108 Pierrepont Street

The house is three stories over a basement and cellar, with an attic level above. The roof is a built-up assembly that pitches steeply in three planes to gutters at the rear and side; four clear bubble-top skylights sit above the attic-level bedrooms and a fifth lights the central public hall, and chimneys serve the fireplaces and the boiler alongside the mechanical ventilation stacks.

The ten apartments distribute across those levels in genuinely varied form. The garden level holds front and rear apartments with kitchenettes, bedrooms, and direct outdoor access; the middle floors carry two-bedrooms, several with garden or terrace use; the top of the house holds one-bedroom duplexes, two with terraces, running up into the attic bedrooms under the skylights. The house rules acknowledge the arrangement explicitly, requiring that carpeting extend into loft areas for sound insulation. Electrical service was rebuilt at conversion to individual meters and breakers per apartment at fifty to eighty amps each. The kitchens and baths described in the 1979 report have long since been replaced apartment by apartment, so condition varies enormously from unit to unit; laundry equipment and window air conditioners have historically belonged to shareholders rather than the corporation, and windows and any street-visible work run through the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

108 Pierrepont Street Housing Corporation has run the building since 1980, self-managed with a visiting superintendent — the audited statements carry superintendent service as a small annual line rather than a payroll, alongside taxes, fuel, water and sewer, insurance, and repairs. Income comes from shareholder maintenance, a laundry line, and an apartment-sale surcharge collected on transfers. The corporation has held Class B shares in the National Cooperative Bank, the lender most closely associated with small co-op underlying mortgages, and it carries a capital-improvement account; confirm what work was completed and current condition from recent statements and engineering reports.

Diligence should run in two directions. Ask for several years of audited statements, the underlying mortgage terms and maturity, the reserve balance, the assessment history, and the record of façade, roof, and boiler work — then ask about governance, because a self-managed ten-unit corporation depends on shareholders who serve, and what is expected of a new owner should be answered before contract rather than after. The Roebling Research Library holds the plan, its first amendment, the bylaws, the current-era house rules, the proprietary lease, and the financial statements for client diligence.

Pets: Under the house rules as revised in April 2004, no bird or animal may be kept or harbored unless the board expressly permits it in writing in each instance; permission is revocable, and dogs must be carried or leashed in the public portions. Confirm current practice.

Renovations: The house rules require permits from both the Department of Buildings and the Landmarks Preservation Commission for every renovation project unless the board waives that house-rule requirement in writing; a board waiver does not remove a permit the law itself requires. LPC review runs by scope: work that meets LPC rules may qualify for a staff-level permit, interior work that needs a DOB permit generally also needs LPC sign-off, and a Commission hearing applies only when the proposal does not qualify for staff approval. Shareholders must file a certificate of insurance and a hold-harmless agreement before work begins. Construction is confined to weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

Floors and noise: Floors must be covered to at least 80 percent of each room's area with carpeting or equally effective noise-reducing material, kitchens, pantries, baths, closets, and foyers excepted — and the rule extends explicitly into the duplex apartments' loft areas.

Laundry, storage, and terraces: The basement laundry runs from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. under board policy; basement storage is board-assigned, with shareholders responsible for keeping their space clear of flammable material and for any Fire Marshal citation it causes. Terrace plantings require prior written board approval in lined containers raised clear of the surface.

Flip tax / transfer fee: An apartment-sale surcharge appears as a recurring income line in the corporation's audited statements. Confirm the current formula and who pays it.

Subletting, financing minimums, pied-à-terre: Not documented in the papers available. Confirm against the current house rules, proprietary lease, and purchase application.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026 to date) cleared a median $1,582/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount -1.7% over ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00243-0037). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

You are buying into a house. Every apartment is different. Evaluate the specific unit's ceiling heights, light, outdoor access, and fireplace condition on their own terms; the building average tells you very little.

Self-management cuts both ways. There is no resident staff and no managing-agent fee; superintendent service is a visiting arrangement carried as a small line in the statements. Confirm the current arrangement and compare actual maintenance, reserves and assessments with alternatives. The corollary is shareholder participation — ask what the board expects of new owners.

Landmarks is written into the house rules. The co-op itself requires permits from both the Department of Buildings and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Budget the approval timeline, not just the construction.

Confirm the transfer fee and the capital record. The corporation records an apartment-sale surcharge as income; find out the formula and who pays it. Then get the façade, roof, skylight, and flue history in writing — an 1840 masonry house with a steeply pitched roof and working chimneys has a specific maintenance profile.

Name the architecture. An 1840 Greek Revival house credited in LPC district records to P. C. Cornell, on Pierrepont Street, is a pedigree line most small Heights co-ops cannot offer.

Lead with what your specific apartment has. Garden access, a terrace, a fireplace, skylights, or duplex volume — one of these is almost certainly your listing's argument, and it belongs in the first line.

Put the maintenance figure forward. A self-managed building with a visiting superintendent carries no resident staff payroll or managing-agent fee. Present the apartment's current maintenance, assessments and reserve position early so buyers can compare it with staffed co-ops on a like-for-like basis.

Prepare the board package early. Small self-managed boards move on their own schedule. Setting expectations at contract, with the co-op's financials in the deal room, prevents the delays that most often cost small-co-op sellers their closing date.

If you're considering 108 Pierrepont Street, also evaluate:

• 123 Pierrepont Street — small co-op directly on the same street; the closest comparison on address and scale
• 20 Pierrepont Street — small prewar elevator co-op on Pierrepont; the serviced alternative
• 35 Pierrepont Street — moderate-scale prewar co-op on the same corridor
• 1 Pierrepont Street — prewar co-op at the Promenade end of the street
• 138 Pierrepont Street — thirteen-unit condominium conversion further east; the condominium alternative on the same street
• 92 Remsen Street — ten-unit co-op in an 1830s Federal house; the nearest structural twin in the district
• 99 Clinton Street — ten-unit co-op in a mid-nineteenth-century house one block east
• 123 Henry Street — ten-unit walk-up co-op one block north
• 21 Monroe Place — ten-unit walk-up co-op on the quietest street in the district
• 40 Clinton Street — large full-service co-op nearby, for buyers weighing house-scale living against services