Robert AM Stern, an architect who fashioned the New York City skyline with buildings that sought to invoke pre-war splendor but with modern luxury fit for billionaires and movie stars, has died at the age of 86.

Dubbed “The King of Central Park West” by Vanity Fair, Stern was credited with designing 15 Central Park West that, in 2008, was credited as being the highest-priced new apartment building in the history of New York.

With roughly $2bn in sales it was also considered the most lucrative apartment block in the world and an homage to an earlier era of classic architecture in the city of the 1920s and 30s. The exterior was covered with more than 85,000 pieces of limestone.

Hedge-fund managers, financial tycoons including Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, tech entrepreneurs inc

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