the Palm Court's French doors, balustrades, and fixtures had already been removed. The Environmental Protection Agency also notified the demolition contractors that they had violated federal asbestos regulations as they were demolishing the Biltmore's interior. The LPC had been considering giving the hotel's interiors landmark status, preventing the Milsteins from further modifying these spaces. By August 18, the restraining orders had expired or been overruled. When LPC officials toured the hotel that same day, the 19th-floor Grand Ballroom was the only public room that was still extant. The LPC scheduled a hearing on whether the ballroom and exterior should be designated as city landmarks, thus preventing significant modifications to these parts of the hotel. A New York state judge declined to grant further injunctions against demolition. The condition of the ballroom remained uncertain, even though the Milsteins promised to notify preservationists when demolition of the room was to start. On September 9, a week before the landmarks hearings, the Milsteins agreed to reconstruct the hotel's Palm Court, lobby, and main 43rd Street entrance within the office building, so long as the LPC did not designate the spaces as landmarks. The LPC voted against granting exterior and interior landmark statuses on September 16, despite concerted protests by preservationists. In addition, the interiors had been demolished so rapidly that almost nothing was salvageable. Reconstruction as office building The firm Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (HHPA) was hired as a consultant for the restoration of the Biltmore's public spaces. In August 1982, HHPA resigned, stating that the demolition work had made any re-creation impossible. Norman Pfeiffer of HHPA said the firm had discovered that further demolition had occurred the previous month, to the extent that "there was nothing left to give you even the beginning of a restoration". A settlement was brokered in September 1983, in which the Milsteins contributed $500,000 to a fund operated by the Landmarks Conservancy. The Conservancy had accepted the agreement because a recreation of the rooms inside the office tower would "rightly be perceived by architectural historians and the public at large as resulting in a design that would amount to little more than a caricature." According to Brendan Gill of the Conservancy, the alternative was a lawsuit that might have lasted for several years. Another firm, Environetics, redesigned the Biltmore. The old hotel was almost entirely gutted, although most of the steel framework was retained. Paul Milstein estimated