The 34-story, 387 ft (118 m) building was designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon in a classical style and was developed by James T. Lee, grandfather of First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

When it opened, the hotel featured numerous amenities similar to those in a clubhouse, such as a gymnasium, a bowling alley, Victorian-style Turkish baths, a swimming pool, a barber, squash courts, and billiard tables.

Hawkins Way Capital and Värde Partners bought the building in early 2023 and renovated it into a student housing facility, FOUND Study Turtle Bay, which opened that September.

[10][14][15] Christopher Gray of The New York Times wrote that Harmon "covered the mass with irregular yellowy-tan brick, roughened as if centuries old, and for details, drew from Romanesque, Byzantine, early Christian, Lombard and other styles.

[32] On the 15th story, the outer bays contain arched corbel tables, as well as parapets with inlaid rhombuses, above which are pergolas and brick-and-glass structures.

[28] When it opened, the hotel featured numerous "club" amenities, such as a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a Victorian-style Turkish bath, a swimming pool, a barber, squash courts, and billiard tables.

[53] A 1920 New York Times article said, "With its hotels, office buildings, apartments and underground Streets it not only is a wonderful railroad terminal, but also a great civic centre.

[67][68] Lee intended for the Shelton to be a high-end apartment hotel, describing it as "equal in appointments to the Yale Club" building at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue.

[66][72] Lee wanted to offset the hotel's relatively high construction costs by increasing the building's height, which in turn would allow him to rent the apartments to more people.

The hotel's advertisements praised its amenities, the affordable prices of the restaurant's meals, the live music at the Shelton Corner, and the proximity to Grand Central Terminal.

[98][99] Westchester County judge George A. Brenner, one of the investors who had leased the hotel, spent large sums of money on renovating the Shelton Towers but was unable to obtain more funding.

[101] The district attorney's office accused Brenner of trying to submit a falsified certificate, worth $250,000, at a Westchester bank in an attempt to receive a loan for the hotel.

[111] In addition, the hotel's ground level contained a nightclub until 1967; originally known as La Vie en Rose, the club was renamed Casa Cugat in 1958 and Basin Street East in 1959.

[114] Concurrently, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority considered developing a terminal for the Long Island Rail Road on the site as part of its Program for Action.

[114] The 11 remaining tenants sued Tishman in July 1974, accusing Citadel of neglecting the building by failing to replace a broken boiler in the basement.

[119] In December 1975, Tishman officially canceled its plans for the tower and relinquished the site to Avon Associates, a firm operated by Goldman and the DiLorenzo estate.

[121][122] The company had spent $3 million to maintain the Shelton Towers during fiscal year 1975; some of this money was used to pay the salaries of 11 staff members and a 24-hour security detail for the remaining tenants.

[124] After the Dollar Savings Bank reacquired the hotel, it hired the firm of Stephen B. Jacobs and Associates to study the feasibility of converting the Shelton to residential apartments.

[135][136] According to the attorney general's office, the hotel's operators had acted as guarantors for Halloran's other companies, which allegedly held a monopoly on ready mixed concrete in New York City.

525 Lexington Ave. Associates planned to rename the hotel, renovate the rooms, and add a health club, although they continued to operate the Halloran House as a Howard Johnson franchise.

[137] Halloran used the proceeds from the hotel's sale to pay back one of his lenders, the Marine Midland Bank, in what the Manhattan District Attorney's office later described as a check kiting scheme.

[151] After mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed rezoning East Midtown in 2012, preservationists began advocating for several structures in the neighborhood to be designated as official landmarks, including the former Shelton.

[160] Morgan Stanley sold the building in 2015 to Lexington Avenue Hotel, a limited partnership between Ashkenazy Acquisition and Deka Immobilien, a subsidiary of DekaBank, for $270 million.

[199][200] Christopher Gray wrote that the completed hotel "attracted near-rave reviews from serious critics, who praised its intelligent treatment of the 1916 setback requirements of the zoning law.

"[201] When the hotel was being constructed, Fiske Kimball wrote for The New York Times, "We may admire the masterly way in which [Harmon] has built up his receding masses into the vast central tower.

[10][204] Leon Solon wrote in 1926: "We doubt that any design has exerted so prompt and beneficial an influence, both as regards silhouette in structural mass and textural quality.

"[208][209] Two New York Times writers called the Shelton "a stately, breath-taking building", while Lewis Mumford characterized the hotel as "buoyant, mobile, serene, like a Zeppelin under a clear sky".

Huxtable, in a retrospective review of the hotel, called the style "rather indeterminate, ranging from simple traditional with fine marble and ironwork, to early Schrafft's.

"[40] The U.S. News & World Report wrote: "Some recent visitors said this Midtown East Marriott, just about a mile walk from Central Park, gets the proverbial job done – it's a pleasant place to hang your hat, but it doesn't offer anything too exciting.

[215] Architectural historian Carol Willis wrote that the Shelton, along with the Barclay–Vesey Building, "helped to popularize an aesthetic of simple, sculptural mass that became the benchmark of progressive design" by the mid-1920s.