815 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 815 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

This attractive, dark brown brick, 14-story apartment building at 815 Park Avenue on the southwest corner at 82^nd Street was erected in 1916 and converted to a cooperative in 1989.

It has 46 apartments and four professional offices and was designed by Rouse & Goldstone.

Bottom Line

A pre-war apartment building one block away from Marcel Breuer’s great building for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the nearby Hotel Carlyle and San Ambroeus café, all on Madison Avenue.

Description

The building has a three-story limestone base with a canopied entrance, a bandcourse above the 3^rd and 11^th floors, a stringcourse below its top floor and a small cornice.

Amenities

It has a doorman and in early 2011, it installed a fitness center that has 14 fitness machines, and a pool table, ping pong table, air hockey, a wet bar and a lending library.

The building is pet-friendly and has storage.

Apartments

Penthouse 1 is a duplex with an entry foyer that leads to a 13-foot-long gallery that opens onto a 20-foot-long living room with fireplace, a 23-foot-long dining room adjacent to an unenclosed 16-foot-long kitchen with an island and a 10-foot-long maid’s room.  The lower level also has a bedroom and the upper level has a 23-foot-long master bedroom with an angled wall with a wood-burning fireplace and a large three-sided terrace.

Apartment 4C is a three-bedroom unit with a large entry foyer that leads to a 23-foot-long living room with wood-burning fireplace and opens onto a 19-foot-long dining room next to a 14-foot-long eat-in kitchen.

Apartment 6C is a three-bedroom unit that has a 14-foot-long entrance gallery that opens onto a 24-foot-long living room with a fireplace that opens onto a 19-foot-dining room that leads to a 13-foot-library.  The apartment has a 14-foot-long kitchen.

Apartment 4B is a three-bedroom unit that has a 10-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 21-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 15-foot-long dining room next to a 16-foot-long kitchen that has a long hall to its service entrance.

Apartment 3A is a three-bedroom unit that has an 11-foot-wide entry foyer that opens onto a 21-foot-long living room with wood-burning fireplace and a 21-foot-long dining room next to a 15-foot-long kitchen and pantry.

Apartment 11C is a three-bedroom unit that has a 14-foot-long entry foyer that flows into an 18-foot-long living room with fireplace and an 18-foot-long dining room next to a 14-foot-long kitchen and a 13-foot-long office.

History

An October 16, 1927 article in The New York Times indicated that early residents included Peter Grimm, then the new president of the Real Estate Board of New York, and E. H. H. Simmons, the president of the Stock Exchange.

An April 17, 1983, article in The Times by Dee Wedemeyer about the building’s conversion to co-operatives noted that Stephen Epstein, one of the tenants’ attorneys, said that it was “a co-op conversion orchestrated by Ringling Brothers." The building’s owner, Borchard Affiliations, filed plans to convert the building in 1979.

The article also noted that at the time of the conversion the building’s long lobby had antiques and artwork that belonged to Evelyn B. Metzger, an artist and the former president of Borchard.  She was then living in a 13-room apartment with a table-tennis room and a roof studio in the building with a rent of $250 a month.

Location

This is one of the nicest areas of the Upper East Side with many attractive boutiques and restaurants. This building is a block south of Lenox Hill Hospital and a block east of the Whitney Museum of American Art on Madison Avenue.

It is also convenient to a local subway station at 77th Street and Lexington Avenue.