730 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 730 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

Erected in 1929, this very elegant 20-story apartment building at 730 Park Avenue on the southwest corner at 71^st Street was converted to a cooperative in 1945 and contains 40 apartments.

It was designed by F. Burrall Hoffman Jr. and Lafayette A. Goldstone in a Jacobean Renaissance style.

Bottom Line

One of Park Avenue’s pre-war gems, this building has interesting lay-outs, a very grand entrance surround on the side-street and a great and very distinctive chimney.

Description

The red-brick building’s entrance is on the quiet and lovely side-street and the building has a very tall chimney with very unusual ornamental near its top and attractive and unusual façade ornamentation including a large ram's head at the Park Avenue corner.

It has a very impressive and elaborate four-story-high entrance surround and a canopied entrance.

It has a two-story limestone base and red-brick façades with an asymmetrical fenestration pattern on some floors and several terraces.

It has some protruding air-conditioners.

Amenities

The building has a doorman, a concierge, an elevator operator, a health club and is pet friendly.

Apartments

A duplex on the 17^th and 18^th floors has a 22-foot-long library with a fireplace and a terrace, a 22-foot-long gallery with a terrace that leads to a 28-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 16-foot-wide dining room next to a 14-foot-long breakfast area and a 28-foot-long kitchen, a 10-foot-long laundry, a 17-foot-long staff room with small terrace, and two bedrooms, one with two terraces on the upper level and two more bedrooms on the lower level including a 28-foot-long master bedroom with a fireplace and a terrace.

Apartment 15/16A is a duplex, four-bedroom unit that has a 20-foot-long entrance gallery with staircase that leads to a 13-foot-long library with a small terrace, a 34-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 22-foot-wide conservatory, and a 23-foot-long formal dining room next to a 15-foot-long windowed eat-in kitchen and a 18-foot-long staff area on the lower level and four bedrooms and a narrow terrace on the upper level.

Apartment 10/11C is a five-bedroom, duplex unit that has a 17-foot-long entrance gallery with staircase that leads to a 25-foot-long library with a fireplace, a 31-foot-long living room with fireplace, a 15-foot-long study and a 21-foot-long dining room that is adjacent to a 20-foot-long kitchen and 18-foot-long butler’s pantry and a 16-foot-long maid’s room and two bedrooms on the lower level and three bedrooms on the upper level.

Apartment 5C is a four-bedroom unit that has a 20-foot-long entrance gallery that leads to a 26foot-long living room with a fireplace, a 20-foot-long library with a fireplace and a 20-foot-long windowed dining room that is next to a 16-foot-long windowed kitchen with an 8-foot-long breakfast aream a pantry and a maid’s room.  The master bedroom has a 12-foot-loong loggia.

Apartment 11C is a two-bedroom unit with an 11-foot-square entrance gallery that leads to a 27-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 22-foot-long dining room that is next to an 18-foot-long pantry and an 18-foot-long kitchen, an 11-foot-long servants’ hall and two maid’s rooms.

Apartment 3A is a three-bedroom unit that has a 17-foot-long entrance gallery that leads to a 24-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 19-foot-long enclosed, windowed dining room that opens onto a 13-foot-long pantry, two maid’s rooms, a 15-foot-long kitchen and a 10-foot-long breakfast room.  One of the bedrooms has a fireplace.

History

The building is on part of the former site of the Presbyterian Hospital. Although the handsome building is dwarfed a bit in grandeur by its immediate neighbors to the south and north, 720 Park Avenue and 740 Park Avenue, respectively, two of the avenue's most majestic buildings, its residents have included major publishers and Edna Ferber, the author of "Giant."

In “Citizen Newhouse, Portrait of a Media Merchant,” Carol Felsenthal wrote that the Newhouse family “moved to an apartment at 730 Park Avenue at Seventy-first Street - and not just any apartment.”

“The fourteen-room duplex occupied the seventh and eighth floors of a building that was - and is - in terms of social status, one of the top buildings in Manhattan. It was home to composer Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy, and to members of the Farkas family, who owned Alexander's department stores,” according to Ms. Felsenthal.

A December 21, 2012 article in The New York Times by Robin Finn indicated that Joann Walker, a former Goldman Sachs banks sold a 12-room penthouse, 18/19C, for $39,000,018 to her neighbor, Daniel C. Benton, the founder of Andor Capital Management, a technology hedge fund.  The article also said that the neighboring penthouse on the Park Avenue side of the building is owned by Karen Lauder, the former wife of William Lauder, a grandson of Estée Lauder.  It added that the 10-room duplex, 15/16C is owned by the estate of Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes and was put on the market in October, 2012 for $20 million.

Location

This building is located in one of the most desirable areas of Park Avenue and is convenient to many famous boutiques and art galleries on Madison Avenue. It is also close to the Asia Society on Park Avenue at 70th Street and the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue at 70th Street.