in October 1951. Shortly after these negotiations, another potential buyer offered to acquire the Beverly for $250,000 more than what Maidman offered, prompting Maidman to file a lis pendens against Ginsberg's companies, preventing Ginsberg from selling the hotel to another entity. At the time, Maidman had already resold his contract for the acquisition of the hotel. A New York state judge ruled in July 1952 that Ginsberg had to sell the hotel and a neighboring building to Maidman for about $2.1 million, even though the buyer and seller had not made a formal contract. As part of the deal, Maidman would assume the $700,000 mortgage loan that Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance had placed on the hotel. Maidman officially took title to the hotel in December 1952. At the time, the hotel contained 305 rooms. International Hotels Inc. bought the hotel from Maidman in February 1959. That April, International Hotels announced that the Beverly would be renovated over the next five months to designs by Henry End; the renovation included the entrance, lobby, and guestrooms. After the renovation was completed, Sidney Schwartz agreed to buy the hotel in March 1961, and he leased the Beverly that June to Henry Speter and Murray Knight, who paid $18.745 million to lease the hotel for 16 years. Schwartz took title to the hotel in August 1961, shortly after being elected president of the Warren Servicing Corporation, which underwrote a syndicated loan for the hotel. Frederick Dreier bought the Beverly in 1967, at which point the hotel's lease was valued at $3.75 million. Over the years, the facade of the lower stories had been renovated with what the LPC called an "unsympathetic design". The hotel underwent further renovations in the mid-1980s. The hotel was catering almost exclusively to short-term guests by 1990, when it had one long-term resident. By then, Newsday described the Beverly as a "small, family-operated, European-style hotel". The hotel had 191 guestrooms at the time. Denihan and Sonesta operation The Highgate Corporation bought the hotel in September 1997 for $38 million. Two months later, Highgate resold the Beverly to the Manhattan East Suite Hotels, owned by the Denihan family. Manhattan East Suite Hotels spent $45 million on renovations. The Beverly reopened in April 1999 and was renamed the Benjamin, after Benjamin J. Denihan Sr., who had founded Manhattan East Suite Hotels. The renovated hotel contained the An American Place restaurant, operated by