Items fetch high prices at Four Seasons restaurant auction

NEW YORK – The interior of a restaurant that for 57 years hosted power lunches for a must see crowd of business executives and celebrities including Henry Kissinger and Tom Wolfe was auctioned off Tuesday.

Items from The Four Seasons sold for well over their pre-sale estimates in Tuesday’s all-day auction.

Silver flatware, glasses and serving pieces were among the 900 lots being sold. A number of identical Eero Saarinen tulip collection tables from the bar of the restaurant’s Grill Room, estimated to sell for $5,000 to $7,000, fetched prices ranging from $22,000 to $36,000.

Two leather-tufted ottomans by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe that had graced the entrance lobby sold for $18,000.

The elegant modernist restaurant was designed by architect Philip Johnson. Furniture by Johnson included a curved banquette and table set, which sold for $50,000. An exotic John Swing lounge sofa made of welded coins and stainless steel fetched $90,000.

Bidders also competed for several signs saying “The Four Seasons,” with one going for $65,000.

The restaurant, whose regulars also included Nora Ephron, was housed in the Seagram Building on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. It served its last meal on July 16. A new Four Seasons will open nearby.