Two sites, two architects, three buildings: The Campiello Collection of Chelsea.

At a cost of approximately $75 million, two complicated development sites are being turned into luxurious new 12story condominium buildings. Designed by two architects, on sites separated by nearly an entire block, the buildings have more shared and private garden space than any recent development in Chelsea, a total of 19,693 SF. The gardens give the Campiello Collection its name, as "campiello" means small field or covered courtyard in Italian.

The sites collected within the Campiello Collection are 151 W. 17th St. and 224 W. 18th St. Their locations straddle the vibrant art, retail and restaurant district of Seventh Avenue in Chelsea. Developer El-Ad, of Fort Lee, N.J., broke ground on the first of the sites, at 17th Street, in December 2000.

Two of the most remarkable of the 70 residences will have unprecedented, 80 ft-long living/dining room combinations, with the long wall on each side consisting almost entirely of glass. This is the largest room in a new residential development in New York City in at least 10 years, says Anthony Cohen, project designer at Swanke Hayden Connell, designers of the 17th Street building. Of other recently opened projects, only a conversion, on Columbus Circle, has an apartment with a similar sized room.

The oversized residences at The Campiello Collection will be priced from $685,000 to more than $4.5 million, and range in size from 1,100 SF to 4,000 SF. The number of units planned for the buildings, 70, is unusually low in comparison to the gracious size of the building. They are divided among: six onebedroom homes, 47 two-bedroom homes and 17 three-bedroom homes.

"Architects dream of being told to design fewer apartments in a larger building," said Cohen. "At the Campiello Collection, the developer looked at our first design and said he wanted to give the residents more space."

Construction has already begun at 151 West 17th Street, an L-shaped through-block site on a former Barney's parking lot between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Designed by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, 151 W. 17th St. will actually consist of two structures that will share common courtyards and a lobby. Behind the classic brick and stone facade and. the low, long awning, will be a lobby that draws on the cool modernism of 1950s-era Italian designers like Gio ponti.

The wave-patterned terrazzo floor, stainless steel columns, custom wood concierge desk, wall of backlit honey onyx, and rich stucco veneziana finish will give a softness to the lobby's hard architectural forms.

The building at 224 West 18th Street, designed by Gene Kaufman Architect, will be built on existing foundations. The limestone and gray brick facade will give way on the uppermost floors to a champagne colored metal panel cap. In the gracious lobby, the quartzite verde spluga Italian stone floor is to be complemented by walls of green slate and of translucent glass, a reception desk of solid cherry and stainless steel, and a mural of a Renaissance painting by Andre Mantegna.

The El-Ad Group, Ltd., was founded in 1992 as a subsidiary of a long established Real Estate Company abroad. The main areas of focus of the El-Ad Group are Real Estate Investment, Development and Management. During the early 1990's El-Ad invested heavily in the co-op and condo market, apartment buildings, rehab of existing buildings, development of townhouses in New Jersey. At that time it acquired approximately 2,000-residential units in New York and New Jersey. In the mid 1990's El-Ad expanded its focus to include construction and development. Since then the company has done rehab and new construction in Tribeca, Chelsea and the Upper West Side.