Update: Yes, in my haste to get to the party I misspelled BLEU!!! Got it!
This is so exciting, I am about to slip into my Pucci and Louboutins to go back to where I just came from: Bleu Ciel, Harwood International’s newest Uptown condo tower. 33-stories of luxury living that has a much different twist from the Azure… really feels more like the Azure’s sexy European cousin.
The new tower, which will be located just north of the Azure, will be 780,000 square feet total of the building, including parking, 325,000 square feet of residences, and 12,000 square feet of retail. You can see why the home units will be much larger. There will be 158 of those with huge expanses of balcony/patio space. The smallest units will start at $700,000, feature two bedrooms and two car garage space parking. Like the Azure, Harwood CEO J. Gabriel Barbier-Mueller will continue his generous parking provisions for urban dwellers.
In as much as the development caters to cars — drive up valet service, five levels of underground parking — Barbier-Mueller says he wants his developments to be almost hyper walkable and connected to the city. In fact, as the model shows, Bleu Ciel is taking up only 40% of the site, leaving 60% for green space loaded with walking trails, a dog park, parks, two swimming pools including one shallow “chair-pool” (at our house we call that the Doodle pool) and an olympic-sized lap pool, all of this with the cantilevered, two-story pools from the top two penthouses extended 15 feet over all!
“We are trying to connect our buildings and sidewalks, and ultimately create 18 city blocks of walking,” says Barbier-Mueller. “You know how everything in Manhattan is within 6 city blocks? So it will be here at Harwood.”
He plans to have a bike shop, a sandwich shop, a deli based upon the Bon Marche in France with storefronts of various foods, in all a total of 7 restaurants in Harwood by 2017.
The interiors — wow. Tobias Grau lighting from Italy, wide-planked oak hardwood floors, exotic marbles, and generous baths with thoughtful and abundant storage touches. Closets are by California Closet and are the biggest I’ve seen yet in a Dallas condo since Museum Tower. Barbier-Mueller’s son, Alexis, managing partner, tells me the balconies are so large they will hold a ping-pong table along with other furniture.
“They will be among the largest terraces on any condo in the US,” said Alexis Barbier-Mueller.
“And they are free!” said his father.
The high-rise is scheduled to start construction in October. Bleu Ciel will take about two years to build. It was designed by Paris-based Jean-Michel Wilmotte – he did the Ferrari Sporting Management Center, LVMH’s headquarters, Musée d’Orsay, Mandarin Oriental Paris, etc. HDF, LLC, Harwood’s in-house architecture firm, is the architect of record and interior designer for the project.
300 people are expected at the unveiling tonight, and I haven’t even started my make-up so… to be continued…
Editor’s note: this post has been updated
