Mr. Merkin still lives at his duplex at 740 Park Avenue the storied Manhattan apartment building that was the girlhood home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and has boasted high-profile residents such as ex-Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain and designer Vera Wang.

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For me, the biggest irony about the duplex is that I'm comfortable in a building and apartment that are period pieces even though I'm a modernist architect.

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