studios. Placed on the top floor of the Chelsea, the light was perfect for painting: sunshine flooded in from the studios’ gigantic north-facing dormer windows. Writers too, were enamoured of the Chelsea’s stunning views and its cement-filled brick walls — three feet thick — that provided their occupational quietude, insulating them from the racket of other tenants (like the musicians and theatre folk) who soon flocked to the Chelsea.

Other people living at the Chelsea included the building’s developers (who worked with the “utmost fidelity” to ensure its success), financiers, traders, servants, retirees, young fops and dandies, newlyweds, bachelors and token eccentrics. As Chelsea Hotel historian Sherill Tippins puts it, “A population of such social diversity had never before lived under a single roof in New York.”