In the mid-2000s, the once-treasured Bell Labs building in Holmdel, NJ, appeared to be another real estate white elephant — too giant and expensive to maintain, unsellable and, it seemed, bound to be demolished. Somerset Development acquired the former Bell Labs building and re-developed it into the mixed-use, successful Metroburb known as Bell Works. Alexander Gorlin of Gorlin Architects was a key contributor to the success of redeveloping Eero Saarinen‘s 1962-designed complex. Paola Zamudio, Founder & Head Designer of NPZ Style + Décor, was brought on by Somerset Development to serve as the lead designer and creative director of Bell Works.
Property of Bell Works
The Bell Labs complex in New Jersey is a Modernist marvel with a glass-encased facade and open-atrium. The massive building stretches a quarter of a mile and sits on a 472-acre site. From 1962 until the early 2000s, it served as the center of campus for Bell Laboratories, a research and development division of AT&T. Before Saarinen’s building was constructed, there was another Bell Labs building at the site. It was there that Karl Guthe Jansky invented radio astronomy. Throughout the rest of the twentieth century, thousands of researchers and engineers reported to the Holmdel complex to work on some of the world’s most important technological breakthroughs.
Nicole Saraniero is the Insider-in-Chief at Untapped New York, leading our Untapped New York Insiders membership program. Nicole graduated from Hofstra University with a Bachelor of Science in Televis
